Twenty Years

On June 26th, 2004 Jadyne and I drove a packed U-Haul truck to 330 Rugby Avenue with half of our worldly possessions, emptied the truck, returned and came back later with the other half. Exhausted John nearly cried when he saw the overloaded second U-Haul truck arrive. Jadyne stood on the loading dock with her sandals sticking out under the truck bed. Had I not stopped the dock as it raised up in time she would have lost/injured her toes. It was a day. Twenty years ago.

Day 1

Much has changed in the past twenty years. There are only eighteen houses on Rugby Avenue. Many of our neighbors have moved. At least ten have died. We didn’t know anyone when we moved here twenty years ago. We didn’t know our neighbors then. After twenty years we still don’t know some today. Here they are as I see and remember them.

Rugby Neighbors Twenty Years Ago

Cecile and Jamie’s house next to ours. Jamie worked for Bechtel. He died soon after we moved to Rugby. Cecile, however, remained in the house until she died, too. Cecile was strongly opinionated. Warned by her daughters not to bring up George Bush’s name in conversation, we didn’t. For a while. I cut her grass, changed light bulbs, simply watched out for her. Her three daughters told us that if we weren’t living next door they would have sold the house and moved her to an assisted living home.

When driving wasn’t in the cards she sold her beloved Mercedes to the UPS driver. We miss her dearly. Now living in the house are Ursula and her two children. Ursula is Kahlil’s sister, the family who technically lives next door down a long driveway frequented by daily Amazon and UPS drivers. We never see Ursula or her two children. I wouldn’t recognize them if we did. Neighbors in name only.

Henry’s house

Henry moved away perhaps ten years ago. He was close to 100 years old. An engineer, Henry didn’t invent linoleum, but was rumored to have been involved in its development. Henry’s son moved him into an assisted living quarters several years ago, and we assume that he has passed. A developer bought the house for 400k, fixed it up, then sold it to a Chinese family for a million dollars. Their kids went to Cal. The house was sold again to Bill and Kay. Kay is Amber’s mother, Kahlil’s wife. We’re sandwiched in a Yearwood compound. Three houses, one family.

Larry and Janet Johnson’s house.

Janet is a widow. Cancer took Larry two years ago. I photographed his beloved BMW 540i for auction, driving him home in his car from the hospital days before he died. We said goodbye to Larry a day or two before he passed. Larry and Janet were/are always well-dressed. I was reminded of what a slob I am when I passed them. We went to Larry’s burial. An avid golfer, Larry shot his age a year before he died. At the cemetery mourners added golf balls to Larry’s plot. The funeral director, seeing them tossed in with his ashes, commented that they were now in an unplayable lie. True, dat.

Sunana and her husband’s home. Sunana is an attorney. I think he is, too. I don’t know his name. I wouldn’t recognize either of them. They have never attended any neighborhood gatherings.

This used to be Josie’s house. Josie was a friend. A self-described “JewBu,” meaning born Jewish but spiritually Buddhist, Josie used to teach at Spirit Rock, “a community dedicated to the liberation of all beings through Insight Meditation, Dharma teachings, and mindfulness,” in Marin County. I took a meaningful year long class from her called “A Year to Live,” based on an eponymous book. Each month we engaged in behaviors preparing us for death. One month we were asked to give to one of the ten or twelve class members something unique and of value to illustrate that you leave everything behind when you die. I gave away a clock that I had given to Uncle Rowland one Christmas. I had rescued it from his estate when he died in 2000.

On the last day of class we officially “died.” We went down to Solano Avenue and were asked to consider that all that we saw would still be there, groceries would open, trucks would deliver goods, people would place stamps on letters. I went to Starbucks and sat in a chair, watching people line up for lattes, mochas, croissants, couples chatting, students on laptops. I sat alone in a chair, watching all. No one looked at me. Sobering.

Josie was from England. In her youth she walked from England to India. She was raped twice. Last year she decided that after living in the US for forty years she would return to England for the rest of her life. She sold her house, moved back to London. The Chinese female attorney that bought the house doesn’t take care of the yard. She has a son. I’ve never seen her, although she lives four houses away. Josie was a jewel.

The second-to-last house on our side of the street. Don’t know them. I think she’s a policewoman. I wouldn’t know her or her husband (?).

The corner of Rugby and Yale. John and Reenie Rheem. Their middle-aged son died a few years ago after a bike ride Neighbors gathered at their house. I brought my guitar. We all sang “Amazing Grace.” Reenie died last year. She especially asked Jadyne and me to come and say goodbye to her, too, telling us how grateful she was for our trying to make the neighborhood something more than just houses and a street.

John and Reenie a day or two before she passed.

John moved to a senior home, then returned with a woman that he met there. His license plate was POW. He lived in the Phillippines during WW II as a boy and was taken captive by the Japanese. He is a retired Oakland policeman.

Amy, pictured below, is their daughter. She has MD and a full-time caregiver. We haven’t seen her outside for years. She has a lovely voice, and when she was in better health, gave a concert.

Crossing the Street

We think the Asian couple has lived here for the last twenty years. They came to a neighborhood potluck we sponsored last year. The first and only time we've ever seen them.

Sam and Angela’s house. Wonderful people. Angela gave birth a year ago. Sam is from New Zealand. Angela wakes early, swims two miles before returning to take care of their baby. We don’t see them socially, but we like them. They’re happy being a part of the neighborhood.

They bought the house after Jim Gallardo died and his widow, Vi, moved to the East Coast with family. Vi was a volunteer at the Turnabout shop, enlisting Jadyne to join. Jim served in WWII and was a docent on a ship in SF Bay. He gave tours.

George lives here. I saw him last week as he headed to Mono County to look for birds. He’s a serious twitcher. (Aren’t they all?) When he retired from UCB I persuaded him to join the Berkeley Food Pantry as a volunteer. Harvard educated, computer savvy, George’s skills helped bring a shoebox Rolodex operation into the 21st century.

Nancy is a single woman three months older than I am. She taught at Berkeley HS. One of her projects was to ask her students to write letters to themselves in the future. She kept the letters, then mailed them to the students five, ten, twenty years later. One of her students made a movie about her, shown on NPR. We went to see it at a theater. Fabulous. The movie showed the students opening the letters, reading the thoughts they had composed years earlier, then comparing them to what they were experiencing today. Very moving.

Nancy is also a photographer, has a good eye, photographs people in loving and affectionate ways.

Charlie Patton and Nancy. Charlie, his wife Donna, and their daughter Eva rented the house next door until he received an inheritance from his mother, which gave him enough money to buy a house. Charlie, Donna, and Eva were treasured neighbors, but they’re gone. They own a Yoga studio in Bali, you know, just like everyone else.

This was their house, now owned by Melanie and Cameron who just had a baby. We only recognize them because we know their dog. They are probably the couple with the baby carriage walking the dog.

Cathy Weeks (I’m using her maiden name), one of four Weeks. At least one of them has lived here for the last twenty years.

Kay died first. She fell and broke both her ankles. Their “living” area is on the second floor so it was weeks before she could come home. Russ died in a senior facility at the age of a year or two past 100, leaving the house to Grant, one of the strangest people I’ve ever met. About forty years ago Jim Patton (next neighbor) discovered that Grant tipped over his garbage can every night before pickup, then warned Grant that he would break his neck if he ever did it again. From that point on Grant would cross the street rather than confront Jim again. Forty years.

When Kay fell I offered to walk their airedale, Peggy Sue, so Russ could visit Kay and not have to think about the dog. I unlocked the front door and discovered Grant sitting on a sofa in his underwear. WTF? I didn’t even know they had a son. And why wasn’t Grant able to walk the dog? Kay, Russ, and Grant are gone. Cathy lives there now with two inoperable cars, one in the garage (she can’t find the keys) and one in the driveway. The whole family are Republicans. Figures.

The Pattons

Jim is a retired Professor Emeritus from UCB. He wrote a thousand page book called “The Rodents of South America.” He’s been shipwrecked five or six times. Carol taught. We love the Pattons. Their pet turtles have the run of the house. They take several trips a year to collect specimens. camping in remote mountain areas for weeks at a time, often in Death Valley, but always as far away from civilization as possible. They’ve lived in this house for more than fifty years.

Below. Ten year old Carys probably five or six years ago.

Jen and Alvin Lumanlan live directly across the street. They have a ten year old daughter, Carys, who they home school. Or Jen does. She has a paying website called “Your Parenting Mojo.” Alvin has been unemployed for a number of years. He rides his bikes. Here’s what I wrote about them five years ago: “Alvin has been trying to make a go of a photography portrait business, and Jen hosts a website called “Your Parenting Mojo.” Carys is the subject of about 90% of Alvin’s images, and is a precocious five year old. The Lumanlans are adventurers, having cycled much of the Tour de France, including the steepest hills. In the rain. Jen backpacked through the Alps with baby Carys. They hike. They cycle. And like everyone else, they struggle in these uncertain times.” Jen wrote a book about parenting. We have no idea how well it’s going. They just returned from a trip to the Northwest, stayed one day, then left for a couple of months to house sit in southern Utah. “Why?” I asked. “Because we can,” Jen answered, as the Audi wagon with three bikes headed up the street.

Carys at five

Chez Lumanlan

The Boys, then Farrah and Anthony, Nigel and Celine, then?????

Tears.

We had two gay friends who lived next door. They moved to New Jersey several years ago and this summer are moving back. They bought a house in Sacramento, so we’ll see them more often than we have. They were great neighbors.

Nick, Russ, two dogs and two cats. Only Nick and Russ remain.

And why tears? We loved "The Boys,” candidates for the world’s greatest neighbors. But they sold the house to Farrah and Anthony, whom we have loved as much as the boys. Here they are as I photographed them about five years ago with their two children, Nigel (now 10) and Celine (now 8).

I’ve always had a crush on Farrah. She was named for Farrah Fawcett. She has a brother Marlon, one named Marcello, and a sister Marilyn. Farrah spent weeks in the Stanford Hospital after her spleen was removed. We weren’t sure whether she would survive. They’re a wonderful family, but by July 1st they’ll be gone. Hence, the tears. The house goes on the market on August 1st.

Davi, Guillermo,and Nico (who graduated from UCSB this week) Davi makes jewelry, Guiillermo, an economist, fled Spain and Franco. He makes a paella to die for. They have lived here almost as long as we have. We love them, too, and hope they have no plans to move.

Nico, now a UCSB graduate

And that takes us back to the Flinchbaughs. Sally, Glenn, Jack, and Tess moved into the house directly behind us just weeks before we did.

Our real next door neighbors’ house.

…and our real next door neighbors, the Flinchbaughs, at a neighborhood farewell party for them. Sally manages the Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto. Glenn’s expertise is software. It’s been about ten years now since they moved.

Top row. Russell (one of the boys) moved, Carol and Jim (still here), Cecile (passed), Chris Anderson (still here, living on another street), Glenn Flinchbaugh, David Anderson, (retired cardiologist, married to Chris), Guillermo and Davi (still here), Rachel (divorced and gone), Jen Lumanlan, (Your Parenting Mojo), Isla, David.

Second row: Nick (moved with Russell), Alvin Lumanlan (before Carys was born), Jadyne, Jennifer, Sally Flinchbaugh, Jason, Andrew.

Third row. Tess Flinchbaugh (senior at UCLA), Jack Flinchbaugh (graduated from Tufts last year), Nico (UCSB graduate), Reed Flinchbaugh (Palo Alto HS grad this year), Susanto (14), and Hawthorn (15). Time has its way.

I can’t say enough about how fond we are and always have been of the Flindhbaughs. We babysat the two older kids when Sally gave birth to Reed; we also babysat them after Sally was struck by a bicycle and came inches away from not being in this photograph.

Now living there are Amber, Tomas, Kahlil, and their youngest, Eva. I took this image eight years ago before Eva was born.

We were once friends. Now, not so much. They bought a second house in Sonoma and go back and forth between them. They don’t talk to either Jadyne or me. Kahlil’s mother, Inez, lives there and takes care of the garden. We like her.

It’s been twenty years. The Flinchbaughs moved, Cecile died, Henry died, Larry Johnson died, but Janet lives in their house, Sunana and what’s his name remain invisible, Josie went back to England, two more unknowns, Reenie died, and across the street the Asians are still there, Jim Gallardo died and Vi moved (replaced by Sam and Angela), George and Nancy are still there, the rental house with the invisible family is there, possibly sending out more invitations for gifts to people they don'‘t know, Charlie and Donna moved, Kathy Weeks remains in a house that should be condemned, Jim and Carol are still here, the Lumanlans are in St. George, Utah, Farrah and Anthony will be gone soon, and Davi and Guillermo remain. Twenty years. We’re still here, but many of the people we loved aren’t. To quote a former President, “Sad.”

Guilty!

This TV image overshadows one I took in Oxford, Ohio in 1972 as Richard Milhous Nixon announced his resignation from the office of President of the United States of America.

The intense relief that immediately follows the passing of a kidney stone (twice, for me) is the metaphorical equivalent of the guilty verdicts.

The New York Times Editorial Board had this to say:

“In a humble courtroom in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, a former president and current Republican standard-bearer was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The jury’s decision, and the facts presented at the trial, offer yet another reminder — perhaps the starkest to date — of the many reasons Donald Trump is unfit for office.

Yet the greatest good to come out of this sordid case is the proof that the rule of law binds everyone, even former presidents. Under extraordinary circumstances, the trial was conducted much like any other criminal trial in the city. That 12 Americans could sit in judgment of the former and potentially future president is a remarkable display of the democratic principles that Americans prize at work.”

Another New Normal

That expression has lived with me since the onset of tinnitus. Or was it my hip replacement? The “new normal” always referred to physical changes, usually those that bring about a diminished capacity, a slowing or a weakening. Yesterday I experienced yet another new normal, revealing but wholly unexpected. Walking on a treadmill at 24 Hour Fitness I became acutely aware that the man to my right, a thirty-year old Asian, was carrying on a Facetime conversation with a friend. His voice was so loud that even with my noise canceling earbuds on, I had difficulty listening to a podcast.

When I finished I told him that “no one wants to hear your conversation, that you should move to a more isolated treadmill.” He dismissed me with a few sharp words, including “Shut up, old man.” He used the expression again, dismissively referring to me as an old man. I left. “Asshole,” I said, walking away.

Unnerved, I angrily swam the fastest mile of the year, trying not to think about that exchange.

What I discovered is that for the first time in my life a seventy-seven year old white male joined the ranks of blacks, women, gays, the disabled, Asians, Jews, Muslims, the infirm, and all those who are discriminated against for how they look, how they appear. It’s not the content of my character nor the color of my skin, it’s the wrinkles in it.

In 1970 my Chinese bride and I went to a Reds game. On the way home I asked her why she was crying. A fan had pointed to her during the game and exclaimed, “I killed me a bunch of them in ‘Nam.” I hadn’t heard it. When she was a little girl some neighbors’ children weren’t allowed to play with her. I’ve known these stories for more than fifty years, but I’m a white man, a lapsed Protestant, and as such until Monday was never dismissed, never suffered slings and arrows. People call me “Sir.” Until Monday.

What I Would Say

An airline passenger recentlydisembarked from a plane and held his phone on video as he walked through the airport. One of the first people he encountered was Marjorie Taylor Greene. He passed by her without comment or acknowledgment.

In the late sixties my uncle and I were walking through downtown Cincinnati. We came across a number of limos, police, and TV news crews. We discovered that a Cincinnati hotel was hosting a Governor’s Conference, and all fifty governors were in town. Directly up the sidewalk from us was the easily recognizable governor of Georgia, Lester Maddox.

When Maddox died in 2003 the NY Times published this:

“Lester Maddox, the Atlanta restaurant owner and archsegregationist who adopted the pick handle as his symbol of defiance in a successful bid for the Georgia governorship in 1966, died on Wednesday in Atlanta. He was 87.

Mr. Maddox first came to national attention in 1964, after he violated the newly signed federal Civil Rights Act by refusing to serve three black Georgia Tech students at his Pickrick Restaurant. The Pickrick was noted for the quality of its fried chicken and for its reasonable prices, but Mr. Maddox was determined that no black should experience the ambience that he had reserved exclusively for whites.

When the three black men tried to buy some of his chicken in July 1964, Mr. Maddox waved a pistol at them and said: ''You no good dirty devils! You dirty Communists!''

Some of his customers were sympathetic to his cause and interrupted their meal to take pick handles that Mr. Maddox had put by the door (and sold for $2 apiece) to make it clear that the blacks would not be served. The pick handles, which Mr. Maddox also sold in his souvenir shop, were called ''Pickrick drumsticks'' and came to symbolize his resistance to the civil rights movement. On occasion, Mr. Maddox would autograph the handles.”

Maddox was standing on the sidewalk shaking hands with passersby. I crossed the street to avoid him, an act I have regretted all my life. He was trash. He needed someone, even a college student, to confront him with that fact.

I decided then that I would never let that opportunity pass me by again. If I were that airline passenger, if I were to encounter MTG I wouldn’t avoid her. I’d like to think that I’d say something like this: “Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was executed shortly after he was convicted of murdering 169 people. There wasn’t enough time for him to recognize the horror of who he was and what he had done. Ms. Greene, I can only hope that you live long enough to learn what damage you do everyday, and what a disgrace you are.” Or something like that. Hey, I’m still working on it.

What Have We Done?

I wrote this more than a month ago, left it as a draft.

10:41 am. One man. A banner scribbled across my TV reads, “Trump whispers to his attorney.” This is news. This is news 24-7 when a certain someone yawns, closes his eyes, scratches his face, or under the microscope of the ubiquitous cameras that follow him, does anything at all. One man whose every thought, every sentence, every look, however stupid or inconsequential, lights up the airwaves, whose impact on so many is immeasurable. One man.

I just finished reading Neal Bascom’s book Hunting Eichmann tracing the fifteen year quest by Israeli agents to find and try Adolph Eichmann, the notorious Nazi responsible for implementing the plans to exterminate Jews in Europe. One man.

One of his victims:

“…he had been beaten, herded off to a barracks, stripped, inspected, deloused, shaved and tattoed on his left forearm with the sequence A3800. The next morning, he had been forced to work in the gas chambers where he suspected his family had been killed during the night. Sapir dragged the dead from the chambers and placed them on their backs in the yard, where a barber cut offg their hair and a dental mechanic ripped out any gold teeth. Then he carried the corpses to large pits, where they were stacked like logs and burned to ashes. A channel running through the middle of the pit drained the fat exuding from the bodies. That fat was used to stoke the crematorium fires.” And this was just one day. And the ashes? They were sprinkled across the sidewalks so the men wearing those shiny SS boots wouldn’t slip.

One man. Adolph Eichmann, a man who never expressed remorse, who believed in God, who never thought he had done anything wrong, did to more than six million others what he had done to David Sapir. Before he was hanged he said, “I have peace in my heart. In fact, I am astonished that I have such peace…Death is but the release of the soul.”

One man caused such devastation to so many.

Timothy McVeigh

The Independent reported that “In April 1995, with help of accomplice of Terry Nichols, a friend from army training, the disillusioned McVeigh had driven a truck bomb beneath the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and lit a two-minute fuse before fleeing the scene in a second vehicle he had parked nearby. The truck, a 1993 Ford F-700 rental vehicle, contained 4,800lbs of explosives and it destroyed almost all the nine-story property, killing 168 people, including 19 children.”

He was executed six years later. So many members of the families whose lives he had stolen couldn’t witness the execution so it was beamed by satellite to them.

“McVeigh had not made any final words, no apology to the families of those who died. Indeed, before his execution, the disillusioned young man had expressed regret he had not killed more people.”

One man. 168 victims. 19 children.

Keith Davidson

A lawyer, Davidson cut deals for Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, and on election night 2016, when he realized that those deals, kept secret, had led to Trump’s unexpected election, Davidson texted National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard, a co-conspirator in the catch and kill scheme,“What have we done?”

It took two this time, two men whose possibly illegal activities rigged the election in favor of Donald Trump, the last of the four individuals whose remorseless. narcissistic, sociopathic behaviors, have affected—and in Trump’s case, Individual #1, still continue to affect the lives of millions of people.

Donald Trump

For the capitol police who died, for the rioters who stormed the capitol on Trump’s bequest, for the thousands who died because of his irresponsible mismanaging of Covid, like Eichmann and McVeigh, he feels only justification, not remorse. "Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes? I work hard, I'm an honorable person."

Eichmann, McVeigh, Trump, and Davidson, the latter, who along with the National Enquirer made Trump possible.

The term sociopath refers to someone living with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) — as does the term psychopath.

“The most recent edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness, which mental health professionals use to diagnose mental health conditions, defines ASPD as a consistent disregard for rules and social norms and repeated violation of other people’s rights.

People with the condition might seem charming and charismatic at first, at least on the surface, but they generally find it difficult to understand other people’s feelings. They often:

• break rules or laws

• behave aggressively or impulsively

• feel little guilt for harm they cause others

• use manipulation, deceit, and controlling behavior

Stayin' Alive

Tomorrow morning at about 5 am I’ll drive down to 24 Hour Fitness, set the treadmill to 30 minutes, the height to 15, the speed to 3.5, put on my Bose earbuds in front of a TV tuned to either CNN or MSNBC and listen to Mark Knopfler’s One Deep River, burning off a purported 250 calories or so before returning to the locker room, donning my faded Speedo swimsuit, and if all goes well, swimming 70 laps. It isn’t a walk in the park. Sometimes a struggle, sometimes boring, the treadmill and the pool aren’t always fun. It’s work. But afterwards, there is a reward.

I have a confession. I love being alive. Maybe I’ll love not being alive, too, but I’d prefer to delay finding that out for as long as possible. I think that what I do at 24 Hour Fitness may possibly help to keep that non-alive part far away.. But it isn’t just staying alive that’s the goal, it’s staying alive as healthfully as possible. According to the World Health Organization, the average American can expect just one healthy birthday after the age of sixty-five. I’ve had twelve. Looking forward to #13 in a couple of months, hoping to follow it with #14 next year. If healthy birthday is the goal, I have to overlook the tinnitus, the titanium hip, the broken ankle, stuff like that which didn’t compromise my health, really, just challenged me to accept the cliché “new normal.”

And therein lies the crux—longevity accompanied by good health. The shimmering value of being able to breathe, if compromised by debilitating issues, excessive aches and pains, dementia, and disabilities, loses its luster.

The New Yorker profiled a longevity expert, Peter Attia, who advises clients how to solve a uniquely modern problem: “the ‘marginal decade’ at the end of our lives, when medicine keeps us alive but our independence and capacities bleed away.” Beyond the predictable—work out, eat healthfully, sleep well, nurture relationships, Attia advises clients who pay upwards of 150k for full body MRIs, body-fat composition scans, DNA analyses, and advice he distributes to those who want to go the distance. I don’t take protein collagen powder in my tea, drink bone broth, add extra protein to my diet. I don’t follow Attia’s advice on living longer other than in following the big four mentioned above.

“By incessantly preparing for the future, skeptics say, we mistake a long life for a worthwhile one.” Dhruv Khullar, the New Yorker writer.

I buy that. Khullar closes with this from Attia: “Sometimes I think about all the people who’ve ever lived, and how lucky I am to be alive right now, like, if I died tomorrow, it would be O.K. But, while I’m here, I want to know that I gave it my all. We have this one shot. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t make the most of it?” 

Why did I write this now? In the last three years I’ve been attending funerals, celebrations of life, not baby showers, weddings, or christenings. These end of life ceremonies aren’t for my parents or my parents’ generation. They’re for friends, people my own age or younger, people who are no longer in the fabric of my life, but they are people I have loved, worked with, whose presence in my life made a difference.

This morning I woke up, took a five mile hike through the East Bay hills, came home and had a wonderful breakfast of orange juice, blueberry pancakes, and bacon. For this and for so much more I am grateful. I was able to do this today, but four of my friends weren’t.

Then Joel,

Then Riley and Mary

Last Friday. My college friend Tom Zemsky is “getting his affairs in order.” A mutual friend sent me an email today. “He called me on the phone yesterday. The gist of his message was that he probably has less than a week to live. He was calling from a hospital room. From the hospital, he will probably go directly into Hospice care (although there seems to be some problem with the availability of beds at the local Hospice facilities). The doctors have him on very heavy duty pain medication, and he is resting fairly comfortably.”

And me? I finished my swim this morning in forty-two minutes and sixteen seconds, the fastest mile I’ve ever swum. I’ll cut the grass today, clean the house before the baby shower, pick up Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar at the library, play my guitar, watch a bit on CNN and MSNBC, grill burgers tonight, and at multiple times, give thanks for being alive, for having accomplished something this morning that is denied to my friends above—waking up.

Last Sunday

Jadyne and I woke up at 3:00, drank coffee, then closed down 330 Rugby, climbed in the car and headed to SFO, a drive that can take about thirty minutes, or during rush hours, perhaps four times longer. At 4 am it was a predictable thirty. We parked at a nearby hotel (cheaper), then arrived at SFO well in advance of our 6 am flight to Chicago, a full flight. I had a window seat and saw this as we passed over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, always a thrill in winter.

With our one carry-on bag we were at the Budget rental desk in minutes and heading east from O’Hare and down I-65 towards Indianapolis in lightning, rain, thunder and bumper to bumper traffic. From the window we saw

Family farms, abandoned farms, corporate farms, small farms, farms of every description and size.

Along the “freeway” we passed an endless procession of signs—Jesus is Lord, Experience the Wonder of God, signs advertising the services of attorneys, an electronic sign that read “Plan for the Eclipse. Fuel Up/Arrive Early/Stay Put/Leave Late, American flags on barns on poles, on mailboxes, and just outside of Indianapolis, this, a sign from Mom Nature.

We arrived in Oxford at 8:00 at Paesano’s , a pricey Italian restaurant where we met our friend Bill Laichas and his wife, Ellen. Bill was my best friend in Oxford in the years that I taught at Talawanda HS, 1972-1975. We had met at Miami University when we were both pursuing graduate degrees. He and his wife, Liz, divorced years ago. He and Ellen married in 2016. We’ve not corresponded that much over the past forty-nine years, but we’d both found it important to reconnect. He and Ellen live in Bowling Green, KY, and they were willing to make the trip to Oxford, more to see us than the eclipse.

Seeing Bill and meeting Ellen was the icing on the cake. We went back to Oxford for the first time in perhaps thirty years to reconnect the lives we’re living now with the lives we led fifty years ago. We rented a house near Talawanda HS (now a parking lot) at 714 South College. Jason was born there.

1975

2024

One of the tenants gave us a tour of the house. It has been completely remodeled to accommodate students at Miami University. At $7200 a semester times three students, the owner grosses $43k a year.

It was under the window in the center of the image that I photographed Nixon on our little black and white TV as he resigned the presidency.

Jadyne is standing in the basement, now a bedroom, bathroom and bar. The last time she was there she was holding Jason as 140 tornadoes, including an F5 that leveled the town of Xenia, were striking the Midwest, some touching down between Oxford and Cincinnati.

Bye bye.

When we returned to Ohio for my mother’s 90th birthday it was one month before the presidential election, one that when we left California we thought John Kerry would win hands down. When we saw the Bush signs planted on many of the lawns around Cincinnati we realized that we lived in a bubble, that the sure thing that we thought was Kerry’s win, when faced with flyover states’ countless Bush signs, we lost that confidence.

An Obama volunteer rang a doorbell. When the owner discovered why she was there he responded, “Didn’t you see my American flag? I’m a Republican!”

Along I-65

These are two of the dozens of flags we passed between Chicago and Indianapolis. There were many more flying from houses along the two-lane highways we drove between Richmond and Oxford.

One house displayed both a Trump flag and a Confederate flag, but no American flag.

Although few in the Bay Area fly American flags, they don’t love America the less. Flying a flag doesn’t make you a patriot or an American anymore than going to church makes you a Christian. In Ohio, however, I assume that most of the flag flyers are, like the man the Obama volunteer met, Republicans, and by association, Trump supporters. The irony, of course, is that Trump is no patriot, and although his mailings make liberal use of the word, he and his supporters are strangers to the values prescribed in the Constitution and the law.

Experiencing The Great Divide that is America today was one of the reasons we chose to return to Oxford. We were surprised to see only a few Trump signs, although the election is still more than six months away. Ohio is a red state, and the signs, like the cicadas, are just waiting for the right time to announce their presence. I’ve never seen a Trump sign or a Trump bumper sticker in Kensington. Or a cicada.

The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin spoke about The Great Divide. “We’ve lost our sense of collective identity, what values we’re promoting, humility, people who acknowledge errors and learn from their mistakes, empathy, people who understand others’ points of view, resilience to come through adversity, accountability, kindness, compassion, and ambition for something larger than themselves. So we’ve got to figure a way to come back to understand what truth is, what law is.”

But political differences are only one component of The Great Divide. In Oxford. with the exception of the black student in the front of this image, we only saw white people. No Asians, no Hispanics, no one else of color. Our Kensington neighbors in back and on the side are Panamanian/Mexican; the man across the street is Filipino; Jadyne is one of five Chinese who live on our little street. California, not just the Bay Area, is the true melting pot.

Oxford Square, and the one token black student. Is he the one Trump called “my black friend?”

Americans seemed to really like each other after 9/11. Everyone flew flags. “Je Suis Americaine” wasn’t just the French identifying with us. We had been dealt a royal flush in the world’s collective opinion. We could do no wrong. But we did. Not only did we throw away our cards, but we looked at ourselves and didn’t like all that we saw. Sides were taken. Racial animosity continued. In 2016 Trump brought out the worst of us, and in 2020 he brought out the worst in himself and the Trump cultists who support him and exchange truth for lies.

Jay and I tiptoed into that freezing water when we returned to Oxford, and the wonderful dinner, the spectacular eclipse, reuniting with an old friend, seeing 714 South College, wasn’t enough to warm our little tootsies. We headed back to California, happy to have been there, happier to be home.

Passages

One

Uncle Rowland took Riley Griffiths under his wing the same year I transferred from Whitman College to the University of Cincinnati. Riley was an outstanding college tennis player, and my Uncle Rowland, an outstanding tennis player himself, offered housing to Riley during his last year at UC. Riley and I shared Uncle Rowland’s roof for that year, and although Riley was two years older than I, we became close friends.

It was during that time that Riley and I drove to Florida for spring break in his very hot Pontiac GTO, a true muscle car, the vacation where I began my relationship with Marianne Mesloh, the UC Homecoming Queen. It was during that time that Riley and I met a couple of young ladies, spending the evening with them, adding Paisano (a very cheap red wine) to their dog’s Gravy Train, then arriving at Uncle Rowland’s at dawn with just enough time to cut the lawn with Rowland’s hand mower before he woke up. I was never the tennis player that Riley was, but I was good at table-tennis. We teamed up for the University Intramural Championships. We lost in the finals.

It wasn’t long after that that Riley graduated and married his long time girlfriend, Carolyn (CJ), and we parted ways.

After Jadyne and I were married I tried to enroll in RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design, hoping to make a career in art photography. I failed. Thinking that it was just temporary, I had a year to wait, no job, and a need to get one. Riley offered me a position selling furniture at the Wholesale Furniture Depot, a business that he and a childhood friend, Dan Grubb, were opening in Blue Ball, Ohio, a couple of miles from Middletown, home of Armco Steel and later featured in the book Hillbilly Elegy.

At the Wholesale Furniture Depot…

• Riley and Dan bought .38s in case of a robbery. I took the .38 to the field in back and set up a can on a post and fired it once. Missed. The last time I’ve touched a gun.

• I burned cardboard furniture boxes in a wired frame container in the parking lot. The wind and embers conspired to start a fire in a neighboring field.. Riley called the store, expecting me to answer. A customer picked up. Surprised, Riley asked, “Where’s David?” The customer replied, “He’s outside trying to put the fire out.”

• A little boy came in asking to use the bathroom. When we answered his father said, “No problem, Fat Boy can pee out Door #23.”

• A gravel parking lot surrounded the Depot. When Shannon was born she had trouble sleeping, so CJ drove in circles in her black Studebaker Lark, waiting for Shannon to fall asleep.

• Jadyne and I ordered a Flexsteel chair from a catalogue. When it arrived Dan took it off the truck and exclaimed, “Who ordered this? It’s hideous.” I was there, too. “I did,” I said, embarrassed, as it was, indeed, hideous. “I can’t take it,” I said. “I had no idea that it would be this ugly.” “We’ll never sell it,” Dan responded, disgustedly. A week went by. Two, maybe two more. The chair on the floor stayed. A customer came in and said, “Oh my, that’s so beautiful!” I was on the floor. “Yes, it is,” I agreed. “It’s Dan’s favorite piece of furniture!” I added, as Dan was standing next to me. “Isn’t it, Dan?” I asked. “Won’t you be sorry to see it go?” Smirks can last a long time.

• One day a customer came in, sat down on a sofa. “How can I help you?” I asked. “I’m waiting for my sofa,” he replied. “It was promised in six weeks, and today is the sixth week.”

• I was a good salesman, so good in fact that a couple who had bought furniture from me came in and apologized for trying to hire me away from WFD. “We’d like to offer you the manager’s position at our bait shop in Franklin,” the woman said. Touched, I told her that I was pursuing my Masters degree at Miami, but I appreciated the offer.

• Bleeding heart CJ went to a Christmas tree lot and asked for the most pitiful tree on the lot. Amazed, the attendant showed her one. He said, “I’ve never heard anyone ask for that!” Jadyne and I went back to the lot the next day and found the salesman. “I want the most pathetic tree on the lot,” I said.

• One night Jadyne and I went to an upscale restaurant with a men’s jacket requirement. Although they had a selection of sports coats to offer me I had come directly from my gig at the Wholesale Furniture Depot, and I had my light gray warehouse jacket with big blue letters emblazoned on the back that read in three lines, “Wholesale Furniture Depot.” We were seated in a corner.

The thoroughly remodeled Wholesale Furniture Depot, Blue Ball, Ohio

Riley is wearing that beautiful jacket, apropos for a gentleman to wear at a fine dining establishment.

After working there for a year, failing to get into RISD for the second time, getting a Master’s Degree, teaching for three years at Talawanda HS, having a son, Jadyne and I decided that our proposed one year stay in Ohio, now five years, was enough. I left the Wholesale Furniture Depot, Middletown, Hamilton, Oxford, Talawanda HS, and Ohio in 1975, and with Greg’s help, packed up a U-Haul truck, attached a Volvo station wagon to the back, stuffed two basset hounds in the Volvo, and headed across the country to Santa Rosa, and a new position teaching English at Cardinal Newman HS in Santa Rosa in 1975.

I only saw Riley one more time, at Rowland’s funeral in 2000. We talked briefly. He had parted ways with Dan, closed the Depot, opened a new store called “Gracious Living” and stayed in the business in Monroe, Ohio, a few miles north of Cincinnati. He renamed it “Riley’s Furniture and Mattress.”

Jadyne and I just returned from a brief trip to Oxford to see the solar eclipse, touching base with a life we once led more than fifty years ago. “Whatever happened to Riley Griffiths?” Jadyne asked. “I don’t know,” I replied. “I suppose he’s still selling furniture.” He isn’t. She found his obituary in the local newspaper, The Journal News.

Riley was a friend, someone I admired. By offering me a position in his first venture he was instrumental in shaping the direction my life would take over the next fifty-four years. One thing often leads to another—the job, my failed attempts to get into RISD, my subsequent master’s degree, my three years teaching in Ohio, my move back to California, five more years teaching, and finally, my willingness to be as adventurous as Riley was, leaving all that behind and making a career and a life in a new career, photography, as a one-man band, succeeding because of my own adventurous spirit, supported with love from my wife and family.

Riley died five years ago. I wish I had known.

I can barely make out the Riley I remember in this photo from his obituary.

Two

Mary Wellman was Jerry Wellman’s wife. Jerry and I taught together at Cardinal Newman HS in the seventies. Jerry and Mary moved to Cherie Way, close to our house on Dutton Avenue. We saw them both from time to time, invited them to dinner once. We were eating when we heard a dreadful noise over our heads. “What’s that?” Mary asked, alarmed. “Oh, it’s probably just John falling down the stairs,” I replied nonchalantly, taking another bite. “Unless he cries he’s probably okay.” He didn’t. He was.

When Mary died, Linda Kammer called her “sweet.” She was that. Jadyne agreed, adding that “if anyone called me ‘sweet’ I’d bust em’.” We didn’t see the Wellmans much after I left teaching. I saw Jerry occasionally at breakfasts that Frank Guillen hosted for retired teachers at Cardinal Newman. We didn’t know until Jerry texted me that Mary had died that she had been battling cancer for twelve years. I photographed their wedding in 1981.

I won’t write again about Joel’s passing. I have a link to the blog entry I posted about both Joel and Linda Kammer

Three

A college friend, a fellow teacher, the wife of another teacher, three people who were a part of my life in the seventy-seven years I’ve been living it. By hiring me to work at the Wholesale Furniture Depot Riley was instrumental in shaping the direction my life took; Joel and Mary’s friendships added to it.

Getting back to Uncle Rowland. At a birthday party for him and his twin brother Andrew I asked Rowland how he was doing. “The shadows are lengthening,” he said. Indeed.

Four

Elizabeth Jovel was a neighbor and friend. The Jovel’s fence abutted ours in Santa Rosa, and their three kids often climbed over the fence into our backyard for evening summer games of soccer or baseball. I photographed the girls’ senior pictures, attended their weddings. We weren’t just neighbors, we were friends. Elizabeth was from Guatemala, and her third child, a son, either lives there now or in El Salvador, the home country of her husband, Efrain. They weren’t accountants, but America’s Income Tax, their business, was the place to go to have your taxes completed if you were Hispanic. We went to the daughters’ weddings. We’ll attend the mother’s funeral.

Easter Saturday

My friend and racquetball partner John Holden once said to me, “I’m sorry that I won’t see you in the afterlife.” John was a devout church-going Christian, believing in the traditional concepts of heaven and hell. Because he accepted the King James version of the Bible with John’s words, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” he figured we wouldn’t be sitting on the clouds together in the great by and by. Without embracing Jesus as a personal savior death leads either to oblivion or hell. He knew which way he was going. He believed he knew, too, which way I was going.

I was raised by a devout churchgoing mother and an Episcopal minister. I was confirmed in the Episcopal church in my teens. I wrote about it last December.

What my Christian upbringing has brought me are feelings of guilt— guilt that I don’t go to church, guilt that I didn’t raise my children to be devout Christians, guilt that I didn’t tithe, guilt that I have harbored lascivious thoughts, coveted my neighbor’s wife, guilt that I have behaved in less than good Christian ways, guilt that I didn’t turn my other cheek, guilt, guilt, and a bit more guilt.

Some of this guilt has a religious component, some not. I deserve the feelings of guilt when I have behaved in less than honorable ways, when as a kid I stole stuff, when I disrespected others, when I threw raw eggs into an unlocked car on Halloween. This stuff has stayed with me. If I could undo them all I would, not just to expiate the guilt that has followed me all my life, but because it was simply wrong. Youth was the culprit but not the excuse. There is no excuse.

Do I believe in God? A Jewish woman in Gaza came home to find her family murdered by Hamas. She no longer believes in God. We just finished watching the 1961 movie, Judgment at Nuremberg. It incorporates film footage of the Holocaust. Could anyone experiencing the horrors of that time believe in God? The constant parade of injustice that surrounds the news today threatens our belief that some higher power is in charge. Still, I believe that there is a method behind the madness. I don‘t know what it is. I don’t believe John Holden knows either.

I took comfort when I read somewhere that “going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.” My memories growing up centered around attending church, not in learning and practicing compassion, the behaviors that the rabbi described. That came later. It’s still a work in progress. I question myself at the Dorothy Day Center, wondering whether volunteering there is simply satisfying a moral duty, or whether I really feel for the unfortunates that we serve.

When they thank us, when they appreciate that we are just volunteers, that our assistance brings them much-needed food, I feel good. When they’re surly, demanding, angry, or even threatening, I feel bad, indifferent at best to their situation. One of the homeless asked me for a spoon. I replied “There’s one in the box.” He saw the extra spoons and said, “I can be a nice guy or a real prick,” indicating that by not giving him a second spoon I was soon to be the victim of a “real prick.” Hard to forget, hard to forgive, hard to be compassionate.

So tomorrow is Easter Sunday. We won’t go to church. We won’t be celebrating Easter in the traditional sense. We will express gratitude for the many wonderful blessings that have come our way, for our lives, family, friends, good fortune, and each other. All without guilt.

Movies

With all the rain this winter Jadyne and I made it to four movies—Origin, Zone of Interest, American Fiction, and on Saturday, Poor Things. Emma Stone was beyond good.  She was a worthy Oscar winner for Best Actress.  And yes, it was surreal.  Her portrayal of Bella and the transformation she went through from beginning to end was exhausting, a real tour de force for an actress.

And even though I liked the movie it made me a bit uncomfortable, especially during the whoring scenes in Paris.  I think it bordered on pornographic.  I tried to imagine how much Emma had to put away of who she (Emma) was as a person to become Bella.  I know that’s the nature of the job.  It still left me uncomfortable.  

I reacted to City Lights as I used to remember responding to movies from years ago.  Laughter, surprise, empathy, and a host of other emotions that Chaplin’s brilliance was able to pull off. And I think that that’s where the genius lies—making the audience feel real emotions.  I “appreciated” Poor Things.  I loved City Lights.

Connections

Betty Reid Soskin (now retired) was America’s oldest park ranger. She retired from active service in 2022 at age 100. This September she’ll be 103. We were fortunate to meet her and hear of her experiences during WW II at the Rosie the Riveter Monument in Richmond, CA.

Betty was not only connected to World War II, but she remembers her grandmother telling her that she was standing in Washington DC when Abraham Lincoln read the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing Betty’s grandmother from slavery—that connection.

Today I finished the 1143rd and final page of William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. In the last ten or so pages of the book accounts describe Hitler and his wife of one day, Eva Braun, retiring to his room in his underground bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945 in the afternoon. Hitler puts a revolver in his mouth and Eva bites into a cyanide capsule. And my brother Bill is celebrated by his family on his second birthday.

Random Thoughts

I stopped along #101 in Santa Rosa forty-five years ago to photograph a partial solar eclipse, then headed to Sutter Hospital where Jadyne was to be induced.

John Rowland Buchholz, 45

Fourteen years ago I repeated the process with a different passenger. Jennifer wasn’t induced, but she did give birth on February 26th to Susanto. The whole event was captured by Rachel, who broadcast it through Skype to Andrew, who was sitting on a sofa in Kathmandu.

Jennifer and Susanto Tise Geen, 14

Both birthdays were non-events for the principals yesterday. Susanto and family were exhausted from having contracted the norovirus while in Rome; Kim’s plans for John were curtailed by her sickness. too.

And me? As anniversaries pass I am reminded that many years have gone by, that time has its way with us. My friend Gail Bray posted this on FB, a reminder to appreciate the here and now.

I am “embracing the journey,” noting that adding swimming, walking, gardening, exercise of any kind, into my day feels good. I appreciate the friendships I have with people who are on that same journey. I try to focus on whatever I’m doing, from spending two minutes brushing my teeth, sweeping leaves off the sidewalk, savoring the first sips of Peets Major Dickason blend in the morning, solving Wordle, editing an image, relishing a well-crafted sentence or two in a book, enjoying Saul Steinberg’s New Yorker cartoons, brushing Stella, putting on a clean pair of LL Bean flannel-lined jeans straight from the dryer, taking a minute to sit quietly, listen to Molly Tuttle’s “Goodbye Girl,” writing stuff like this in my blog, and avoiding all “coulda, woulda, and shouldas.”

I’m also enjoying doing something I’m not doing. Drinking. For many years I’ve had at least one alcoholic drink a day. Often more than one. Jadyne and I occasionally drank a bottle of wine in one sitting, beginning before dinner. In February we began to have one drink every other night. We’ve both cut down the drinking. I feel better when I don’t drink. I also don’t need the feeling that alcohol gives me.

Two weeks ago we were charging the Tesla at 99 Ranch and I wandered across the street to a cannabis dispensary and bought ten gummies, thinking that maybe having one of those would bring back the feelings that alcohol brought without drinking the alcohol. I asked for a low dosage beginner’s pack, which contained ten gummies at 10 mg each of THC. I ate one last week. Mistake. I hadn’t smoked in almost forty years, and the good feelings I remembered from a hit or two from a joint were replaced by something unfamiliar—incoherence and compromised physical abilities. I wanted to get off the train. Not enjoying this. It led me to tying the two, alcohol and cannabis, together. They both alter perceptions, provide an escape of some kind, or in train terms a siding, a departure from that part of me that I can manage well enough and enjoy.

From Walden, “Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.”

Other bits and pieces. Daffodils, hellebore flowers, ribes buds, rain, promises of spring.

When we picked up Jennifer, Andrew, and family from SFO Jadyne climbed into their van. “It won’t go,” she wailed. “I can only coast.” I walked over. “You need the key,” I said, “to turn the engine on.” (That’s what six years with an electric car does to you). Beyond that we’re flummoxed by much of new technology. We wanted to buy a baby gift at Target yesterday. We couldn’t find the mother’s name on the registry. “Did you scan the bar code on your email?” said the helpful Target lady. “????” “Where were the instructions?”

Do other people just simply know to do this? How did they learn?

(Oh, they’re just old, thought helpful Target lady. We don’t expect old people to know stuff like this. That’s why we’re here.)

And we got invited to the baby shower from neighbors we don’t even know, couldn’t pick out of a lineup. Why? Miss Manners, help!

Over the last couple of years I’ve rediscovered the pleasures of reading. The last twelve months I’ve tackled some biggies—Moby Dick, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Don Quixote, and to punish me further, am now engaged in 1250 pages of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Reading has taken the place of shooting. I’m editing photographs that I’ve taken, but during Covid I spent hours at Aquatic Park, in gardens, learning new techniques, experimenting with upgraded software. And I didn’t read that much. Now I am.

Little things I’ve learned over the past weeks:

• If you lightly spray coffee beans before you grind them the coffee is richer

• If you leave your bed unmade for a couple of hours, the freshly made bed becomes more sanitary

• Wait thirty minutes after your last bite before brushing your teeth, giving saliva a chance to break down and soften food left in your mouth

I’ve been thinking about me and my body. Religions talk about body and soul. I’m not thinking of the me as a soul. It’s just the me that my body carries around inside it. A line from a poem that awakened me to this: The poet is taking a bath. She says about her body, “I look down at it from inside my face.” From inside her face. Her face is part of her body. The looking isn’t. It comes from somewhere else, the part of her that the body carries.

We have love-hate relationships with our bodies. Advertisers focus on the latter and make things that lead us to believe will make our bodies better looking, more sexually appealing. Hint: It’s a scam. Of course there are things that do make our body better—eating the right foods, exercise, sleep, and bathing. Those do work. Better than extensions, false eyelashes.

I’m not tackling beauty products, although I’m grateful that Jadyne has never used them. However, if applying makeup or coloring your hair or the host of other things you can do to your body makes you feel better about yourself, then I have no quarrel with that.

I don’t like to wear clothes with advertisers’ names on them, but I have worn Giants hats and jerseys. I don’t put bumper stickers on my car. I’ve never thought of my body as a billboard, either, or a moving canvas. No tattoos.

I have come to appreciate my body. It takes me where I want to go, including up and down hills, flights of stairs, into and out of cars. It swims a mile a couple of times a week, I refer to it in the third person, as me is carried around inside it. I’m glad it knows how to swim. It knows how to eat. I treat its teeth with floss, toothpaste, caring for it as best I know how. Not always. I give it too much ultra processed food—Kettle chips, Dots pretzels.

My body knows how to adjust to changes. “The New Normal” is a fluid expression, one that Chris Anderson used when one morning I woke up with tinnitus. That new normal continued with a hip replacement, plastic surgery, a broken ankle, psoriasis, various cuts, bruises, and blood blisters. There are many more new normals to come, adjustments to make, accommodations to accept. My body is doing the best it can, and for that I am grateful.

Yesterday

I currently have 106,645 photographs in a folder titled “My Lightroom Photos.” Thousands more were taken on film but not scanned, invisible witnesses to what I saw. I divided the images into categories, then subdivided them. “Travel” is one folder; under it are the places we’ve gone, say Turkey, Seville, Bhutan, etc. Several weeks ago I began to examine, discard, scan, and improve previously unseen and unremembered photographs of my family. Some are of Jadyne Jeung, my fianceé.

I posted about 100 of them on my website under the title, Yesterday. The images date from before we were married, each of our three children at various stages of life, focussing on the years we lived on either Brush Creek Road or Dutton Avenue in Santa Rosa. The latest are two from John’s UC Berkeley days, rugby games. Most end in middle school.

Jason in a crib, our four dogs, Jennifer and her blanket, Jason wrestling, Jennifer cheering, John in Tang Soo Do, kids reading and being read to, on playgrounds, in the studio, smearing spaghetti on their faces, spraying hoses, laughing, crying, looking sad, pensive, playful, and happy.

They haven’t seen most of these images. I’ve shown them hundreds more, but I wanted them to see these in particular, hoping that at their ages (John turns 45, Jennifer, 48, and Jason 50), they will see something that reminds them of what I hope they remember as a joyful, loving, and happy childhood, and remember that the adults in these photos (Jay, me, Teeny, and our mothers), loved them.

There are other adults that should be there, but I don’t have images of them with the kids—Al, Greg, Sean, and my brothers Jack and Bill, all who loved them as we did. In no particular order you can see them at…

P.S. More than thirty of these were taken when I was either selling furniture in Middletown, Ohio, getting a Masters’ Degree from Miami University in Oxford, or teaching at either Oxford’s Talawanda HS or Santa Rosa’s Cardinal Newman HS, years before I hung out my shingle as a professional photographer. Photography has been my life. Still is.

Headed to the White House

The three people photographed below are Congressman Doug Bosco, Senator and Democratic Presidential Nominee Walter Mondale, and Unknown.

Forty years ago Doug Bosco hosted a private meeting for California donors to Walter Mondale’s campaign. I was hired to photograph Mondale with the big money donors. I thought that this would be a wonderful opportunity to impress Mondale with the high quality of my images that when he beat Reagan he would consider me for White House photographer.

I arrived at Bosco’s beautiful home overlooking the Russian River early and set up a couple of strobes with photographic umbrellas, thinking that on camera flash photographs, such as the one above, wouldn’t allow for the quality of images that I imagined. Shortly afterwards one of Mondale’s staff saw the umbrellas and said, “Get this shit out of here.” So much for that.

I had hoped that Jadyne would have been able to accompany me as my assistant. She could help change film backs, but the Secret Service wouldn’t give her permission. Nevertheless, I was able to acquit myself alone with images, prints, all that was expected.

Two moments stand out forty years later. Not having an assistant meant that the time-consuming process of winding film, then loading a new roll into the camera was a challenge to do quickly. I turned to a man leaning against a wall and asked, “Could you hold my camera while I change film?” He replied, “I have to keep my hands free.” I thought, “Of course you do. You have an AR-15 tucked into your waist band.”

Later in the evening, when all the photographs had been taken, I stood out on the deck taking in the summer breeze. Mondale walked out by himself, and began talking to me about his boyhood growing up in Minnesota. I forget what he said, but I remember enjoying this unexpected conversation, and thinking, “I love my job.”

P.S. As far as the White House photographer job went…After the election the Washington Post reported, “Mondale’s defeat at the hands of the incumbent Republican, Ronald Reagan, was a historic whupping. Reagan won 49 of the 50 states, a total of 525 electoral college votes, leaving only 13 for Mondale, from his home state and the District.” Later Mondale said, “I wanted to run for President in the worst way. And I did.”

Synopsis

I just discovered slides that document how I photographed high school seniors in our Santa Rosa home at the end of the last century. These are copies of prints, unretouched, absent Photoshop embellishment, but they represent how I spent much of twenty-six years of Julys, Augusts, Septembers, and Octobers when June graduating classes want to create the “Memories that Last a Lifetime.” Or not.

Our backyard. Stump, autumn leaves, barefoot girl, photogtapher.

This is pretty much how it worked. I'm behind my manual focus Mamiya RB67 with a lens hood, Kodak film, tripod, kitchen stepladder, and significantly more hair. My assistant is holding a white fabric reflector, taking ambient light and reflecting it into the face of the victim, or subject. Whatever. I will take ten different images of her outside, and ten in more traditional clothes, usually a drape or a tuxedo, inside. She’ll receive twelve 4x5 color prints from which she’ll choose her portrait package.

Photographs were presented in folios made by Art Leather. Available for purchase.

Seniors could include friends or relatives for a couple of the images. This is typical of the lighting I used inside. All strobe lights and film. Strobes were measured with a light meter. It was like flying with instruments. I had to rely on the light readings, knowing that each light was producing a predictable amount of light balanced with the others. I didn’t see this image (or any other) until the film was developed, the prints made, and then returned to 1524 Dutton Avenue.

A main light through an umbrella (soffbox) provided the main illumination. A fill light, again through an umbrella, lightens the shadows cast by the main light. A third light with a colored gel strikes a black background. A fourth light in a boom over the heads of the subjects illuminates the hair. A fifth light strikes an edge of illumination on the girl’s hair to the right.

If he plays the drums he brings his drums. If he raises pigs, he brings his pigs. If he drives a Ferrari he brings his Ferrari.

And if he’s a volunteer fireman, her brings (what else?) his dalmatian.

Most people chose Sitting 3. Ten shots indoors, ten outdoors. Always hoping for good weather. Hey, it’s California in the summer. Not a problem.

Sittings were Tuesday-Fridays. I often photographed weddings on Saturday. Sunday and Monday off. Working from our home brought its own problems. Clients figured that they could come whenever they chose “because you live there.”

None of this could have been done without Jadyne She answered the phone, booked appointments, greeted clients at the door, helped them with clothes, makeup and hair, dressed boys in the tux, helped girls in the drape, sorted through proofs, created folios, sent postcards, encouraged orders, took checks, credit cards, and endured both ill-mannered students, parents, and animals. She did all without complaint, recognizing that David Buchholz Photography was providing us with the ability to pay for three college educations, take one international trip a year, and save enough money to pay for the life we’re living today in our seventies.

DBP photographed high school proms, homecomings, winter formals, and father-daughter events (where I photographed Joe Montana). Eric Sedletsky, an airbrush artist, sold me on painting trompe l’oeil airbrushed backgrounds on 16’ x 8’ muslins, and a new business was born. I not only used these backgrounds, but Jadyne and I created a business that still exists today. I knew that they were unique and desirable, and that other photographers would like them as well, so we rented them and made more copies of popular ones. Eric quit. Enter Uttiya, my connection in India. We went to Delhi twice. At the turn of the century we recognized that the background rentals could support us in retirement. They did. We have about 600 backgrounds in inventory.

One of Eric’s best. And most popular.

I have nothing to do with the day-to-day operation of the business. Jason runs it. I just own it.

Running a business from home had its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, with Jadyne as the office manager and the studio at home, we saved on two of the biggest expenses. The downside can be summarized in this episode on Thanksgiving.

A student came to our door while we were celebrating a family Thanksgiving dinner. He asked, “Are you open?” I replied, “It’s Thanksgiving”, giving him the opportunity to answer his own question. Time to leave 1524 Dutton Avenue, Santa Rosa, and David Buchholz Photography behind.*

*Footnotes. Memorable moments that I’ve taken with me. Photographing Walter Mondale, the Democratic nominee for President in 1980, Joe Montana and his daughters, an evening with Tommy Smothers, and having the only camera permitted in a memorial service for first fatality of the Gulf War. I met and mixed with people who were in different social strata than I was, a mixed bag, especially when I was stiffed by Fred Furth, an attorney and winemaker, who insisted that he would only pay me if I gave him the original negatives. I didn’t. He didn’t either.

"Thanks for the Tip, Everybody!" (2)

‘I’m not getting peer pressured by a tablet anymore’: Woman picks out greeting card at grocery store and heads to self-checkout. The register asks for a tip

'I booked a hotel room ONLINE and it ask for a tip. Like who am I tipping? A website?'

Gotts is a popular fast-food (think burgers) restaurant in the Bay Area. The first Gotts was a roadside stand in Napa, which still exists, but now Gotts has a presence in SF’s ferry building. The burgers are pricey, but good. We went to one in San Rafael recently. A lighted screen reveals the menu. Customers stand in front of what used to be called a “cash register” and give their orders to an employee, who presents a card reader. It also displays potential tip amounts. Subjoined to those are comments ranging from nothing to “Wow!” depending on how much tip the customer chooses. To be fair, there is a smaller box with the words “No Tip” that the customer can choose. The employee stands in front of the customer, watching what he chooses.

Tipping for what?

The cashier gives the customer a vibrating device that is activated when the order is complete. At that time the customer walks to another part of the restaurant, picks up his order, napkins, catsup, plasticware, salt, pepper, added condiments (think tabasco), water, and returns a time or two more because he can’t carry it all at once, sits down and consumes his meal, then carries papers, containers, and wrappers to the garbage can. Some wet napkins and wipe down the table before leaving. No employee interaction whatsoever.

Tipping for what?

I have always tipped because I received service, more than normal if it was good, less if it wasn’t. Gotts didn’t serve me anything. The employees did the absolute minimum that their job required, and there was no interaction with the customer. This is becoming a rule, not an exception called “tipflation.”

"It's a relatively new phenomenon," said Dipayan Biswas, a marketing and business professor at the University of South Florida. "I see it becoming more widespread."

“If you thought airplanes were a tip-free zone, you might want to grab some singles before boarding. Consumer Reports say budget carrier Frontier Airlines is now giving passengers the option to tip flight attendants for serving refreshments. "In the drive through and they've been asking for a tip," said another TikTok poster.”

More

1. A waitress’s breast size correlates positively with tip size.

2. Husbands tip more when dining with other women than their wife.

3. A butcher’s daughter’s car was impounded for a parking violation. After paying nine hundred dollars, including a “convenience fee” additional gratuity options showed on the screen when he inserted his card.

4. Tip prompts have been spotted at a Boy Scout popcorn sale, Sonic Drive-Ins, a UPS Dtore, and self-checkout kiosks at Newark International Airport.

Final Words

A well-regarded black East Bay restaurateur had this to say:

"We use the service charge to pay a really consistent wage, and I just think that tipping has a really nasty history that we just don't want to continue," he said. "Tipping in the United States started as a way to not pay newly freed slaves ... It started with the railroad system in the 1880s ... It spread into restaurants and hotels next, where there were a lot of Black people working that they didn't view as skilled workers who should be paid a wage. So, it's basically a continuation of slavery."

Instead, Davis instituted a 20% service charge, a move that almost 50% of diners polled about tipping would prefer.

At a New York coffee shop the owner said, “Wages should be a fair trade for work. Tipping is sort of like pity for somebody who’s not making a decent wage. It’s clearly just a way to shift more power into the hands of the people who already hold power.”

The Times I Didn't Die

The first time I didn’t die was at Camp Matrena. I was a candy-loving little boy, sucking on a butterscotch ball. Still love butterscotch. My mother told me that it had gotten caught in my throat, that I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. I was turning blue. A counselor picked me up by my legs and held me upside down while he smacked me across the back. Butterscotch ball flew out. From that point on, my mother would strike the balls through the paper with a blunt instrument, breaking the candy into small pieces.

The second time I didn’t die is one that I remember. I was on my bike, crossing Ridge Avenue near the Montgomery Road traffic light. Cars were stopped for the light, so I darted out on my bike in between two waiting cars and into the left turn lane. A driver pulling up to make that turn slammed on her brakes, stopping just in time. I didn’t see her because, well, I don’t think I even looked. “You stupid shit!” I screamed to myself.

The third time I didn’t die was when I held up the Pleasant Ridge Post Office with my Mattell Burp Gun, which held roll caps. I opened one door, began firing, then ran to the other door, still blasting away. I proudly told my brother Jack about my criminal episode, and he replied, “You dumb shit! They could have killed you!”

The fourth time I didn’t die* was during my freshman year in college. Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington is about eight hundred miles north of Millbrae, where I was living with my parents. A Bay Area student arranged a charter flight back to San Francisco for Thanksgiving on a Vance International Airways plane, a DC-3. (According to Wikipedia, “As of April 1967, the company's fleet was itemized as one Douglas DC-3 (N57131),[3] one Douglas DC-7, and one Curtiss C-46, with two DC-7s on order.” It was my first time on an airplane.

Here’s a photo of a DC-3.

The difference between this DC-3, and good old N57131 is that this one’s engines are both working, both propellers are turning.

The flight from Walla Walla to SFO was uneventful. According to Apple Maps the distance takes about 11 hours to drive. The flight took a couple of hours less. I remember flying over a freeway, thinking that we were in an unsponsored race with a Volkswagen we followed. I could make it out down below.

We boarded the return flight to Walla Walla at dusk, took off over the Bay when I, sitting on the left side of the plane in one of the first seats, noticed that the propeller was spinning so quickly that it looked as if it wasn’t moving at all. I looked more closely. It wasn’t an illusion. I mentioned to the one flight attendant that this was a piece of information I thought the pilot should have, and she looked, too, apparently agreeing, then entered the cockpit. The plane banked steeply to the left, leaving us sideways and vertical. At the end of the wing I could see the water of San Francisco Bay, the darkened waves, the whitecaps. We were returning to SFO, flying on one engine. As we landed I noticed the many fire engines lining both sides of the runway.

We spent the night in the airport while the lone DC-7 was summoned to pick us up. A much larger plane, it gave us whole rows to stretch out in on the shorter flight back. When we landed in Walla Walla there were no portable ramps that could reach the passenger door of the DC-7, so we shinnied down poles attached to luggage carts that could almost reach the door.

The Fifth Time I didn’t die was shortly after Jadyne and I were married. I had accepted a temporary position with a college friend who was opening a wholesale furniture store. I could sell furniture. Jadyne would pursue a Master’s Degree. I would work on bolstering a virtually non-existent photography portfolio that the Rhode Island School of Design might look favorably enough on to grant me an admission the next fall.

We rented a U-Haul van (we had no car), and filled it with next-to-nothing—a wooden rocking chair, some clothes, a couple of guitars, and some other miscellaneous gifts and stuff that were generously given us, as we had only begun our lives together a month or two earlier.

Our first night found us at a motel in Wendover, Nevada. The next morning we headed down the grade and began the forty mile straight-as-an-arrow drive past the Bonneville Salt Flats and into Utah. I was driving 70 mph.

Looking west. Wendover is tucked into the mountains about ten miles from where this image was taken.

Jadyne was talking. Suddenly we both realized that although we hadn’t slowed a bit we were now facing perpendicularly to the highway. The road had a sheen of moisture on it, the result of either humidity or a brief shower the previous night. Jadyne stopped talking. I took my foot off the accelerator and began turning in the opposite direction, into the skid. The van swung around 180 degrees. I turned the wheel the other way. Again the swing. We were slowing down. This continued until we came to a stop, still upright, off the road on the shoulder, facing the highway. In the moments that followed we both remember the face of a man who had been behind us on the highway, as he turned and scowled at us as he passed.

It looked like this. The engine was in the front between the two seats. There was little weight in the back, so as Ralph Nader might have said, it was “unsafe at any speed.”

We were both okay. We spent that night in Rawlins, Wyoming, and we both offered prayers for our safety. We remembered the occasion by naming our first pet, a basset hound, Rawlins, Wyoming.

For many years after that I didn’t die. Jadyne almost did when she failed to realize that Rawlins, Wyoming (the dog) had fallen ninety feet off a cliff onto a sandy beach. Jay didn’t realize that we were only a few feet away from the cliff, which was disguised by a row of trees at the edge. She grabbed a tree at the same time she discovered the cliff, holding on so she wouldn’t follow Rawlins. We took a trail down, found a dog with just a broken rib, and sat down, breathing deeply, counting blessings.

Jadyne was sitting about ten feet away from me. At her feet was a coiled snake, perhaps a rattler, as they are common in the area. She hadn’t seen the snake. I said to her in a calm, level voice. “Listen to me. Do exactly as I say. Stand up slowly, turn, and walk over to me.” She did, a puzzled look on her face. I pointed to the snake. She broke down, tears, yes, but she didn’t die.

The sixth time I didn’t die was near the Appling cottage at Kennedy Meadows. Situated on the side of the Stanislaus river, the cottage that the Applings owned came through a sweetheart deal, costing 1$ a year for the right to be in a private secluded spot high in the mountains at the bottom of Sonora Pass. We honeymooned there.

A padlocked gate barred the riff-raff from crossing a bridge to the side of the river where the Applings’ cottage sat. Household garbage had to be carried out. I had the bag. Instead of unlocking the padlock and opening the gate, it was customary to grab one of the poles that held the gate, then swing around over the river and step to the other side. I did that, except I lost my grip on the pole and fell backwards towards the boulders below that lined the edge of the river. A kindly tree reached out and intercepted my falling body and held me suspended two or three feet below the bridge and ten feet above the rocks. I was okay. I dropped the garbage.

The seventh time I didn’t die was a year or two after we moved to Santa Rosa. Jadyne and I were sound asleep when two stoned card dealers, coming home from the Pastime Bar tried to light a joint in their car as they rounded a curve by out house. They hit a mound of dirt in front of my neighbor Duffy’s house, were thrown out of the car, which continued, its accelerator stuck, into our house, stopping while the rear wheels spun into the lawn by the front door, the racing engine belching smoke. I ran to the car. “Turn the engine off!” I screamed. Nothing. I opened the driver’s door. No driver. I fumbled in the darkness for the keys. No luck. I thought that the car was going to explode. I went back inside, grabbed a flashlight, ran back to the car, all the time expecting an explosion. I turned the engine off, turned and looked across the yard, finding one body on the lawn and another on Brush Creek Road.

When the ambulance arrived for the two card dealers the firemen wanted to take me to the hospital. Jay knew that I was in a state of shock, otherwise okay. That was the beginning of my sleep issues. Not fatal, not this time. And the card dealers? Survived.

The eighth time I didn’t die took place on the Rogue River, (John remembers that it was the Upper Klamath) this time with my whole family. The thrilling rafting adventure we were promised in Ashland understated what we were to go through. The size of the rapids along the river is determined by the outflow from a reservoir above. Too much water and the rapids are smaller. Too little, and they go from threes to fours, or in the case of the first rapid, four to five. We were in the last boat among four or five as we stared down the first rapid.

The raft hit a rock, and I can see Jason flying out backwards into the river. Moments later the boat flipped, and we were all thrown into the water at the top of a lengthy, raging Class Four (perhaps five?) rapid. Although wearing a helmet and a life jacket I suffered a concussion. As I struggled against the current I remember thinking that someone in my family was likely going to die. Jason and Jennifer managed okay. . Jadyne was bobbing up and down, searching for John, who was young, a poor swimmer. John’s face was bloodied. He was hysterical, but okay. And me? I was drowning, and I knew it. A strange sense of acceptance swept over me. Moments later someone from the first boats plucked us out. I didn’t die then only because it takes a little more time to drown, and I wasn’t in long enough to finish the job. I had a concussion and severe headaches for several months.

The ninth, and possibly the most recent time I didn’t die, took place on Grizzly Peak Road in Berkeley. I was riding my bike just south of Euclid when a lady turned into her driveway right in front of me. My bike hit her right front tire, I flew over the handlebars, my head smashing into her windshield. I bounced off the hood and onto the street. I moved my fingers, toes, took inventory, realized that I wasn’t badly hurt. “I didn’t see you,” she said. Duh.

A little plastic surgery, that’s all. When cyclists and cars meet in motion the cyclist usually loses. But I didn’t die.

There were probably other times I didn’t die in these last seventy-seven and a half years, when head-on collisions took place moments after I drove by, when lightning struck trees, not me, when through chance, luck, fate, genetics, or some other unforeseeable reason I’ve managed to stay alive. I have countless reasons to be grateful. Countless.

*I was reminded about these multiple escapes while reading Cutting for Stone, a novel by Abraham Verghese. In it is this passage:

“But just at the moment she was thinking these thoughts, anticipating her arrival in Addis Ababa…she found herself suddenly invoking Lord Shiva’s name: the plane, the DC-3, the trustworthy camel of the frontier sky, was shuddering as if mortally wounded. She looked out. The propeller on her side fluttered to a stop, and a puff of smoke came out of the beefy engine cowling.”

Been there. Done that.

January 10, 1988

Sunday. Kids are home from school. We drove to Berkeley to the Lawrence Hall of Science for what was a typical weekend family “excursion.” Driving the unfamiliar streets of Berkeley, I saw a pedestrian, a man crossing the street in front of me, as he hurled a rock at our car right below the back seat window where Jennifer was sitting, causing a dent, knocking some paint off. Thirty-six years ago. I remember his face.

We stopped for lunch at Nation’s, a restaurant on San Pablo and Central Avenues, and ordered burgers. The waitress brought us the wrong order. And the wrong bill. We straightened everything out, finished, and headed up 101 to Santa Rosa. Jadyne took the car and drove the three kids to Books Inc., in Cottingtown Shopping Center. I stayed home.

A few minutes after she left Greg called. “Teeny’s dead,” he cried, “ She was killed in an avalanche near Pearl Pass where she and Roy were cross-country skiing. Roy (her boyfriend) was killed, too. They’ve found him, but they haven’t found her.” “Are you sure?” I questioned, stunned. We had just spent ten days with her at her home in Glenwood Springs over the Christmas holidays, and we knew that she was looking forward to this trip.

Knowing that the ski huts that they would stay in have to be booked months in advance, Teeny, Roy, and a group of skiers disregarded avalanche warnings and took to the mountains. Teeny, an expert skier, was in front. Roy was with her. John, a friend from Denver and Teeny’s dog, Pooh, were all buried in the snow. Roy was found because Teeny had given him her avalanche beacon, and the signal alerted rescuers to his body.

January 1, 1988. The snow that’s falling in this photograph was falling at Pearl Pass, too.

I poured myself a very stiff drink, called Books, Inc., and asked the clerk, “Is there a Chinese woman there with three children?” “Yes,”he replied. “Please tell them to come home immediately,” I said, unable to disguise the urgency in my voice.

“Teeny was killed in an avalanche today,” I said to all four, and the immediate avalanche of tears and grief was immeasurable. I felt so bad for them. They loved her so much. I loved Teeny, too. I felt bad for Greg and Alyce, too, yet Alyce didn’t even know yet. My job.

As we climbed aboard the Amtrak Zephyr that New Year’s Day evening I shouted, “All Chinks on the Tracks!” And this was the last time we saw her, nine days before the avalanche.

Maroon Bells. This is the country where Teeny was headed, the entrance to Pearl Pass whee the avalanche occurred.

Alyce was with Al in Oceanside. Al answered the phone and handed it to Alyce. The words came out again, the tears and grief followed, too. This was just the beginning. We went to bed, turned on the TV, watched the news, numbed by the day. The story of the avalanche was on KTVU 10:00 news with Elaine Corral and Dennis Richmond. I can see the TV story as I’m typing this. Elaine is reporting about the avalanche.

(The memory clings to unexpected and unscripted choices. John remembers the book he bought, “George’s Marvelous Medicine,” and that he had asked if had to go to school the next day. Jennifer remembers that I told Jadyne first, then shared it with them. Jason remembers Jadyne clutching John.)

Song and Charles. Everybody called him “Booboo.”

The next day I went to the Jam Kee restaurant, owned and operated by Song and Charles Bourbeau, Teeny, Greg, and Jadyne’s godparents. I found them as the restaurant closed, cleaning up after the last customers left. The words again. Charles said, “I have no reason to live anymore.” I left. Charles was admitted to the hospital later that week and died a few days later.

(Song and Charles were married in Reno the first time, as it was illegal to marry across racial lines in California. They remarried after the laws changed.

When Song died John took possession of their 1964 Chevrolet, which he named “Hagfubr” for “Hoopty Ass Ghetto Funk Bomb Ride.”)

The days following were a blur. We all returned to Colorado. Aspen Search and Rescue continued to look for Teeny. The high school gym was reserved for her memorial service, the only auditorium large enough to accommodate the many who loved her. We put on the service. We all spoke. In this photograph taken by the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent photographer, Jason, age 13, is reading his piece; Greg is comforting Jennifer and John.

Aspen Search and Rescue continued to look for her every weekend. We came back to Colorado in the summer and had a picnic at the avalanche site on the Fourth of July. The poles used by rescuers to probe for a body were still there. We traipsed through the snow, poking holes here and there. No luck.

On the path to Pearl Pass.

Using the probes in the snow. She was under there somewhere.

She was found over Labor Day, nine months after she died. A triathlon was named in her honor, a bench placed on a hiking trail, and the Emergency Room in the hospital, named for her, shows her photograph. And thirty-six years later we all still wish we could turn the clock back.

P.S. The more things change the more they stay the same…Another January 10th, another avalanche, another loss…

The Caretaker

The Former Guy published a video on his social media platform, Truth Social, which is neither. As a camera pans in to the earth from space a narrator says this

Before we address the “thought” let’s look at the grammar. Perhaps God had finished a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbon beers before he messed up the parallelism implied in “stay past midnight” followed by “a meeting of the heads of state.” “Stay” requires a second verb, not the noun “meeting.” What God wrote doesn’t make sense. I’m taking all the Pabst out of his fridge.

And why would he want to fight one Marxist? Which one? What about all the other Marxists? Wouldn’t he want to fight them, too? After all, he’s a caretaker.

The Thought Behind the Quote

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It Was A Very Good Year

For me, yes. I have my health (I weighed in this morning at 148.7 lbs), I have Jadyne (weight not a consideration, and don’t count the word “have” as misogynistic. I don’t “have” her. Actually she has herself), and to quote a friend, this morning “I woke up!” Hoping to keep doing that in 2024. I’m hoping to swim a hundred miles this year.

It isn’t an exciting New Year’s Eve. It never is for us. Steve Rubenstein, a former writer for the SF Chronicle, once compared it to watching the numbers turn over on an odometer. And speaking of that, we do have a new odometer, one that hasn’t hit 100 miles yet. After Jennifer was t-boned we sold her and Andrew “Sparky,” our beloved Tesla 3, then bought a new one for ourselves.

I had cataract surgery last February and now have 20-20 vision, but need glasses to read. I have my family. Three kids, two spouses, six grandchildren, all well, healthy, and thriving. The garden thrives. Stuff that I’ve planted is still alive. The Helleborus is blooming. The rains of 2023 have filled our reservoirs. No more saving shower water. A wonderful trip to Turkey last spring. The healthy economy has preserved much of our savings. Joy that the lives of our friends and family brings us. The gratitude we have that we are with them at this time and at this place.

If all that is so good what could possibly be bad? The virus that is MAGA, challenges in the health of close friends, the continuous difficulties facing our clients at Dorothy Day, an 18 month presence of a port-o-let outside our driveway. Its absence over Christmas was a gift.

Democracy is on the table in 2024. Never have Americans faced the very real prospect that a Trump victory will end the democratic experiment we’ve been enjoying, say, for the last 248 years. Fascism and ignorance is on our doorstep. That’s what’s bad. The writing is on the wall. I just can’t read it. Yet. Even with 20-20 vision.