Getting old, how much dearer the afternoons. How mellow and pleasing, the quiet. We see more, listen better and hold the tongue more easily than before. Minutes have new value and hours can be sweet as strawberry ripple in June. And melt at much the same speed.

At dusk fire flies kindle fond memories on the front porch and a breeze simply has to be a kiss from angels. When sun climbs down to a tree line, if you’re like me, a grateful sigh comes along followed by a barely audible whisper, “thank you … for this day.”

Sun sets are dearer too and we’re more circumspect about life. For me, from places I’ve traveled, people I’ve known, read about, admired (and not), a question always rises. The one in this photograph.

With whom would I most like to have a sit-on-a-bench-and-chat-awhile experience? And, what question would I most like an answer?

Who would be on your list?

This week, at random, a few on mine.

Mark Twain. If you had a re-write for, “I have been on the verge of being an angel all my life, but it’s never happened yet,” how would it go?

W.P. ‘Bill’ Kinsella. Your novel Shoeless Joe (1982) became arguably the best sports motion picture of all time. What did you think of Field Of Dreams?

Roberto Clemente. We miss you. Tell me, what’s it like, Heaven?

Ted Williams. Explain your thinking on having your head frozen for eternity?

Mark McGuire. Didn’t have to cheat, did you, big guy?

Pete Rose. Cheating for more money earned a ban from Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Why is “I’m sorry,” not enough?

Ed O’Bannon. Are you proud being point man to make college basketball into a professional sport?

Dan Snyder. Embattled owner of Washington’s NFL team, this question: When you step to line of scrimmage at the Great Super Bowl in the sky, what if Referee is native American?

Roy Williams. Will Rashad McCants’ teammates bring out their transcripts? Fair enough, right Roy?

Laura Hillenbrand. Author of best sellers Sea Biscuit and more recently Unbroken, explain the blending of precision research and delicious prose.

George Clooney. Long before the glam, what were your dreams, and best of times at Augusta High School in Bracken County?

Barry Bonds. Ironic isn’t it, your legacy? One of best there ever was … on same list with another racist, Ty Cobb?

Jay Bilas. Being the mass media’s Mahatma, knowing how to solve all things NCAA, will you apply to be its next president?

Marshall Henderson. Tell me about yourself, kid? Where do you expect to be in five years?

Billy Donovan. When you declined the Kentucky job was it the best decision of your professional life, or not?

Larry Bird. In chill of an Indiana winter when the movie Hoosiers comes on television what do you think about?

Bill Mazeroski. Evening of October 13, 1960, after a World Series Game 7 walk-off home run, you and wife Milene drove to the top of Mt. Washington above Pittsburgh watched the celebration. In those pinnacle moments what does a hero talk about?

Rick Pitino. All your celebrity aside, you could have done something extraordinary back there in 1992, but chose to ignore extraordinary opportunity to save an extraordinary little Catholic high school.Why?

Rick Atkinson. From The Day of Battle, The War in Sicily and Italy, tell me about the passage: “… the circling stars glided on their courses. The poets and the dreamers again struck their tents and shouldered their rifles to begin that long, last march.”

Seneca The Elder (54 BC–39 AD) wrote: “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.” I wager you’re not surprised at how profoundly your observation applies today?

Harry Caudill. With Night Comes to the Cumberlands in mind, what say you about today’s so-called War On Coal?

Mr. Lincoln. What say you about a nation conflicted, divided by greed and racial hatred? Not in 1865, but 2014?

Isham Sharp. Would you start at the beginning, please, Grandpa?

Finally …

Rick Reilly. A chat wouldn’t do it. Too many questions. So, forgive me please, Rick, for stealing two lines from your last work as a sports columnist:

“No writer in history is more flawed than me, but it was never for lack of trying. It was always in my attempt to get to the truth, or to make it fun, or to make it add up to something meaningful to you.”

And so it goes.