My young friend McVal Osborne has become a journalist. He started off with a great article on homelessness in our area. The Times has signed him on as a permanent, part-time reporter. He can only work part-time because, you see, he's still in high school. This is a young writer to watch. McVal is the son of my friends John and Heather Osborne, who probably are still having palpitations over the idea of their talented, bright son becoming a writer rather than, say, a physicist or a judge. My sympathies go out to them. To McVal I'm giving my collection of back issues of Poets & Writers.