Wednesday, March 11, 2026
1963 Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara ordered the adoption by the US military of the M16 assault rifle, originally designed as the AR-15 by Eugene Stoner
2020 COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization after 121,564 cases worldwide and 4,373 deaths
2025 U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would raise tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50%. Ontario Premier Doug Ford suspendsed the planned surcharges on electricity in the US. Trump backed off afterwards, though his original plan to impose 25% tariffs will go as planned. Trump's trade counselor Peter Navarro saed that 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum won't take effect on Wednesday.
In bed at 10, awake at 4, weigh-in at 5. 33/19/36/30. Snow later & wind 118/65/57 101 207.2
Morning meds at a.m.
Deliver Me From Nowhere is the 2025 biographical film about Bruce Springsteen, starring the remarkable Jeremy Allen White, and directed by Scott Cooper. It focuses on a dark period in Springsteen's life when he suffered from depression, and he struggled to write, perform, and then to get his album Nebraska produced. An underlying theme throughout the film was his difficult relationship with his father, who was also a sufferer from depression and alcoholism, as well as being abusive and neglectful throughout Springsteen's childhood. The movie's depiction of his relationship(s) with his father and his mother reminded me, of course, of my relationships with my own parents, most painfully the scene in which his mother sent young Bruce into a local ginmill to try to get his father to come home. The scene reminded me of a time when I was home alone and received a telephone call from my Dad's workplace, saying he hadn't shown up for work. I went out looking for him in our local ginmills and in the cars parked nearby, to see if he might be sleeping in one of them. It reminded me of taking a CTA bus with my mother to visit him in some medical facility where he was either (a) drying out, or (2) being treated for dangerously high blood pressure, or (3) more likely, both. The scene in which Springsteen's father was threatening his mother in their kitchen and in which Springsteen hit him with a baseball bat reminded me of the only time I experienced by Dad being physically abusive to my mother in our kitchen at 7307 S. Emerald. I had locked myself in our bathroom while they engaged in a loud argument, but came out when I could tell he was hurting her, yelling at him to 'cut it out', or 'let her go,' or some such, which he did. These are painful memories, even a lifetime later, and my sister Kitty had her own, both of us emotionally scarred and dealing with our own cases of childhood or generationally-transmitted PTSD. I was also emotionally touched by the film's depiction of Springsteen's relationship with his mother, especially the scenes of his mother singing, or the scene in which she danced with Bruce as a child. It reminded me of my mother teaching me how to 'jitterbug' and do the 'two-step' in our dining room at 7307. I needed to learn the basics before going to my first "sock hop" at St. Sabina's, our neighboring Catholic parish that provided the first opportunity for physical contact between the Catholic boys and girls whom the Catholic schools kept duly segregated in same-sex high schools.
I don't know that I can say the movie is particularly good, but I certainly related to its family plot for the aforementioned reasons. I also related to the struggle of both Springsteen and his father to establish a loving relationship later in life. If the film version is to be believed, Springsteen was 32 years old when he reconciled with his father; in my case, I was 55 and my Dad 75. The scene in the movie where the reconciliation occurred seemed pretty hokie to me, with the father making Bruce sit on his lap, but apparently it's based on a real life event. The father admits to Bruce that he wasn't a very good father and Bruce tells him that he did the best he could, or words to that effect. I recall it as Bruce telling his father that he was fighting his own battles during Bruce's childhood. It reminded me of the message on the back of a T-shirt I saw at Sendik's one day: Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. And it reminded me of the saying that the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons.
“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” (Exodus 20:5).
“Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. You show love to thousands but bring the punishment for the parents’ sins into the laps of their children after them. Great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord Almighty” (Jeremiah 32:17-18).
How true that is. "Dutch" Springsteen's depression was transferred to Bruce, and our father's depression was transferred to Kitty and me. Both happiness and unhappiness are contagious.
MY FATHER'S HOUSE 
Album version
Last night I dreamed that I was a child
Out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest
Before the darkness falls
I heard the wind rustling through the trees
And ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snapping at my heels
I broke through the trees and there in the night
My father's house stood shining hard and bright
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran till I fell shaking in his arms
I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts
I got dressed and to that house I did ride
From out on the road I could see its windows shining in light
I walked up the steps and stood on the porch
A woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story and who I'd come for
She said "I'm sorry son but no one by that name lives here anymore"
My father's house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned
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