A newspaper article the other day informed me that the late 1930s are back in fashion. Historical societies are girding to protect Art Deco. The clarinet of Benny Goodman is heard on compact discs. Designers are filching illustrations and typefaces from The Saturday Evening Post. If the trend continues, we may shortly be revisited by dotted swiss housedresses, junket rennet custard, the wimple, and the Studebaker sedan.

Followers of these and other modes would be appalled to know that among such stubbornly retentive human barnacles as me, the year 1939 never has gone out of fashion. We continue to regard it with a sort of speechless awe: a year that was both terrible and wonderful, threatening and reassuring, germinal and terminal. In my own life 1939 was a fulcrum year, a portal, and, perhaps because of that, I think of 1939 as the pivot of the century. It was the year in which Billy Rose brought synchronized swimming to the New York World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows. Mickey Rooney played the title role in a movie about Huckleberry Finn. Pabst beer had a real blue ribbon attached to the neck of every bottle. For me, it also was a year of glandular crisis, marked by the onslaught of acne, orthodontia, and dreams that I did not wish to disclose to my parents.

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