Philosopher In Meditation, 1632.
Scanned from Paintings In The Louvre by Lawrence Gowling
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Not that this reminds me of anybody in my house.

For Adam and Tricia.
cartoon
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If you have the time, read the first two articles from the March 24th edition of The New York Review of Books: Very Bad News and Welcome to Doomsday. In Very Bad News, Clifford Geertz reviews two books : Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond and Catastrophe: Risk and Response by Richard A. Posner.
ìWhether societies waste away in ecological neglect or are destroyed by foreseeable disasters they have failed to prevent, for both writers vigilance and resolve are the price of survival. Awareness is all. However much they may differ in style and method (and they occupy the poles of the social sciencesódogged, fact-thick empiricism on the one side, model-and-calculate political arithmetic on the other), these are consciousness-raising books, tracts for the time. It is later than we think. Later even than we have thought to think. ì
From Welcome to Doomsday by Bill Moyers : ì There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power.î

Maybe even before we landed in Evansville, or was it while we werenít waiting for our luggage because we had only carry-ons, Brian brought up Salingerís short story, A Perfect Day for Bananafish (click and download a Word.doc). As an example of near-perfect dialogue. That day, I downloaded it, Diane read it out loud in the living room on Bellemeade and we all discussed it off and on until we got back on the plane. One question, that we couldnít answer, that is only tangentially related: Why did we read it in the first place? Why did every high school student read Catcher in the Rye? And other books that are now classics – A Separate Peace for instance. Were they assigned? I donít think so. Did we all simply read more then? Are there not comparable authors? Are the Harry Potter Books comparable? Matt reads, but claims most of his friends do not.

ì ‘Sugar.’ You like that, donít you?í

ìYou mean Jeff and Karen?î

ìHey, Sugar.î

ìItís a southern thing, isnít it?î

ìI guess so.î

ìWe say, ‘hon.’ Maybe they think hon is quaint.î

ìWe do say that, donít we?î

ìOften. You use it all the time.î

ìExcept when I say it, Iím thinking h-u-n.î

Dinner at the Gersthaus.
Jeff Ruthenburg photo by Brian.

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Matthew brought Sarah and we had a most unusual MFA experience. The Ralph Lauren Collection of Cars. Cars? Not art? Audio players with Ralph describing at what age he fell in love with which car? ìDad, heís a jackass.î Donít misinterpret, weíre glad we went, but Iím convinced it set the mood for Dianeís comment later as we browsed paintings by Fantin-Latour, Gainsborough,Rembrandt and Nicholas de Largillierre

ìLook at the colors, the perfect brown eyes, the reflection on his armor, the separate strands of hair.î

ìBut who would want to look so goofy , year after year, century after century.î

Afterwards, we made our usual Village Smokehouse dinner stop. Matthew and Sarahís meals were proportioned for normal humans, Diane looked down at her baby back ribs and said, ìI have a pig on my plate.î
One more from the collection.

Happy Birthday, Diane.

My last day with Teresa.

ìHow is your coffee? Warm enough?î She asked.

ìItís perfect coming from a microwave.î

ìI heated it for forty-three seconds.î

ìDid you call Walter this morning at seven?î

ìI did. But yesterday, or was it Monday…I walked the dog again and he called at 7:03 wondering if I had fallen and needed help.î

“Suppose you have fallen and thatís why you havenít called him?î

“He’d call the police if too much time went by.”

ìI couldnít help overhearing your phone conversation with John. A bleeding ulcer?î

ìJohn was one of my Larryís best friends. They did everything together. John never married, but I always invited him to be with us.î

ìEven Thanksgiving…Christmas…with your children?î

ìHe wouldnít always come. Sometimes he would say he was too busy. He is eighty now and he was admitted to the hospital for four days. When they found out he was alone they sent a social worker to his house after he was dischargedî

ìIf they decide he shouldnít live alone, where would he go?î

ìI donít know. He is so independent. But he could afford a nice place like where your mother-in-law lives. He has the money, but he wonít spend it. He is always telling me how well his stocks are doing, but he wonít pay for a house cleaner. He says they are too expensive. He is so set in his ways.”

“Makes you understand why he never got married.”

“Once, right after the war ended, and this was before I met Larry… .î

ìBefore you knew both John and Larry?í

ìYes. They were going to meet at a bar with their dates for some drinks. Larry was already there when John pulled up outside the bar with his date. John got out of the car, but the girl didn’t move. She was waiting for him to open her car door. He walked right past her and into the bar. Larry asked him where his date was and John told him she was in the car waiting for her door to be opened.î

Sunset at thirty thousand feet.

Ever been to the Detroit Airport?

Denise Dill playing at Penny Lane in Evansville, Indiana.
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Ann left me a blank check on her dining room table with a note: “Michael, tell me if the remainder of the bill is over a thousand dollars and I’ll transfer money to cover it.” When she asked if I would work for her mother in Cambridge I said, “Sure.”

Teresa is short, dark, with thick hair cut into an Arthur Fonzerelli without the grease. What I notice most is her voice, which is crisp and deep, and on the phone it’s impossible to guess her age – seventy-four. She needed someone she could trust to work in her house.

“My daughter tells me I need a new faucet, but at my age I don’t see the point. When I go and someone else owns the house maybe they won’t like the faucet, and they’ll get rid of it with the kitchen.”

“But it doesn’t … .”

“Turn it on. The water comes out very slowly. But as I say, at my age.”

I moved closer and looked her right smack in her brown eyes, “What do you mean at your age? You’re young. My mother is eighty-seven and my mother-in-law is ninety-two.”

Teresa is self sufficient, opinionated, and very direct. Not an ounce of self pity oozes from her pores, but her husband of forty-nine years died last summer.

“I read your husband’s obituary.”

She didn’t seem surprised; I felt compelled to explain.

“I worked for a woman who lives in the same building as your daughter, Ann, and she showed me the Globe column. It said he was a giving man loved by lots of people and that’s impressive for someone who made a living as a judge.”

“He was fair and he did have friends. Always smiling, but he lingered at the end.”

**********

“I have to tell you how much I admire you. Many of the people I work for have the TV on all day. You have a peaceful house.”

“I like to read. I have to read, it relaxes me.”

“What kind of books?

“Mysteries.”

I thought Sherlock Holmes.

“Murder mysteries?” Pathetically steering the conversation.

“Like P.D. Robb.”

She could see I had no clue.

“She’s also known as Nora Roberts.”

“Okay, I know her. I just finished James Patterson’s Big Bad Wolf, but I really like Michael Connelly and Lee Child. “

“I’ve read them both. They are good.”

“So, no TV?”

“My day starts at 4:30… .”

“4:30 AM?”

“Every morning. At five minutes past five I turn the TV onto TV Five and watch the weather. I leave it on for the news and then turn if off at six when the paper comes. At seven I call my younger brother Walter. This morning I walked Ann’s dog at seven and when I got back Walter’s voice was on the answering machine. It was 7:05 and he was asking if I’d fallen and hurt myself.”

“Wait a minute. You normally call him at seven and he couldn’t wait more than five minutes to see if you were okay?”

“He’s a worrier and he doesn’t understand how much I need to prove my independence. When our parents died he moved back into their house in East Cambridge.”

“The house he grew up in?”

“The same one. When my Larry died, Walter said, ëCome on back to the house. You can have your old room.’ “

Today’s photo from the Wayback machine. Brian, Flo, Ginger, Diane and Patti. Early seventies.

Florence slipped in the bathroom Friday night and now has a non-displaced stress fracture of her greater trochanter. Call it a hip fracture that won’t require surgery.

Flo sat (laid, squirmed, shifted) in the emergency room from 11 AM until 8 PM when a room finally became available. That kind of torture would break a far younger soul, but not Flo who had the admitting nurse on her floor laughing so hard she wanted to work a double shift.

The list of intake questions were endless with some those you would expect: “Have you had an MI?” or “Do you have arthritis?” or “Have you had surgery?”

And those you might not:

“Does anyone threaten you or cause you to fear for your safety?”

“No.”

“What time do you go to bed?”

“Seven thirty?”

“Seven thirty?” Eileen, the admitting nurse, Diane and I all repeated in unison.

“Yes, seven thirty. The place is dead. After dinner they all go their rooms.”

“What if you offered them wine to join you?” Eileen asked

“I have Cream Sherry, a full bottle.”

“Do you have friends at Concord Park?”

“I call them acquaintances.”

Her room number at Emerson Hospital : 1-978-287-3908

Kitchen Duty
My brother Brian and Diane.

My apologies to anyone whose comments I accidentally erased. The blog receives an eviland vicious amount of spam from online poker sites, body part enhancers and viagra makers, and in my hurry to delete the three hundred or so posts to the comment sections I obliterated a few innocent ones.

Taken at a car show in a local mall in Evansville.

My niece, Seah, and someone few people will remember, Jayne Dearth. Jayne dated my brother, Peter, and lived with us for a short time on Beacon St. in Somerville.