Monday, May 25, 2026. Memorial Day
1787 Constitutional Convention opened at Philadelphia, with George Washington presiding
1961 JFK announced US goal of putting a man on the Moon before the end of the decade
2020 George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer
2025 Russian forces launched their largest air attack on Ukraine, including the capital city Kyiv, since the start of the war, killing at least 14 people and wounding dozens more. At least 298 Iranian Shahed drones and 69 missiles were launched at Ukrainian cities during the overnight attack
In bed by 9, up at 5:45; 0555 133/66/32 ### 205.0;57/77/52, mostly sunny.
Morning meds at 8:40 a.m., half-dose of Bisoprolol at 7 a.m.
Yesterday was the unveiling of Tom's gravestone, almost 3 and 1/2 years after his death. Micaela said it was hard, "so hard" and "surprisingly hard." To some extent, I suppose she is referring to getting the whole family together, especially with Jack "shut down," but mostly she's surely talking about reliving the terrible experience of Tom's sudden and stunning death in the waters off St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, all that she and Saul went through, in the water, and on the boat, and getting him to the hospital, then the struggle of getting his body back to Wisconsin for the funeral and burial. He died on January 18, 2023 and the funeral couldn't be held until the 26th, 8 long days afterward. I'm reliving some of those long days myself this morning, recalling the gatherings on Wood Place with the family and closest friends and Rabbi David Cohen, my anguish (too strong a word?) and sleepless nights over how to eulogize Tom properly and meaningfully before Micaela, his children Jessie, Ben, Saul, Jake, and his sisters Judy and Mary. I felt unworthy of the honor and unequal to the responsibility and struggled with it for the week. By the time of the funeral, I must have looked pretty weak and tired because the cantor helped me with my cane up to and away from the bimah from where I could see the entire gathered congregation, with so many friends, many of whom I had met through Tom's catalysing of new friendships.
How many times have I thought of Tom and of our friendship since that day? More than 1,000 days have passed and I'm sure I've thought of him more than 1,000 times, the very many experiences shared, the durability of the friendship despite its sometimes fragility, our strengths and our weaknesses, our imperfections, my own imperfections. It's been my friendship with Tom, more than any other friendship, that has led to reflect in my old age on the complicated, imperfect nature of friendships between complicated, imperfect adults. Judith Viorst wrote her very interesting book about relationships, Necessary Losses, in 1986. The title of her chapter about friendships is telling: "Convenience Friends and Historical Friends and Crossroads and Cross-Generational Friends and Friends Who Come When You Call at Two in the Morning." Friendships comes in many forms. Viorst quotes and rebuffs the great Roman orator and essayist Cicero's essay "On Friendship":
"How can life be worth living . . . which lacks that repose which is to be found in the mutual good will of a friend?" But he then goes on to impose upon friendship a burden no friendship could possibly sustain by defining it as a relationship between two "stainless" characters having "a complete accord on all subjects human and divine . . . There must be complete harmony" proclaims the stringent Cicero, "of interests, purpose and aims, without exception."
[But, rejoins Viorst] Two people, two adults, will never match each other perfectly. Even the best of friends are friends in spots.
And so it was with Tom and me. So it was with David Branch and me, with Ara Cherchian and me, with Ed Felsenthal and me, even with my sister Kitty and me.
We are all complicated and imperfect and so are our friendships. That acknowledged, I still say thank God (in a manner of speaking) for good friends. Today I'm thinking of Tom and Micaela and their complicated friendships over almost an adult lifetime, and I'm thankful for them, for Ed Felsenthal, and for Tom Devitt, Bill Hendricks, and Jerry Nugent, for Ara Cherchian, and Vicki Conti, and David Branch, for Bob Hillary and Andy Furlong, for John Kroll and Ron Kendall, for Larry Stack, Jack O'Keefe, and Johnny Flynn, for Cathy Semrau and Ralphie Bradshaw, for Wally Halperin and Mr. and Mrs. Kelly, for Ann and Carl Semrau, for Frank Peterson and our downstairs neighbors in Doylestown, for Matthew Gottschalk and Troy Major, for Gerri Sheets-Howard, for Pat Hetrick and Tom Olson, Bob Boden and Ray Aiken, and . . . and . . .
Facebook posting today:
Charles D. Clausen shared a memory.
Alas, the tree is now gone, hewn a few years ago by the cemetery officials because of age or perhaps disease. In this respect also, it reminded me of the folks buried at Wood and of the folks I bump into at the nearby VA medical center, all vulnerable to age and disease. I miss the tree and am glad that I took some photos of it while it was still standing. I think of it every time I pass the spot where it used to proudly stand guard duty over the nearby graves, reminding me of the old guys I see today in honor guards, wearing their VFW or American Legion hats.
6 Years Ago
May 25, 2020
A photo of my favorite tree at Wood National Cemetery in Milwaukee. It's old and gnarled and shades a few of the more than 36,000 veterans buried there. I usually visit the cemetery every time I visit one of the clinics at the Zablocki VA Medical Center that care for me and more than 64,000 other veterans every year. For decades I drove past the National Cemetery on I 94 heading to or from Madison or some other westerly destination. Now I stop in and visit, taking in its beauty and its peacefulness. Many of those buried here lived in the Milwaukee Soldiers Home next to it, authorized by Abraham Lincoln shortly before his assassination to provide care for Civil War veterans. Thankfully, after falling to near ruin, the Soldiers Home and its supporting facilities are being restored to provide housing for veterans who need help.
I never visit Wood, or Zablocki, or the grounds of the Soldiers Home without feeling some emotion, mostly gratitude and a sense of kinship with the 'motley crew' who comprise the other visitors, temporary at Zablocki and permanent at Wood. I'm always conscious of the fact that each of us is special because none of us is special. The medical caregivers at Zablocki don't ask what branch of military service we were in, whether we were officer or enlisted, or whether we served in a war zone. They know we all served somewhere sometime, as ordered. Each headstone in Wood is the same size and material, regardless of the veteran's rank or when or where he or she served. They remind the few visitors who come that each is special because none is special. They almost inevitably bring to mind the adage found on the walls of VFW posts everywhere: All gave some, some gave all.
I still wear on a chain around my old neck the dog tags I wore in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966. Not because I'm a militarist since quite the opposite is true. But because they remind me of my abiding kinship with all those vets at Zablocki and all those vets buried at Wood and all who have served and who serve now. And they remind me of our right to expect more of our national leadership than what we have.
I made my annual pilgrimage to Wood National Cemetery this afternoon. I waited until 1 p.m.,, to avoid the Memorial Day ceremonies and speeches around the flag pole which started at 9 a.m. When I got there, all the oficial stuff was over, I even managed to avoid the crowds and traffic arriving for the Brewers-Cardinals game at the stadium. There were handfuls of individuals and small grounps walking among the headstones, presumably of loved ones or family members of some sort. Some had small bunches of flowers to leave at the gravesite, others didn't. I drove very slowly throughout most of the cemetery and was caught up short by one headstone that read "Geraldine, wife of . . ." with the years of her birth and death. I don't know any of the thousands of former soldier, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen (and women) buried there, but I've long felt a relationship with all of them because of our one commonality: we all served in the country's armed forces, from the time of the War of 1812 until more recent times. The cemetery isn't accepting new burials anymore. It has pretty much run out of space. and new burials from this area are interred at the national cemetery at Union Grove in Racine County. If I could be buried at Wook, I would sell my space at Forest Home Cemetery and chose Wood as my final resting place, but it is not to be. I wasn't there for very long this afternoon and left, as usual, feeling better than I did when I arrived. It seems a bit wierd, but I love the place, not just the natioaal cemetery, but the whole federal compound between I-94 and National Ave, The Old Soldiers' Home, and all the related builldings, the huge medical center with its related buildings, the Fischer House, etc. I call the place my "second home" and with good reason since I spend so much of my time there in my old age. Twp years ago, when I counted up and did the computing, I found I had visited the medical center twice every two weeks, or about once ever 10 days. I have done the tabulating for this year, but I suspect my current rate is at least once a week, including the 10 days of in-patient care, a few outpatient surgeries, and s.everal trips to the ER. Truly the only place where I've spent more time is our home in Bayside. On my way home, I listened to my playlist of great female C&W singers, including Emmylou Harris singing Calling My Children Home, which always gets me near tears:
Back in the years with all together
Around the place we'd romp and play
So lonely now I oft' times wonder
Oh will they come back home some day
I'm lonesome for my precious children
They live so far away
Oh may they hear my calling, calling
and come back home some day
As I suggested to my old pal LOA the other day, it's hard to beat great country music for emotional impact. This song ralways eminds me of when my kids were little and I would take them on weekend mornings to Lake Park, or to Back Bay Park, or Cathedral Park, or to the Sports Show or the Boat Show. 'Around the place we'd romp and play,' etc. etc.😢
Geri and I took another trip to the Grafton Home Depot this afternoon for another 10 bags of mulch, then to Sendik's for hamburgers and buns, then to Trader Joe's for low salt potato chips. A long, good busy day.
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