Wednesday, June 5, 2024
1967, the start of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria
1968, Sirhan Sirhan kills Bobby Kennedy
2012, Scott Walker survives recall election in Wisconsin
In bed before 10, up at 2:45. with Maura O'Connell's Western Highway hanging on as an earworm, as it has for days. I ate most of a self-inflicted Leonardo's pizza from Hell last night - sausage, anchovies, and jalapeños - which may account for this bout of sleeplessness, or is it the prednisone or simple insomnia, like Kitty's. In any case, I light my Kitty candle in the middle of the night and think of her, and of Mom and Dad, my grandparents, uncles and aunts, TSJ, DSB, WBG, WSR, RHF, and 'all the faithful departed.' It's raining out, again, another increment in our very wet Spring, another half inch expected today with warm temperatures - 75°. My right thumb is still sore, for the 3rd or 4th day, with a devilish hangnail. I have it protected in a finger cot, making typing these and other words difficult, awkward, and clumsy. At 3;25, Geri and Lilly show up for Lilly's outing, Geri using her walker. I watch her walk back to her bedroom with her walker and think what a good person she is, and strong. . . . At 5:36, I blew out the candle, turned off the lamp, and tried to nod off. Woke up around 6:30 but stayed half-awake, and half-asleep until 7:15, before the expected arrival of the Wednesday lawn crew. . . No lawn crew this morning, probably because the ground is super-saturated.
Prednisone, day 24. Dr. Ryzka called me at about 5:15 p.m. yesterday saying he had the results of one of the blood tests from Monday, one of the inflammation markers [ESR or CRP], and the number was greatly reduced from my April number. As a result of that improvement and my clinical improvement, he cuts me down from 30 mg. of prednisone to 20 for the next two weeks, then to 15 mg. for another two weeks. The weaning begins. He also wrote a prescription for 5 mg. pills to be mailed to me and wants to see me again in 4 to 5 weeks.
Such historic anniversaries today. The start of the Six Day War, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, and Scott Walker's dodging the recall bullet (only to lose reelection to Tony Evers in 2019.)
Bobby Kennedy was my preferred candidate for the presidency in 1968. I was a big fan, huge. On June 5th, I was only one year and 4 days out of the Marine Corps, with still very raw feelings about Vietnam and about the civil rights struggle that was going on in the U.S., especially about the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4th, just 2 months before and indeed the assassination of John Kennedy less than 5 years before. I was stunned, knocked for a loop, by the attack on RFK. I remember sitting in a bar on Edison Street in downtown Milwaukee with Larry Anderson wondering what was happening to America, but now I'm wondering if that memory is mistaken: perhaps confused with the MLK murder in April. In any event, the entire year of 1968 was stunning, discombobulating, disorienting, mind-blowing. I think almost automatically of course of the Democratic Convention in Chicago and the police riot and of the later wild trial before Julius Hoffman, but 1968 was a revolutionary year around the world, most notably in the U.S. and France, but also in Mexico City, Japan, Eastern bloc nations, even Australia. The dozen years between JFK's assassination in 1963 and the Marine helicopters airlifting desperate Vietnamese off rooftops in Saigon in 1975 coincided with my young adulthood, ages 22 to 34. They were years of disillusionment, transitioning from the "Camelot" era of JFK, Jackie, Caroline and John-John, through LBJ's foreshortened years of turbulence, to Nixon, Watergate, and disgrace. They were the years I transitioned from being a young 2nd lieutenant to being an unlikely young law professor and always feeling a bit out of place, not belonging. never comfortable with the traditional values of the 1950s, never comfortable with the values of the late 60s and 70s, a mist\fit.
Scott Walker was a bit of a misfit too. The son of a Baptist minister, attended but never graduated from Marquette University, he became Milwaukee County Executive when Tom Ament resigned after the huge county pension scandal. Ament was temporarily replaced by our old friend Janine Geske who served until Walker was elected following a fiscal responsibility campaign. He served from 2002 to 2010 when he was elected Governor. It was a big year for Wisconsin Republicans, largely because of the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president. Ron Johnson was elected as a Tea Party candidate beating Russ Feingold, and Republicans gained majorities in Wisconsin's U.S. House delegation, state assembly, and state senate. Flexing his political muscles, Walker introduced and got passed Act 10 which removed collective bargaining rights from public employees other than police and firefighters. His main target was my law firm's client WEAC, the state teachers union led by Morris Andrews. The teachers supported Democrats and they were a reliable source not only of campaign contributions but also of organization and field workers throughout the state. It was Act 10 that led to the recall campaign that he survived on this date in 2012, but he was defeated in the next general election by Tony Evers, who appropriately was a former teacher and Superintendent of Public Instruction. His fortunes had started to fall in the 2016 presidential race in which he started out as a "top tier candidate" and ended up the first to drop out of the race that brought to America and the world Donald J. Trump.
I'm struck as I write this with my tangential connections with Walker - Tom Ament, Janine Geske, and Morris Andrews. My first lawsuit on behalf of County Executive Bill O'Donnell was against Tom Ament as the chairman of the County Board: O'Donnell v. Ament, over the power of appointment to the head of the County Transit Board. It led to the later representation of the county exec of Fond du Lac County in her fights with her county corporation counsel. Janine worked with Walker in his transition into his new county exec's job. As head of WEAC, Morris Andrews and our firm under Bob Friebert's lead contended with Walker throughout his term of office. but not so successfully after Act 10.
A rough day. I had a bad morning, mostly because of bad back pain. I had trouble walking, standing erect, and maintaining balance. Around 11 a.m. I climbed into bed, with great difficulty, and slept for about an hour and a half. My bed is too high for my decrepit old body; I wonder whether I should have the mattress and box spring directly on the floor, without the additional height the bed supplies. The bed is a grand old treasure, a heavy, walnut-stained, oak antique that was once Geri's parents' bed. I wonder why contemporary mattresses, like my 2-year-old Stearns and Foster, are so high. Mr. Google tells me that traditional beds are, on average, about 25 inches tall, whereas antique beds average 36 inches. Some mattresses are taller than others because of additional base and comfort layers providing more support and/or more comfort. I have both the additional height of the antique bed and the additional height of the expensive mattress, too much for my antique carcass with its bad back to deal with.😡
LTMW this afternoon, I watch a male and female goldfinch, probably a nesting couple, filling their beaks with cotton from the cotton ball, while a house finch, or maybe a purple finch, works on one of the orange halves. Drinking or eating? On the street, I see two very limber women nattily dressed in white shorts and bright tops walking along briskly. I noticed them earlier, perhaps even 45 minutes earlier, walking along County Line Road. They are enjoying a very long walk. I confess to some envy seeing people younger and healthier than me walking or running or cycling with almost no apparent effort, no pain, no need for a cane or walker.or supporting partner. I also confess to enjoying the many pretty women out and about, on the street and in the stores, in their skimpy summer garb. Even in my dotage, I admire pretty women. It's why I have painted so many of them and so very few men. I wonder how many of the other old men shopping at Sendik's notice all the attractive women around us. Am I just an old perv, or is it the painter in me. I think all painters, at least those who do figure studies and portraits, are sensualists, always prone to studying faces and figures. The same is true of serious photographers. We all notice the shapes of eyebrows, lips, noses, chins, cheeks, hairlines, necks, and so on. The skimpier the clothing worn in the warm months, the more there is to take note of. Maybe it's another form of bird watching.😇
I forced myself to take a late afternoon walk with Rachel and got just past the Madjalani house at 9515. 74°, sunny, with a little breeze. I listened to some favorite tunes on a country playlist: It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels by Kitty Wells, Feeling Lucky by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That, by Dolly Last Stop Texaco by Rickie Lee Jones, Walkin' In and Out of Your Arms by K.D. Laing. Was I out walking for my health, to reduce my lymphedema, ease my lower back,and increase my heart rate, or was I hoping to run into the two pretty ladies in their white shorts?😁😂😇
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