6/4/23

 Sunday, June 4, 2023

In bed by 10, up at 6:05, waking from a dream re walking to Bean's Lake, stopping at Tom & Caela's house with Tom still living though past his death.  Sunny 59℉, expected high of 72℉, NE wind at 8 mph,  1 to 8 mph during the day, and gusts up to 14 mph, no rain expected until maybe next Saturday.  The sun rose at 5:13 & will set at 8:27, 15+13.

Starting the day seeing and hearing.  I sat on the patio again this morning, sipping a cup of coffee and looking on the luxuriant sea of green all around (trees, shrubs, bushes, leaves, plants, flowers), listening to the occasional deep resonating of the wind chimes, and hearing the neighboring birds singing, calling, marking their proprietary nesting spaces.  The cardinals, doves, and crows I can identify by ear, and Merlin tells me it is hearing what my old ears can't: robins, house finches, goldfinches, and a blue jay.  The squirrel-proof birdfeeder I hung from the patio tree the other day shows no sign of having been plundered by squirrels, birds, or white-tail deer.  Has it not been discovered yet or is my placement inopportune?

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minn. by James Wright

Over my head I see the bronze butterfly,

Asleep on the black trunk,

Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.

Down the ravine behind the empty house,

The cowbells follow one another

Into the distances of the afternoon.

To my right,

In a field of sunlight between two pines,

The droppings of last year's horses

Blaze up into golden stones.

I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on,

A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.

I have wasted my life.

Leisure by W. H. Davies

What is this life, if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Depression in Winter by Jane Kenyon

There comes a little space between the south side of a boulder

And the snow that fills the woods around it.

Sun heats the stone, reveals

A crescent of bare ground: brown ferns, 

And tufts of needles like red hair,

Acorns, a patch of moss, bright green . . . 

I sank with every step up to my knees,

Throwing myself forward with a violence

Of effort, greedy for unhappiness --

Until by accident I found the stone

With its secret porch of heat and light,

Where something small could luxuriate, then

Turned back down my path, chastened and calm.

 Dystopia; the morning news.  JSOnline: "A 1-year-old child was fatally shot on the city's north side Saturday night, Milwaukee police said.  According to police, the girl was shot in a vehicle by a known suspect during an argument between adults.  The incident took place around 8:11 p.m. in the 1900 block of West Atkinson Avenue, near the Milwaukee Public Library Atkinson Branch.  The child was transported to Children's Hospital, where she died from her injuries. Anyone with additional information regarding this incident is asked to contact Milwaukee Police at (414) 935-7360, or to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (414) 224-Tips or by using the P3 Tips app."

Is a one-year-old an infant or a toddler, or a bit of each?  Is her shooting death an unspeakable tragedy or just a familiar day in the city?  Does it matter whether she 'comes from money' or is poor?  Does it matter whether she is Black or Brown or White?  What would it take to make her killing make us gasp or lose a breath,  grieve, or silently weep on reading or hearing the news?  What does it say about our society, our culture, our community, and ourselves that learning of another innocent Black child shot to death in the inner city is just another day at the office, barely worth a mention without even giving her name on an inside page of the local fish wrap?  What does it say about the news media and more significantly what does it say about the readers/listeners/watchers of that media?  Is it just virtue-signaling on my part to ask such questions or is it a recognition that we are inured to the violent deaths of Blacks, men and women, lawbreakers and innocents, grown-ups and kids, victims of police violence or domestic violence or gang violence, whatever, whoever, wherever, however.  'Another one bites the dust.' 10th homicide of a minor in Milwaukee so far this year.

Another one bites the dust / Another one bites the dust / Another one gone and another one gone / Another one bites the dust, yeah / There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man / And bring him to the ground / You can beat him you can cheat him you can treat him bad / And leave him when he's down, yeah / But I'm ready yes I'm ready for you / I'm standing on my own two feet / Out of the doorway the bullets rip / Repeating the sound of the beat, oh yeah. [Queen, 1980]

Woman, why are you weeping?

The morning after the Crucifixion, 

Mary Magdalene came to see the body 

of Christ. She found the stone 

rolled away from the empty tomb. Two 

figures dressed in white asked her, 

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

“Because,” she replied, “they have 

taken away my Lord, and I do not know 

where they have laid him.”

Returned from long travel, I sit

in the familiar, sun-streaked pew, waiting

for the bread and wine of holy Communion.

The old comfort does not rise in me, only

apathy and bafflement.

                                    India, with her ceaseless

bells and fire, her crows calling stridently

all night; India with her sandalwood

smoke, and graceful gods, many headed and many-

armed, has taken away the one who blessed

and kept me.

                        The thing is done, as surely

as if my luggage has been stolen from the train.

Men and women with faces as calm as lakes at dusk

have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know

where to find him.

. . . . . 

Rajiv did not weep. He did not cover

his face with his hands when we rowed past

the dead body of a newborn nudging the grassy

banks at Benares – close by a snake

rearing up, and a cast-off garland of flowers.

 

He explained. When the family are too poor

to cremate their dead, they bring the body

here, and slip it into the waters of the Ganges

and Yamuna rivers.

                        Perhaps the child was dead

at birth; perhaps it had the misfortune

to be born a girl. The mother may have walked

two days with her baby’s body to this place

where Gandhi’s ashes once struck the waves

with a sound like gravel being scuffed

over the edge of a bridge.

 

“What shall we do about this?” I asked

my God, who even then was leaving me. The reply

was scorching wind, lapping of water, pull

of the black oarsmen on the oars . . . 

 

~ Jane Kenyon

6/3/23

 Saturday, June 3, 2023

In bed around 10, up at 3:10 with GERD, slept in the bedroom recliner for much of the night, up at 7:15, very tired.  Sunny 62℉, expected high of 75℉, NNE wind at 5 mph, gusts up to 21 mph.  Again no rain expected for the next 10 days, drought?  The sun rose at 5:13 and will set at 8:26, 15+12.

The day after GERD is usually a drag, the middle of the night coughing and gasping and swallowing water and antacid and using one Kleenex after another and moving from bed to recliner with the long and wide bath towel as a blanket and waiting for the acid burn in the throat to cool off enough to try to fall back to sleep takes a lot out of an old guy, more than the uninitiated might expect, so the following day is kind of a washout.

Inside the Meltdown at CNN: CEO Chris Licht felt he was on a mission to restore the network’s reputation for serious journalism. How did it all go wrong? by TIM ALBERT.  The Atlantic, June 2, 2023.  With talents like Jake Tapper, Jim Acosta, John Hargrove, Christiane Amanpour, Bianna Golodryga, Brianna Keiler, Kaitlan Collins, and Audie Cornish it would seem to be hard to wreck an established news outlet.  Chris Licht and his boss at Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav have managed to do it, the coup de grace being the CNN Trump Town Hall.

CDC Handyman!?!  I removed the old one-way light bulb socket on a pretty porcelain lamp that has been gathering dust in the basement for years and replaced it with a 3-way socket.  The lamp is very old, including the electrical wire which I probably should have replaced along with the socket.  The lamp itself consists of 3 separate porcelain pieces, a metal footing on which they rest, plus a long metal tube through which the electrical wire runs up to the socket.  Getting all together took some time for my un-dexterous fingers.

Only one of so many favorite Dolly Parton songs.  I can't listen to her singing it without smiling and wondering how anyone could not be a Dolly Parton fan.  I listened to it during my drive up to the countryside in south Sheboygan County last week, on my Country Women playlist.

Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That

Why'd you come in here lookin' like that
In your cowboy boots and your painted-on jeans?
All decked out like a cowgirl's dream
Why'd you come in here looking like that?

Here comes my baby, draggin' my heart behind
He's drivin' me crazy, who says love is blind?

He's got a wanderin' eye and a travelin' mind
Big ideas and a little behind
Out with a different woman every night
But I remember when he was mine

Why'd you come in here lookin' like that
In your high-heeled boots and your painted-on jeans?
All decked out like a cowgirl's dream
Waltzing right in here lookin' like that

Why'd you come in here lookin' like that
When you could stop traffic in a gunny sack?
Why you're almost givin' me a heart attack
When you waltz right in here lookin' like that?

I just can't stand it

To see him on the town

He's out slow dancing

With every girl around

I'm a softhearted woman he's a hardheaded man

And he's gonna make me feel just as bad as he can

He's got himself a mean streak half a mile wide

But now he's dancing on this heart of mine

Pizza from Leonardo's tonight.  First in a long time.  No cooking, almost no cleanup.😀

6/2/23

 Friday, June 2, 2023

In bed     Woke from a sound sleep on tv room recliner at 10:40 from a dream of Race to the Outhouse by Willy Makit in hour 30 of the colonoscopy cleansing, a distressing age-related side effect?!?!  Up again at 5:25.  Let Lilly out into summery 58℉ weather expecting a high of 74℉, low wind expected again.  Sunrise was at 5:14, sunset at 8:25, 15+11.

Resolved: to get outside the comfortable confines of the house and enjoy the comfortable and lush space outside the house.  The first step was this morning when I spent time on the patio, sitting on the comfortable green patio chair Geri bought in Lake Mills, reading nothing, typing nothing, listening to nothing but the cardinal(s), goldfinch(es), robin(s) and chickadee(s) identified on my Merlin bird identifying app.  Merlin also thought it heard a brown-headed cowbird and a great-crested flycatcher but who knows.  I shot a video of the backyard at 6:50 a.m. and thought how very fortunate I am living here, how green and lush the grounds are, full of ferns and groundcover, how rich with flowers - bleedings hearts, bluebells of some sort, columbines.  I can't seem to enjoy these feelings of appreciation and gratitude without thinking back to 7303 S. Emerald Avenue, 1702 W. Walnut, other venues, other thoughts.  How many turns in life have brought me here in old age, how many turns could have led me elsewhere.  Should I thank Charlene Wegge for influencing me to choose Marquette in Milwaukee among the many choices offered by the Navy ROTC  scholarship program?  Anne Smith and WITI-TV for steering us back to Milwaukee after the Marines?  Bob Boden and others for offering me an appointment to the law school faculty upon graduation? Frank DeGuire for occasioning or causing me to resign my tenured spot on the faculty? TSJ for F&F and the profit-sharing retirement savings?  Bob Smith and Al Veik for leaving the HOP?Bishop Zieman and his scandals deflecting me from Santa Rosa?   So many influencers, so many choices.  How many were truly 'free,' how many foreordained or at least utterly predictable?  Too philosophical a query for early on a balmy morning.  Time to look and listen and be, to calm the minnows in the bait bucket, the caged squirrels.

On This Day in History  In 1941, Edward George Felsenthal III was born,  destined to become my classmate at Leo High School between 1955 and 1959, my roommate at Marquette University between 1960 and 1963, and my friend for life.  In 1960 he introduced me to his Journalism School classmate and my future and then former spouse, Anne Elizabeth Smith,  In 1963, he and I graduated from the university and were commissioned as officers, he as an ensign in the U.S. Navy,  I as a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.  One week later, he would marry his high school sweetheart Helen (Lyn) with me as a groomsman.  Two weeks later, I would marry Anne with him as my best man.  Then he was off to NAS Pensacola for flight training and I was off to MCB Quantico for Basic School, with MLK's marchers on Washington marching past my door in Stafford Courthouse VA in August, and ASC and I trooping to Washington in November for the transfer of JFK's remains from the White House to the Capitol in November.  Within a couple of years, we would both be in Vietnam.   I called Ed this afternoon to wish him a happy birthday and schmoozed with him for 20 minutes or so, also chatting with old college friend and former Marquette roommate of Anne Smith Camilla Wakeman.

Let’s Smash the College Admissions Process is an op-ed essay by David Brooks in this morning's NYT (though dated 6/1/23).  As Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action loom, he argues "maybe we can all take this moment to reimagine the college admissions process itself, which has morphed into one of the truly destructive institutions in American society. . .  Today, you don’t need bloodlines stretching back to the Mayflower to have a decent shot at getting into an elite school, but you do need to be born into a family with the resources to make lavish investments in your early education. . .  So the hierarchies built by the admissions committees get replicated across society. America has become a nation in which the elite educated few marry each other, send their kids to the same exclusive schools, move to the same wealthy neighborhoods and pass down disproportionate economic and cultural power from generation to generation — the meritocratic Brahmin class."

The essay prompts lots of thoughts.  First is the relevance of Isabel Wilkerson's great work in Caste.  Second is the continuing relevance of William Blake's 300-year-old poetic insight: Every morn and every night  / Some are born to sweet delight.  / Every night and every morn / some to misery are born. / Some are born to sweet delight / Some are born to endless night.   The lottery of birth.  Third, the evidence we see all around us of class-based inequalities, the advantages that accrue to children of the well-to-do and the disadvantages to children of the poor.  Gus Kahn was agreeing with William Blake when he composed Ain't We Got Fun in 1920, writing "The rich get richer and the poor get children," changed later to 'The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.'   When I watch MSNBC and CNN, I'm reminded of the leg-up in life that children of the well-positioned have: Mika Brzezinski daughter of national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alicia Menendez daughter of Sen. Richard Menendez,  Laura Jarrett daughter of Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt.  Jake Tapper's father was a prominentl Philadelphia pediatrician and a graduate of Harvard Medical School, his mother a psychiatric nurse.  Jake attended expensive private day schools.   Erin Burnett is the daughter of a corporate attorney.  She attended exlusive private elementary and middle schools before attending St. Andrew's, a private co-ed college prep boarding school, and then Williams College.  She began her career as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs working on mergers and acquisitions.  It's not that all the accompllished and privileged were 'born to the purple' nor is it that those who are are guaranteed great success without talent and hard work, but but only that for those who are fortuante enough to be born on 2nd or 3rd base, it's a lot easier to reach home plate.  

The other thought that comes to me while reading Brooks' op-ed is how very fortunate I have been in life in light of my unpromising economic start in our 3 room  basement apartment after WW II, Dad with PTSD bouncing from unskilled job to job, often unemployed, alchoholc, both parents without a high school diploma, relying on Mom's earnings as a waitress to support our family of four.  The circumstances were hardly auspiious by any means but my mother insisted from my earliest memories on the importance of schooling.  I suppose being taught by the Sisters of Providence at St. Leo Grammar School, with 42 children in our classes, girls on one side, boys on the other, was not top flight education.  There was no gym and physical education consisted of being let out onto Emerald Avenue with traffic blocked off between 77th and 78th streets.  But the sisters must have imparted the basic learning skills (along with the every present religous indocrination) because I was prepared for the rigorous education I received at Leo High School which prepared me to win the NROTC scholarship and attend college out of town.  My mother's insistence on attending strict Catholic schools, on studying and doing my homework and earning good grades, the sisters' insistnece on attendance and respectful behavior, the brothers' imposition of academic and personal discipline and respectful behavior, all put me in a position that when the Navy opportunity was made known to me (by the good brothers), I was able to take advantage of it.  As Robert Frost said "and that has made all the difference."

Moved squirrel-proof feeder to back yard; listened to Nina Simone.  I hung the feeder from an S-hook on the damaged tree off the patio hoping it is too high for the deer to feast on.  Then I sat at the patio table and listened to my 'Female vocalists' playlist including Nina Simone's incredibly powerful "Strange Fruit."

Southern trees

Bearing strange fruit

Blood on the leaves

And blood at the roots

Black bodies

Swinging in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hangin'

From the poplar trees

Pastoral scene

Of the gallant south

Them big, bulging eyes

And the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolia

Clean and fresh

Then, the sudden smell

Of burnin' flesh

Here is a fruit

For the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather

For the wind to suck

For the sun to rot

For the leaves to drop

Here is

Strange and bitter crop

6/1/23

 Thursday, June 1, 2023

Double Dip Day

Up and down all night with the colonoscopy prep, and slept when I could in the bedroom recliner.  59℉, high of 74℉, sunny, wind SE at 2 mph, gusts to 14 mph.  Sun rose at 5:14 and will set at 8:24, 15+10.

A propos of nothing in today's journal entry is this acrylic mural I did from a Time Magazine cover on the wall of my workroom/studio in our house on Newton Avenue in Shorewood of a fighter pilot shot down and captured during the Balkan Wars.  I liked it and would have had the plaster wall removed and saved if I could have done so reasonably, which I could not.  I painted over it to return the space to one of four bedrooms in the house we sold to a friend, former student, and fellow Milwaukee Bar Association board of directors member Kathy Nusslock.

Exhausting prep; No polyps.   The cleansing started out not so bad and I was foolishly optimistic, not expecting the process to continue all night, seemingly hourly.  . .  I felt plumbing equipment discomfort going to and at the GI Clinic.  Post-procedure word: everything looked OK. Scaredy cat, wimp, worrywart, catastrophizer.  . .  Again I was impressed by the professionalism and caring attitudes of the medical staff, especially the GI nurses.   With the semi-official age cutoff for this procedure at 85, this morning's was my last colonoscopy and I can't say I'll miss them, at least the preps.  Not sure about the upper GI endoscopy. As always, the sedative mix of Versed and fentanyl not only put me out during the procedures but led me to LaLaLand during much of the rest of the day, very relaxing, almost too relaxing to be writing this.  On the other hand, the cleansing effect of the prep solution has continued through the day.  Not expected and not good.😳

Hospital

BY MARIANNE BORUCH

It seems so—         

I don’t know.  It seems   

as if the end of the world   

has never happened in here.   

No smoke, no   

dizzy flaring except   

those candles you can light   

in the chapel for a quarter.   

They last maybe an hour   

before burning out.   

                            And in this room   

where we wait, I see   

them pass, the surgical folk—     

nurses, doctors, the guy who hangs up   

the blood drop—ready for lunch,   

their scrubs still starched into wrinkles,   

a cheerful green or pale blue,   

and the end of a joke, something   

about a man who thought he could be—   

what?  I lose it   

in their brief laughter.

Poem copyright ©2006 by Marianne Boruch,

5/31/23

 Wednesday, May 31, 2023

"Prep Day" 😰

In bed at about 9:30, awake at 2:20 unable to sleep, up at 2:45, let Lilly out with a concern about coyotes; none in sight, 59℉, high of 76℉, thunderstorms possible between 6 and 8 a..m., mostly sunny thereafter, wind SSE at 3 mph, 1 to 11 mph during the day, gusts up to 20 mph.  Sunrise at 5:15, sunset at 8:24. 15+8.

Debt Limit Bill Clears Rules Committee by one vote.  Maverick Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a libertarian gun-nut engineer from northern Kentucky cast the deciding vote.  What if Mr. Massie had pulled a 'Shiv' Roy and changed his mind at the last minute?  Hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement savings lost across the country?  

Catholic Church in California grapples with over 3,000 lawsuits alleging abuse.  From this morning's WaPo: "At least a third of the 12 Roman Catholic dioceses in California have either filed for bankruptcy or are contemplating doing so to deal with an influx of lawsuits filed by survivors of childhood sexual abuse after a state law opened a three-year window in which cases were exempted from age limits More than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against the Catholic Church in California under a 2019 state law that also extended the statute of limitations to allow all alleged victims of sexual abuse to sue up to the age of 40. . . The Diocese of Santa Rosa, which is facing more than 200 lawsuits, filed for bankruptcy in mid-March. In its bankruptcy petition, it claimed assets valued between $10 million and $50 million. It estimated its liabilities in the same dollar range."

It was 20 years ago in March 2003 that I traveled to Santa Rosa in Sonoma County to interview for the position of Communications Director for the diocese.  The diocese was still rocked by scandal arising from the behavior of former bishop G. Patrick Zieman and his homosexual lover whom the bisshop consecrated first as a deacon and then as a priest.  I was still serving as executive director of The House of Peace but I had submitted my resignation and was waiting for the Capuchins to appoint a new director.  There were two candidates for the Santa Rosa position and I was tempted to pursue it both because of the challenge of the job and because of the location in California's beautiful wine country and northern California.  Nonetheless I withdrew after a couple days of interviewing for reasons that weren't entirely clear to me at the time and still are not.  Was it because I wasn't prepared to pull up stakes and transplant us to a locale 2,000 miles from our Midwestern roots (with extraordinarily high housing costs)?  Was it the profound nastiness of the sex and financial scandal hanging over the diocese?  Was it because the people I interviewed with did not themselves seem to be happy diocesan employees?  Was the whole situation just too risky?  Was it because I had some fear of rejection, of not being selected for the post?  In any event, I took myself out of contention.  While I was out there interviewing, the organization BishopAccountability.org published a lengthy narrative of the sordid history of the diocese's scandal under the title "Bishop Bad Boy" which is available online.  Really nasty stuff and here we are 20 years later and again the diocese is in trouble and in the news.  Maybe it was providential that I withdrew, my guardian angel taking care of me.😇

Back to bed around 6 and up again at 7:10 with competing strains of tinnitus ringing in my head, one soft and rhythmic, the other not.

State Farm to stop insuring California homes.  Insurance crises also in eastern Kentucky (floods), Florida (storms), and Louisiana (storms).  I'm wondering how all those Republicans in eastern Kentucky, Florida, and Louisiana are feeling about climate change now.

Thoughts before the 'double dip.'  I go in and out of nervousness about these procedures.  I'll be 82 this summer.  I'm due for some serious problem(s) simply because of my age, but also lifestyle, diet, sedentariness, etc.  I've somehow managed to go 3 years without contracting covid.  How is that possible?  My Dad had colon cancer around age 60.  I've had polyps in my colon in the past.  I've had Barrett's Esophagus for decades, precancerous cellular changes in the throat from acid reflux.  I'm recalling some of what Mike H. went through with his esophagus and remembering my trips to Convent Hill to visit Roland, to grind his pills in the pill grinder, mix the powder with Ensure, and feed him through his G-tube.  But mainly, I've been fortunate and I'm in the zone - so I'm more than a little nervous about tomorrow.  Not discombobulated precisely, but not entirely combobulated either.😐  I took my 4 little blue Dulcolax pills at 2 as directed, wondering again why it is I haven't received a telephone call from a GI nurse.  The instructions I received with the prep medications said I would be called 2 days before the procedures but no call.  I'm waiting to start drinking the prep solution at 5 and hoping I haven't overdone the liquid intake today.  The written instructions said 'drink plenty of liquids today; it will help flush your colon.'  I've had one cup of coffee, 2 or 3 cups of herbal tea, 1 diet Coke, and  2 or 3 Vernor's ginger ales and I'm already feeling a bit bloated.  Keeping fingers crossed & signing off.

5/30/23

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

In bed around 19, up at 6 on the dot from a vivid dream in which I was taking care of a very feeble Pope Francis on an outing with lots of people milling about, Francis wanting only to get out of his wheelchair and walk in a field and under a tree bearing nuts and an apple.  57℉, high of 73℉, W wind at 2 mph, 0 to 7 mph during the day, gusts up to 12 mph,  The sun rose at 5:15 and will set at 8:23, 15+7.

Traditional Memorial Day

The Vietnam Memorial Wall

From my memoir:  "At the beginning of May, the war became more personal to those of us who had come to Camp Schwab from the wing headquarters in DaNang.  We received news that our friend Bill “Moon” Mullen had been shot down over Laos.  The American government refused to admit that we were conducting operations in Laos but we all knew it.  The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through Laos and our aircraft regularly bombed it.  On April 29th, 1966, Moon flew an A4E to a bombing mission in the most heavily defended area of the trail, the area around the Mia Gia Pass.  His plane was the last in the formation.  It was hit by anti-aircraft fire as he pulled away from the target.  The plane went down, but the other pilots picked up radio beeper signals from the ground where his plane went down.  The circling pilots radioed instructions to him, which he complied with, indicating he had ejected safely.  Soon, the radio on the ground was still active, but instructions from the air were not being followed.  It appeared Moon had died or lost consciousness or had been captured or killed.  He was never found.  It was never learned whether he had been captured or killed or died from injuries from the anti-aircraft fire or the ejection.  The 1973 Paris Treaty provided for the return of POWs held by the VC and by North Vietnam, but not those held by Laotian communists.    In 1994, I ran my fingers over his name on the Vietnam Wall in Washington.  He is still listed as among the ‘missing.’

Moon Mullen was well-liked and highly respected by all of us in the headquarters squadron in DaNang.  He regularly flew missions with his old A4 squadron based in Chu Lai though he was assigned to the Intelligence section of Wing headquarters.  Unlike some others, he never looked down his nose at those of us who were not aviators.  He was a captain and several years older than most of us.  He had just turned 31 when he was shot down; most of us were first lieutenants in our mid-20s.  When we could talk him into it, ‘by popular demand,’ Moon would stand up next to the bar or his table at the officers’ club and sing, always the same song – 

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

    From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.

The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,

    It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,

    Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,

It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,—

    Oh, Danny boy, O Danny boy, I love you so! 

But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,

    If I am dead, as dead I well may be,

Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying,

    And kneel and say an Avè there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,

     And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,

For you will bend and tell me that you love me,

     And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me! 

When Moon sang Danny Boy, we all shut up.  The jukebox would be turned down or unplugged and the Righteous Brothers, Simon and Garfunkle and the Mamas and Papas would give way to Moon Mullen, a capella.

I suspect most, perhaps all of us thought Moon was probably dead; I did.  We may have even hoped that he was dead rather than living as a captive in a cave in a mountain in Laos or sick and abused in a jungle prison.  I don’t know what we thought because we did not talk about it.  We didn’t talk about it, but we all thought about it, about him.  We thought of him as we drank each night at the officers’ club.  We thought of him as we watched the gung ho grunts go through their training before heading south, some to die, some to lose limbs, some perhaps to be among the missing, most to return alive but messed up in their heads and hearts to one degree or another.  I think of Moon every time I hear Danny Boy.  For many years, I hated to hear the song.  My eyes would start burning when I heard it, especially the lyrics If I am dead, as dead I well may be, Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying . . .”  It would take me a while to ‘come back’ after hearing it and I never sang it, though it had been one of my favorites before May 1966.

I think Moon Mullen was for us emblematic of the ambiguous character of the war itself.  He was neither alive nor dead, just ‘missing.’  He went down in a country (of sorts) where our government wouldn’t even admit we were fighting, though every Tom, Dick, and Harry knew we were.   The terrain he was bombing was not land that we would ever in any sense ‘take’ or ‘capture’ or ‘seize’ or ‘hold.’  It would be used for years as a principal line of communication and logistics between North Vietnam and forces in the south and for years pilots would fly missions trying to slow the flow of men and materials southward and for years pilots would be shot down over that land.  Indeed, when Nixon’s so-called ‘peace with honor’ was negotiated in Paris in 1973, there was no written agreement for the identification and repatriation or return of the bodies of pilots shot down over Laos.  The treaty only bound “the parties hereof and the signatories hereto,” which did not include the government of Laos which was not ‘officially’ involved in the war.  What happened to Moon Mullen and his family,  the long, inconclusive waiting, the deceptions, the ultimate loss, was a microcosm of what was happening to America, and to Vietnam.  I believe we knew that as we poisoned ourselves at the club each night and as we looked on those infantry Marines so intensely preparing for what awaited them in Vietnam.  More Danny Boys, more Moons."

Willliam Francis Mullen's name appears on The Wall as "MIA" on Panel 7E, Line 11.

Deborah Kerr in an Actor's Studio interview:  “I don't like getting old. I hate it, in fact.  I don't know an honest person who likes it. You just thin out and all your energies go toward surviving or moving safely from one room to another.  But the mind thrives, thank God.  Or mine does.  I used to try very hard not to regret it.  I thought that regrets were a waste of time, a sign of weakness.  I think only the most insensitive of people have no regrets, because in this time, this slower time, your mind goes back to so many instances when there should have been more kindness, more attention paid to others.  I missed so many opportunities to be a better friend, a better mother, a better actress.  Of course I can't remember now what I was in such a hurry to get to that I grew so bad at the important things.  So I regret and I think.  Old age is the big index to the foolish young people we were."

William Butler Years, Vacillation:

Things said or done long years ago, / Or things I did not do or say

But thought that I might say or do, / Weigh me down, and not a day

But something is recalled, / My conscience or my vanity appalled.

LTMW at a female house or purple finch grabbing a big wad of weathered laundry lint from our nesting container while a male cardinal perches on top of the shepherd's crook and a red-bellied nuthatch feeds at the sunflower tube.  Then the female finch comes back again and again for even larger wads of nesting lint while a male red finch works on the orange half above.  The oranges are a big hit with the male red finches and the nesting lint with the females.  I think I am seeing a temporarily-bonded couple. . .  Now I'm sure of it; they fly as a pair, arrive and depart as a pair.  By the afternoon, they have become coordinated: they fly in together and one lands on one orange, the other lands on the other,

Colonoscopy prep tomorrow and the 'double dip' on Thursday are already bringing on some stress and anxiety.  I'm feeling some mild but generalized anxiety this morning, even over the mildewed contents of the cardboard box in the basement.  I have some second-hand experience of both colon cancer (my father) and esophageal cancer (my friend Roland Wright whom I assisted with g-tube feedings and otherwise up to his movement to a nursing home and death.)  My father survived his cancer and lived into old age; Roland died from his.  Other younger friends had daunting esophagus tumors.  

Going through some of the contents of the mildewed boxes  I see photos I don't think I've ever seen before including some ancient B&W photos of my father's friends in the USMC somewhere, sometime before Iwo Jima removed the youthful smiles from their faces, or perhaps removed their faces altogether; heavy armaments can do that.  Old family photos remind me I'm a 'sole survivor' except for my cousins.  Mother, father, sister, aunts, and uncles are all gone.  Some of the anxiety I suspect is from the Pushmi-Pullyu test I am passing and failing by going through with Thursday's screening tests.  See Zeke Emanuel's death wish.

In the mildewed box I found some books on religion that I had treasured: two by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, two by Paul Elie, a couple by Kathleen Norris and others by Karen Armstrong.  Also, a lovely book of photos and text on the growth of Chicago, badly mildewed.  I'm wondering why I had boxed up these particular books; had I intended to give them to Anh and Andy?  I also found a collection of a few of my law school casebooks that I saved, memories, memories, . . .

I also found a box of golf balls which I will offer to Peter.  I found a large, lovely scrapbook of photos and comments that Sarah assembled after our 2008 trip to the northern and Canadian Rockies: Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, Jasper, and Theodore Roosevelt Parks.  A mildewed 1997 directory of Leo High School alumni, including Larry Stack, Jack O'Keefe, Johnny Flynn, and Ed Felsenthal.  Also, a plethora of old photos sorted by time, location, or occasion and packed away in labeled business envelopes, a treasure trove.

Among the items squirreled away were my Dad's Honorable Discharge from the Marines after World War II and his DD214 discharge record.  They reminded me again that he was discharged at a private after one and 3/4 years of active service including Iwo Jima.  Not even a PFC or private first class.  This tells me he got into trouble after Iwo.  I have no idea what kind of trouble but it involved misconduct of some sort.  He had no love for the Marine Corps and I suspect he may have spent some time in the brig before he was discharged.  He did tell me that the Marines did not want to discharge him with the clear implication that he was not ready to return to civilian life with his PTSD.  That he needed help is clear to me as I recall his withdrawal, sullenness, and alcoholism after the war.  I also noted that his discharge from the Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago was a few days after Thanksgiving 1945 leading me to wonder why he wasn't discharged before Thanksgiving.  Perhaps he had leave or liberty to be home for Thanksgiving and the discharge date was just due to some administrative need.  Or maybe not.  I'm reminded again of his telling Geri that my mother never wrote him while he was overseas.  What was that all about?  It's a huge mystery to me and completely inconsistent with her staying with him despite his PTSD when both Kitty and I wished she would leave him, take us away from him and the tension of living with him.  I'll never know.

Alas, now that I have retrieved all these treasures from the sealed cardboard boxes, I have to decide what to do with all of it.  Hmmm. . . something to think about after the 'double dip.'😖

An American Holiday. Gun violence in America over the Memorial Day Holiday weekend:  175 human beings killed, 496 human beings injured, and 17 mass shootings.  In the City of Milwaukee, 24 human beings were shot, and 3 were killed.  Happy holiday😧

5/29/23

 Monday, May 29, 2023

Memorial Day

In bed by 10, up at 6:20 with thoughts of Caela, Jake, and Saul.  52℉, high of 71℉, NNW wind at 3 mph, 1 to 6 mph today, gusts up to 11 mph.  No rain is expected for the next 10 days, concerns about drought already.  The sun rose at 5:16 and will set at 8:22, 15+5.

Memorial Day and I took what is becoming my annual visit to Wood National Cemetery for what reason I'm not exactly sure.  I have no known relationship, other than veteran status, with any of the military and naval veterans whose bodies are buried there.  Nonetheless, the cemetery has become my favorite place in the city of Milwaukee since I started receiving medical services at Zablocki Medical Center.  I usually make a point of leaving the freeway at the exit that leads to the cemetery rather than the exit that leads directly to the medical center.  I used to wonder whether there is something a bit maudlin or morose or creepy (I'm looking for the right word) about these regular visits.  I don't think so but perhaps there is.  I know that if it were possible I would choose to be buried there, one more common headstone among the tens of thousands already there, but no new burials are accepted so my unembalmed remains will enrich the soil at Forest Home Cemetery, 3 miles and a 10-minute ride away.  This morning I left the house for the national cemetery at 7:45, intending to enjoy a leisurely drive through the grounds before the memorial program at 9:30 but the VA police had the entry points blocked off, directing cars to parking lots whence visitors could walk to the ceremonial area where the speeches would be delivered.  I didn't want to park and walk (CPP mildly flaring) so I drove through the historic Soldiers' Home and medical center grounds, got back on the freeway, and arrived home at 8:35, with Geri and Lilly still sleeping the sleep of the innocent.  I've never gotten out of my car and walked down one or more of the ranks (rows) and files (columns) of the cemetery and perhaps I should.  If I'm up to it, maybe this afternoon or tomorrow.

A Lot of Back Pain again.  Rats!  Fairly persistent pain in the area of my right kidney.  I'm hoping this is a muscle problem and not a kidney stone or UTI but this is Day 2 or maybe Day 3.😰

Pandora's Box.  I'm looking for a couple of photos, one of TSJ golfing at The Bog, another a big dramatic print of me decades ago when I officed in the chambers of the Grimmelsman Courtroom at MULS.  I looked in a box that has been lying on the furnace room floor for years underneith another box filled with empty frames.  The box contains some items belonging to or relating to my Dad plus some other stuff, like a letter I received maybe 55 years ago from an old Marine friend of mine, WO Ron Kendall of Iowa.  Most of the contents of the box are waterlogged and mildewed from a drain backup more than 10 years ago.  I'm too distracted by back pain to write about any of it now.  Later.