Not so very long ago my First Wife and I were talking about a recent, sudden change in what needed to be done on the computer regarding sending my weekly scribblings to the Daily News. (Of course no directions ever accompany these format changes. Frustrating.)

And then she put it right out there for me: “Your recent columns have been somewhat stale.” Stale? That’s the very word she used. Why don’t you tell me what you really think, dear?

She added, “You have some good ones (columns in your book, “New View — A Collection of Columns” published in 1985.) “Why don’t you use one of them?”

Well, now. A bit of criticism, a compliment, and a suggestion. Maybe I should listen to the little lady.

And so, heeding her opinion and advice, here then is a column I wrote way back in 1975, (and I hope it’s not “stale”):

“A Friend of Mine”

Bob Phelps was a friend of mine.

Bob died, well before he was fifty, leaving behind a wife and four beautiful children. He had really wanted to lick it. Hodgkin’s Disease, but he realized toward the end that he wasn’t going to win. It is my belief, beyond doubt, that though his body was ravaged those last months, Bob achieved an inner peace and tranquil spirit that few of us, even in robust health, ever come to know.

By more conventional standards, Bob wasn’t a really successful man. The search for psychic satisfaction in his different jobs caused him to be a vocational nomad. He was cursed, as some of us are, with that inner strain that causes one to continually ponder the meaning of life itself.

Bob served on no boards of directors, never really earned adequate income to properly provide for his family, and never achieved for himself or his loved ones that elusive entity some call “security.”

But Bob was a rare and splendidly talented human being. The lines of Shakespeare rolled easily and trippingly off his tongue. In his undergraduate days at Wake Forest he had been quite a thespian.

Bob had the smooth verbal delivery of the polished television anchorman, which for a while he had been. He had the liberal, genuine concern for those less fortunate, of the social worker and activist, which for a while he had been.

In his not nearly long enough lifetime, Bob had seen much, done much, and wanted to do so much more. Above all else, he loved his family. This is said of so many. So few really love their families with the same intensity as did Bob.

And, next to his family, Bob loved — really cared for — those fellow members of the human race who stood in the greatest need.

Bob died several years ago. He’s buried in a small cemetery in Washington County, near the tiny village of Creswell, in northeastern Carolina.

Those who knew Bob, really knew him, miss him. Time spent with him was always a delight. He had few peers as a conversationalist. His intellectual appetite was as diverse as it was avaricious. To be with him was to learn, to laugh, to enjoy.

If one might employ a theatrical analogy, Bob is now on the other side of the curtain. Knowing Bob, he’ll make the most of it.

Bob Phelps was a friend of mine.

APROPOS — “The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man.” — Charles Sumner