7/5/2026

 Sunday, July 5, 2026

1937, Spam was first introduced by the Hormel Foods Corporation

1948 The National Health Service was established in the UK

1950 The Law of Return was passed, guaranteeing all Jews the right to live in Israel

2017 101 people were reported shot, 15 killed in Chicago over the 4th of July weekend

2024  President Joe Biden gave an interview to quell fears about his stamina and cognitive abilities with ABC's George Stephanopoulos

In bed at 9:20, up at  5:35; 0550 134/81/63 118 202.8; 64/59/75/64 cloudy, rain in morning.

Morning meds at 8:30 a.m.,  and Eliquis at 6:45 a.m. and p.m.

Buckeye.  I started the day in the usual way, first taking care of the kitchen chores I had let go last night, then making coffee, then entering my 'vitals' in the VA record book, and then in this journal, then checking the NYTimes to be sure no calamity had occurred overnight, and then getting back to my book, which I had restarted while waiting to take my blood pressure.  The plot has thickened considerably.  Margaret and Cal have been involved in a passionate affair, with Felix aboard his ship in the Pacific and Becky no longer sleeping with Cal.  Then Felix's ship gets torpedoed and sunk in the Philippine Sea, Felix gets rescued, and sent first to a hospital in Manila, then another in San Francisco, where the following occurs:

Felix had no idea what was a reasonable amount of time to spend in the hospital after your ship got torpedoes out from under you, but it had been over two weeks since the Teague had gone done, and he was starting to get a little concerned about his diagnosis.  Were his discharge papers being delayed? Were they in limbo?

 "Understand," the doctor said, "it's our job to make sure our boys are in sound shape in every way before they reenter civilian life.  It's what we do."

Felix appreciated that, but he also knew that these doctors sometimes stamped NP on your record.  Neuropsychiatric.  He'd heard stories about that over the past three years.  An NP never went away, once it was in your file. . .  

 I read this and thought back to a rare conversation I had with my Dad, sitting at his kitchen table in North Port, FL, when, for the first and only time, he spoke to me a little about his time in the Marines, and his mustering out of the Marines at Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago.  He told me, "They didn't want to let me out."  He didn't mention any particulars, just that "they" didn't want to let him out, and that he pushed them.  I didn't probe for more information, perhaps out of respect for his privacy, but basically because I knew he was in bad shape when he was discharged.  I also knew that although he received an Honorable Discharge, he was discharged as a buck private, E1, the same rank he held on his first day as a Marine recruit in San Diego, one year and 9 months earlier.  He had clearly had disciplinary problems during his time of service, and psychological/emotional/mental problems after Iwo Jima.  But "they" did release him, and he came home to his 23-year-old wife, 4-year-old son, and 1-year-old daughter.  So far as I know, neither his wife nor his family ever received help from the government in dealing with their badly damaged veteran.

The story in Buckeye moved on from the very end of the war to the return of millions of young men to their families and civilian life, and on to the 1950s.  The main focus is on the Salts, Felix and Margaret, and the strains in their relationship, not only because of his homosexuality but also because of their three years of complete separation and his relationship with Augie on board the Teague.  The story is reminiscent of the great 1946 William Wyler movie, The Best Years of Our Lives, about three returning WWII vets played by Frederick March, Dana Andrews, and a real veteran who had lost both hands in the Navy, Harold Russell.  The novel and the movie remind me of - words fail me - the difficulties facing both my Dad and my Mom.  He got home the day after Thanksgiving.  How to account for that?  I wonder now, in light of all that I know (and all that I don't know), whether he returned to my mother or rather to his mother and father.  Such mysteries.   When, 20 years ago or so, I asked his sister, my Aunt Monica, for some information about his homecoming after the war, she became distraught, almost hysterical, upset that I was looking into that period of the family's life.  All she would tell me was how badly damaged he was when he got back to Chicago.  I still have a vivid memory of the phone call, where I was when I called, what I said, and how she reacted.  

I know what it was like coming back to the States, and to married life, after a year of separation.  I can hardly imagine what it might be like to return after 2 years or 3 years, or, in my Dad's case, 21 or 22 months wrapped around Iwo Jima.  The more I reflect on their experiences in their early 20s, the greater the sympathy and admiration I feel for my parents.

. . .  Back to the novel, I'm 2/3rds of the way through it this afternoon, and the Salts and the Jenkins families have become very intertwined. Skip Jenkins has become a regular playmate and protector of Thomas Aquinas Salt, and Felix has become a regular 'client' of Becky Jenkins' psychic service.  Through her, he has made contact with his Navy lover, Augie Varick.  I'm at the point of asking myself whether the gross implausibility of Becky's supposed ability to 'penetrate the membrane between the world of the living and the world of the dead' makes this whole story so implausible as to be not worth continuing.  Everything else in the novel is plausible, indeed quite realistic.  Cal, Felix, and Margaret are all believable, as are their parents and their children, but Becky . . . ?