Solstice, 2019
Anacortes, Washington

Dear Ones,

    Well it has been a dumpster fire of a year, hasn’t it?  As I write, the day before the Solstice, it is dark.  Early.  At High Noon, here in our Northern Maritime Temperate Rain Forest, the sun rises only to a fist and a half above the horizon, and headlights are required by 4:30 or so.  But these physical realities are just the backdrop, not the problem. Nothing shines very bright these days.  First, you may know, my father, Edward McCreery Roberts, died on December 7, at 89.  An obit is enclosed with this letter.  He lived a long and full life, and fortunately did not linger long in illness.  Second, just yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to impeach DJT, for abuse of power, and obstruction of Congress.  Dad knew it would happen, but I wish he had lived to see it.  It has been a shit-show, though. The Dems kept things fairly compact, ignored the entire Mueller report fiasco, and stuck to a couple of charges related to gross and clumsy efforts at extortion of Ukraine.  Now the matter goes to the equally and oppositely partisan Senate, where a show trial will end quickly, and utterly predictably, and DJT will be running victory laps, crowing, “Exonerated, exonerated!”  This whole thing is part of the re-ignition of the Civil War, now in a phase of Civil Cold War, between the self-imagined heirs of the Lost Cause, and the Damned Yankees. Nobody cares about the country anymore, only their tribe.  And it is fueled in a way never anticipated before.  I had not imagined that in a half generation, we would have devolved from newspaper-reading, news watching, debating-on-the-merits citizens, to mouth-breathing, thumb-texting, zombie tweet-stormers, with the attention spans of fruit flies. A powerful spur to greatness for our hairy and malodorous ancestors was the invention of fire, and now social media is driving us just as rapidly downwards, hairless and perfumed, to a new era of momentary celebrity and instant gratification. We wallow, directionless, in an utter absence of collective memory and conscience.  Celebrity and notoriety are one and the same.  Trolls create false narratives, and we drones repeat them dutifully, without the least bit of skepticism.  We are ripe for destruction, and at our own hands.  America will never die, except by a self-inflicted wound.  Artificial Intelligence will easily supersede our own, as we shall have met our enemy more than halfway, in our rush to stupidity.  Many look, in trying times, to the intervention of a righteous god, but I know if such a thing existed, Mitch McConnell would already be a pile of smoking cinders.  Nevertheless, he persists.
    So wife Catherine, AKA my Reason for Living, gets up every morning with the words, “Fuck Trump!” On her lips. I point out that the use of the F-Bomb in juxtaposition with the Office of the President demeans the positive connotations, history and power of the the F-Bomb, but my protest falls on deaf ears, alas. But Seriously?? Fuck Trump?  I wouldn't do that for $130k and a non-disclosure agreement from HIM.  Catherine continues to keep herself amused in any way she chooses, knitting mostly. The beginning of the year found her on the southern end of the Pacific Crest Trail, her back to the Border Wall, literally, aiming to walk the whole thing, solo, in chunks. Unfortunately, she ran quickly into record snows in the Sierras, and bailed out.  She continues to plan disconnected chunks for the future.  We continue to travel the West by travel van, notably to Jasper, Alberta, via the Glacier Highway. That highway is beyond gorgeous.  Go there.  Seriously.  The limitations of our first van wore on us a bit, so we sold it, and bought another shorter, fatter version of the first.  We can get past each other in the central aisle, and sleep in side-entry twin beds, so perhaps we will co-exist better during long forced-march togetherness.  Excelsior. 
    Michele (43) remains a yoga master and business-woman/entrepreneur, while herding 2 kids toward adulthood.  Husband Eric remains with Net Jets, administrating more than flying these days.  Jack (14) plays cello and soccer, and Lily (12) also plays soccer and loves dystopian novels. Go figure.
    Nathanael (42) is in San Diego, doing art for fun, and physical training for bill paying. He is considering a transition, maybe a move.
    Hannah (33) is midway through her 2nd year at Mayo Medical School, in Scottsdale, AZ.  She is almost done with the first two didactic years, and ready to launch into the clinical years. She continues to train for ultra-marathon runs and has my buddy Mickey the Boxer for a running companion.
    Everett (31) is in DC, still between jobs at the moment, but writing his wickedly satiric short stories, hoping to find a way to make his true calling pay the bills.
    My Mom is just barely settling into life without Dad, parting with boxes of shoes and clothes, and receiving various visitors.  I am not sure how things will be after the holiday rush, but I will be out there soon.  Dad donated his body to the Medical School, so there was no wake or funeral.  We will have a Celebration of Life in Buffalo, April 4, 2020, for anyone who wants to come and reminisce.
    Me?  Just working.  I have become the only dedicated night doc, so I have a bit more control over my schedule, favoring long stretches on followed by long stretches off.  The grand plan is to retire from full-time work in March of 2021.  I suppose I will work a short block of 4-5 shifts per month for a year or so, to keep busy, and have some travel funds.  But I already have my party scheduled, Saturday March 6, 2021, at the Skyline Beach Club Cabana, in Anacortes.  All are invited.  I hope to travel, cook, make photographs, and maybe do bonsai trees.  That sorta thing.  I just signed up for Medicare, and had my biennial doctor visit. He started me on my first ever prescription, a statin for my cholesterol.  Sheesh. I feel old alla sudden, I continue to manage my weight intermittently with intermittent fasting, and do some kettle-bell swings, squats, and a sauna, a few times a week. My wardrobe is bipolar—half now and half aspirational.  My right hip dogs me daily, and I make grampa grunts getting into and out of low chairs, but all in all, I am well.
    Work remains the driver and the unchanging, ever changing landscape. I continue to enjoy being useful, and fixing stuff.  I have had a year of saves, gratifying moments amid the humdrum.  Some of our meth-head regulars have died, but like sharks’ teeth, as one drops out, another rotates into place.  I scheme to make my place in medical history, with my latest invention, the Roberts Excruciometer.  I have solved the problem of pain scales, the dumbest invention ever.  Some nameless bureaucrat, who is surely doomed someday to the darkest reaches of Dante’s hell, has imposed this notion of rating pain from one to ten on the practice of medicine.  It is subjective, confusing, and capricious. And everybody lies, in order to get pain meds. So in its stead, I have made a machine.  Hook up electrode leads to the nipples of the patient, and hand them a box with a dial and a 10-point scale.  As they scroll the dial up through the numbers, the amperage delivered to the leads increases.  When the pain thus delivered equals the stated pain of their complaint, they stop, and we record the results.  No more guesswork.  Just reproducible results.  Because Science.  Should be my ticket to fame and financial security.
    I pause, as always, to note the passing of notables from our midst. Dad, of course.  My partner, esteemed colleague, and brother by another mother, Dr. Todd Beia died suddenly at 49, leaving us all bereft of his medical skills, humor, and sweet charm, in that big, buff exterior. 
    Actors had a bad year, as we said farewell to Peter Fonda, Rutger Hauer, Valerie Harper, Rip Torn, Diahann Carroll, Doris Day, Peggy Lipton, Tim Conway, Albert Finney, Jan Michael Vincent, Luke Perry, Arte Johnson,  and Chewbacca, Peter Mayhew.
    Musicians and rock stars did no better, losing Peter Tork of the Monkees, Ginger Baker, Andre Previn, Leon Redbone, Dick Dale, Eddy Money, Dr. John, and Daryl Dragon, Tenille’s Captain.
    Politicians of various stripes were voted out, including Sen. Russell Baker, Justice John Paul Stevens, Ross Perot, Elijah Cummings, John Conyers, John Dingell, Jacques Chirac, Chairman Li Peng of Tiananmen Square notoriety,  and Watergate burglar James McCord.
    Journalists, writers and artists lost include Toni Morrison, Herman Wouk, Cokie Roberts, Leslie Gelb, D.C. Fontana, Gahan Wilson, and Francine du Plessix-Gray.
    Sportin’ Lifers Frank Robinson, Bill Buckner, Jim Bouton, Don Larson, Bart Starr, Nicki Lauda and John Havlicek have hung up their gear.
    And ungroupable others include Claus von Bulow, David Koch, T. Boone Pickens, Lee Iacocca, Lee Radziwill, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Karl Lagerfeld.
    And so, fans and detractors, I close again, with my wishes for a better year than this last one. That is a low hurdle, so let me amplify that many fold. Look up from your digital devices.  Get out of your bubble, read deeply, think deeply, doubt pundits, and demand truth. Also speak truth, and do not fall silent, or be shouted down by false leaders and their rabble.  The stakes are too high, never higher, and good people everywhere must make a stand.  Or else the world will tilt again and bring light back to a world that doesn’t value light. The answer to the question, “Is our problem ignorance or apathy?”, cannot be, “I don’t know and I don’t care!”  We must do better.

    Soulful Solstice, Swingin’ Saturnalia, Fab Festivus, Merry Xmas, Chappy Channukah, and Kwazy Kwanzaa, Y’all…