My evolution from a humble teacher who regaled students with lessons on the comma splice to a modest guest essayist who mesmerizes newspaper readers with Inquiring Taxpayer observations is a transformation that even I can’t explain.

Perhaps after making countless clever (by my own estimation) classroom explanations pointing out that a comma is no more a period than a yellow traffic signal is a red one, I became as bored as my badgered students. Even the exciting comparison of a semi-colon to a flashing red light began to lose its sizzle. As years went by, I might have realized that I was taxing my students’ patience.

More likely though, the seed was planted in those early childhood Christmas stories. Unlike most of my friends, I was less captivated by the nativity scene of baby Jesus in the manger than I was by the curious fact that Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem had something to do with taxes. I imagine that in today’s environment such a quirky interest would suggest a need for psychological intervention, but children in the 1950s Edgerton Park neighborhood of Rochester were more apt to be “analyzed” by dad’s belt than by a psychologist.

Things were different.

How different? Well, for the first 19 years of my life, NYS did not impose a sales tax. Some younger readers might find that (the sales tax info, not my age) hard to believe. Might find it unimaginable that there was a time when if you purchased something that carried a $1,000 price tag, you actually paid $1,000. It goes to show how quickly and completely people come to accept an unusual imposition as if it were always the........

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