9/9/2026

 Wednesday, September 9, 2026

 1920 Charles Edward Clausen was born in Fort Dodge, IA

1963 Alabama Governor George Wallace served a federal injunction to stop orders of state police to bar black students from enrolling in white schools

1985 President Reagan ordered sanctions against South Africa, targeting apartheid

2021  Joe Biden announced widespread COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal workers, contractors, and large employers, affecting 100 million people

2025 The Israeli Defense Forces issued an evacuation order for the entirety of Gaza City amidst its renewed offensive. 

In bed at 9:30, awake at 3:35 thinking of Bill and Barbara Mullen, Oct. 10 Honor Flight, up at 4:10;  0425 202.6  117/74/65; 68/82/67, rain this morning, then partly cloudy. Picking Andy up at Ogui at 7:45.

Morning meds at 10 a.m.  Entresto at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m.   

My Dad's 106th birthday.  You can take the boy out of the Church, but you can't take the Church out of the boy.  After my morning protocol of necessaries, my first act was to light a candle and some incense in honor of my father's birthday.  One of the greatest blessings in my life was having my Dad living with us for the last few years of his life, after almost a lifetime of distance between us, and even estrangement.  He was 75, and I was 55, before we became close in 1996.  And he died in 2007 at age 86.  The sad story is laid out in my memoir of growing up in the years after World War II, from which he returned so wrecked. I feel wistful remembering him this morning, remembering that I kissed him on his deathbed in Phoenix- something we never did during his life, remembering how long it took for him to accept hugging as a normal part of life among family and friends, remembering how I treasure our late-life long rides to Boca Grande in Florida, and through the Wisconsin farmlands of northern Ozaukee County.

Daylight
See the dew on the sunflower
And a rose that is fading
Roses whither away
Like the sunflower
I yearn to turn my face to the dawn
I am waiting for the day . . .

Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every streetlamp
Seems to beat a fatalistic warning
Someone mutters
And the streetlamp gutters
And soon it will be morning

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin

Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
The streetlamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning

Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun

Switzy, a novel by Emma Cline.  I purchased this book on Kindle and Audible last night and started it today.  It's a book along the same lines as Frisch's Man in the Holocene, an aging man's deteriorating ability to organize and understand the world, rendered from inside that deterioration rather than observed from outside it.  The difference is that the protagonist in Switzy, David, is on his way to Zurich for his medically assisted suicide, a subject that has long interested me.  The book is long-listed for the 2026 Booker Prize.  I'm about 20% through the book and I'm wondering whether I should be reading it.  David is 'only' somewhere in his 70s, but he's been diagnosed with some form of dementia, presumably Alzheimer's.  But he is suffering from all the indignities of old age, including cognitive decline, memory loss, confusion, perhaps some paranoia, loss of bowel and bladder control, even smelling different than younger people, which, according to ChatGPT, is scientifically accurate.  So far, this book, like Man in the Holocene, and Ezekiel Emanuel's Atlantic article, tends to make one desire medically-assisted suicide, or any kind of suicide that forecloses advanced old age.  “So we beat on, boats against the current, . . ."

Honor Flight.  I received a call from Karyn this afternoon, responding to my text about visiting the Mullen gravesite at Arlington.  It may be possible, but the decision will have to be made 'on game day,' depending on the weather, construction conditions, etc.