I sat down this afternoon and wrote a nice post for the blog, about Reagan, memory, death, etc. It was pretty good. Unfortunately, I wrote it longhand on a yellow legal pad, and now it’s too late and I’m too tired to type it up. Maybe tomorrow.

Just a note then, on the burial of Ronald Reagan in Simi Valley this evening.

I thought Nancy Reagan couldn’t have comported herself with more dignity. And I was impressed with the Eulogies of Reagan’s kids as well. Way to stand up and do it for the Gipper.

The main reason I watched it, however, was the honor guards. There’s just something about those guys that fascinates me. It’s moving to watch their precision and poise. Nobody loves a good American ceremony more than me. Especially when they do a missing man flyover with the jets. Great stuff.

My friend Erik at All That Arises has a great post today about the transition of sovereignty in Iraq.

Well, Reagan’s dead. This blog will not bother to note the arguable merits of his conservative legacy. It’s being done to death, so to speak, on lots of sites. I just want to say that Alzheimers is a horrible disease, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Anyway …

Now he’s Gone

but cool inside

— the Dead

It’s warm, I tell ya. It’s 40 minutes ’til midnight, and 73 degrees, per yahoo weather. Feels like 85 to me. A good night for sleeping with a fan blowing on the bed, which I enjoy anyway.

My brother and I are spending the night in my grandparents’ house in a small town north of Bakersfield CA. They’re not here, except very strongly in my mind and heart. As you read in my birthday post, Grandma’s in a care facility. Papa died in October 2002. I miss them both tonight. They are present in every creak and corner of this old place.

I’m at the kitchen table with a laptop, and over my right shoulder, deep in shadow, is the place where Papa sat and watched TV for decades. How is it possible he’s not there? How can the world change so much as to cast off someone so present, so real to me, and yet still contain this room, this table, and me? How can such a different world, so much the same, still turn?

In response to my birthday post, below, my friend Erik suggests that some folks missed my birthday because I affect an aspect of timelessness. Perhaps so, as with the Sybil in the jar in the marketplace at Cumae. But I’m tired.

I grow old … I grow old …

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

So the old dog and I shall limp and toddle off to bed, leaving you all, gentle readers, with a bit of Yeats.

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Television’s perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don’t have to concentrate. You don’t have to react. You don’t have to remember. You don’t miss your brain because you don’t need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet. You are in the man’s nirvana. And if some poor nasty minded person comes along and says you look like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn’t got the price of a television set.

-Raymond Thornton Chandler, writer (1888-1959)

from wordsmith.org

Yeah, you missed it. I reached 43 yesterday, and I know you missed it, because everybody outside my immediate family did. Blew it off. Could have sent me a present. What a bunch of hosers. — I’m kidding. I don’t care.

I spent a quiet day with my family, which is what I wanted. We went to visit my Grandma, in a care facility in the San Joaquin Valley. She’s 93, though time has become something of an abstraction for her. She thinks I’m in my twenties, and was pretty incredulous when we told her I’m 43.

I love my Grandma. She always took such good care of me, in that way that grandmothers hold us in the world and make us feel safe and unconditionally loved. Spoiled is a better word, I guess.

After that visit, we went to the local cemetery, where we have seven relatives buried, including my other three grandparents. It was very warm – about 94 degrees in the shade – but there were lots of people there. They were placing flowers, praying, and in one case gathering on a grave for a family photo and lots of laughter. To each his own.

We weren’t laughing much. But it was good. A time to connect and assess our losses I suppose. Rumi said that everything comes down to loving and not loving. To me, it’s more like loving and holding on, then letting go.

My brother and I watched a really good movie tonight, Bowling for Columbine. I’ve been meaning to see it for a while — I’m a fan of Michael Moore. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it strongly. For me, the overwhelming bottom line is that we Americans live in a culture of fear. We’re afraid of damn near everything, and all the wrong things. Our children are growing up steeped in fear. Our president takes his podium and says things like today, the justice department issued a blanket warning, based on general information. And we let him get away with it; we let him hand feed us fear, to bolster his chances for reelection. Then we go out and stock up on duct tape, soup and ammo.

It’s time to take back this country — and our minds — from the neocon fear-pushers.

Recently I visited my old friend George, a WWII veteran, in a nursing facility. George was an officer in the British special forces (airborne) in Asia. He parachuted behind enemy lines, fought bravely, and like our John McCain, suffered as a POW. George is an amazing guy, with a good heart. A class act. I’m very fond of him.

When I visited, he told me that he wished they would finally build a memorial in Washington to honor those who served in WWII. George has been out of touch a while, and I was happy to tell him that the memorial was almost complete. Today, I called him to make sure he knew that it was finished and dedicated.

I wonder if someone will call me in a nursing home, and let me know about the dedication of the memorial to those who serve in the war that’s going on now. I wonder if there will be a wall of names, and if I’ll know any of them. Why do I wonder this? Because it just keeps rolling on, a great wheel of war turns with the very planet. We just don’t seem willing or able to stop it. And so long as our fear continues to cause us to choose leaders like George W. Bush, we are beyond hope.

Therefore, let us build memorials.

Maybe you noticed (yeah right) that my blogroll has gotten a little smaller recently. I’ve been whitling away at it, getting rid of blogs that aren’t active anymore, etc.

Well I see the fear mongers are at it again, spewing forth a general warning that we all need to stay terrified, vigilant, stay the course, go about our daily lives, keep spending for the economy, and no matter what don’t dare to vote out any incumbant Republicans. I’ll bet a whole new circle is being built in hell for these jerks.

I’d rather see freaks eating worms on Fear Factor than one of Tom Ridge’s Fear Factors shows on CNN, though either one may cause me to jab sharpened #2 pencils in my eyes. Basta. … If they attack, they attack. But being terrorized by our own government in the mean time doesn’t help.

Pete and Erin are back from vacation — keep an eye out for good stuff on their blogs.