Monday, April 3, 2023
In bed at 9:30, awake at 5:20, rolled over & slept till 6:40. One glass of Bogle cab, woke from dreaming I was trying a lawsuit in a federal court with my friend Howard Schoenfeld on the other side and I made the closing argument to the jury with my tie tied around the outside of my shirt collar, looking like a doofus, and remembering during closing that I had forgotten to offer any evidence on damages. The 6 person jury fell asleep on me. 40℉ outside, drizzle, gray, high of 52℉, wind WNW at 6 mph, 6 to 10 mph today, gusts up to 21 mph. Sun rose at 630, sunset at 7:49, 12+49. Spring is in the air this week.
Iowa v. LSU. 102-85, alas, but no question that the better team won. Caitlin Clark's 30 points and 8 assists not enough.
Deer Feeder. I have left the capacious squirrel-proof birdfeeder empty for several days having seen whitetails using their long tongues to get at the sunflower seeds within it. Yesterday I filled it again to see if it would be empty in the morning and, sure enough, it's empty. Not sure what to do with it. I need to have it out of reach of the deer but accessible to me.
Pearls Before Swine.
Trump travels to NYC with lines of loyal followers standing along the 11-car caravan route from Mar-a-Lago to West Palm Beach airport, waving American and other flags and one guy with a tall Christian cross. Supporters at the airport in their cars blowing their horns. So much going on, so much looming, so much threatened. Supposed Chinese curse: 'may you live in interesting times.' No thanks.
from The Mountains Sing. p.6-7 'I clutched Grandma's hand, watching women kneeling and howling next to dead bodies, whose faces had been concealed by tattered straw mats. The legs of those bodies were jutting toward us. Legs that were mangled, covered with blood. One small leg had a pink shoe dangling. The dead girl could have been my age.' . . . and p. 8 'I was reading Bac Tuyet va bay chu lun, immersed in the magical world of Snow White and her friends the Seven Dwarves when Grandma came home . . .' and p. 12 "I wondered why foreign armies kept invading our country. First it was the Chinese, the Mongolians, the French, the Japanese, then the Americans."
The first excerpt brought home to me all of the aircraft loaded with weaponry we tracked heading out to the North and coming back to Danang, having dropped the bombs. It was all so bureaucratic, so mechanical, and administrative on our part, ("Joyride, Joyride, this is CallSign ###, over") so horrific for the Vietnamese on the receiving end.
The second excerpt calls to mind my mehuteneste, my daughter-in-law's mother named Bad Tuyet and married to my mehuten, De Hoang. When I think of them together I think of their wedding photo, so beautiful. I wish I had a print of it, or a digital copy. They were Catholic and their marriage occurred at a Catholic mass. They fled the North after the communists gained control in 1954, and moved to Danang where I would become a 'neighbor' in 1965, never realizing that my future mishpocha lived there.
The third excerpt needs no comment.
Frank E. Peterson. My senior officer and friend at my last duty station in the Marine Corps, Naval Air Station, Willow Grove, PA, 1966-1967. My warmest memory of Frank was his accompanying Anne and me to the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, NJ to see and hear the incomparable Nancy Wilson sing. I still listen to her albums, especially Broadway My Way. I came across this piece while looking up call signs of the Marine fighter squadrons I worked with in Danang.
National Museum of the Marine Corps
#OTD in 1979, Frank E. Petersen, Jr. the first African American Marine Corps aviator, was selected for promotion to Brigadier General, becoming the first African American in the Marine Corps to hold that rank. Petersen had originally enlisted in the Navy in 1950 and served as an electronics technician. He entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in 1951, completed flight training in 1952, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. Petersen served two combat tours: Korea in 1953 and Vietnam in 1968. He flew over 350 combat missions and had more than 4000 hours in military aircraft. He was promoted to major general in 1983 and lieutenant general in 1986. At the time of his retirement in 1988, Petersen held the respective titles of "Silver Hawk" and "Grey Eagle” and was (by date of aviator designation) the senior ranking aviator in the Marine Corps and the Navy. He was presented the Distinguished Service Medal for “exceptionally meritorious service” as the Commanding General of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Virginia.
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