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En Garde, America

July 16, 2018
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America’s President and Commander In Chief of its armed forces is now in Helsinki, misrepresenting his country with abandon. My deeply spiritual friend Suzy Jacobson Cherry is viewing this latest development with such alarm that she posted on Facebook this message: “Everybody. Start writing down your memories of the America that has been. Just in case it isn’t again.”

Suzy’s message reminds me of the end of the play CAMELOT, and Arthur’s admonitory instruction to a stripling in hopes of somehow keeping the memory of Camelot alive.

I love Suzy, and though I think our beloved country will be reunited and healed, I thought it would be valuable to do as she says, as thoroughly as I could.

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And here is the transcript:

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America: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. The Melting Pot. “I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door.” Leader-by- example via the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. “One giant leap for mankind.” Civil Rights Act. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.” The Miracle On Ice of the 1980 Winter Olympics. Rosie the Riveter. Norman Rockwell. The Summer of Love. Ray Charles singing “O Beautiful For heroes proved…” at the 2001 World Series. The freedom that allows Billie Joe Armstrong to sing “American Idiot.” The Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson–Johnny’s guest host George Carlin. Eleanor Roosevelt. Harper Lee. Spike Lee and his magnificent collaborator Denzel Washington. Angels In America on Broadway, featuring Tony-Award-winning Stephen Spinella.

And George Washington, who refused to be King. And my family and friends.

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America has survived many crises. We can survive this one as well, if we get back on the track of E Pluribus Unum, and Liberty and Justice for All.

glory? hallelujah? lazarus come fourth

July 4, 2014
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Friends, today is the 238th anniversary of the presentation of my country’s Declaration of Independence to the world. I feel compelled to write something for the occasion, so here goes.

glory? hallelujah? lazarus come fourth

columbus took slaves
& killed innocents

andrew jackson presided over the genocidal “trail of tears”
flogging the aptly named “indian removal act”

nixon carpetbombed cambodia
he’d barely been inaugurated

reagan mined nicaraguan waters
and even barry goldwater acknowledged that that was a war crime

hillary clinton has a good shot at the presidency
but she lost me when she championed the patriot act

america america man sheds his waste on thee
said george carlin to applauders who were horrendous wasters themselves

america the practice flies in the face of america the theory
in so many heartbreaking ways

but america has the songs of katharine bates and pete seeger and jackson browne
and bob dylan and janis ian and brian wilson and carole king and carly simon and paul simon

america has the poetry of langston hughes and maya angelou
and the musings of ralph ellison and james baldwin–descendants of slaves all

and walt whitman heard america singing long before them
and listen and you will hear her singing still

nonvengeful amish
freewheeling brilliant feynman pohl asimov greg bear poul anderson

thirty-one years ago i declared independence from a sedentary lifestyle
ran a mile in under nine minutes and would continue to do so daily for 420 days
that first mile of the streak began on 19th & indian school
& ended a mile north
& as i turned south to walk home & faced the phoenix downtown
as if on cue the fireworks started telling me i was on a true path
and i a molecule of america received a mandate to renew restore and become

that fourth of july 1983 was more than half my life ago
terrible things have happened since inside my life and out
sweet amazing things have happened as well
i cannot but think that america is wounded perhaps direly
but she still has a spark and a heart
and regenerable tissue
and a mind for the better

Blog Post #100 — the Specialest Subject of All

March 12, 2013
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The subject that is the specialest subject of all is my daughter. She is engaged to be married to a fine young man with intelligence and wit to match her own. I wish them the best kind of success, which is not Money nor Fame but Enduring Happiness.

Kate is no stranger to my journal pages. Here is one from a few years ago:

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And here is the one I did on the occasion of her 20th birthday:

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I have thousands of cherished memories of her, from the day she was born to last Friday when I visited her in Phoenix and took her and Denise to Mongolian BBQ. She was a delightful baby, an amazing toddler (she applied for and received a library card less than four months after her third birthday, having signed her name twice in order to do so), a lively little girl–ah, I could name dozens of her incarnations, but the important thing is, she has become more herself every day, and need not dwell in the past the way her mawkish father does. Kate, you are You, and the best Daughter imaginable. I love you and I salute you. I celebrate my One Hundredth Blog Post with the specialest subject of all. Thanks for indulging me by kindly permitting me to do so!