4/13/2025

Sunday, April 13, 2025

D+158/84

1861 After 34 hours of bombardment, Fort Sumter surrendered to the Confederates 

1954 Robert Oppenheimer was accused of being a communist

1986 Pope John Paul II met Rome's Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff at the Rome synagogue

In bed at 10:30, awake at 5:50, and up at 3:10  

Prednisone,, day358; 3 mg. day 17/21; Kevzara, day 12/14; CGM, day 11/15; Trulicity, day 2/7.  2 mg. of prednisone at 5:20 a.m. and 1 mg. at 5:30p.m.  Other meds at 8 a.m.

Pesach seder.  We were privileged to be invited by Caela to join her and Saul, her brother Jack Levine and wife Nikki, his sons Sam and David and David's wife Lavinia, and old friends Ken Finkel  and his wife Jane Delzer.  It was a beautiful gathering, both the readings from the Haggadah and the four hours of constant conversation.  Caela presided at the head of her table and she had me seated at the opposite end of the table, in a position of honor which I noted, and appreciaed, and thanked her for as we took our leave.  She called on each of us to read portions of the hagaddah.  I was thankful that she only called on me once, because I had some trouble reading my portion because of my eyesight and low lighting where I was seated and my weak voice.  My favorite portion, not surprisingly, was the dayenu, not because it reminded me of Peter Rofes' custom license plae on his car, but because the word dayenu was so often used by Bob Friebert in the sarcastic or ironic sense of 'what's new?".  I'm confusing this expression with ma hishtanah, or 'what's different.'  Dayenu means 'it would have been enough,' and refers to the many blessings God conferred on his people Israel. 

If He had brought us out from Egypt, and had not carried out judgments against them,  Dayenu,

If He had carried out judgments against them, and not against their idols  Dayenu..  

If He had destroyed their idols, and had not smitten their first born,  Dayenu. 

If He had smitten their first-born, and had not given us their wealth,  Dayenu.

We informally but respectfully observed the trditional food regimen, except for me, who skipped the wine which is an important component of the traditiion.  It was interesting to hear Caela describe and Ken describe the observances in thier childhood homes (for Caela and Jack , hadly any) and observances in Orthodox homes, which are more formal and can go on for hours.  Part of the Passover seder tradition is to set an extra cup of wine on the dinner table for the prophet Elijah and to leave the door open for him to join the family.  Ken related that when he was a child, he believed he could see Elijah coming in the door, which reminded me of my own religious beliefs as a child growing up  so influenced by the nuns and priests of St. Leo parish, and by the dogmas, doctrines, and tradtions of the (Irish) Catholic Church.  During the whole haggadah I thought of the powerful role of tradtion in our formation of identity, of belonging, of memberships in a group distinct from other people - sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.

The conversation around the table after the haggadah was lively and enjoyable.  Ken, who used to lead his own bluegrass band (Grass, Food, and Lodging), described some of the challenges of now being a part of three differnet bluegrass bands with members from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan.  David and Sam Levine engaged in a friendly but spirited debate about some legal dimensions of politics, Sam being a liberal, former Biden-appointee at the Federal Trade Commission and David being more conservative.  Lavinia is a nurse at a trauma hospital in Hyde Park, Chicago, and described some of the challenges of dealing with some of the terrible ccurrences on the south side of Chicago that bring patients to her care.  At our end of the table, Jack and I discussed some of the failings of the Democratic Party and how easy it is to become despondent about American government and politics.  He said he has given up on watching all television news and reads only the Wall Street Journal.  I am reminded that Tom St. John, at whose table we were sitting, chastised me a few years ago for subscribing to that newspaper.  I recall sitting around this same table in January 2023 with Caela, Jack, Saul, Geri, Madeline, Liz, and Rabbi Cohen, planning Tom's funeral.  

As I sat at the table seeing and listening to all these beautiful and interesting and likable people, I thought of how privileged we all are - well-educated, economically secure, each of us an 'elite' in our own way.  How far I have come from 7303 S. Emerald Avenue, Englewood, and St. Leo parish, how different my life has been from my mother's and my father's. 

As I type this, I look out my window and see my good neighbor Gahsan (sp?) and his bull mastiff Athena.  He's bundled up against the cold, windy morning.  He is a Christian from Lebanon, married to his wife from Scotland, living here in Bayside in an elegant house down the street from us.  Another elite.  I learned yesterday fro Geri that the house next door to us on the west sold for #1,350,000.  Such a world I live in, so far from my roots.  Last night's table talk, at least between Jack and me, was about how the Democratic Party has come to represent 'elites' like us, and not 'ordinary' working class Americans.  I didn't say it then but I'm thinking now "limousine liberals," but that's another topic which I best not try to address today while I try to recover from my 'big night out.'

Why am I so cold?  I forgot that yesterday, when Geri had the front door open to let some fresh air into the house, I turned off the thermostat.  It's 65° in the house and I'm 'freezing', even in my heavy, warm bathrobe.  I turned the thermostat back on.

Geri is turning a corner.  She went out for a walk in Mequon today at noon and took a walk up Wakefield yesterday.  She also drove the Audi up to Metro Market yesterday and did her food shopping.  She is not using the cane anymore and the CPM machine will be picked up tomorrow. She did some clean-up work in the yard yesterday.   She still has a slight limp and had some stiffness and dull soreness in her leg when she woke up this morning, but she's getting back to normal.  The big test will be Spring gardening.

Test message to Caela:  "Hi, Sweetie.  I had such a good time last night, the best time I’ve had for quite some time.  It was a pleasure reading and hearing others read the haggadah and in listening to all the great conversation around the table.  I was privileged to be seated opposite you and I appreciated it.  It was so good to see Ken and Jane whom I hadn’t seen since Tom’s funeral, to hear Ken describe his memories of Passovers in his childhood, and his challenges working with three different bands and bandmates from three different states.  I loved the friendly debate between Sam and David and listening to you and Jack reminiscing (or rather, you reminiscing and Jack not😄) and my schmoozing with Jack.    I was also happy to see Saul; it had been a long time.   It was just a wonderful evening, a blessing, and I thank you. (And the meal was superb!)  Thank you so much.❤️❤️❤️

I've been thinking of Our Town today:

Stage Manager: “You know how it is: you’re twenty-one or twenty-two and you make some decisions; then whisssh! you’re seventy: you’ve been a lawyer for fifty years, and that white-haired lady at your side has eaten over fifty thousand meals with you.”

And Emily: 

I can’t bear it. They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I’m here. I’m grown up. I love you all, everything. – I can’t look at everything hard enough. Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me.

Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I’m dead. You’re a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally’s dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt jynnust terrible about it – don’t you remember?

But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another.

I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life, and we never noticed. Take me back – up the hill – to my grave.

But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking. And Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?

Stage Manager: No. The saints and poets, maybe they do some.

Emily: I’m ready to go back. I should have listened to you. That’s all human beings are! Just blind people. . . . 

My note in this journal two years ago, part of my thoughts prompted by reading Marilynne Robinson's Home, and the big brother - little sister relationship between Glory and Jack Broughton: "The more of the novel I read, the greater the sense of what I think Robinson calls "the transcendence of the ordinary," the preparation of a meal for the family to eat, the ironing of a shirt for Jack or her father to wear, the inherent love-significance of these ordinary acts."

Also, the poem Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden.

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made 
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 
When the rooms were warm, he’d call, 
and slowly I would rise and dress, 
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him, 
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know 
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

As I sat at Caela's table last night, my head was full of such thoughts while everyone else seemed to be fully engaged with the moment.  Are these just the ways of an old man, sitting with his cane, wishing he had remembered his hearing aids and handkerchief?