11/23/2025

 Sunday, November 23, 2025

1765  The British Stamp Act was rejected by judges in the Frederick County Court House in Frederick, Maryland, the first time that had happened in the American colonies. The day is celebrated in Frederick as Repudiation Day.

1946  At least 6,000 Vietnamese civilians were killed in a French naval bombardment of the port city of Haiphong, which led to the outbreak of the First Indochina War.

1963 Following the protocol after Abraham Lincoln's death, JFK's body lay in repose in the East Room of the White House and was viewed by officials and heads of state 

In bed at 9:30, up from the LZB at 7:15.  I asked Geri whether she had slipped me a Mickey Finn last night.  She said 'yes.'  37°, wind chill 26°, hifh 51°.  Aching hips during the night led me to the LZB around 5 a.m. & had me wondering whether they were a sign of lingering or recurring PMR.    

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 10:30 a.m.   

Trees are beautiful when they sprout leaves in the Spring. Trees are beautiful when they sport leaves all Summer.  Trees are beautiful when they shed leaves in the Fall.  Trees are beautiful when they are bare.

Remembering this weekend in 1963.  This date in 1963 was a Saturday.  John Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas the day before.  HIs body lay in the East Room of the White House and would be moved to the Capitol Rotunda the next day, November 24th.   From my memoir:

Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, November 22^nd, I was sitting with my class on some risers out in the woods waiting for a class of some sort to begin.  An officer drove up in a Jeep and spoke to the instructor and then to us.  President Kennedy had been shot to death in Dallas.

            What happened next?  Were we dismissed?  Was the base secured?  Did we continue with the instruction?  Was there any discussion of what the assassination might mean for the military?  I have no memory of it.  I was so stunned that I think my mind dropped into low gear.  The enormity of the crime was too much to absorb.  Your mother and I spent that night and all day Saturday watching the news.  I don’t remember this; I am assuming that we had a television.  In any event, we were at least listening to the news and learned that the assassin was a former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald.  Kennedy’s body was returned to Washington and lay in repose in the East Room of the White House until Sunday when it was moved to the Capitol rotunda for public viewing.

            On Sunday morning, your mother and I drove the short trip up US 1 to Washington.  I wore my uniform.  With thousands of others, we stood on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hill.  As we waited for the cortege, someone in the crowd with a portable radio announced that Oswald had been shot and killed while in police custody in Dallas.  Shortly thereafter the vanguard of the cortege passed and we could hear the approaching muffled drums and nothing else.  All were silent, solemn.  The shock and pain of the assassination and the knowledge that the assassin was a former Marine was now compounded by the almost unbelievable news of Oswald’s death in police custody.  The muffled drums drew closer and louder, the caisson carrying the President’s body came into view and passed, as did the riderless horse behind it.  I saluted as the body passed and then we went home, wondering what was happening to the country.

 

It was 62 years ago.   I was 22 years old.  Anne was 21.  We had been married for 5 months and 8 days, were less than 6 months out of college, and were starting our adult lives.

Palettes

 Nostalgia.  When I finished typing the notes about the weekend following JFK's assassination, I went to the basement to find one of my favorite Frank Sinatra albums that was not in its CD jewel case.  I've avoided downstairs since the Big Rain and flood on August 9-10.  I'm daunted by the thought of returning it to its condition when I called it my 'sanctuary,' and fear that I may never use it as my 'atelier' for painting.  Today, I found my CD where I thought it would be, in a CD player/radio I used downstairs, and had quite a bout of nostalgia looking at my paintings on the walls and at all the treasures I had squirrelled away down there, painting brushes and supplies and memorabilia of all sorts.  I came back upstairs with the CD and listened to it, starting with the title song, The September Of My Years, which intensified the nostalgia.

One day you turn around and it's summer

Next day you turn around and it's fall

And the springs and the winters of a lifetime

Whatever happened to them all?

As a man who has always had the wand'ring ways

Now I'm reaching back for yesterdays

'Til a long-forgotten love appears

And I find that I'm sighing softly as I near

September, the warm September of my years

As I man who has never paused at wishing wells

Now I'm watching children's carousels

And their laughter's music to my ears

And I find that I'm smiling gently as I near

September, the warm September of my years

The golden warm September of my years

and The Man in the Looking Glass.

I've seen that face before, that face that I see in the mirror

I know that face, I've seen that face before

I knew that dopey guy when he didn't know how to tie his tie

He stood right there and he had hair galore

The man in the looking glass, who can he be?

The man in the looking glass, can he possibly be me?

Where's our young Romeo, the lad who used to sigh?

Who's the middle-aged lothario with a twinkle in his eye?

He seem so much wiser now, less lonely but then

Could be he's only pretending again

Man in the looking glass, smiling away, how's your sacroiliac today?

Where's your first love affair, that tragedy d'amour?

The true love you thought would be the end of you for sure

Man in the looking glass, have no regrets

The man who's wise never forgets

That life is worth living if once in a while

You can look in that looking glass and smile

No one can sing a sad song or a nostalgic one quite like Frank Sinatra.  Sometimes they can seem like Mikey the Mope songs, which is, I suppose, why I take to them.  They appeal to a guy with "persistent depressive disorder" or to anyone who is prone to heavy sentimentalism.  I don't care at all for  any of his many upbeat tunes, but I'm a sucker for all his sad ones.  Being Irish, he had a persistent sense of tragedy, and all that.