<strong><em>"Summer smilin' on the city, another lovely day in Sydney ..."</em></strong>

During the five years that I worked as a newspaper columnist, I wrote more than 700 columns. The one I wrote for publication on Sept. 17, 1998, wasn't the best column I ever did and it wasn't the worst, but it is one that stuck with me.

An elderly woman living alone in Chino Hills, Calif., had died in her apartment in the middle of March. She apparently died sitting on the sofa and watching television in her living room.Her body wasn't found until late May, more than two months later.

By then, her body had, well, sort of melted into the carpeting