After spending most of his life with, respectively, the U.S. Navy, the regrettably extinct local newspaper Patent Trader, and the travel-industry newspaper/magazine Travel Weekly, Jim Transue has finally hit his stride as a retired writer and editor.Make that "partly retired," because, while he has finished with this little book, he still writes newsletters for a couple of local organizations. That, of course, is not nearly enough for him to be considered an active writer.But he also writes music for his own enjoyment, as he has done for most of his life. Writing music, of course, is a lot like writing prose except that the writer employs notes rather than words. Well, not to get too technical, but if he is writing songs or operas he may use both notes and words. He also may use electronic noisemakers and primal screams, but Mr. Transue already has trouble avoiding such discordance in today's world. He certainly does not wish to add to it.He has written quite a few songs but no operas. He has no plans to write operas because, aside from a few words like "allegro" and "largo," he does not know Italian. He realizes that not all operas are written in Italian, but most of the greatest ones are. And if one is to write a work whose lyrics are incomprehensible one might as well do it in a foreign language. Also, his attention span is much too short for even listening to an opera, much less writing one.Mr. Transue has a small but select group of friends, does volunteer work at a local museum, and compensates for no longer having cats of his own by kitty-sitting for friends.