The Draft

I no longer have my Selective Service Card, but unlike many in my generation I didn't burn it.  It was a small, wallet-sized card, something that would fit in next to a Sohio Credit Card, or one for Pogues, containing vital information—my birthday and social security number.  For men between the ages of 18 and 26 it was a card that would admit them to a very exclusive club—the US Army.

Deferments abounded for those between the ages of 18 and 26, but they changed as quickly as the spring weather in Oklahoma.  For those who did not wish to serve in the military, there were conscientious objectors, survivors of military who had died, hardship cases, ministers, veterans, immigrants, dual nationals, and more commonly, college students, people serving in Vista or the Peace Corps, and for a while, young married men. But like the weather, all that was subject to frequent change.

When I turned 18 I was a freshman at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.  My deferment lasted through my sophomore year, or my 19th birthday.  At that time I decided not to return to Whitman, worked during the summer in Cincinnati, then found myself reclassified as 1-A, which meant "draft bait."  I walked up the street, enrolled at UC, and for three years found myself exempted from the draft.  The rules changed again.  Now college students were draft exempt only if they had a certain grade point high enough.  (I don't remember what it was.)  At that time I had an English professor named Claude Allen, who so objected to the war effort that he refused to participate, choosing instead to award each and every one of his students an "A" to bolster their grade point, perhaps to make them out of reach of the long arms of the draft.  (He announced those students that would have received an "A" regardless, and I was so honored).

But the rules changed again.  Now it wasn't GPA anymore, but a three hour test, like the SAT, that male college students were required to take.  I took it.  I remember such questions as, "a machine gun is to a tank as...something else is to something else."  I was supposed to pick the right choice. I passed.

I graduated in 1969, the year I turned 23.  I had applied to teach English in the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece, which might have been a deferment, and the Peace Corps, which clearly was a deferment.  I was accepted to the Peace Corps in 1969 as an English teacher, bound for the islands of Tonga in the South Pacific, and although evading the Viet Nam war wasn't the first thing on my mind, it played a part.

So in October, 1969, we flew to the island of Molokai for three months of Peace Corps training and two years of service.  Another weather change.  Bob Nygard, on of the trainees, was summoned by his draft board the day he arrived in Hawaii.  He flew back to Pittsburg the next day for a physical exam.  Others discovered that even though the Peace Corps was a legal deferment, some draft boards ignored the legality of it all and summoned young men for physicals and service.

Marriage was a deferment, at least until August 26, 1965 when LBJ ended the deferment. Hundreds of couples, planning to marry, lined the streets of Las Vegas for a 30 second ceremony. For some, the honeymoon was short-lived.  As the need for more soldiers increased, the marriage deferments ended.  All those who rushed to Las Vegas to be married discovered afterwards that it didn't matter.  They were eligible.  Ever changing weather.

Meanwhile, I was given another 1A draft notice and a date to appear before the Selective Service Committee.  I had run out of options.  I wasn't willing to be drafted, and I believed that the war was both wrong and immoral.  I was planning to plead as a conscientious objector, but without credentials, such as being a Quaker or having volunteered or worked with a number of well-known anti-war organizations, I knew that my plea would go unheeded.  I prepared myself for jail.

And then came the lottery.

Here's the chart showing all the capsules and the results.

Someone in a college fraternity threw a brick through the TV set when September 14th was picked, the number one selection.  My birthday, July 9th, was #277.  What that meant was this: each month a number of soldiers was needed.  Once all the September 14th eligible males were chosen, the second date was selected.  And so on until enough soldiers were drafted.  The next month the process repeated itself, beginning again with September 14th.  It was unlikely that more than fifty birthdays would have been selected each month, each time beginning with September 14th.  In any case, #277 was safe.  

The lottery was held two more times, for those who were too young to be included in the original lottery but who had just turned 18.   The second year Jadyne and I were walking down the street in San Francisco when I spied the San Francisco Chronicle's headlines:  "July 9 is #1" read the banner.  I thought, of course it is.  That's my birthday.  And it was.  18 year olds born on my birthday were the first to be drafted.

The Encounter

I met Jadyne in a Peace Corps training session in 1969.  We were part of Tonga V, fifty-five     young men and women who had signed up to spend two years of our lives as English teachers on one of the one hundred and seventy islands that comprised the Kingdom of Tonga, a Pacific archipelago somewhere between Hawaii and Australia.  To become familiar with Tongan customs and to learn the language we were sent to Ho'olehua, a remote community several miles inland on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.  Our small propeller driven plane almost crashed upon landing, after which the directors of the camp said, "We thought we might be having to wait for Tonga VI".  

During those three months of training we spent approximately six hours a day learning the Tongan language.  You learn conversational Tongan quickly speaking it six hours a day.  The Polynesian words themselves, chockablock full of vowels, reflected both the Tongan culture and the advent of western civilization. "Vacapuna", for example, means "airplane."  In Tongan "vaca" means "flying", and "puna" means "boat", so when Tongans first saw airplanes they connected what they saw to what they knew.

The remainder of our days was spent tending our gardens, raising chickens, and spending time with both the Tongans who had come to Hawaii to teach us the language and the customs of their native country, and the volunteers who were extending their service by three months to show us the ropes.  

In October of 1969 Nixon was president, and the war in Vietnam was raging.  Even though Peace Corps service was supposed to give us a temporary deferment, Bob Nyland had to be in Pittsburgh for a physical exam the day after we arrived; others left because the training wasn't what they expected, or the prospect of living alone on one of the forty-seven inhabited islands didn't agree with them.  We were told that before we went to sleep we were to put tiny bowls of food at our feet so we could hear the rats before they found us. I loved it all.  That is, all except for cauterizing the chickens' beaks so they couldn't peck each other.  

And I loved the Tongan people, too.  They were handsome, physically fit, and were able to adapt easily to life in Hawaii, which was probably not too different from life in Tonga.  I learned to love rice.  I ate spam.  I went spear-fishing with one of the Tongan men, who caught a fish, broke it in half on the spot, and handed me half.  I ate it.  My first sushi.  No wasabi.

There were two psychologists in the group, the Tongan men and women, and the returned PC volunteers.  When I met with one of the psychologists she referred to me as a "Supervol", meaning that I was adapting well, had learned the language, and was well-liked by the Tongans.  

Everyone but Dennis Barloga.  Dennis was a returned Peace Corps volunteer, and he didn't like me. I didn't know that.  I didn't spend much time talking to Dennis during training (nor the other returned volunteers), choosing instead to spend time with the trainees and the Tongans.  But Dennis was watching me, watching, but not saying anything.  

One of the the jobs of the returned volunteers, the Tongans, and the psychologists, was to weed out the people that they thought wouldn't be a good fit for Tonga.  Each of them had "black ball" privileges, meaning that if any one of them decided that you must leave, then you must leave. By mid-January Dennis had had enough of me.  He said, 'David, you're not going."  It was the first time that Dennis had ever talked to me.  He had never given any kind of warning.  "David, you're leaving."  No appeal.  A plane reservation had already been made for me to fly from Molokai to Honolulu, then back to SF.  I was surprised and devastated.

I turned to my best friend among the trainees, Jadyne.  The night before my plane left we walked the dusty two-lane roads of Molokai.  In the morning she rode with Jack, the head of the program, to the airport, and I said "goodbye" to both of them, boarded the plane, and tried to figure out what I was going to do next.  I knew I would be 1-A, draft bait, and I knew that I would never serve in a military that was fighting an unjust war.  

I returned home, applied for a passport, and thought to leave for Rome, where a friend was teaching English.  Meanwhile, my thoughts turned back to Jadyne, and the support and friendship she gave me that one very unhappy night.  I wished her well and invited her to return to the US and go with me to Rome.  Short story.  She did.  We decided to marry.  We prepared to go to Rome afterwards, but I was so in love with photography that I thought about trying to go to the Rhode Island School of Design, get an advanced degree, and make a living as an art photographer.  That didn't work.  We both got Master's degrees in Ohio where we taught for some years before returning to California.

Fast Forward five years.  One day we strolled down Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf and found a touristy photo shop owned by Dennis Barloga.  I didn't realize it in PC training, but Dennis was a photographer, too.  Now he was selling San Francisco scenes from one of the most visited sites in one of the most visited cities in America.  I recognized Dennis.  He didn't see me.  

Years went by.  I was reluctant to tell people that I'd been "kicked out of the Peace Corps", and those who knew invariably responded, "How in the world can you get kicked out of the Peace Corps?"  At some point I stopped being embarrassed.  I was comfortable with myself, my life.  I had enough good points to counter the bad.  I recognized that David Buchholz wasn't defined by this one experience.  I was at peace.  

In 2000 Jason was living in Berkeley near a tony neighborhood called Rockridge  a chi-chi kind of Carmel North.  One of the stores, "Barloga et Fils", sold framed art photographs.  Recognizing the name, Jason walked in and the bearded middle-aged owner said, "Can I help you?"  Jason walked around the store, looking at the images, and returned to the man behind the counter.  "Can I help you?" he repeated.  "You already have," Jason said, walking out.

Father Finn, Bishop Hurley, and My One Very Bad Night

Today for Throwback Thursday I posted a photograph of Father Finn and Sister Francis, a Catholic priest and a nun who were the principals of two Catholic high schools in Santa Rosa.  I taught English at Cardinal Newman for five years and was the Department Chairman for at least two of those years.  The photograph shows them both in clown outfits.  I was also the yearbook advisor, and they were both kind enough to dress up as clowns (face paint and all) for a yearbook theme that I can't even remember. 

They were both very good people, although I only worked for Father Finn.  A number of Ursuline students took classes at Cardinal Newman (and vice-versa), as the two schools shared common grounds.  Sister Francis, as I knew her, was a kind and loving administrator.

When I posted the photo today I wanted to note when Father Finn died.  I remember his funeral (and Bernie Ward's cell phone going off as the casket was wheeled down the aisle at St. Eugene's Cathedral), but I couldn't remember the year.  When I googled "Father Willam Finn Santa Rosa" an article from the San Francisco Chronicle popped up, and I learned more from that article than I had ever known.

I left my teaching position in 1980.  By 1981 the truth that at least two priests in the Diocese had molested Cardinal Newman students became known.  When the molestations were brought to Father Finn's attention he went to see Bishop Hurley.  From the article in the Chronicle:

"The Roman Catholic priest who blew the whistle on two fellow priests in Sonoma County says he has become a sort of ecclesiastical outcast, unable to function as a priest and denied a clergy job in his native Santa Rosa community.  "All I did was the right thing—to defend young people.  And it came back to haunt me.  If that's the price, so be it.  I sleep well at night."

Bishop Hurley promised to investigate but did nothing. A lawsuit accused the church of sheltering the two priests by transferring them to new parishes after learning of their alleged sexual abuse.  And Finn?  He worked as a resort chef in Washington, as a pastor in Juneau, for a home warranty company, then ran a Santa Rosa restaurant.

There may be other reasons, Finn acknowledged, but "I was turned down at least partly due to the fact that I had spoken publicly about the alleged molestations. I am far from a perfected human being. I am not pushing myself as a saint, but I have never harmed anyone."

I'm not bitter. My love for the church and desire to serve remain as constant as ever. I'd like to do whatever I can to help the church address these problems."

He died shortly thereafter.  When the article was written, however, Hurley had retired, and "has not been available for comment."

Ah, Bishop Hurley.  The year was 1978, and on November 18th of that year Jim Jones and over 900 of the residents of Jonestown died in Guyana.  Nine days later Supervisor Dan White assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.  All this about a month before Christmas.

 At this time Jadyne had a college friend, a very bright scholarly man named Michael Galligan.  Coincidentally, Michael not only became a Catholic priest, but he joined the Santa Rosa Diocese. We had him over for dinner occasionally and enjoyed his conversation.  Michael was in charge of the Diocesan newsletter, and he was responsible for an issue that would come out after Christmas.  Knowing that I was an amateur photographer and musician he asked two favors:  that I accompany the choir on guitar, and second, that I photograph Bishop Hurley delivering his homily during the Midnight Mass Christmas Eve.

I agreed and picked up the sheet music from the choir and learned the music during choir rehearsals.  It wasn't particularly difficult, but totally apropos for voices and an acoustic guitar.  After the Christmas Eve hymn I returned to the pew where Jadyne, her mother Alyce, and my camera bag full of Nikon cameras and lenses were taking in the solemnity and joy of a Christmas Eve church celebration.

I had loaded my Nikon F2 with Tri-X 400 ASA film before the service and had measured the light carefully so I wouldn't have to fiddle when the Bishop began to speak.  As he did, I stood up, camera at the ready, my 135mm Nikkor F2.8 lens in hand, and as I focussed on Bishop Hurley, he stopped and turned to me and said, "Go on, take your picture."  Standing before 3000 Christmas Eve parishioners, many of whom were my students and their parents, I said, "I'm sorry, Bishop, but I was asked to take your photograph for the newsletter."  Ignoring my apology, he turned to those assembled and said, (and I quote, as I remember so well), "He bothers you far more than he bothers me."  I snapped off two or three images, sat down, and tried to remain calm as the flow of blood left all other parts of my body and began a headlong rush to the top of my scalp. To say I was embarrassed or humiliated would have understated how bad I felt, and this at a Christmas Eve Midnight Mass.  

When the service ended I went back to the choir stall and discovered that someone had gouged the soundboard of my 1966 Martin D-28, and at the time the damage didn't mean much to me. We climbed in our 1974 yellow Volvo 145, fastened our seat belts, and set off for Dutton Avenue. To say that this was the most unhappy Christmas I had ever spent would be an understatement.  I was doing a double favor for Fr. Michael Galligan, accompanying the choir and photographing the Bishop.  My precious guitar was damaged.  I was unspeakably humiliated before my students and their parents in front of over three thousand people.  And I had to develop the film and send him some images.

I waited for an apology from Fr. Michael Galligan, who, I assumed would also request that Bishop Hurley call and apologize to me, too.  It wasn't to happen.  I called Bishop Hurley and demanded as kindly as I could that he apologize to me.  "Oh, he said, I was distracted by the Jonestown deaths ad the killings in San Francisco."  "Distracted?  You embarrassed me before everyone I have come to know in the four years since I moved to Santa Rosa, and you have an excuse?"  As far as Fr. Galligan went we gladly excised him from our lives.

Months later as the Cardinal Newman seniors prepared to march for graduation, as a faculty member I was to march in with other teachers, priests, and brothers.  As fate would have it, we walked in two by two, and my marching partner was Bishop Hurley.  He had no idea who I was, had never seen me before, and we left it at that.  This man who destroyed others' lives, this "man of God" who through his indifference about molestation in the priesthood, was personally responsible for the downfall of a really good person.  Father Finn said, "I am not pushing myself as a saint, but I have never harmed anyone."  He harmed no one, but Bishop Hurley did—Father Finn, innocent students, the parishioners, (me) and so many others.

In the movie Spotlight, the film about the molestations in Boston, the credits at the end of the film list other cities where known molestations occurred.  I wasn't at all surprised to see "The Diocese of Santa Rosa" listed.  I've known priests who were involved in those molestations, and I'm still in touch with a number of the victims, who are now in their mid-fifties.  One student, not a victim, who was aware of the molestations asked me on Facebook, "Mr. B, why didn't you do anything?"  I answered, "I didn't know."

The Budget and Meals on Wheels

Our first stop Thursday around 11:15 is at Victoria's apartment.  We pick up the paper in the driveway, climb the steps, ring the bell and hand her both a hot lunch and a cold bag.  In the cold bag is a milk, a piece of fruit, and something sweet.  Victoria always has the TV on, but she hears the doorbell.  She always thanks us.  Victoria has Stage IV cancer.

Our second stop is a few blocks away.  Moffet also lives in a second floor apartment.  She answers the door promptly and thanks us, too.  She's always in her bathrobe.

Heading north to Mr. Mui's house.  We're hopeful that the Albany Senior Citizens van has brought him back from shopping or a doctor's visit before we arrive with his lunch.  If not, he'll have to go to the Albany Senior Center to pick it up.  Mr.  Mui is Chinese.  He bows, makes a prayerful gesture with his hands and says, "Doh Jeh."

Down the street a couple of blocks is Vera.  Vera takes about an entire season to get from her chair, vertical, into her walker, then make it to the door.  But she does.  "Is this today's meal?" she asks, (which, of course, it is, in that it's today, and we're handing her food).  But we say, "Yes, Vera, this is today's meal."  

The last two stops are on the same street a few blocks away.  The first gentleman is Rico, who no longer answers the door.  His daughter does that for him now.  We used to bring meals for his wife, too, but she died a year ago.  I haven't met the couple who live a few doors down.  They're new to the program.

We drive back to the Albany Senior Center, as we've done every Thursday for the past fifteen years and drop off our "hot bags", then head home.  Often, Jadyne and I finish up by going out to lunch ourselves, usually Thai, Vietnamese, or Mexican.  That's our Thursday.

And that's the program that Mr. Trump wants to cut.  The White House Says Cutting Meals on Wheels is “Compassionate.”  “I think it’s probably one of the most compassionate things we can do,” Mulvaney said, of slashing funding for food assistance for the elderly.” No, Mulvaney says, the "compassionate" thing to do is for tax payers, to "go to them and say, look, we're not going to ask you for your hard-earned money anymore. Single mom of two in Detroit, give us your money. We're not going to do that anymore unless they can guarantee that money will be used in a proper function." That, he says, "is about as compassionate as you can get."

Mr. Mulvaney, let's remember that the "single mom in Detroit" is also paying for Mr. Trump's weekends in Florida, and each weekend costs the same as the entire national program of Meals on Wheels.  

The Other Side

I watched a Facebook discussion take place yesterday between one of my high school friends, a bright and funny man who weighs carefully what he wants to say, and one of his "friends", a mom who believes that #45 is our salvation.  I've copied a number of her comments, as much to try to understand what is largely inexplicable to me as well as to recognize that if we are indeed going to make America Great again, it won't be because the two sides have found that elusive common center.  For the life of me I don't think it's there.

From her:  

"He's already worked harder than our previous one. And he's working harder for the people. Thankful we have a president who is for the people. Thankful we have a president who is a Christian. If we are talking traveling. Obama traveled all the time. Trump went directing to work the day he took office. There is proof in Gods Word that Obama went against. Trump is a Christian. We know a Christian by their fruits! It's ok you don't care for our currency President. Now you know how some of us felt for 8 years. Trump will make America. Great again.

My friend expressed his distrust of Mr. Trump because of his lewd comments and behavior and added, "I say that because of his past behavior, and his own statements, politics aside. I have heard things out of his own mouth, and watched while the whole Marla Maples thing unfolded, that would completely disqualify him from having anything to do with any daughter or granddaughter of mine. Same with the boys, for that matter. They might not be the same kind of victim, but I would not want them in Donald Trumps "locker room."

She replied, "We have to remember that all people have made mistakes. He is a human being. He had given his life to God. And he is doing a great job in office so far. He is what this country needs at this time. If you don't agree he best thing to do is pray for him. His latest speech was fantastic. I don't remember a better speech from any former president."  To which, my friend replied, "I was pretty put-off by the shooting of an elephant and brandishing his severed tail in a photograph."

And last, she concluded, "I was put off by the previous one going against the Word of God. Going against Israel for one. God put Trump in office. I'm thankful america has spoken. He is proving to America that he is for America. And he will turn this country back to God. God says in His Word to never go agaiNst Israel. It is Gods promised land. Obama was no friend to Israel. I will agree to disagree with you on this. God knows what He is doing

"God put Trump in office?" Oh my.

From William Butler Yeats,"The Second Coming," 

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

China Twenty-Five Years Ago

In 1992 my American born Chinese wife visited her ancestral home for the first time.  Stepping off the plane, she was greeted by an official who noted that her family had come from Guangzhou, or what we used to call "Canton."  Surprised, Jadyne realized for the first time how the facial features of the Chinese reflected that part of the homeland where they had been born.  

A couple of weeks later we were privileged to meet up with "her family", relatives she'd never met, people whose home showed photographs of her, Teeny, and Greg, but people whose existence was a shadow in her youth.  Jadyne's grandmother, Rose, had married Harry Lee later in life, and Harry had always wanted to go back to China to visit his family, his relatives, his sister, but because his birth certificate was "out of order" he was denied travel.  We were able to make contact with his relatives, though, and we spent one day with them in Guangzhou.

We had hoped to meet them at home, but Harry's sister was in the hospital, having been struck by a bicycle.  Nevertheless, we were able to visit.

The photo doesn't show it, but the floor of the "hospital" room was a filthy linoleum.  There were several beds in the room and no privacy.  Harry's sister is reading a letter that Jadyne brought from her grandfather.

We had been invited to visit Jadyne's cousins, again, people she'd never met.  I don't know their Chinese names, but we met them at Guangzhou's White Swan Hotel, then drove to their apartment, several blocks away.  Both University Professors, he taught architecture, she taught Math.

We had afternoon tea together, and with the help of a translator (talking), were able to share family stories and history.  Recognizing that they were both college educated professionals, I wanted to ask them how they had managed to endure the Chinese Cultural Revolution.  They politely indicated that neither one of them "wanted to talk about it."  They had survived, when so many had not.  

Relics from Mao's Great Leap Forward, from the Red Guard, from the violent Cultural Revolution, still remain in souvenir shops.  Here's one of them, a windup alarm clock: 

Mao's face is flanked by three guided missiles between the 10 and 11.  The second hand is a jet plane trailing a silver jet stream.  To the left of the jet is a disembodied arm from one of the Red Guards.  He's waving one of Mao's Little Red Books, a bible for behavior.  Between the hour and minute hands two Red Guards, each with a red armband, shout revolutionary slogans to the masses.

The Kitchen and bathroom

Yes, this was twenty-five years ago, and times do change.  The modest apartment that Jadyne's cousins lived in, has no doubt been updated.  The professors have retired.  We have lost touch.  China 2017 is no longer China 1992.  There was no free press during the Cultural Revolution, none in 1992.  The press was the enemy, and those who criticized the government did not live to tell about it.  I haven't asked my friend Haoyun about China today, how free he would feel to criticize or point out faults.  We need to tend our own garden.

How This Whole Thing Started

In looking at old photographs I've thought about posting some of them on my blog, adding to them stories, or what effect the photos might have had on my career. This is the first. There are several benches in front of San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square. In the summer lots of people hang out there to enjoy the sunshine, watch the swimmers in the Bay, take in the view of the bridge. In 1969, fresh out of UC, I discovered this colorful character sitting on one of the benches. I sat next to him and fiddled with the manual adjustments on my camera, guessing the light exposure, the shutter speed, and how close he was to me, knowing that I wouldn't have time to focus, or make any other adjustments.  I turned to look at him at the same time that he looked at me. After taking the photo he unleashed a string of profanities. Chastened, I stood up and left. When the slide came back from the lab I looked at it with a critical eye and thought to myself, "I can do this. I really can do this." it was the first inclination I'd ever had that made me think that at some point in my life, I could become a real photographer.

In the summer of 1972 Jadyne and I bought a Eurailpass, flew first to England, then left for Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Rome, and Greece before returning to the US.  (I can still remember flying a 747 from Rome to SF for the unheard of price of $99).  Shooting slides along the way I took three that still stand the test of time for me, one in Venice, one in San Sebastian, Spain, and the last, in Paris.  Visiting all the churches and towers we could find, Jadyne and I needed to climb to the top of every dome, every steeple.  At Notre Dame I spied an open window along the stairway with a view that overlooked the rooftops of Paris.  Using my 135mm lens I took this image. I submitted it to only the second photography contest I ever entered.  I won Best in Show and a $50 gift that Jadyne and I splurged on at the Maisonette, a Michelin starred restaurant in Cincinnati.  I was pursuing a Master's Degree that would lead me to a career in teaching in 1972, but I carried my camera with me everywhere I went, and I was always looking.  Some things never change.

When we returned to Paris I wanted to retake the image, but discovered that bars and a screen had been placed across the window.

Ten years later I entered my third and last photography contest.  Once again,  Best in Show.  And with this one came a free trip to Hawaii.  The story gets better, though.  I was now working as a photographer, and in 1982, thirty-five years ago, I photographed the students at Los Ayres, a San Leandro school for budding ballerinas.  In exchange for doing countless photos of little girls under the lights, Miss Judy and I took the most promising dancers to outside locations.  I chose places that were counter to the "prettiness" of ballet—a Western village, a blacksmith shop, and in this case, the nineteenth century Fort Point, which is under the Golden Gate Bridge.  When Miss Judy saw this image, she dismissed it immediately.  "Why?" I asked, as I believed that it was a great shot.  "She's not on point," she said, spoken as a true ballerina.  As a photographer, though, I knew better.

But here's where the story gets better.  Bay Views magazine folded with this issue.  We delayed our gift trip until November and arrived in Honolulu the day before Hurricane Iwa, so the trip was a disaster, too, as we were unable to travel to Kuaui or Maui.  We stayed with Jadyne's mother on Oahu, but we had no power and there was little we could do.  Some gift horses are better looked at in the mouth.

Quiet Desperation

We park one of cars in front of our house, straddling the curb, two wheels on the extension of the sidewalk, the other two in the street.  The other day I found a green 70 Sheets College Ruled 10 1/2 x 8in. 1 Subject Notebook on the windshield.  Puzzled, I left it and went out for a walk.  I returned a couple of hours later.  The notebook was still there.  I opened it up and looked for a name.  Nothing.  Turning the pages, I saw a handwritten script covering the next three pages, the only writing in the notebook.  I began reading...

"Lee and I are unsuited to each other.  We are totally incompatible.  We are just making each other miserable.  We will never be able to be content together.

My life will be so much smaller and more circumscribed because of being married to someone with whom I do not share a spiritual orientation, values, and family.  We will not travel together.

We will be two cranky old lonely people together.

He wants to push me out of my own house and my own bed. There’s no place that is mine anymore.

I made a huge mistake in marrying him.

I will never find a job that pays me enough money and is sustainable for my health and energy.

I missed the boat—I should have gone to grad school 30 years ago and had children then, too. I should never have put him on the deed to my house. 

I will be a 55-year-old divorcee with 2 divorces and no steady job.  No one will want me. 

The only jobs I can get now are low status low paying jobs.  I have wasted my intelligence."

The Maryland Steps

Jadyne and I walk a lot.  Frequently our walks from Berkeley, or Albany, all points lower than our Kensington home, finish on a stairway between Boynton and Vermont Avenues.  We've taken these stairs hundreds of times, often more than once a day.  From the top it's a hop, step, and a little jump to our home on Rugby Avenue.  Jadyne reminded me the other day, "There are seventy steps, here, David, one for each year you've been alive."  I'd never thought of them that way, and now I can't walk up them without thinking of them, that each step represents a year of my life.  Here they are:

At the end of a long uphill walk I don't look forward to these.

Step 16.  I got my driver's license, and my parents, in an incomprehensible decision, allowed me to take Chip Meyers to Coney Island the same day in my Dad's 1961 VW bug.  We eventually sold it to Harry Morrison who didn't realize that it had a fourth gear, so he blew it up on 101 in 3rd gear at 75 mph.

Step 23.  Jadyne and I were married in 1970, when I was twenty-three years old.  She was one step behind me.  The step, like the marriage, is still in pretty good shape.

September 26th, 1974.  Jason is born.  We're now a real family.

I'm thirty in 1976.  I left a To Do list on the refrigerator for Jadyne. I had written.  "Go to hospital.  Have a baby girl."  She did.  In 1976 the technology didn't exist that would determine sex beforehand.  We use up the second naming "J" for Jennifer.  It was a second choice behind "Sarah", but we intended to give her a middle name of "Lee" after Jadyne's grandparents, and we thought that "Sarah Lee" wouldn't have been a fun name to live with.

1979.  Thirty-third step.  John is born.  Coincidentally, I get a vasectomy.  I thought that I would go on a road trip the next day to Sequoia National Park, but instead spent that day, legs akimbo, reading "The World According to Garp."  

Been there.  Done that.

Here's the top, the seventieth step.  The path simply leads to two additional steps, which then take you to Vermont Avenue.  It may be trite, but when I climb to the top of these steps I'm relieved to have made it.  I feel as if I've accomplished something.  Even though there are no more concrete steps I'm hopeful that metaphorical ones remain, and that they remain in as good a shape as the ones in this photograph.

Spectra

I don't want a horse and buggy, and I'm not planning on returning to cameras that shoot film.  But dang, how I loved my Polaroid Spectra, perhaps the last and best iteration of the venerable Polaroid line.  Alas, the Spectra disappeared during a high school party at our house, also the same night that I discovered a half-eaten hot dog in a drawer in our bathroom cabinet and my Minolta IV light meter covered with beer.  Still, if the camera hasn't survived, the images that came from it have, many of which are nearing 40 years old.  Here's one of my favorites, a family photo.

John, the youngest, said, "Typically, I'm most left out."

Jadyne and Jason, flanking my ninety-plus year old mother, whose powerful frame is covered by her Cal Berkeley rugby shirt, before launching into a scrum on Witter field.

And Aspen, our beloved golden retriever, after we brought her home for the first time.

I took the Spectra to New Orleans in 1988 when we photographed Kevin Renfree's wedding.  This night we found ourselves in Houma, Louisiana, listening to a cajun band.

And I have no idea who these two people are, why the guy eating the Vanilla ice cream cone is smiling at me, and whether the person in the salmon colors is a female or a female impersonator, and why they're together.  I just like the photo.

And a "selfie", perhaps one of the first.  I just don't look like this anymore, and that's okay.  

Passion Redux

Marta Becket died Monday.  A ballerina who drew audiences from around the world to an abandoned Mojave Desert stage she adopted after being stranded in the area by a flat tire in 1967, Marta purchased the Amargosa Opera House, began dancing in 1968 and continued every Monday, Friday, and Saturday, whether the house was full or empty—as if thousands were watching.  In 1968 her only patrons were the three Mormon families who lived in the isolated town of Death Valley Junction, twenty-three miles from the nearest town; yet as time went by the 114 seats were filled, and on special occasions extra chairs were brought in.

Ms. Becket wrote songs and dialogue, sewed costumes and painted sets.  She spent six years drawing and painting imaginary fans on the walls, painted the ceiling with a blue sky, dancing cherubs, clouds and doves."It's mystifying," she said, "I feel as if this is what I was intended to do."

She continued flitting across the stage in her iconic performances well into her 80s although health problems slowed her in later years.  In 2012 she turned the theater over to a nonprofit group.

The coroner said Wednesday that the cause of Ms. Becket's death at 92 had not been determined.  She died at home in Death Valley Junction. (Source:  The San Francisco Chronicle)

There is so much to learn by watching others and the way they live their lives.

Manzanar

Why does the Muslim ban so offend me?  Here’s why:

Some years ago Jadyne and I drove down #395, the two-lane road on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, stopping at Manzanar, the Japanese internment camp, where thousands of Japanese were incarcerated during WW II.  Inside the visitor center was a locked cabinet with memorabilia about those who were interned there.  Jadyne exclaimed, “David, here’s one of your photographs!”  Inside was a prom photograph of a young Japanese male, his date, attached to a letter.   It read,

“Grandpa,

Although we never met, never talked, never saw each other, it is you that I have to thank for the life I have now.  My happiness, through life, and every morning I hold dear, would not have happened had it not been for you.  It is here in Manzanar that I realize how different your life is from mine, and how truly blessed I am.  Thank you for your sacrifices and for giving me the fine life I now appreciate so much more.  May heaven hold as much good for you as it has already given me.

Evan”

Looking west from the border of the "camp" known as Manzanar

A cabinet full of memorabilia

Filling the Void

Roger Angell, the noted New Yorker writer and baseball lover, called the time between the last pitch of the World Series and the first pitch of the spring as "The Void."  To those of us who love baseball, this is an apt expression, and we try to sublimate our love of the game by reading about trades, changes in the rules, up and coming rookies, and whatever news we can find.

Yesterday Susan Hines Siemer, in going through a drawer full of miscellaneous memorabilia, discovered this 116 year old gem:

I have one of my own, not nearly as old as Susan's. Nevertheless, I wonder if Cooperstown would be interested.

After visiting family in Cincinnati, my brother and I went to Crosley Field and watched Jim Maloney lose a ten inning no-hitter when in the 11th inning, Johnny Lewis of the Mets hit a home run, the lone score in this late afternoon contest.  The next day I climbed on a plane for San Francisco.  In 1965 baseball teams flew around the country in commercial airlines, booking dozens of coach seats for players, managers, and other personnel, mingling with the paying passengers. The cabin was full of men, laughing, talking, many with cocktails and beers in hands.  Puzzled, I remembered the game the night before, turned to my seatmate and asked, "Pardon me, aren't you Warren Spahn?"  "Yes, I am," he answered.  "OMG!" I thought to myself. "I'm sitting next to the greatest left-handed pitcher in the history of the game, a man whose ticket to the Hall of Fame had been punched much earlier in his incredible career."  My first reaction?  I've got to get his autograph.  I looked around for a piece of paper, failed to find one, then settled on the only paper in the cabin, nestled in the pocket of the seat in front of me.

I remembered that the manager of the Mets in 1965 was Casey Stengel, perhaps the most colorful character in the game.  I turned to Warren Spahn, "Is Casey on this flight?"  Spahn answered, "He's in first class."  Undaunted, I excused myself, climbed over the hurler, parted the curtain, knowing that I had only a few seconds to find Mr. Stengel before the flight attendants would be escorting me back to coach.  Turning the bag over, I asked Casey, "Would you please sign this for me?"  

I'm picturing this in a revolving glass container in Cooperstown, testifying to the lengths that baseball fans will go to fill the Void.

The Masses Send a Message January 21st, 2017

Yesterday, Jadyne and I joined Jennifer and two of her friends, climbed on BART at El Cerrito Norte, and headed south to Lake Merritt for the start of the Women's March, a movement echoed in more than six hundred cities around the world.  With crowds numbering from 750,000 (LA) to a half million (Washington DC), marchers in Fairbanks, where the ambient temperature was -16, united in one common purpose—to show the new president and the rest of the world that love does indeed trump hate, that this hateful narcissist's policies, personality, and programs are objectionable and dangerous to all living things.

No one—not Trump, not the organizers, not the police assigned to the marches, not BART—could have ever anticipated the huge numbers of people who showed up to show unity, love, and solidarity.  Our train was filled at the first stop.

From the mouths of babes...

The face on the poster isn't the little girl holding it, but is, in fact, the face of my granddaughter's best friend, Maia.

The crowd was huge, happy, and well-behaved.  Here we are along Lake Merritt.

This photo could have been taken in every city around the world.

And in yet another extraordinary post-script to these hundreds of marches, Trump's press secretary, in speaking to the press, chastised them for misrepresenting the tiny crowds that attended the inauguration and refused to take questions about the huge crowds that attended the women's march.  Trump and his cronies simply are what they've always been—liars, narcissists, thoroughly evil pond scum, (although that characterization tends to demean pond scum).

Mr Trump, don't trifle with women, especially those with a tattoo of a coat hanger on her chest.

Speaking of Birds...and Passion

From my neighbor George...

"Yesterday Cindy pointed out to me that the second accepted California record of the gull that all North American birders hope to see one day - the Ross's Gull - had occurred and abundantly photographed on a parking lot adjacent to Princeton Harbor, which is close by Half Moon Bay, not many miles down the S.F. Peninsula from S.F. proper. Ross's is a gull of the Russian Arctic, which has been recorded breeding in northern Manitoba, and is a rare visitor to Alaska and the Bering Sea, believed to winter on the ocean. I think there are some rare records from New England or thereabouts. This is the second confirmed record for California, the previous one having been seen at the Salton Sea for three days in 2006. I initially thought, "Oh to have driving privileges," but then looked at Peninsula bus schedules, and figured out how I could get there by late morning. After a lot of rain and gray, today was predicted to be sunny.

So I packed my scope & camera into a duffel bag and my binoculars and some warm clothes into a day pack, and headed out at 7:45 to catch the bus to BART. At about 10:45, I was dropped off at the bus stop by the harbor, which is also exactly where the bird had again been reported early this morning - I could see a small crowd near the water. The 1st person I spoke to told me that the bird had taken off and flown northwards at 9 a.m., and no one had re-found it. People had taken off in various directions, and I encountered other birders continually as I walked around the harbor edge and onto a couple of the docks. I drifted around for a couple of hours, seeing a few people I knew but continuing on my own. It occurred to me that I was not in a great situation, in that, if the gull were re-found a mile or two off, I wouldn't have transportation, and I accordingly looked for anyone I could cling to.

I hadn't made any progress when, at about 12:50 p.m., I refreshed the bird-sighting web page I was monitoring on my phone and saw that the bird had been re-found at the Half Moon Bay Airport, which I knew was north of (the tiny) town, though I couldn't say how far. I saw people hustling to their cars and heading out, and I started walking up the drive from the harbor-side towards Highway 1. At a stop sign short of the road, a young woman rolled down her window, I think to alert me to the news, and I asked was she pray tell heading that way, and she let me jump in. Turned out her husband was the one who had just re-found the gull, and she took me to the spot, which turned out to be less than a mile up the highway. 

We piled out and joined the crowd of 25-30 people ranged along the highway and running back and forth across the road, causing some traffic issues. The little gull was hanging around a water puddle at the edge of a runway or road about 100 yards inside the airport, easily identifiable by telescope though too far for good pictures for my sort. Soon people discovered that they could drive into an airport parking lot that was closer, and most everybody drove off, and I walked the couple of hundred yards. Ross's is generally considered one of the most beautiful gulls (yeah, I know - gulls!) - small and delicate, with a roseate blush on the breast."

(George had some medical issues that prevents him from driving.  He has an appointment with the DMV on the 21st, hoping to be reinstated.  Knowing that, this last post should make sense.)

"Also on this Friday the 13th, the Common Pochard was seen again up in Humboldt County - 10 days to go."  

1. From sdakota.com..."The Common Pochard is a common diving duck of Eurasia.  They are only extremely rare vagrants in North America, with most sightings happening in the Aleutians or western Alaska, but sightings have also occurred in California and Saskatchewan. They are ecological counterparts, and very similar to, the Redhead duck that is found in North America."

Sunday footnote.  After flying 9,000 miles from the Arctic Circle two peregrine falcons, fierce predators, attacked and killed the gull.

I didn't just post this story to take the covers off birding, but to reveal what it means to be passionate...about anything.  Here's what Steve Tobak had to say...

What It Means to Be Passionate About Something

• Humbling yourself and sustaining rejection when you've already paid your dues and there's no earthly reason why you should suffer such humiliation.
• Becoming a sponge - even a student again - when you've already had a career, achieved great things, and the thought of sitting passively and learning or being tested makes you nauseous.
• The thrill of discovery makes you feel like a kid again, even though you're 40 or 50. You revel in having no answers, only questions. FYI, that's what makes Apple products so innovative - they start by asking themselves what people want to do that they can't, what drives them nuts. Without that, there would be no iPod, iPhone, or iPad.
• Then, once you have the answers, you start the whole question-answer loop all over again to raise the bar. Love may mean never having to say you're sorry. But passion means never having all the answers. Besides, if you knew the answers, where's the thrill in that?
• Being labeled a fanatic, a control freak, a perfectionist - and not in a good way - for wanting to learn every aspect and get every detail right. An obvious reference to Steve Jobs, among others.
• Sacrificing and waiting long years for the opportunity, then sticking with it until you achieve your vision, come hell or high water.
• Working at it nonstop, until all hours of the night, seven days a week, for months and months, just to get all that pent-up passion out of your system so you can relax and think clearly and rationally again. Yup, I did exactly that seven years ago - and that book will never ever see the light of day.
• Having so much respect for your passion that you're willing to admit that you don't know squat, even though you've observed from a distance your entire life.

I am seventy, retired, but I still feel passionate about my photography.  My wife said, half-critically, "You can't go anywhere without looking."  No, Jadyne, I can't.  And if such a time comes that I'm indifferent to those activities, those people, those efforts that provide me with such rewards, even if I'm still breathing, I will no longer be living. 

Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge

 In January 1937, the federal government purchased 10,775-acre Spalding Ranch and christened it the Sacramento Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. From 1937-1942 the Civilian Conservation Corp's (CCC) "Camp Sacramento" housed up to 200 men at the current headquarters area. The men constructed levees, water control structures, and delivery ditches to create and sustain wetlands across the majority of the refuge. Mosquito bitten, sunburned, dust-choked men worked non-stop even on 100-degree days to create the refuge.

Today, the refuge is known as the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge and it functions as the headquarters for the entire Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The refuge supports over 250 species of birds. Most notable are the huge wintering concentrations (November - January) of 500,000 to 750,000 ducks and 200,000 geese. Raptor numbers swell as the waterfowl numbers increase, including bald eagles and peregrine falcons. 

Less than a two hour drive from San Francisco, Jadyne and I headed there yesterday, not really knowing what to expect.

The egret alone was worth the price of admission.  After a two mile walk past wetlands we came across this lone bird.

We started on a six mile auto tour.  To prevent frightening the birds, we were warned to keep quiet and stay in our cars.  We did.

The first flock we found were a combination of snow geese and Ross geese.  We watched them quietly for a few minutes...and then

...Someone gave the signal, and the sky was filled with fluttering wings.

We'd been told that other birds were present, and that someone had seen a bald eagle.  

...such as this one

As we finished our six mile drive, we were once again astounded by what my birder friend George calls, a "geese fly-out."

A small part of the sky.

I guess you had to be there...

Birds are art...

A $6 entrance fee and the nuisance of having to wash the car (when thousands of geese fly over your car you know that washing it afterwards is a given) was a small price to pay.

Twenty-nine years

Twenty-nine years ago Sunday my sister-in-law, Teeny Jeung, was swept down a snowy mountain outside of Aspen.  About twelve experienced cross-country skiers were descending Pearl Pass (12,705') in the Colorado Rockies when the three expert leaders—Teeny, Roy, and John, were caught in a moving wall of snow.  Teeny had given her avalanche finder alarm to her boyfriend, Roy, whose body was found within hours.  John was found shortly afterwards, too. They all died on January 10th, but even after returning to the site week after week through the winter and spring, the Aspen rescue team, all friends of Teeny's, were unable to find her body until Labor Day, months later.

Pearl Pass

Our family of five took a four-wheel drive over the fourth of July to Pearl Pass and picnicked in the snow.  Left were the poles that Aspen rescue used to poke through the enormous drifts remaining from winter.  We all tried, poking through the snow in several places, knowing that at any time the poles might strike something solid.  No luck.

She was a remarkable, selfless human adventurer who loved others unconditionally. As an ER nurse she had seen her share of human tragedy, and it was fitting that Valley View Hospital named the ER after her.  We learned much from the way she lived her thirty-eight years, trying to incorporate her unconditional love with her fearless sense of adventure, remembering her frequently voiced admonition to "not burn daylight."  We still miss her dearly, and when January 10th rolls around, we send each other texts or emails, "How're you doing?"  Jadyne ignores it, preferring to remember Teeny's October birthday, a day of celebration, not sorrow.

Here we are traipsing across the wildflowers on the 4th of July.

If you look closely, you can see the long poles that "rescuers" use to probe beneath the snow, hoping to find a body.  This is how we spent our Fourth of July.

This is how we remember her...

And this...

January 1, 1988..  "Bear", her beloved dog, was alongside her and died, too.

As we left Glenwood Springs January 1st, I asked the three Jeung kids to stand together. 

Greg came to Glenwood Springs to stay with Teeny.  He lives there now. He found his wonderful kind and loving wife (a woman who never knew Teeny but is her twin in many ways) in Glenwood Springs, meeting her through a letter she had left with the local paper, expressing the collective sorrow that the city felt when Teeny died.  

Almost thirty years later she is still remembered and loved in this small western Colorado town. A passenger on Amtrak almost had heart failure a couple of years ago when she saw Jadyne and noticing the family resemblance, thought that Teeny still lived.  She was right.  She does.

Obituaries

"George Fegan died last December.  From his obituary, “He made his pasta from scratch.  He gave Johnny Mathis his first gig.  His basketball nickname was the Butcher.  Or the Hammer—one of those.  He once relieved himself upstream of George H.W. Bush.  As an altar boy he nearly burned down the church; this was possibly an accident.  His mustache was better than yours.  He was the only white person to work at Henry’s Hunan Restaurant.  He was a terrible rabbit hunter.  He had gout, the disease of kings.  He was George Lucas’ favorite high school teacher.  He hated Reagan.  He had eight toes.  He once flew halfway around the world to show up on his future wife’s doorstep unannounced.  His family will miss his mushroom risotto and questionable sense of humor.  They will not miss his singing voice."

I never met George, but I wish I had.

In reading an obituary from one of my former teaching colleagues, a brilliant man of the cloth, writer, and pastor, I was led to believe that the entire world, including Somali pirates, are the worse off for his passing, and that Jesus himself had to vacate his preferred seat at God’s right hand to make room for this brilliant God-loving prelate.  Maybe George and the unnamed man of God wrote their own obituaries.  I don’t know.

What is an obituary, anyhow?  From Wikipedia, “An obituary (obit for short) is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral.”  Typically listing the birth and death dates, the names of the grieving survivors, an anecdote or two, the number of fraternal organizations that will mourn the deceased, the typical obituary fails to impart the complicated, unknowable, and contradictory parts of a life.

With that in mind, and fearing how others, none of whom, I suspect, will have lived my life might write about the one that I lived, I’m offering to write my own obituary. 

"David was brilliant.  He was an idiot.  He had a wonderful sense of humor and could make those around him laugh.  He didn’t find anything funny, and he made those who did miserable.  He loved everyone but couldn’t stand people.  His wife and family found him compassionate, disinterested, warm, selfish, optimistic, moody, affectionate, indifferent, loving and uncaring. David loved dogs and cats, but he hated animals.  He could be very patient but took healthy doses of Lisinopril to lower his blood pressure.  He was a great athlete except when he played sports. He was self-assured, lacking only confidence in himself. He was very simple in a complicated way.  He was surrounded by legions of friends none of whom cared that much for him.  He loved playing the guitar but wasn’t very good, really.  He loved being in nature, except the cold, damp, and muddy part.  He was a great listener but managed to avoid having to do that by talking all the time."

 It’s all true.

Per his request no services will be held except the one at the Thai Noodle Company on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, where #26, Duck Noodle Soup (with rice noodles), will be served.  Bring an appetite, $8.95 + tax and tip. Let the waitress know not to expect him any more.  He thanks you.

Stuff That's Growing in our House

It was a quiet cloudy New Year's Day.  I passed up the six zillion football games to play around with stuff we keep around the house to remind us of that extraordinary beauty that lies both within and without us.

...just as beautiful from the back

...or mostly out of focus

I love carnivorous plants.  This is a "Sundew" from the Drosera family.  They have sticky leaves that resemble tentacles.  They lure in prey by the drops resembling dew upon their leaves, which catch the sun and sparkle.  Once prey has landed on their leaves it will roll up and envelope the prey.  Feeding them ground meat or anything other than bugs could kill them.  They are very capable of catching their own dinner.  This one will have a gourmet evening.  I've named her "Betty."

The Addict

After posting almost 1800 photographs in the last year and a half, marking five thousand "likes" on others' Facebook pages, with the help of a critical but compassionate wife, I came to the conclusion in late November that I was/am a Facebook addict.  I vowed then that I would go a whole month without posting or commenting on Facebook entries, hoping that by being both absent from Facebook and more present I would restore a sense of balance and harmony to my life.  I did post two photographs in December.  One was a delightful family photograph taken on December 18th, with all three offspring, their spouses, and our five grandchildren.  A week later I was "tagged" to post a photograph showing my pride in being a father.  I complied with a favorite image from thirty-eight years ago.  Thirty-one days, two images, two posts.  

What did I miss about not going on Facebook?  I missed the almost daily connections I had made with both old and new friends.  I missed the dopamine-fueled highs that came when I posted something that others took to heart, whether it was a well-liked photograph or a hard earned life lesson.  I missed quotes from my Facebook friends that were truly inspiring.  One was my cover photo.  The accompanying text reads, "The secret to having it all is knowing you already do." Another.  "God or the universe or morality isn't interested in your achievements...just your heart. When you choose to act out of kindness, compassion, and love, you are already aligned with your true purpose."  "We are both a masterpiece and a work in progress." I have dozens of these.  

A common argument against using cell phones could be applied to Facebook.  "Cell phones bring you closer to the person far from you, but takes you away from the ones sitting next to you." Mindfulness teaches us to be present, to enjoy the here and now, exult in the pleasures we have by being where we are, who we are and who is there beside us.  Online communities can remove us from those experiences.

What didn't I miss?  I didn't miss pointless arguments about open carry, gun control, Trump, the second amendment, Hillary.  I didn't miss stupid thoughtless posts revealing ignorance, prejudice, and racism.  I didn't miss seeing what someone had for dinner last night, or photos of a mother and daughter shopping.  I didn't miss seeing people use the word "your" instead of "you're or "it's" instead of "its." I didn't miss the time I spent scrolling through my news feed instead of playing backgammon with Jadyne, spending a little more time with my grandchildren, playing my guitar, reading, editing photographs, or any of a number of more meaningful activities, many of which I've reclaimed in this month.

So what do I do in January?  2017?  Alcoholics can't ever take another drink, but I'm intending to jump back in...or perhaps, just get my toes wet.  Should I remove the app from my phone?  Stick to looking just once or twice a day?  Avoid meaningless discussions?  Only post family photos? My cat died, so that's out. I may post something tomorrow, January 1st.  Or not.  Stay tuned.  I may be the reason why God made rehab.