Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), Alexander Woollcott ((1887-1943) and Robert Benchley (1889-1945) were contemporary, witty writers who wrote famously for the New Yorker, among other outlets, and were the prime knights of the Algonquin Round Table, where they drank (a lot), ate lunch and had great conversations. Add Robert E. Sherwood (1887-1943) to the founding trio. The New Yorker, BTW, first appeared on February 21, 1925, six years before my birth day.

I remember reading an early anecdote about the then struggling magazine: Harold Ross, the New Yorker editor, ran into Dorothy Parker, an early contributor (second issue) on the street and asked her to drop by and write something for the magazine. Parker replied, “I did, but someone was using the pencil.”

I woke up thinking of Robert Benchley, recalling that lovely line, “Get out of your wet coat and into a dry martini”.

Two more famous lines that have never left me are one each by the rest of the triumvirate:

Woollcott: “All the things I like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening.”

Parker (asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence): “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.”

Millennials don’t say things like that.

Obviously I am six decades out of sync.