Solstice 2025


Dear Ones:

    —These are the times that try men’s souls…Thomas Paine

    This has been a funny year.  Not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar.  Very few ha-has to be found, just lying about.   Jokesmiths have gone underground, or retired.  People who once made a fair living at it are now seen hopping about, scrounging in the rubble and squabbling over scraps, and standing on street corners in shabby smoke-varnished clothing, holding crude cardboard signs reading, “Will Joke for Food.” And a few are sending us postcards from detention camps in Zimbabwe. Amateur jokesters are finding the pickings slim at best and nil at worst. Good times.  So don’t expect a laff-riot from me this year.  I am only doing this out of neurotic need to continue my streak.  This is the 34th annual, for those keeping score at home.  
    Soooo—Time to check that those seat belts are low and tight across your hips, your seat backs are in the upright position, your tray tables are up and locked, and turn off the fucking phones.  We are anticipating a bit of turbulence on this flight, for, oh, let’s estimate, the next 3 years.  There will be no food or beverage service, and the flight attendants are directed to take their seats.  Thank you for flying Air Murrica.
    I have done a year-long imitation of a box turtle.  I poke my head out to eat, and then pull back in for a nice nap.  A former news junkie, I went cold-turkey, and have literally watched ZERO punditry, and given how full of shit they all were, I am not jonesing too badly anymore.  Instead, I have spent the year working on homebody projects in our new downsized house.  It is a quirky little place with a large central bay up to the roof, with skylights the length of it, and loads of light and wall space, which we have covered with art.  It is also hotter than the devil’s armpit in the summer, so we did add AC.  I have fabricated, welded, and installed iron rails for the front steps, added wooden deck rails to a couple of stair decks, added a rain barrel and sump for a swamp where the gutter doesn’t connect to the storm sewer, patched plaster, painted, and so on.  We have had new gutters installed, added cedar fencing and a driveway gate to strain out the deer that ravage everything growing,  It is starting to look like something.  We re-commissioned the garage gym, so I have been out there nearly daily doing a 30-minute round of kettle-bells and weights, then a sauna.  I have also been doing every-other-day fasting, and have shed 35 pounds, at least up to the holiday hiatus.  Getting back on track starting…tomorrow.  The old burnt house, “Old Smokey”,  is nearly done, and will go on the market after the holidays.  Of course the market is soft, but it is a unique house with a spectacular view, so we can hope that a dotcom sort will turn up and buy it, interest rates be damned.  The boat is for sale also, but has not inspired even tire-kickers to turn up thus far.  We will re-start in the spring.  But if any of you-lot need a house or boat or both, let me know…
    Kathleen has returned to knitting after a long hiatus. So we are back to talking to the hand while she counts stitches ever louder.  She has taken up sourdough bread making with the usual enthusiasm, making some wonderful loaves. (Behold! Something rises in the Yeast!)  I am coping (just) with my new life with a trad-wife.  I am a bit quizzical, but whatevs.  We went to star parties in Oregon and Washington, and had real star nerds show us the sights.  She got a computerized little telescope that stacks multiple images and makes pictures like you were orbiting on the Hubble. It is amazing tech, really.  This little table top thing puts expensive, cumbersome telescopes to shame. We also traveled by van to Kerrville, Texas, to see the eclipse.  Weather skunked us mostly, but it was a nice trip through the great SW.  Rocco went along for the ride, though he is not much of a traveler.  He is the mortal enemy of bridges, tunnels, and trucks.  He HAS become a little dear, now a velcro dog, after a stand-offish adolescence.  Our daughter got married in September in Columbus, to lovely young fellow who is a commercial pilot. It was a delight to meet his family and get to know Matt better.  They are off to Las Vegas this year, after she finishes her Anesthesia training at THE Ohio State. (that’s how they say it, I ain’t lying). Michael remains in LA, writing for dollars, and doing standup comedy for fame and fortune(?!).  Brian has moved to RI to be with family.  Paula is finishing a Masters degree in psychology and counseling, and thinking about a Ph.D., determined, she says, to be yet another doc in the family.  Her kids and hub are all well.
    I have already bored you with my life, so onward we go.  I do regret a lack of funny tales of life in the ER, retired as I am these last four years.  I will have to make do with old-people jokes, and perhaps humor will be back in style soon. We’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile, watch “The Pitt” for realistic ER tales, trials and tribulations.
    Lots of luminaries and others have shuffled off this mortal coil, and I pause as always to note their passing.   Trigger warning:  Includes dead people, flashing lights, some adult situations, and substance and tobacco abuse.   Skip this paragraph if you want.  No offense taken. Jimmy Carter just missed the publication deadline last year.  Joan Kennedy, Rep. Mike Castle of DE and 9-11 NYPD Commish Bernard Kerick are no more.  Pope Francis charmed us briefly, while Cardinal Theodore McCarrick left an ugly stain.  Speaking of ugly stains, Jimmy Swaggart and James Dobson have died (thank god).  Actors have had a rough year.  Val Kilmer, Diane Keaton, Loretta Swit, Gene Hackman, George Wendt (Hello, NORM!) Hulk Hogan, Richard Chamberlain, Jay North (Dennis the Menace) June Lockhart, and playwright Tom Stoppard have all exited stage left. And of course, Rob Reiner and wife Michelle, murdered by their own son, apparently.  Sporty types included Ron Turcotte, Secretariat’s jockey, Baseballers Bob Uecker, Davey Johnson, Sandy Alomar, Dave Parker, and Ryne “Ryno” Sandberg.  Bob Trumpy of the Cincinnati Bengals, NBA star and coach Lenny Wilkins,  golf’s Fuzzy Zoeller, Olympic gold medalist skater Dick Button, and George Foreman, who sold a lot more grills than he smashed, have all answered the last bell.  Musicians Peter Yarrow, Marianne Faithfull, Paul Kantner, Roberta Flack, Sly Stone, Brian Wilson, Chuck Mangione and Tom Lehrer have all played that last decrescendo.  Science wonks included Nobelist Virologist David Baltimore, Jane Goodall, James Watson, and James Broselow of the Broselow tape, beloved by all true ER and Pediatrics practitioners.  Others included Maj. John “Lucky” Luckadoo, last surviving pilot of the “Bloody 100th” bomb group in WWII, journalists Susan Stamberg and Bill Moyers, chess master Boris Spassky, and fashionista Giorgio Armani.  And fond farewell to the American Penny, dead at 232 years of age.
    And so, faithful friends and wary acquaintances, I will close with warm wishes for all of you and your kith and kin.  We have yet again passed the Solstice, so we know the sun will return, the darkness retreat, and the storms abate, at least for a while.  We must find common ground, reject stereotypes and empty slogans, and become, once again, fellow citizens of our great republic.  I still believe we can collectively do that, though the threats are real, and mounting.  The amplification and manufactured celebrity of idiots and psychopaths and conspiracy theorists have made the most dangerous things possible, even common.  We no longer blanch, even for a moment at the most terrible, antisocial, racist, jingoistic, exclusionist vitriol.  The unfiltered noise of social media and polemical commercial media is no idle threat, it is an existential threat.  Perhaps we won’t survive all that, but I hope I am wrong.  We are barely evolved animals, who harnessed fire, made up stories around campfires, noticed coincidences and assumed causality, who survived and dominated our world and each other by means of tribalism, and invented ever more effective weapons, but who have not evolved our brains fast enough to survive our very selves. Nevertheless, hope is one inherent genetic trait we cling to, and I am no exception there.  Stand fast against lies and the lying liars that tell them, preach less and listen more, even if you disagree, and find a way to pull back from the noise.  There must be a way, and we have to find it, mark it, and hope that enough of us see it and follow the path to a better society and a better world. Dare I say Cheers?    


Cheers, Wassail, Best, Love, Hugs, et cetera, et cetera.

Bob

 

Sacks 

We are but leathern sacks
of viscous sludge,
fluid under pressure,
prone to leaks and tears,
seams exposed,
edges fraying,
staggering blindly in a world
of knives and broken glass. 

 Suburban Noir

  

   
     It was a dark and stormy night.  He added the lime wedge to the second round of their favorite rum and ginger beer beverage, and turned to his paramour. She accepted it commitally, appearing plussed at his consolate appearance. He was quite mayed at HER appearance, her colleté the only hidden asset in her sleek and clingy gown. 

    “What are you so gruntled about?” she asked chalantly.
    
    “Nothing, nothing at all.  Nothing, certainly, that couldn’t be quashed by a moody girlfriend in a mood."
    
    “Don’t blame me!” she said.  “Your dain is palpable.”
    
    “Oh, I don’t, not at all. I just had higher hopes than a night of bauchery.” 
    She laughed nocently, her nocuous smile not even trying to deceive her pressionable companion.  “You were hoping for pareunia, I gather.  I hate to appoint, so let’s be frank.”
    
    “What, you mean you are sleeping with Frank?”
    
    “Who the hell is Frank??  Is he good in bed, at least?  I do spise that you are so domitable.”
    
    “Well I DEspise that you are so ruthless.”
    
    “What happened to Ruth?” she gasped.
    
    “Wait, who the hell is Ruth?”  he quired.  Her reckful disdain left him underwhelmed.   
    “You are always so couth,” she said, in a cloying, noying southern accent.  “I hate that about you.  You are pareil among men.”
    
    “What about THAT should ever inspire hate?” he asked sensically.
    
    “Always sheveled, always combobulated…You think you are James Bond or somebody. If only you could be more ert.”
   
     “I wish!”
    
    “No, I wish! A little danger, a little surprise is all I dream of. You. are always so feckful, ever provisational.  You are the cause of my chronic somnia.”
    
    “I was hoping to cause acute INsomia this very evening!” he said. "Even when you are moody, I find you quite gusting.  But I can see that I will, alas, be feckLESS this evening.”
    
    “Oh Frank!”
    
    “It’s Bill.” he said, souciantly.
  
    “Ouch, that will leave a bruise!” she said asperatedly.  "I didn’t mean that, Bill.  It just slipped out—Wait, that’s what HE said!”  
    
    He remained ever the gentleman, ruthful, determined, and ruly.  “Well, it is never too late to prepone the obvious.”  He drained his second dark and stormy, made an ept, and even gainly turn on his well-heeled Church’s wingtip, and ruelessly headed for bed.  He was pervious to her verbal darts, but always comfited.  Whether she followed or not,  he would carry on, the utterly effable, corrigible beast that he was, and always had been.  


 The United States of America were not born on this day. This was more like conception. We were just fertilized, a gleam in the Founding Fathers’ collective eye. What happened was, after provocation, the Colonies decided to join together to throw off the yoke of the English King and Parliament, neither of whom respected them as Englishmen, and instead, saw them as a cash cow. The colonies rarely agreed on anything, but with patient lobbying from Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and others, they agreed on this much. They expected to be treated with respect by their former masters, and control their own futures, for better or worse. And they threw in their collective fortunes to wage a war to make that happen. Lost in the enlightenment fervor of Jefferson’s timeless prose, is the reality of slavery, the hostility of rural versus urban constituencies, and the unresolved Native American question. These conflicts are not resolved even yet, 245 years and a Civil War later. But, having plighted their troth to the concept, the States began a war against the mightiest military on the planet, and finally won. Thanks, of course, to perennial British adversaries and their material support by land and by sea. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, five were captured and killed by the British as traitors, twelve had their houses burned, nine died in the subsequent Revolution, two more lost sons, and many of the rest died penniless. Once the war was won, a return to squabbling sibship brought us the Articles of Confederation, and a dysfunctional government, hobbled by suspicion of central power, and unwillingness to pay into the common good with taxes. There was not even an executive branch, nor a Judiciary. John Hanson, a man unknown to most of us, was the first de facto leader, for a one year term, under the Articles. The United States of America actually became the United States at the adoption of the Constitution, adopted in 1787, and not ratified, finally, until fall of 1788. At that point, George Washington was elected unanimously by the Electoral College, for a four year term. So concluded a turbulent and very difficult pregnancy, and a complicated and protracted delivery, but the birth finally happened, twelve years and much travail having passed. The celebration of the Declaration these days is mostly an excuse for barbecue and fireworks, but it was only the faltering start of the American Experiment, still a work in progress, and still fragile. Many of those who conceived of us, paid with their lives and families and treasure. Remember them this day.
    And while we are remembering the sacrifices of our forefathers and mothers, remember their wisdom, and their motivation to avoid kings and kingship, government power over the rights of the citizens. They FEARED executive power, a standing army, and loss of freedom or property without due process of law.  It took them a decade to realize that a Constitution was a necessity, to record explicitly what the rights of the citizens included.  It took them four score and seven years and a million lives lost to realize that slavery was wrong, and that blacks were citizens too.  They were imperfect, and knew it.  So they put a process in place, to change the Constitution as times and needs changed.  Reference to the Founding Fathers as having uttered a perfect document would be refuted by every one of them.  This is a claim made only by those who want to return to the pre-civil war days, when men were (white) men, and women knew their place was at home, raising young-uns.  Our modern-day 'traditional' fireworks and hot dogs have nothing to do with the 4th, as originally conceived.  But I do believe that what our Founders feared is coming round again to haunt us, and that they would not be pleased with our path in recent days. How many of us know our history?  How many have even read the Constitution, beyond the 2nd Amendment?  How can we be good citizens in utter ignorance of our past?  The answer is, apparently, We can’t.