(Non-Yalies, please excuse the New Haven trivia. I feel obligated to post it for friends and classmates. This kind of post is bound to come along once in a while, I’m afraid.)

This week’s New Yorker mentions a project by Leslie Kuo (Y ’03) consisting of cards depicting local New Haven characters.

Reading all this made me heave a sigh, as I can remember (and miss) a lot of people who flourished long before Ms. Kuo’s time: the elderly Italian peddler with the ancient green truck who used to sell balloons, penants, and programs on football weekends; Johnny of Johnny’s Pipe Center (at the corner of Chapel & College) who blended the best pipe tobacco in the universe; Reverdy Whitlock and (long ago) Epraim Eliot, beloved used book-dealers; Bob Muller of Merwin’s; the ubiquitous Bill Dodson; Brother John; and a host of New Haven personalities now… forgotten with the rest.