6/8/23

 Thursday, June 8, 2023

In bed by 10:30,  up at 4:56 thinking of a 1967 letter from Ron Kendall and Katherine's arrival.  Chilly 50℉, high of 67℉, clear skies all day, NNE wind at 9 mph, 3 to 10 mph today, gusts up to 17 mph.  Sunrise at 5:12, sunset at 8:29, 15+17.  Let Lilly out.  Through the kitchen window, I saw a lone white-tail doe nibbling on low-hanging leaves or berries on the middle of the County Line trees.

Swedish Death Cleaning is a well-known concept in Swedish and Scandinavian culture, where you work on eliminating unnecessary items from your home, so loved ones won't be burdened with the task after you pass.' That's what I got into when I opened those mildewed boxes in the basement.  It continues to be a rather emotional process which I guess is to be expected if one has put off the initial foray into the process for half a century or more.  Lots of books, lots of documents, lots of photographs, lots and lots of recorded history, a lifetime, boxed up, hidden away, and preserved for what?  For this - to be opened like Aladdin's lamp, releasing memories and emotional genies.

    First, I found a snapshot I had never seen before, significant because it is the happiest and most at-ease image I have ever seen of my father and the most affectionate image of him and my mother.

If only they had known more moments like that.  If only once life had become easier for the two of them she hadn't died.

    Second, I found many, many photographic slides I took during my year overseas in 1965-66.  I had forgotten about them.  In fact, I've often wondered over the years why I have only a few photos from Vietnam and Okinawa and none from Japan.  I'm hoping they are well preserved after almost 60 years.

    Third, I found photos I snapped at our law office decades ago, photos of my colleagues.  Five of the photos I looked at were of friends who have already died.  First, David Branch, a good friend, died on March 19, 1999 at age 53, of amyloidosis.  Second, Bob Friebert, friend and mentor, died September 5, 2014, age 75, of heart attack following lung cancer.  Third, William S. Roush, died July 3, 2013, at age 59, of uncertain cause.  Fourth, William B. Guis died on November 25, 2019 at age 74, of cancer.  Fifth, Thomas W. St. John, law school classmate and long-term friend, died January 18, 2023, at age 77, of a heart attack.  The only colleague older than me and still surviving is John Finerty, with whom I have no contact, now 83 or so.  

    Fourth, wonderful, treasured photos of Sarah and Andy during childhood.  Words fail me.

    Fifth, a note my Dad sent Geri & me after he and his friend Art flew up to visit us in 2004 or 2005 prior to his moving in with us, driven in large measure by loneliness.  Also, a 2-page, 4-sided letter from 1967 from my Marine buddy Warrant Office Ron Kendall from somewhere in Iowa telling me that our mutual friend in DaNang, 'Catfish' (last name not remembered) had died in a training accident in the Navy's Blue Angels precision flying squadron.  One of my many regrets is that I never returned Ron's letter, one of several relationships in my life I shouldn't have let lapse.  1967 was not a good year for me.  I remember to this day Ron and me in Vietnam talking about the war and persuaded even its first year that it wouldn't end well and Ron's sharing with me some wisdom from his high school football coach: 'You might fool the spectators but you won't fool the players.'  The first page of Ron's letter is water-damaged and illegible.  Alas.

    Also, photos of Northwoods muskie fishing trips, golf outings with friends, and other photos, captured moments, captured memories.
    I made the mistake of thumbing through books I had packed away, books I had amply highlighted and check marked, including Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, Kathleen Norris' Amazing Grace, and C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.  I'm tempted of course to reread at least those portions I have highlighted.  What was it about those passages that struck me as noteworthy so many years ago?

    I found a couple of old Dove Notes letters I composed and sent to supporters of The House of Peace back in 2002, around the time of several murders in the HOP neighborhood, including the vicious murder of Charlie Young by a mob of children on 9/29/02.  I wish I knew how to digitize those 2 letters.  If I could I would include them in this journal.

    Looking at all this 'stuff' packed away in these sealed boxes, some of it mildewed, some not, reminds me again that although my life seems to me to be very ordinary and un-noteworthy, it is nonetheless because of the times and circumstances in which I have lived a bit noteworthy, at least in what I have lived through and observed: growing up in the aftermath of WW II with a battle casualty of the war, growing up in the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church, living through the 1960s, Vietnam, the civil rights movement, 6 years at St. Francis of Assisi in the 1990s, three years at the House of Peace in the 2000s, Watergate to Reagan, Reagan to Newt Gingrich to the Tea Party to Trump wit Obama intervening.  Now in my 80s, I have lived out the apocryphal Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times and some of the evidence has been packed away in those boxes in the basement supplemented in part by my memoir and supplemented again in these journal/blog entries.

Katherine arrives today, the oldest of Jim and Nancy Aquavia's three children.  She and her husband Jordan are very close to Geri.  We visited them when Jordan was stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base outside of Rapid City, SD.  Katherine was one of my students at MULS.  When Nancy Aquavia was at home in her final illness, Geri drove down to Tennessee to help Jim and Katherine and her brother Steve. After Nancy's death, Geri persuaded Jimmy (and Katherine and Steve) that moving to Mequon to be close to her might be a good idea, and of course, so it was.  Jimmy was a part of our lives for almost 4 years before moving to Alexandria to be closer to Katherine and Jordan.  The bond between Geri and Katherine and Jordan (and Steve and his wife Maggie) is strong, witnessed by Kaherine's taking precious vacation time to fly out here for a long weekend with her aunt.