5/15/2026

 Friday, May 15, 2026

1966 South Vietnamese army battled Buddhists, about 80 died

2018 58 Palestinians were killed by the IDF with 1700  hospitalized on the Gaza border, protesting the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem and 70 year founding of Israel

2019 Jeff Koons "Rabbit" sculpture sold for $91.1 million, setting a new record for work by a living artist at auction; the buyer was later identified as hedge fund manager and MLB NY Mets owner Steve Cohen

2025 Trump said that the U.S. and Iran had"sort of" agreed on the terms of a deal on Iran's nuclear program, which reportedly included Iran agreeing to give up highly enriched uranium while keeping lower-grade uranium in exchange for the lifting of sanctions

In bed at 9, up at 4; 0410 119/70/56 128 205.4; 51/45/71/47, cloudy early but sunny day ahead.

Morning meds at 2 p.m., half dose of Bisoprolol at 5:30 a.m.  Yesterday I had quite a bit of lightheadedness, and shortness of breath, presumably from the more-than-half dose of Bisoprolol I took due to the difficulty of splitting the tiny 5 mg. tabs in half evenly.  

Louisa and Ted, my first house, and my final home  I'm at page 306 of My Friends, where Ted and Louisa have recovered the artist's painting of the sea and the friends, but lost his ashes, and Ted has taught Louisa how to swim in the sea, and Louisa asks Ted

"Do you think he would have been angry?  About us losing him?: she asks.

"No. I think he would have laughed.  He liked hide-and-seek."

Her eyes light up.  "Maybe it isn't such a bad idea to get your ashes scattered on a train, after all?  That way you're always on your way somewhere!"

"Ugh, don't say that.  Can't we even stop having to travel when we're dead?"

Louisa laughs.  "Where do you want your ashes scattered, then?"

Ted thinks for a good while before deciding: "In a library.  You don't have to put up with reality there.  It's as if thousands of strangers have given away their imaginary friends, they're sitting on the shelves and calling to you as you walk past. . . " 

The passage reminded me of my long road to a plot for a 'green burial' at Forest Home Cemetery on Milwaukee's south side.  I don't recall ever thinking about the disposal of my carcass until I bought my first house on Newberry Boulevard at the end of 1972.   The house sat on a lot and a half, facing south on the north side of the boulevard,with great space for a rose garden on the eastern half.  I had floribundas on the south side of our chain link fence separating our front yard from the side and back yards, and hybrid teas on the north side.  I grew other kinds of favorite flowers along our east lot line, and had a little succulent rock garden, mostly hens and chicks, anchoring the garden at its north terminus.  It was in creating and maintaining that garden that I first thought I wished my body could be buried there when I died, so it could nourish the soil and the plants as it returned to its elements.  As it turned out, however, I only lived in that home for less than 10 years, and when I moved from it, I stopped thinking about the disposition of my remains, except for occasional largely academic discussions of which is preferable, burial or cremation.  When I worked on my memoir after I retired, I did make an inquiry at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois, where my mother and maternal grandparents are buried, whether I could buried in that family plot or very nearby, but never seriously considered it.  When I did get serious about expressing my wish about what to do with my body once it was lifeless and a nuisance, I reverted to my thinking back on Newberry Boulevard in the 1970: I wanted my remains to become part of the earth again, not burned and not chemically preserved as long as possible.  So I purchased the contract right to have my unembalmed carcass returned in a biodegradable box to a small spot on and in the earth at approximately Latitude: 43.0015° N and Longitude: 87.9434° W, in the city and county of Milwaukee, state of Wisconsin, United States of America, North America, on the planet Earth, in 'our' solar system, in the Milky Way galaxy, in the supposedly ever-expanding Universe, and, the Stage Manager in Thorton Wilder's Our Town would add, in the Mind of God.  

Returning to Ted and Louisa in My Friends, I'm up to page 341 with our heroes in the elegant sleeping car on the train, and I'm wondering how it is that Frederik Backman knows so much about abused and neglected children.  Joar and Fish are the most abused, physically as well as emotionally, but none of them is lovingly nurtured.  'The artist,' C. Jat, was an accidental birth, and thought of  by his parents as odd, not 'normal', unlike other kids and people.  Ted grew up with death all around him, his father enduring a long illness and finally dying of canceer and his mother, hardened by her experiences in life, trying to harden her two sons, Ted the younger, to be able to endure life's hard knocks.  His older brother became toughened by the upbringing, but Ted just grew up insecure and fearful, afraid of life.  Louisa, like my dear brother-in-law Jim R., moved from one foster home to another and from one elementary school to another when he wasn't permitted to be home with his cruel parents.  Louisa's father was never a presence in her life and her mother committed suicide, leaving Lousia insecure, confused, lonely, much like 'the artist', Ted, and Ali.  All the young people were lonely, look for acceptance, not seeing a place for themselves in the adult world.  Some were angry, notably Joar, Ali, Fish, and to a lesser extent Louisa, but back to the question I started with: how is it that Backman chose to create youngsters with these characteristics?  Was he like one of them himself, and, if so, which one?  Or was he an amalgam of all of them?  Some of them?  None of them?  I wonder what his childhood in Stockholm and Helsingborg, Sweden, was like.  He's described himself as shy and socially awkward as a boy, but never as neglected or abused, but we have to assume he knew a lot of people like his fictional characters as he grew up or in his early adulthood.  He's only 44 years old and My Friends is his latest novel, published only last year. It's the first of his novels that I've read.  I suspect it won't be the last.  I don't include And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer (2016) which he calls a novella but seems to me to be a short story.

So much of what I've read 'resonates' with me. (I keep using that term but I don't like it.  I need to find a better one.)  Most recently, as of 2:53 p.m. this afternoon, it's this:

"Do you think God exists?" Ali asked her friends.

"Yes," Kimkim replied, running his pencil across the drawing . . . 

Joar was breathing hard.

"Damned if I know . . .  I don't even think all the people who go to church every Sunday believe in God. I think they just need company,  To feel that they belong to a group."

Kinkim nodded gently and replied: "But I don't think that means that God doesn't exist, Joar. I think maybe that's what God is."

Another short-hitter that made me pause, thinking especially of my years at St. Francis of Assisi. 

Others:

“Picasso said it took him four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but a whole lifetime to learn to paint like a child.” 

 “and most of all angry at death for having such good taste. Always taking the best first.”

“But when someone gets sick and recovers, you always say that it was God who did that, so it’s pretty damn cowardly for Him to escape the blame when someone dies!”

“It is an act of violence when an adult yells at a child”

“Fish telling her what evil among men is like: It’s like water being heated up a little at a time. It gets worse and worse, but so slowly it’s hardly noticeable, so everyone can convince themselves that it’s probably normal, until we’re all boiling.” 

“There’s an author called Donna Tartt who describes why a person falls in love with art: ‘It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes, you.’ That’s what libraries feel like for me.” 

 “Life doesn’t give us purpose. We give life purpose.”

“Because I want to know what’s happening inside you! Because you happened to me! You happen to me every second I’m alive!’ ”

 

 Only my beautiful daughter, an expert and artistic photographer, knows and truly appreciates the story behind this B&W photo of a crabapple tree that used to be located in Lake Park, on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.  I had admired the tree for some time and had tried many times to capture its elegant beauty on film.  I was always unsuccessful because of heavy brush growth all around it, cluttering the background and obscuring its form.  One early morning about 45 years ago, lying in bed, I heard the foghorn blowing at the old lighthouse in the park.  I scrambled into some clothes, grabbed my camera case, rushed to the park, lay down flat on muddy soil on the edge of the downslope off the bluff, and snapped this photo, ever since my favorite, with the fog masking everything but the tree.

I finished My Friends at 8 this evening.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the novel.