From My Journal: (Early May) Awoke this morning to learn that the Old Man of the Mountain is no more. Some time during the night the old guy's 65,000 year old face fell off the mountain. Now the old stone face is a pile of rubble at the base of the mountain. The mountain is, well, just another mountain. The symbol of New Hampshire is gone.

I remember my parents taking me to see the Old Man. How many times have I taken our children and grandchildren to stare up at that peculiar rock formation.

The face simply fell off! Natural causes, I guess. How often "faces" fall off in real life. Shelley's poem comes to mind: "(In the desert) a shattered (face) lies … on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works … ye mighty and despair … " Then the poet comments: "nothing (now) remains."

The business tycoon who is "perp-walked" to an arraignment in court has lost his carefully created "face." The leader caught in scandal has lost his once-admired ...