6/19/24

 Wednesday, June 19, 2024

1865, U.S. troops arrive in Galveston, "Juneteenth"

1921,  Turks and Christians of Palestine signed a friendship treaty against Jews

1964, Civil Rights Act of 1964 passes 73-27

1982, The body of 'God's Banker', Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London

In bed around 8:15 and up at 2:15 with lower back pain and a slight headache.  I let Lilly out at 3:45 and emptied the dishwasher, hobbled by my back, and had to rest before cleaning up the kitchen from last night's dinner.  I need to do some chores in phases.  I dozed off at some point and woke up at 5:12 to load the dishwasher and clean Geri's coffee station.

Prednisone, day 38, 15 mg., day 2.  At 3 a.m., my reading was 100.  At 5:45, when I took my 15 mg. of prednisone, the reading was 98. (It's now conceivable to me that I could reach a critically low reading (<70) overnight.). . .  I took my other meds at 8:30 and need to check my BP at 9:30 though it will be without the half-tab of HCT, which I just remembered I need to take.  9:30 reading - 155/79.

Another fall; North Shore Fire Department.  While standing between the glider chair and my recliner in the TV room, I reached for my water bottle to fill it.  As I moved it toward me, I knocked over a container full of pens and pencils, scattering the contents on the floor.  I bent over and squatted a bit to pick up the spillage and when I squatted too deep, my center of gravity shifted and I fell over backwards, hitting my head against the cabinets behind me.  I called out to Geri for help and she called 911.  Two young paramedics from the North Shore Fire Department arrived a few minutes later, asked some questions about my condition, and then lifted me to my feet and seated me in the glider chair.  I had an abrasion on my left elbow that left some blood on the floor which Geri cleaned up, but no bone, scalp, or skull injuries.

This happened after my rather long trip to Costco and its gas station, Wild Birds Unlimited, and Senkik's with my lower back tightening up all afternoon and my gait mighty unsteady.  Indeed, I had brought my walker out from my bedroom into the living area of the house because of my back pain and difficulty walking.  Geri was outside doing some yard work and I had intended to tell her when she returned to the house that it was getting harder and harder for me to walk because of my arthritic back.  Instead, I had to call to her for help as I lay on the floor like a beached walrus.  My back pain and a slight headache continued during the evening and night until I got up from bed at 2:15 a.m. and took 1,000 mg. of Tylenol, which, as usual, seemed to help very little.

I've been concerned for some time about "taking a header" and now I am equally concerned with "taking a butt-er."  I regularly use a cane even inside the house now and I use my walker when I wake up in the middle of the night to move to the TV room.   I tend to lean backward climbing the steps from the basement, raising a serious risk of a backward tumble down the stairs and a "Help, I've fallen and I can't gt up" experience.   And, BTW, neither my MedAlert around my neck nor my AppleWatch detected my fall, perhaps because it was a short distance and backward.  Who knows?

The fall reminds me of my precarity, of our precarity.  I am one trip or stumble or lean away from falling to the ground, hitting my head, and what?  Breaking a hip, fracturing some other bone(s), suffering a concussion?  I had a slight headache after the fall and found myself wondering if perhaps I had a subdural hematoma or some other slow hemorrhage and whether I had made a mistake in not accepting the EMTs' offer to drive me to the VA ER.  Of course, what I know, almost surely, is that I will fall again, perhaps because of dizziness, perhaps because I barely lift my feet while shuffling walking, perhaps because I turn my head too quickly, or perhaps because, as sometimes happens to me, I lose my balance while standing still and have to catch myself before falling.  Perhaps I will be at home as I was yesterday, relying on Geri, or perhaps at Sendik's or Costco or even the VA, relying on the kindness of strangers. Or perhaps, as with my mother, it will be an aneurysm.  Or like TSJ, a 'cardiac event.'  Or perhaps it won't be a fall at all, but my time will be up as I know it will be one of these days.  It reminds me to be grateful for the time I have left, long or short, and for the awareness and functionality I still have, my appreciation of Geri, family, friends, home, Lilly, trees, birds, rain, snow, sunshine, music, painting, reading, writing,  . . .

Anniversaries.  First, will Juneteenth ever be anything other than a Black holiday, an ethnic holiday?  Or is it like Martin Luther King Day, a holiday with an appeal to many Whites?  Juneteenth has been a national holiday only since 2021.  There are 11 federal holidays, from New Year's Day to Christmas Day.  Three honor specific individuals:  MLK's birthday (1983), Washington's birthday (1879), and Columbus Day (1937).  MLK is celebrated for his civil rights leadership leading to the end of Jim Crow and the lessening of racial barriers to Blacks' fuller participation in citizenship and freedom., all at the predictable cost of his life.  Washington is celebrated for his leadership in the Revolutionary War and as the first president.  Columbus is celebrated (or denigrated by some) for the discovery of the Americas by Europeans.  New Year's Day (1885), Thanksgiving Day (1941), and Christmas Day (1885) are traditional holidays that were so widely observed that they became legal holidays.  Veterans Day (1926) and Memorial Day (1967) honor those who have served and/or died in the nation's armed forces.  Labor Day (1894) honors the nation's labor force.  Independence Day or the 4th of July (1870) celebrates democracy and independence from foreign royal rule.  Juneteenth Day celebrates the end of slavery in Texas, but more broadly the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment that ended slavery throughout the U.S.  It was traditionally celebrated only in Black communities in Texas and then throughout the South and then, with the Great Migrations, in the North.  It is the only holiday specifically associated with only one ethnic group, although Columbus Day used to be and perhaps still is especially celebrated by Italians.  Will Juneteenth ever catch on more broadly?  I doubt it.

Second, the alliance between Ottoman Turks and Christians against Jews reminds us that religious and ethnic hostilities have been going on in Palestine for well more than a century with ots of deaths, destruction, and displacements.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.  Historically, what has most exacerbated it has been Zionism as settler colonialism, still going on in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Third, it's hard to believe now that the revolutionary Civil Rights Act of 1964, backed by LBJ, passed overwhelmingly in the Senate 73-27. The Democratic supermajority in the Senate split their vote 46 (69%) for and 21 (31%) against. The Republicans, on the other hand, split their vote 27 for (82%) and 6 against (18%). Thus, the no vote consisted of 78% Democrats. Further, the infamous 74-day filibuster was led by the Southern Democrats, who overwhelmingly voted against the act.  The House voted 290 to 130 in favor. Democrats split their vote 152 (61%) to 96 (39%) while Republicans split theirs 138 (80%) to 34 (20%).   Soon all those Dixiecrats became Republicans and we have been living with the results ever since, Red America, Blue America, the never-United States of America grounded in a very large measure on racism.

Fourth, the anniversary of Roberto Calvi's death by hanging reminds us inescapably of the Vatican's connection with big money.  Calvi was chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano which was closely tied in with the Vatican Bank scandals of the 1970s and 1980s when the bank was headed by Calvi's friend, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, a native of Cicero, Illinois.  Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around, . . .