TO BE A PILGRIM

Wm. F. Buckley Jr.

I WENT TO my doc and told him that for five days I hadn’t done anything much except sleep, that I had even had to abort a long-planned weekend in Nassau with my wife. “I assume it’s the same old thing,” I said— my refractory sinuses punishing me, this time around, for spending 21 consecutive days on airplanes, flying here and there on the lecture circuit. He went through his customary motions, took maybe his 150th throat culture, and told me to come back the next day with a set of sinus X-rays, and I told him, No, that was not possible because I had to fly the next day, and he said I was positively not to fly until after he had seen the X-rays, and I said to him, Look, doc, I have to go to Lourdes tomorrow and I can’t believe Our Lady would make me sick en route to Lourdes, that would make no sense. He said why didn’t I leave one day later, and I told him that was not possible because I was flying non-stop as the guest of a friend with a private plane.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

Wm. F. Buckley Jr.

I WENT TO my doc and told him that for five days I hadn’t done anything much except sleep, that I had even had to abort a long-planned weekend in Nassau with my wife. “I assume it’s the same old thing,” I said— my refractory sinuses punishing me, this time around, for spending 21 consecutive days on airplanes, flying here and there on the lecture circuit. He went through his customary motions, took maybe his 150th throat culture, and told me to come back the next day with a set of sinus X-rays, and I told him, No, that was not possible because I had to fly the next day, and he said I was positively not to fly until after he had seen the X-rays, and I said to him, Look, doc, I have to go to Lourdes tomorrow and I can’t believe Our Lady would make me sick en route to Lourdes, that would make no sense. He said why didn’t I leave one day later, and I told him that was not possible because I was flying non-stop as the guest of a friend with a private plane.