I have a shoebox filled with old photographs, relics of the time before we all had cameras on our phones and terabits of images cluttering up our storage devices. And that’s what we call them now, too, “storage devices,” which sounds neat and organized and no fun at all.

I went to the shoebox this month when I heard the news that Bob Newhart, the brilliant comic mind who practically invented the stand-up comedy album before becoming a television legend, had died at 94. Bob and I worked together years ago, and I knew there was a photograph or two of us on the set.