President Donald J. Trump

March 25, 2026

This week the United States is at war with Iran. The President, Donald J. Trump, actively directing this war is a television celebrity who does not read books, long reports, or anything of real substance. He is listening to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Our allies and most Americans oppose the conflict. Gas prices are rising, unemployment is climbing, and the markets are tumbling. Money and munitions are being spent at an unsustainable rate. More importantly, thousands of Iranians and Lebanese are dying in US and Israeli bombing attacks.

Trump is a transactional man with a short memory. His information sources are tabloids, television, his friends, and social media. As a television celebrity he was promoted as a dynamic business genius, but in reality he risked and lost millions, family money, bank loans, and investor funds. He declared bankruptcy six times. He bankrupted a casino and is known for failing to pay contractors.

Before winning his first election, he claimed to be a billionaire. He was underwater. His only real financial success is as a television star. His business empire depended heavily on outside financing, including loans from Deutsche Bank. Even after he had defaulted and sued them the bank extended him a line of credit of $800 million. Deutsche Bank is known to be Putin’s bank and has repeatedly faced investigations and fines for money laundering and questionable practices.

Trump is a self‑promoter with a talent for manipulation and an instinctive feral genius for bullying people. He defeated a weak Republican primary field in 2016. To his own surprise he was elected President of the United States. The Republicans used the moment to push through tax cuts and deregulation. They built a conventional Republican administration around him that kept him in check while he made himself the center of attention. Mitch McConnell and the Federalist Society reshaped the Supreme Court into a conservative majority.

How Trump became President will be studied for generations. It is part of the American Story, rooted in contradictions that go back to the founding of the Republic. Trump was the wrong man showing up at the wrong time with the exact talents to seize the moment. He wasn’t a fluke, and he wasn’t inevitable, but he wasn’t a surprise. America has been wrestling with these contradictions since the Civil War, and in 2016 we lost our footing. In 2024, the pattern deepened. The pandemic, media ecosystems, unresolved historical wounds, populism, foreign interference, all played a role. Trump is not the illness; he is the most obvious symptom.

And the future? I don’t know. Will this be the start of things worse or the beginning of a new America. Has America lost its way? Or will we learn from this and confront the deep issues that have kept us from our ideals? And beyond Trump, will we rise to the challenge of climate change, the most important existential threat to humanity since people first stood upright?

I am nearly 80 years old. Even if I live another fifteen years, I doubt our current political turmoil will be resolved. It may take decades, even generations, for Americans to regain their footing and become a positive force in the world again. It is painful to reach this age and live in an America where a narcissist wields executive power like a king, where children are in cages, masked police roam our cities, a devastating war rages in the Middle East, and the economy stumbles under misdirection, corruption, and half-baked ideas. Today America is an obstacle to progress rather than the leader we thought we were.

In my life I have tried to be an informed and active citizen. I have not done everything I could but I have tried. I have contributed. I take responsibility for supporting efforts that seemed right at the time but contributed to this moment. I tried to make the world better. It was not enough. I hope that the readers of this, especially my great‑grandchildren, will see a future that is brighter and more hopeful. I am still working toward that future, still participating, even if I am uncertain of the results. I am not optimistic. I am not pessimistic. I do not know. But I wish you well, and I hope, if not my generation then yours.

Ellen

Ellen was born on August 29, 1940, less than 7 months after my parents were married. We always celebrated Ellen’s birthday on October 31. The story I heard from Joan is Ellen learned the truth when at nineteen she joined the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and she had to produce a birth certificate.

She was six years older than I was, a tomboy and the senior partner in “Ellen and Joan.” Growing up, we didn’t have much of a relationship. Joan and Ellen were in a different world, older, already the “big kids” by the time I started school. Ellen taught me how to ride a bicycle and once hoisting me up on her feet doing acrobatics, I fell and broke my arm. She was my big sister but far removed.

At school Ellen was the star and Joan was a year behind her. In 1955 she went on to high school across the street at Bellarmine Jefferson. At 16 Ellen learned to drive. She got a summer job at Local Loan downtown. She drove whenever she could. She was a driver from then on, willing to drive wherever and whenever she could.

She and Joan were involved in a youth group under Father Coffield in Boyle Heights, where she was part of an activist community organization. There were good things and bad things about the Church in those days. I think Ellen’s social activism began then. Coffield’s name was on the list of predator priests released in 2000.

In 1959 Ellen entered the BVMs; their Motherhouse was in Dubuque, Iowa. She returned home for a visit after the first year. She and another new nun in her class stayed in a convent nearby. They split time between families, us in Burbank and the Coughlins in Glassell Park. That visit set the pattern between Ellen and our mother. My mother treated her as a kind of saint and was desperate to tell Ellen how much she loved her and to hold her close, jealous of any time she wasn’t home. Mom couldn’t let Ellen be herself.

I think Ellen was desperate for our father’s love. There were flashes of affection, but mostly he seemed to act like we were all a burden he had to bear. I think he thought if we hadn’t come along, he would have been the star he should have been. To me it seemed he was never much of father. We had to be quiet when he was home, not to disturb him while he sat in his back room studying and listening to music. I think Ellen particularly suffered trying to please him, to feel the love he seemed to never show.

The summer of 1959 I got to go to Missouri with my mother’s cousin. We went by train and it took 3 days. I stayed with our grandmother in St. Louis. Ellen was on her way to the convent in Dubuque and she stopped by grandma’s house. We traveled together by segregated bus to visit our grandfather in the Ozarks. On the trip we were both shocked by the segregated bathrooms and drinking fountains, Colored and White. From California we thought we came from an open society; it wasn’t. Its racism hid beneath politeness. That trip was an early moment when Ellen and I saw the world together, two young people discovering harsh realities.

Our paths separated. While I went to high school Ellen taught in BVM schools for a time, including Wichita, Kansas, and later in Stockton. Teaching was never her love; she was a community organizer at heart. The BVMs were progressive, and by the late 1960s their habits had softened into simple skirts, white blouses, and comfortable shoes and Ellen was working as a Community Organizer in a Chicago parish.

When I returned from the Air Force in 1971, I visited Ellen in Chicago. I think she had left the nuns by then. She drove us to St. Louis and the Ozarks again, visiting our uncle in his tar paper shack. He was showing us his shotgun and accidentally blew out a window in the kitchen, an incident no one commented on afterwards.

Ellen went to work for Jenner & Block, the law firm that represented the Contract Buyers’ League pro bono. With community groups organized by the parishes they fought predatory lending and red lining in South Chicago and won major victories. She lived for a time in a Lakeside condo in South Chicago, where I stayed during the blizzard of 1978.

Our relationship became strained when my marriage to Cathy failed. In late 1983 Cathy and I were breaking apart and I was newly sober, Ellen and Joan sided with Cathy. For a time I was an outsider to my own sisters.

Ellen was working in Chicago for a few years and then sometime in the 1980s she decided to join a contemplative order of nuns in Iowa. There she met Karen. Karen was having health problems and Ellen took care of her and together they moved to Arizona for Karen’s health. It became apparent they were a couple and so no surprise when they got married in Canada in the 1990s. Karen and I never became good friends but she loved Ellen deeply. They built a life in Arizona, went to community college together and became nurses. They accumulated a modest nest egg, and created a home. Ellen became a hospice nurse and loved the work. Karen was a visiting nurse. In a conversation before their marriage, I asked Ellen if she was a lesbian.  She admitted she was.  I thought it would be good just to say the word, but she never said it again. Their relationship was loving and equal, and it was good for both of them.

Ellen was Ted’s godmother and she took that relationship very seriously. Ellen and Karen helped Ted during his lost years after college in 1995 steering him toward language programs. Ted taught English in Japan and then in Saudi Arabia. After three years Ted came home and met Ellen Clancy in Monterey and Karen and Ellen came to the wedding. They gave them money for their first house. They told me to follow their example and make my intended loan a gift. Ellen and Karen came when Ted received his doctorate at the University of Oregon.

Ellen loved that I became a Park Ranger. Like Hopalong Cassidy I wore a cowboy hat and a gunbelt. Ellen and Karen visited me on Mount Diablo and later on Angel Island. When they came to the island crossing Raccoon Strait at night in a pontoon boat it was a moment of high adventure for Ellen.

After my retirement Ellen and I began to develop a closeness and a friendship we had never quite had. I would call her during my long commute on I-80 to Richmond to pick up Paloma. Those long unhurried conversations became a rhythm of our relationship.  We talked about everything: family, music, books, politics, memories. We became peers, not older sister and younger brother, two adults, brother and sister and friends.

When Ellen and Karen retired they moved from Arizona to Dubuque, Iowa. Karen was from Clinton down the river and for Ellen it was familiar territory near the Mother House of the BVMs and Clarke College where for a short time she and Joan had been students together.

One conversation stands out. A year or two before her seizures began, I casually said that if I had my life to do over, I would have more confidence and take better advantage of opportunities. Ellen said she would be more forceful and effective in serving the community. She wanted to be better at helping people, more focused on making things better for others. I was an ordinary guy with ordinary goals. Joan was a warrior. Ellen was a saint.

When they moved to Iowa, they joined the local Orthodox Church. Ellen found a deep spirituality in Eastern Christianity and the Orthodox traditions. When they joined a few members of the Congregation objected to Ellen and Karen’s membership together in the Church and the resistance had gone to the local Metropolitan. He had welcomed them when they came and when it became an issue later he told the objectors he had made his decision and it was final. God bless the Orthodox Church and its local Metropolitan.

In February 2019 Ellen had a terrible seizure. The diagnosis was Alzheimer’s. Paloma and I came to visit in June. She was still Ellen, I was relieved. She was shakier, less precise, but herself. She still belonged to a book club. She said they were reading Tommy Orange’s There There. It was very hard for her and she was having trouble making sense of it. I told I had read it and that it was hard for me too. Orange’s style is to tell fragmented stories that seem unrelated and confusing. And then he wraps it all up in the end. She was relieved, it wasn’t just her.

Her biggest disappointment seemed to be that she was not going to live into her 90s. She had really wanted to grow very old and 79 plus just wasn’t enough. We had a good time, going out to eat, long drives with Karen and her to show Paloma Wisconsin and a trip to a State Park with waterfalls and caves. The dementia she had wasn’t devastating; she still enjoyed life. Paloma and I enjoyed our time with her and Karen. So in February 2020 we visited again. I wanted to show Paloma Iowa in winter when it wasn’t so beautiful and green. It was cold, but it was beautiful and we had a good time with Ellen and Karen.

Unrelated to Ellen at the time the Covid-19 Pandemic started in China in November, 2019 and by February it had begun to spread worldwide. None of us thought much about it while we were there. At the Chicago airport on our way home a few people were wearing masks, but the Pandemic was far away and people didn’t seem concerned. Our flight was canceled and we stayed overnight in a hotel near the airport. From the airport we stuffed ourselves into a taxi with two other people, one a GI visiting home from Korea. A month later the lockdowns began and March 17 we began our Shelter in Place in California. That first weekend of concern I calculated the incubation time from our Chicago trip. At it passed we were OK.

Ellen began to weaken in the fall of 2021 and in November she had hospice care. I came in November. Laurie, Joan’s daughter came and Ted. Ellen hung on longer than we expected and they had to go home to their jobs and families. Father John came from St. George’s Orthodox Church in Cedar Rapids and did a service for the sick at the foot of Ellen’s bed. For the time the service took, Ellen was quiet and at peace. I stayed on for a few more days keeping vigil with her but she just hung on and finally I had to leave too. I drove to the Chicago airport and Karen called me. Ellen had died.

I miss Ellen. Writing about her brings her back to life a little bit, the girl who taught me to ride a bike, the nun who searched for meaning, the activist, the driver, the sister who struggled for our father’s unreachable love, and the friend she became. I was very fortunate to have both of my sisters. Joan and I were close when she was young; Ellen and I became close in retirement.

We like to believe that how we die will reflect how we lived, that there is some moral symmetry at the end. My experience has been that this is mostly untrue. We have very little control over how we leave the world.

My father died peacefully. He was old, sober, reconciled, and surrounded by his children. He seemed ready. There was no struggle, no unfinished business he felt compelled to resolve. He let go when it was time. It looked orderly, as if dying were the final task of his life.

Ellen’s death was the opposite. She was younger, in terrible physical pain, and seemed unable to rest. Even as her body was failing, something in her would not release its grip on responsibility. Ellen had always been someone who took care of others, who made things okay for everyone else. Near the end, it seemed a compulsion that trapped her.

I believe she could not let go while I was there, and that once I left she died with Karen holding her.

We do not die as we deserve. We die as we are. My father’s gift was peace. Ellen’s burden was love that she could not stop giving. 

Google Jack Duggan

OK I admit it, occasionally I Google myself to see what people might find.  My favorite answer:

When I Googled "Jack Duggan."  

What happened to Jack Duggan?

Duggan died on 19 June 1993 at Toowoomba. His wife had predeceased him in 1984 and his son and daughter survived him. Following a Catholic funeral, he was buried in the Drayton and Toowoomba lawn cemetery. 

Now you know.  

Joan

Growing up it was always Ellen and Joan, the names, their stories seemed inseparable.

Joan and Ellen were a partnership forged permanently when they lived with our grandmother in St. Louis during World War II.  Joan was born in March, 1942, 18 months after Ellen.  It’s a tribute to Ellen’s generous nature that they weren’t competitive. Ellen was the senior partner but by the time I came along 4 years later Joan and Ellen were a given. They might have had their disagreements but it stayed between them. Ellen more than anyone else appreciated Joan.

Ellen was the star of the show, the strong character, the tom boy who could hold her own with the boys and shoot marbles better than any of us. At eight or nine years old Ellen wanted the full Hopalong Cassidy outfit and when she got it, wore it with pride. Joan was the background. I don’t remember much about her at all and in those days I think that was as much Joan as it was Ellen, Joan was in the shadow. Joan was a person of strong character and intensity, but she kept it to herself.

After the Barracks, the second bedroom was always theirs. At our new home on Magnolia Boulevard Ellen and Joan’s room was this pristine sacred space, with twin beds, bedspreads, curtains, a book case and a desk. The most precious object in the room was a turquoise Motorola Clock Radio which Ellen kept tuned to KFAC, the classical music station in LA. Today when I hear Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1 I’m transported back to the sound coming from Joan and Ellen’s bedroom, The Gas Hour theme.

In school Ellen was everyone’s favorite. In the 8^th grade Ellen was the captain of the Bellarmine Jefferson Guards, Monsignor Keating’s doctrinaire and whimsical fusion of devotion and patriotism into a kind of World War I home guard. She and the boy captain led Flag Salute our morning formation, where at attention we recited prayers composed for the occasion and sang the national anthem while raising the flag. We sang Hail Columbia. Monsignor didn’t like that new fangled Star Spangled Banner.

I think by the time Joan started high school she had had enough of always being Ellen’s sister at school. She began to shine as her own star. We Duggans were a bright bunch but Joan was undoubtedly the smartest of us all. She played the clarinet in band, she roller skated at Harry’s Roller Rink, and she became the science teacher's pet, Sister Mary Paul Anthony (Catherine O’Dwyer).. The rest of the world was terrified of Paul Anthony but Joan flourished under her guidance.

In 1959 Ellen left for the nunnery. Joan got her own room and was on her own at Bellarmine Jefferson, winning awards and honors and a full scholarship to Clarke College in Dubuque Iowa. Dubuque was the mother house of the nuns at St. Roberts and Clarke is their college. In those days I filled in as Joan’s ally. Her little brother to Harry’s Roller Rink. She was very pretty. Ellen never had much interest in boys, but the boys noticed Joan and she liked the attention.

Before she started the college sent Joan a reading list of books they thought she should be reading. She shared it with me. I devoured it and let Joan know the ones I thought she should read. Joan was excited about chemistry and I wondered what it was all about so I read a chapter of one of her books. The chapter was Boyle’s law and when I took the entrance exam for high school, the science section was a paragraph on Boyle’s Law and questions on the reading. I was by that coincidence one of the smartest students to enter St. Francis High School that year Later I was a big disappointment to the science teacher.

Joan came home for the summers. She was a young woman, smoking, drinking beer and quite sophisticated. She got a summer job as an information operator at The Telephone Company. I was always struck by the fact that she was a Chemistry major with a Latin minor. Joan had learned to drive on an automatic transmission. The summer I was chafing to get my driver’s license having learned to drive in a few lessons earlier in the year. Joan was looking for a car and realized it would be good to know how to drive a stick shift. I had mastered the basics of driving on our 1948 Studebaker, our second car, our mother’s junker.

She asked me to teach her. Our exchange was after our lesson I could drive the car with her as my over 18 licensed driver. That exchange was a strong element of our growing bond. We had fun together. One time I was walking her through the sequence of making a left turn: slowing, clutching, downshifting. Just then I looked and we were headed directly for the house on the corner, “And steer! And Steer!” I shouted. We both had a good laugh and I had a story to tell.

I think at the beginning of grad school Joan bought an American Rambler. It was not cool or stylish but it was a good little car and had a stick shift. It was practical like Joan. It suited her. I don’t remember all the cars Joan had but they included a big Ford Bronco or Explorer and a big Ford pickup truck, macho cars. It was fun to watch her grip the steering wheel and use the step to climb into them. Joan was short 5 feet or 5 foot 1 but she liked the cars and she played Country and Western music on the radio sometimes. It tickled her sense of irony. Joan wasn’t macho but she was tough.

I began drinking beer at home when I was 16 and stopped hiding that I smoked. So when Joan came home in the summer before she graduated we drank beer together. That was another one of our bonds. I contributed and she bought and we’d bring it home and share with Pop including whatever he had at home. The three of us would drink together, we drank whatever was there and finished it off. These were convivial days and very social. For me and probably Joan too they were the first time that our father relaxed and talked to us. He was coming out of his PTSD shell that had lasted for over 20 years. We reveled in his conviviality.

When I started college, Joan generously offered to share an apartment with me and we lived in a furnished one bedroom apartment on Sepulveda Boulevard near Venice Boulevard in National City. I slept on the living room couch. I didn’t see much of Joan. She was studying Organic Chemistry and played bridge.  I was busy going to college on my own. When our paths crossed we both enjoyed Swansons Frozen Pot Pies. We did quite well together. We were good roommates. I have always been grateful for Joan’s generosity.

The next year she got an apartment near Culver City and I went on campus to the dorms.

And then I met Cathy and joined the Air Force and Joan finished her Masters at UCLA and went on to begin teaching at East Los Angeles College. I was in the Air Force, got married, and then went to England. Cathy and my first summer in Bedford Joan came to visit. I think it was her first time in Europe and before she came to Bedford she went to a language program in Spain. I remember we had another a coworker to dinner at our flat when Joan was there. I can’t remember his name, a little older than me. He commended Joan on being in college and that she should stay in school and work hard in chemistry. He deflated when she said she wasn’t a student in college, but a professor. Joan was very pretty but looked very young, not like most chemistry professors.

That summer Joan had met this guy in Spain and apparently they were quite taken with each other. Somehow we got the word that this guy Michael was desperate to call her and she was desperate to get the call. Using the phone in England in those days meant going to the red Call Box a block and a half away. Joan and Michael seem to take it personally that we didn't have a phone.  They managed somehow to reach each other.

When Cathy and I returned to California in 1971, Joan and Michael were trying to maintain a long distance relationship between Monterey Park and the Bronx. Joan converted to Judaism and had a ceremony welcoming her to the tribe at a synagogue in Glendale. My parents and Ellen were there. We were all happy that Joan was happy, happy to be Jewish, and she had found her true love. Someone asked me how was it my sister converted to Judaism. I told them when you grow up Irish Catholic, it’s easy to convert to something else; Joan found an intellectual and spiritual home in Judaism.

She took a sabbatical and went to live with Michael in New York. She went to Hunter College for a year. And Joan and Michael got married in Connecticut, and paid my way to the wedding, I was still an undergrad at UCLA. It was a wonderful wedding with chuppa and Michael breaking the glass. It was at a cousin’s of Michael in Connecticut. Michael was very proud of the food, Middle Eastern, Sephardic, humus, pita bread and Michael’s favorite, baba ganoush. The caterer was Lebanese. Joan and Michael stayed in New York.

As agreed they came out to California the following year, just for Michael to try it. Michael didn’t seem very impressed by California and he didn’t think they would stay. I remember his conversion occurred with an Orange Tree he bought. When it first bloomed and had fruit during the winter. Michael became a Californian.

Cathy and I and Joan and Michael were friends, we prepared and ate dinners with wine together and cocktails or brandy afterwards. We were their guests for the Chanukah and Passover holidays. One day with satisfaction I realized my boys didn’t think of the holidays as exotic, just something we celebrated with Joan and Michael. They knew to set a place for Elijah, to ask the question and in December to look for Chanukah gelt.

In 1977 we went down to Brotman Hospital in Culver City to be part of their new baby’s birth. Being Joan and Michael I don’t think we saw the baby that day, she was born. Shortly thereafter we got to see Laurie Reyna Pessah. That was a big event. Laurie was Joan and Michael’s special child and very special she was. She was beautiful, talented, very smart and charming from the start and so she is today. She is Joan and Michael’s child and the best of both of them.

Cathy and I struggled in our marriage, there were good times and bad times and 1983 was a bad time. Cathy and I separated. I readily accepted the role of the bad guy and Cathy was the aggrieved party. She made sure all of my family knew my transgressions. It seemed Joan and Michael sided with Cathy and I was left out.

Eventually I was partially reinstated. At that same time I got sober and that became another barrier between Joan and me

Everyone in the family was pretty surprised. Cathy, now Kate, immediately joined Alanon and became a 12 Step Master though gratefully she didn’t have anything to do with me at the time. Her insights may not have been helpful to me at the time. Joan and Michael noticed it and were very interested. By this time, a lot of people knew Joan drank too much, including Joan. Not long after, I think it might have been the that summer when people began to realize not only had I stopped drinking but I was sober and getting more so every day.

One day Michael called and we had to meet downtown to “discuss” Joan’s drinking. Michael was very concerned that we should get Joan sober, she really needed to stop drinking. Around then I gave my copy of Alcohol Anonymous to Joan or for Joan. Of course, Joan and I never talked about alcoholism. It’s makes sense if you’re Irish. I was sober, she knew it and she knew she needed to stop drinking too. She had The Book and I think she had looked at it. Michael gave me updates on how Joan was doing. I learned Joan had tried AA but it wasn’t for her, too religious.

For Joan the Protestant sounding rhetoric of the Big Book was a deal breaker. She’d do it on her own. I was struck by the rhetoric, an artifact from the 1930s but it never bothered me. I was an atheist and just let it go. Particularly in California AA is strong on a Higher Power or “god as you understand him or her,” a big sidestep of the God thing for most of us. It is about surrender, admitting that we can’t do it on our own, that we have to give up trying to control it. Joan couldn’t do that. She tried. Alcoholism isn’t a lack of will power or character. Functional alcoholics are people of incredible character and strong will.

Trudging on, getting up, doing what has to be done instead of giving up, instead of letting go, takes courage and is an act of incredible will. Joan was a strong willed person. She did not give up. She tried and she tried. Joan fought her alcoholism up to the end I imagine.

She was uncomfortable with my sobriety. When I visited she wouldn’t have anything to drink and that was hard. I’d stay for an hour or two. She shared her garden and water course. She showed me her book binding projects.

We were cordial but we were never close again. As we aged Joan had some health problems. We didn’t talk about it but I was very proud of my sister for being a leader and guide for people learning to live with colostomy bags. And then she began to suffer from dementia, I didn’t see that. Michael had problems seeing and driving, so they were a driving team, Michael navigated and Joan drove.

And then Joan passed away. I would have liked to have been a lot closer and there for Joan but it didn’t happen. And she died September 2016. And I miss her.

My daughter Paloma was in the first grade when Joan died. And then Paloma was having problems in school. We looked into it and she was grieving for Joan. We hadn’t thought much about it. We didn’t think Joan’s passing had been important in Paloma’s six year old world. I didn’t realize that Paloma and Joan had bonded. It happened one afternoon when Joan took Paloma aside and showed her all of her bookbinding work, the tools and what she did with them. I felt very bad for Paloma but it also made me feel very grateful that Paloma had experienced my beloved sister Joan and that she loved her, just like I did.

Timeline

 My timeline is to me like the Lakota and Park Rangers history on a buffalo hide at Agate Fossil Beds; not a grand account of every event, but a view of the world from my perspective. My timeline isn’t a record of all that happened in the world, but what was happening in my world. This is mine: how I saw it from my vantage point.

So alongside wars, assassinations, and political turns, you’ll find births, marriages, rattlesnake bites, new jobs, and losses. This is my life; a few broad strokes for the backdrop. Here is what I did and the times in which I did it.

Two notes to my Timeline, I’ve included the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Joe McCarthy, of whom I had no awareness growing up. I include the bombing because like a temple bell it resonated long after it was struck.

McCarthyism is an obvious inclusion but I want to note I had no knowledge of McCarthyism at the time. I educated myself on it as an adult well after college. The adults and teachers in my life who lived through those days never talked about it. In fact the spirit of McCarthyism hung like a cloud over American political life long into the 60’s and even into the 70’s where ideas like the Free Speech Movement, Vietnam dissent and Nixon’s humiliation broke it’s power over American intellectual life.

My Timeline

1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombed
1946 I was born
1948 Marshall Plan enacted
1950 Korean War begins
1950 Cathy was born
1952 Tehachapi Earthquake
1953 Eisenhower negotiates Korean truce
1953 McCarthy chairs an investigative committee
1957 The FLN insurrection in Algiers
1957 Sputnik launched
1960 Graduate from grammar school, start high school
1960 John F. Kennedy elected president
1963 Kennedy assassinated
1964 Civil Rights Bill passed
1965 Start college
1965 Rhodesian UDI declared
1966 Join the UFWOC march to Sacramento
1967 Larry Stephan, St. Roberts classmate, killed in the DMZ
1967 Join the Air Force
1968 Married Cathy, go to England
1968 Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinated
1968 Year of upheavals worldwide: Allende rises, Tet Offensive, Dubček and Prague Spring crushed, Brezhnev Doctrine, Nixon elected, Tlatelolco Massacre, My Lai revelations, Paris demonstrations, Northern Ireland Troubles intensify
1969 Sean born

1969 Apollo 11 moonwalk

1971 Ted born

1971 Honorable Discharge, start UCLA

1974 Nixon resigns

1975 Benjamin born

1975 Fall of Saigon

1977 Laurie Pessah (niece) born

1978 Benjamin bitten by rattlesnake

1980 Ronald Reagan elected president

1983 Separate from Cathy

1983 Get sober

1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre

1989 Berlin Wall falls

1990 Nelson Mandela freed from prison

1991 Rodney King beating

1995 Move to Bay Area

1995 Oklahoma City bombing

1996 Marry Susan Walters, Caius born

1999 Vida and Misia born

2001 The World Trade Center attack and collapse
2001 Start work at Juvenile Hall
2003 My father dies
2004 James born
2005 Start working at State Parks
2005 My mother dies
2005 Ami born
2006 Molly born

2008 Obama is elected President
2009 Paloma born
2011 Retire from Parks
2012 Marry Suzette Anderson
2016 Joan dies

2016 Trump is elected
2020 COVID-19 lockdown

2021 Coco born
2021 Ellen dies

2024 Trump is reelected President

2025 Paloma starts high school

Meditation at Bishop O'Dowd High School

 The Sound of Awakening

The Buddha teaches that enlightenment is not a distant mountain to climb, but the realization that everything—every person, every sound, every breath—is already part of the sacred. The Eternal Buddha is here.

Students are buddhas becoming. The teachers, administrators, security people, groundskeepers, counselors, and parents; we are bodhisattvas showing our children the path. This place, this chapel, this school, this morning is our Deer Park. Sacred not because it is quiet, but because it is alive.

Outside, the school starting another day; buses beeping in reverse, students chattering, cars coming and going, crows calling, bees buzzing. It is not a distraction. It is the dharma in motion.

So we sit. We breathe. We listen.

We are in the center of the world—Bishop O’Dowd at 8:15. It is the music of awakening. Not a moment to escape, but a time to immerse ourselves in the sound of buddha everywhere around us.

Let the breath come in. Let it go out.

Let the beeps of the bus be our temple bell.

Let the laughter be our mantra.

Let the crows be our choir.

Let the quad be our sound of now.

And for this moment may we be present.

The Bellamasue and the Tiendita, A Maiden Voyage with a New Kayak in Oakland

The maiden voyage of the Bellamasue—my $299 Pelican kayak—was a quiet success. I’d finally gotten the roof rack, the cradles, the cotter pins, and the straps to work. I slid it into the water at Tidewater Boathouse near high tide and paddled slowly out toward the channel marker. I felt the old muscles in my shoulders wake up as I feathered my strokes. Everything worked. The kayak tracked, it felt right.

Getting it up and down from the car turned out to be easier than I expected. Carrying it from the parking lot to the dock was hard, but manageable. 78 year olds are weaker than we used to be and 10 feet of 40 pounds lugging a distance is pushing it for me now. I wore my wide Mexican gardener’s hat and a neck bandana from Tepoztlán, for sun, sweat, and maybe blowing my nose. Water people don’t look cool but we look like we belong.

A woman at the water on a stand-up at first seemed standoffish, but then a tentative greeting and we had common ground, She’d gone up the creek and seen a big crab, grasses, and other signs of wildness hiding in plain sight. Had I ever done that? she asked. And we swapped quiet stories of urban waterway magic. Junky from the road, beautiful from the water. For a moment we shared an understanding. 

Later, I parked in front of a small tiendita in East Oakland to pick up pozole ingredients. The Bellamasue was still on top of the car. The girls at the butcher counter were Salvadorean, the clerk Honduran. They saw the kayak, maybe the hat, definitely the güero. But the moment I asked for pork neck bones and maíz para pozole in decent Spanish, the whole vibe changed. Now I was the local oddball—not a stranger, just another Oakland type. We all belong in one way or another, East Oakland near the Estuary. There’s almost nothing that doesn't fit in Oakland, there's space for all us and things we haven’t seen seen before, like güeros in big sun hats with kayaks outside who speak Spanish. 

On Becoming a Buddhist

 

It was a Jesuit who first opened the door to Buddhism for me. I was a freshman at Loyola University in Los Angeles in 1965 and 1966. One evening I attended a lecture by Father William Johnston, SJ. He was professor at Sophia University, the Jesuit school in Tokyo, a scholar and a mystic who had lived in Japan for years. He said he was a Buddhist and a Jesuit priest and that the two were compatible, that Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion.

It was the first time I encountered Buddhism as a valid belief system instead of some foreign and mysterious religion. I do remember the premise during the Vietnam War that because of Buddhism the Asians didn’t value life the same way Westerners did and why so many died willingly in our war against them, a very Western imperialist attitude toward Eastern philosophy. Fr. Johnston seemed quite alive and in this world as I remember. Sharing his Buddhist insight he planted the seed of Buddhism that grew and flowered in me.

It was nearly two decades later that I got sober using the 12 Steps of AA. Meditation is an important part of the daily AA practice and I began meditating as encouraged by the other members. I heard that “prayer is when we talk to God; meditation is when we listen.”

For years, my meditation was brief. I would tell myself I will do this for at least five minutes or more, and usually it was just five minutes. I used the Hazelden book Twenty-Four Hours a Day: A Meditation Book for Alcoholics. I have continued to meditate off and on using different books for inspiration and adapting it to different opportunities and situations, but meditation has been a part of my life.

In 2012 I made a trip to Japan as a guest of my old boss from Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank. Hayashi-san made sure I visited shrines and temples. It was my first direct encounter with Shintoism and seeing Buddhism in its own environment. I found these places moving, and my Japanese friends laughed at what seemed to them my belief and devotion, but really it was just practicing like the Japanese seemed to do—not worrying about what it meant.

In my hotel room the Buddhist text The Teachings of Buddha was in a hotel drawer like a Gideon Bible. It wasn’t particularly profound—mostly short parables and sayings—but when I returned home I used it for daily meditation. The structure of reading something short, then sitting with it quietly, suited me. Without really studying Buddhism, my daily reading familiarized me with Buddhist thinking.

A few years ago, as I periodically have done, I wanted to renew my meditation practice, to try it more faithfully, and for my daily reading I picked up a book by Thich Nhat Hanh. Years before, I had heard not to fight the “monkey mind” that so plagues us all—particularly when trying to meditate—but to let it be and not follow it or fight it. Thầy Nhat Hanh taught me to refocus on my breath. That was a big help in not getting lost with my “monkey mind.” His gentle and wise discourse opened the door a little wider and made me more curious, and I decided to learn more about Buddhism itself. I realized I didn’t really understand Buddhism in any systematic way. I’d read Alan Watts, Jack Kornfield, and others. I had a sense of the teachings—but no framework. So I bought The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism. It seemed a little silly to be using that series, but I remembered Suzuki Roshi’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and the title seemed right.

I studied the lists—because Buddhism, as an oral tradition uses lists: the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), the Four Noble Truths, the Five Hindrances, the Eightfold Path, the Six Paramitas and more. The lists helped me structure my understanding and gave me language for what I had already begun to feel.

Another breakthrough came to me at my congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley when Susan Mashiyama gave a talk on Buddhism during a summer service.  She told us about the Metta Prayer. I had heard of metta, but I didn’t understand it and had never heard the prayer before.

May I be peaceful.

May I be happy.

May I be safe.

May I awaken to the light of my true nature.

May I be free.

…and repeating the same phrases with You, Them, and Us.

It was simple but moved me deeply and added so much to my practice. After meditation, I recite this prayer, first for myself, then for others—my sons, my daughter, their mothers, my niece, and friends, I’ve added names as needed, including the children of Gaza and people I’ve promised to pray for. I repeat each line until I truly hear it. When my mind wanders, I gently bring it back—no self-scolding, just redirection. Like returning to a trail over and over.

I also began reading The Lotus Sutra, guided by Nichio Niwano’s commentary. I’m now on my second or third pass through Niwano’s book Buddhism for Today. It’s dense and poetic, and I suspect I’ll never fully absorb it. But it deepens my sense that the Dharma is a flowing, living river.

I tried going to a Chan monastery in Pleasant Hill—beautiful grounds, impressive land—but it felt distant. Formal ranks, color-coded robes for the neophytes, a kind of organizational structure that didn’t speak to me. The nuns were kind, but I didn’t feel invited. I didn’t want to be part of an institution. I wanted community. And it was a long drive.

I’ve realized my community, my sangha, is already at UUCB. Twenty years ago I found a liberal community of searchers, wanderers, and misfits like me. People who hold beliefs gently and believe in practice. People who are trying. And it still works today.

Midway through this process I began to describe myself as a Buddhist, a Unitarian Buddhist, but a Buddhist. I study Buddhism and I practice daily, and for me my practice often moves me to be a better person, kinder and more present. I am not yet the Buddha, completely one with all, but I am beginning and trying. And I’m a nicer driver.

Genocide and American Complicity

This week Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, joined Colombian President Gustavo Petro and South Africa and representatives from 30 nations at the Hague Group conference in Bogotá, Colombia. The Hague Group formed this year to protect and uphold the rulings of the International Court of Justice in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their aim is to stop the genocide.

Not only is the United States absent from this effort, but our national press—The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and almost everyone else have not even reported on it. The American silence on Israeli atrocities—and on efforts to stop them—is complicity.

I was horrified by the Hamas terrorist attacks. The brutal murder of Israeli civilians, including women, children, and entire families, was close to home. The taking of hostages was horrifying. This was outrageous and it is intolerable.

However the response of the Israeli government is murdering 50,000 people or more and it hasn't stopped. That is not war, that is genocide. The collective punishment of an entire population, the mass bombings of civilians, the displacement of over a million people, the destruction of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and the starvation of a besieged people—this goes far beyond any claim of self-defense. These are war crimes, and our government has supported them. It is our bullets and bombs that make this genocide possible.

The International Criminal Court has found probable cause to pursue charges against both Hamas leaders and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Francesca Albanese’s efforts are rooted in these findings and in the United Nations General Assembly’s vote calling for an immediate ceasefire and full humanitarian access. She is not acting alone—she represents the consensus of international law and the conscience of the world.

Yet the United States continues to supply weapons and funding to the Israeli government—even as that government has shut out United Nations relief agencies, targeted journalists and aid workers, sabotaged U.S. aid corridors by firing on crowds, creating chaos, and making aid delivery unworkable.

As things stand, we are not passive observers. We are active participants in genocide. Our tax dollars are funding the bombs. Our silence is enabling the starvation. Our failure to act is eroding any moral authority we once claimed.

I support the Israeli people. I believe they have a right to defend themselves and to establish themselves as a people and a nation. But I do not believe in apartheid. I do not believe in genocide. I do believe that if Israel is to survive, it must deal honestly with the people who were there before them. It must come to terms with the Palestinian people—no matter how difficult—to create a new state. A state that is just, fair, and grounded in the shared talents and histories of both its peoples.

This is not an easy path. But it is the only path that leads away from permanent war. Northern Ireland is trying to do that now with fits and starts. South Africa prevented a civil war by forming a new Republic. The Republic of South Africa is not perfect, it has many problems, but they are trying. Israel’s current version of a "one-state solution" is not unity—it is genocide by occupation, displacement, and denial.

Somehow, Israel must return to the path that Yitzhak Rabin and Anwar Sadat opened—before it was slammed shut by Likud, by Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, and now again by Benjamin Netanyahu. I am not against Israel. I am against the policies of its current government—policies of apartheid, permanent occupation, and collective punishment. Israel’s leaders want to label any opposition to their extreme agenda as anti-Semitism. It is not. Israel cannot exist in opposition to justice and humanitarian principles. In fact, it is only by returning to those principles that Israel can survive as a nation.

The path Netanyahu is taking is the path of a pariah state—isolated, illegitimate, and ultimately unsustainable. I believe Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. His motivation is not the survival of Israel but the survival of his own political career—and staying out of prison.

Anti-Netanyahu is not anti-Semitic. Anti-apartheid is not anti-Semitic. Opposing genocide is not anti-Semitic. These accusations are used as a shield. It is a lie.

I condemn terrorism. I mourn the Israeli dead. But I cannot support a government that slaughters civilians and uses American weapons to do it.

The United States must immediately stop supplying arms and funding to Israel. We must join the international community in demanding a ceasefire, full humanitarian access, and a return to negotiations. We should be standing with Francesca Albanese, with the Bogotá conference, and with the global consensus that genocide is never justified.

The time for moral clarity is now. Calling out genocide is always the right thing to do. It is never acceptable—for any reason, by anyone.

The Hague Group

1. Algeria

2. Bolivia

3. Botswana

4. Brazil

5. Chile

6. China

7. Colombia

8. Cuba

9. Djibouti

10. Honduras

11. Indonesia

12. Iraq

13. Ireland

14. Lebanon

15. Libya

16. Malaysia

17. Mexico

18. Namibia

19. Nicaragua

20. Norway

21. Oman

22. Pakistan

23. Palestine

24. Portugal

25. Qatar

26. Slovenia

27. South Africa

28. Spain

29. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

30. Turkey

31. Uruguay

32. Venezuela

GRINGO IN WONDERLAND

The Taxi Trap at TAPO

After nine hours on the road, the bus finally rolled into TAPO—the southern terminal in Mexico City. The ride had taken its time, weaving through traffic and odd little streets, with delays along the way. But we arrived more or less on schedule. I was tired. Groggy, maybe. Not alert.

The terminal looked closed down for the night, or close to it. A few men stood near the exit, directing people toward the street with that friendly-but-pushy confidence that should be a red flag. The locals ignored them. I didn’t. I’ve seen this setup before—in Mexico City, in Puerto Vallarta, and anywhere tourists meet taxis. I should have known better.

But one of them offered to help with my bag. “The taxis are right this way,” he said. I let him take it.

We walked past the actual taxi stand. That should’ve been the moment I stopped everything. Right then and there: “Dame mi maleta.” But I didn’t. I was too wiped out. And that’s how these guys work—on travelers who’ve been on the move too long.

The car wasn’t marked, wasn’t waiting in the proper taxi zone, and wasn’t anything special—just a plain Nissan, unwashed and unremarkable. “Fair price?” I asked. “Yes, yes,” he nodded. “I’ll show you on the phone.” Of course he would. His friendliness was thin, and I didn’t trust it. But by then it was too late. I was in the car, and my bag was in the trunk. A classic mistake.

He didn’t really know where he was going. We wound through side streets while he followed his GPS. I kept glancing at it, wondering what I’d gotten into. Eventually we ended up somewhere near the Zócalo—but not at my hotel. He pulled up outside a different one and said, “This is it.”

It wasn’t. But I got out and asked what I owed.

“Setecientos cincuenta,” he said—MX$750.

For a ride that should have cost MX$100, maybe MX$200 at night. I’d already made peace with overpaying—maybe MX$350, with the tourist tax. But this? I wanted to call him a thief, un ladron, but I didn't have my bag yet.  

I told him: “Cuatrocientos. No más.” I didn’t even have MX$750 on me. He grumbled but opened the trunk. At that moment I realized how vulnerable I was. If he’d driven off with my bag, there would’ve been nothing I could’ve done. But he didn’t. He took the MX$400—still a win for him—and drove off.

I looked at the hotel he’d dropped me at. Not the right one. I checked my phone: my actual hotel, El Catedral, was a 15-minute walk. It looked like a short hop on the GPS, but city blocks in Mexico City can stretch out. So I started walking.

The area was alive but not threatening—parents with kids, people heading home, fast food still open. I passed a McDonald’s, a few corner stores, and street vendors closing shop. One group, sharing drinks and laughter, nodded as I passed.

When I finally reached my hotel—through a side door—it felt like stepping out of barracuda-infested water and into calm. A bellboy took my bag and walked me to the front desk. No hustle. Walked back to his post before I could tip him. No angle. Just service.

I was finally where I needed to be. Safe, and reminded once again: in Mexico, the predators are real—but so is the kindness. You just have to get through one to find the other.

The check-in felt like an airline counter—pleasant but complicated. It turned out the reservation I thought I’d made through Expedia hadn’t gone through. What I thought was an email from them acknowledging that the reservation hadn't been made was instead from the hotel. Still, I had already paid for one night, and she was able to add the next three without a problem.

I kept thinking, This is kind of expensive, but when I saw the bill—MX$1,300 per night—I had to laugh. For a clean, modern hotel with bellboys, working Wi-Fi, and a perfect location behind the cathedral, it was a bargain. It came out to about $70 USD. There are cheaper hotels, but not many that feel this solid.

I took the elevator to my room. Still a little rattled, I tried to get the TV going. Took me thirty minutes just to connect the Wi-Fi and enter the password with the remote. In the end, I streamed a show on my laptop. I fell asleep around midnight and slept well enough—until 6 a.m., when my body told me that was that.

In the light of day I reflected on my $35 taxi ride, that I paid $20 for and it was just funny and a lesson, be vigilant; I don't have this down perfectly yet. The whole taxi scam cost me $10 extra. That’s it. A $10 lesson in humility. Not my first. Probably not my last.

It reminded me of Puerto Vallarta, back in 1995—a $3 taxi ride that cost me $38. These guys have been around forever. The “luxury taxi” lie. The fast talk. The phone with the “rate” they never actually show you. The fake friendliness. They know how to spot a tired traveler.

When I refused his ridiculous fare, he got defensive. “It’s the night rate,” he said. Supposedly, everything doubles after 10 p.m. The meter doesn’t exist. The rate’s on his phone. Trust him. Only—it wasn’t 10 p.m. And I never saw the phone. Arguing with a petty thief over the exact amount of the theft felt pointless.

In the end, I paid MX$400, got my bag back, walked 15 minutes, and got some fresh air. I figure I paid an expensive but normal $10 for the ride, $10 for the lesson, and got a little exercise and night sightseeing to go with it.

We’re all God’s children doing our best—even Pepe the ladróncito.

I no longer pray for ladróncitos to burn in hell. I just pray that one day they have a spiritual awakening. 

A Gringo in Oaxaca

I am in Mexico. I’m staying in Oaxaca, at a small hotel near The Cathedral called El Parador de San Agustín, a block and a half from the Zócalo, the center of town. It’s a traditional Mexican hotel for business people and Mexican tourists, with a few guests from El Norte, mostly from the U.S. The building has a modest street façade with one entrance to the office and another leading onto a broad patio paved in brick. There are tables and chairs for breakfast, meetings, or socializing. The hotel’s architecture is classic; white walls and red accents, woodwork, and a second-floor gallery with iron railings overlooking the patio below.

The staff are warm and informal, often working from a desk near the entrance when they’re not attending to guests or helping other staff members. The small café faces the street with its own entrance, three tables against the wall on the sidewalk, and another entrance leading onto the patio. Two cooks run the café, preparing breakfast for guests and snacks for occasional walk-ins. They also tend a large stew pot with great care; beans and maybe something else during the day. The hotel is quiet and comfortable, shielded from the busy one-way street where police manage traffic at both corners.

Just outside, there’s a book stall: tables against the wall on the sidewalk and in the street, filled with books. Tarps stretch from the building across the sidewalk to cover them—makeshift but permanent, protecting the books from the nearly daily rain that visits Oaxaca during the summer. There’s also a modest clothing shop, a Banamex, and a great Gelatolandia. Foot traffic is constant. The hotel offers a peaceful retreat from that daily hum: a calm courtyard, clean rooms, and reasonable prices. $85 a night or $95 with air conditioning. I opted for a room with a ceiling fan and patio windows that bring in fresh air.

The staff are delightful. David is professional and friendly, a bit reserved. Jiero is thoughtful and prefers to speak English, so I’m happy to help him practice. His English is quite good. Eli, an English teacher at a private school, will not speak English to me at all in the best possible way. When I ask questions, he answers in Spanish and stays there. David does the same. I appreciate it deeply. This is how I learn. Dulce, initially shy to speak English, is a third-year university student studying business administration. Her English is very good, a good accent, and she is happy to practice with me. I’ve decided to speak only English with her in return for the kindness of others who stay in Spanish for me.

I can do almost everything in Spanish now; order meals, ask directions, converse. I have a large but idiosyncratic vocabulary and tangled grammar. But Mexicans are almost always patient and helpful and mostly understand me. They kindly compliment my accent and fluency, though I know I’m far from fluent. Still, I get by. My Spanish may sound tortured to me, but it works. I can talk to people here, and that means everything. In Mexico, the doors are open for Americans who make an effort. And with more Spanish, those doors open even wider. Even the simplest words; gracias, por favor, buenos días, are met with warmth.

¿Habla inglés? will often bring a reply of "Un poco," which can mean anything from three words to near fluency. Taxi drivers and waiters often say it with a smile and will make a good effort to understand you, even if their English is minimal. These days, people are using Google Translate, which is a great tool and I think it’s okay to refer to it, but only as a reference to help you, not waving the phone in someone’s face while it speaks for you. To me, that just looks rude.

Americans are here, mostly independent travelers, not cruise ship tourists or resort guests with packages. In Oaxaca, many are here on their own as part of a language program. Some speak only a little Spanish, but they come anyway. I admire that. It takes guts to travel somewhere unfamiliar and try to learn the language and culture. That’s part of why I enjoy talking to Americans. The tourists have stories, come from all over the U.S., and bring an earnest curiosity and appreciation.

That said, it can be hard to talk to fellow Americans here. We don’t blend in, and most of us aren’t trying to, but we also aren’t always open to meeting one another. I miss the easy camaraderie I had with tourists as a Park Ranger. Without the hat and badge, I’m just another visitor. Still, when I do meet American travelers here, I enjoy it immensely. They’re interesting people—the kind who choose to come here, who take the risk and try to learn. I respect that.

Mexicans, meanwhile, are remarkably open. You’ll never really blend in, even with language and cultural awareness, but you can become almost family. Some of my friends here call me casi Mexicano. I like that. For those who speak English, I sometimes say I’m a wannabe Mexican. It gets a laugh, and it says something true. I’ll never be Mexican, but I’m trying.

Oaxaca, in particular, is a place that encourages that effort. This isn’t Cancún or Cabo. There’s no industrial tourism here. The people are welcoming, the prices are fair, and the sharks are few. It’s not about extracting dollars; it’s about sharing culture. As anyone who’s been to Cancún knows, most Mexicans are helpful, seem to like the tourists and speak English. There are barracudas, thick in the tourist spots, ready to pick your pocket, literally or figuratively. Hotels have American prices when Mexicans wouldn’t pay nearly as much. Usually, it’s a good experience, though sometimes annoying. In Oaxaca, there are only a few sharks and no barracudas. Here, the sharks aren’t so aggressive.

One of the best parts of this trip is being here at the same time as my daughter, Paloma. She’s staying with a local family near La Basílica de la Soledad in La Colonia Centro. It’s the densest, most vibrant neighborhood I’ve seen—a beehive of life on Saturday mornings, with cafes, markets, churro vendors, families, and shoppers everywhere. Paloma is living with three American housemates—one her friend from Oakland and two from D.C. Paloma’s mother is a first-generation American with parents from Panamá. Paloma self-identifies as Afro-Latina. She is the only one of the four who speaks Spanish. Mexicans know she’s not one of them; she has an international school accent, but she told me she passes sometimes. She was very proud that in the laundromat no one suspected she was a foreigner.

The others, sweet and earnest girls, are mostly monolingual, though they’ve studied Spanish in school. Paloma said one, who is Latina but not fluent, has been a little standoffish—even cold. I’ve talked to Mexican Americans who are embarrassed that they don’t speak Spanish, and Mexicans have a rude term for people who identify themselves as Mexican or look Mexican but don’t know the language. It’s not easy. And those who try to overcome that barrier are admirable. Through the embarrassment, they decide to learn the language anyway. It takes courage.

I chose to learn Spanish not because I had to, but because I wanted to be part of this world. I wanted to acculturate. Also, I simply love being here. I love la gente. The people make this place beautiful. It’s a great country to learn in, and a great country just to be in. It’s a writer’s country.

I imagine myself in a room like this one as Malcolm Lowry, Graham Greene, or Katherine Anne Porter, with an overhead fan and a typewriter on the desk with a blank page. In my case, an empty computer screen. I know a lot about Mexico, its history, its culture, the story of La Virgen de Guadalupe, and maybe why Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo as if it’s the national holiday instead of the minor one it is here. I’ve had Mexican friends joke that if you want to know about Mexico, ask Jack. I’ve learned what I can, but I know I’m still just scratching the surface. I’ll never be Mexican, but I keep learning, and I keep coming back.

That’s what matters: showing up, learning, asking questions, saying gracias. I think people here can tell I love being in Mexico. They feel it. They respond to it. That’s the real magic. The warmth I get from others isn’t just about speaking Spanish and knowing the history. It’s about how I feel being here. The hospitality of the Mexican people is legendary. It’s said that Mexico is the most courteous country in the world. When you come with genuine affection, the doors are open.

Joe Biden Must Retire

 The Democratic Party needs to replace Joe Biden or they will lose the election. Biden’s ego threatens the Republic. Biden kept reminding us to look at the alternative. It made me angry being told I had to vote for Biden to save Democracy. Our choices are supposedly between an evil man who has no concept of Democracy and a geriatric egomaniac who we the majority of Democrats did not want. We were told we had to save Democracy by by voting for someone we never wanted and didn’t choose.

Many people think Biden did a good job in his three years in office. When he decided to run again for President he put it all at risk. I believe any of the possible Democratic candidates other than Biden could beat Trump. In the last year Biden’s reelection at best has been a big if. Now Trump has a good chance of beating Joe Biden. America’s future is at stake and Biden's bid to be reelected is too big a risk. The likelihood that Trump could win became almost a certainty with Biden’s Debate performance. Of course committed Democrats will vote for Biden instead of Trump but all those Republicans who hate Trump, undecideds and independents are deciding they don’t want an addled old man who will very likely die in office.

I think arguments about facts, actual competency, what’s good for the country, who would be better, all those questions are irrelevant. If Biden runs for President he will lose.

I don’t buy the premise that it’s too late to change. I think there is a good chance that given a decent choice between a functioning Democrat and Donald Trump that certainly all Democrats will support and vote for the Democrat and maybe a good number of other people who don’t want Donald Trump. I think that’s very likely. I don’t think the African American vote, the youth vote, the Hispanic vote, or any other way of divvying up the American voter is going to be important when the choice is between a reasonable person and Donald Trump. I’m counting on the Democratic Party to at least deliver up a reasonable candidate. I think that’s likely.

Let’s get on with it. Thank you, Joe for a lifetime of dedicated service. History will say you were a good Senator, a very good Vice President and maybe an excellent President. I’m not a Centrist. I haven’t been satisfied for a long time. But I always vote Democratic. Now give me a choice. Retire and enjoy your legacy. Anything else is risking the Republic itself.

Cycling

I learned to bicycle on a big red boys bike when I was five years old. I had to shift from one side of the crossbar to the other to pedal it. I remember falling on the crossbar numerous times and I’m sure I fell to the pavement but one afternoon I rode it without falling. I think it must have been my sister Ellen holding the back of the seat until I got started and then giving me a push off.

I got my first bike when I was nine years old for the best Christmas ever, a big red three speed racer bike. From then on that’s what we did. We hung out on our bikes, we stood around on our bikes. When nothing was going pm we rode our bikes in circles. Wherever we went we did it on our bikes. And sometimes we just bicycled; often on 9^th Street or coming down Orange Grove Terrace on to Sunset Canyon Drive to see how fast we could get going.

I got a paper route when I was 11 first with the Valley Times and then with the LA Mirror, I hung the double canvas sack filled with newspapers on my handlebars and pedaled up and down the hills between Olive Boulevard and Walnut Avenue six afternoons a week for nearly three years. I think my over sized calf muscles come from the hills of Burbank. Sometimes when it rained I got driven around my route by my mother or Ellen.

With my newspaper money I bought a Schwinn cruiser bike, fat tires, a tank on the crossbar, three speed, a light and a rack. It was a beautiful bike. Shortly after I got it my mother lent it to an immigrant family from Eastern Europe so their son could do his paper route. He got a flat and his father fixed the bike with a hammer. It never rode right after that. I didn’t know you could have it repaired and no one offered to make it good. After that it just sat in the garage. I still feel angry when I think about it. Maybe one day I’ll give that up.

When I was a teenager and before I was sixteen it was uncool to ride a bicycle. My last ride may have been when my friend Rick Sharp and his brother got the new 10 speeds and we borrowed his brother’s bike and rode from Burbank to Santa Monica Beach and back. It was a trip of a lifetime. It didn’t register that I could have done that all the time. It was a one time trip and we didn’t do it again. A lesson in life I didn’t get then:

IF YOU’RE A TEENAGER, GET A ROAD BIKE, ONE THAT CRUISES WELL, WITH A GOOD RANGE OF GEARS AND RIDE IT WHEREVER YOU WANT TO GO. IT CAN ENLARGE YOUR LIFE AND INDEPENDENCE BY 15 MILES OR MORE. WEAR A HELMET.

I didn’t start riding again until England when I bought a Raleigh three speed. In 1970 in England it seemed like everyone rode bikes everywhere. At a stoplight in town on a nice day there were more bicycles than cars. I rode my Raleigh all over Bedford and out to the country. When I brought it home to the US I sometimes biked from North Hollywood to my parents’ house in Burbank and I got a bike rack and would take it down to El Segundo when we went to Cathy’s parents.

Somehow it got put aside when we moved to Division Street, a steep hill, and it gathered dust until I gave it to one of Sean’s friends at St. Bernards. That would have been before 1980.

I liked bicycling but in all that time I never became a cyclist. Then in 1982 I got a perfect attendance bonus of $100 from my employer and I bought Cathy a used Schwinn Varsity and then for myself a Windsor road bike. They were 10 speeds and with my Windsor I became a cyclist. I rode it all the time and it became my preferred form of transportation. When I badly bruised my achilles tendon in mountaineering, I kept up my training for Mount Rainer by riding to work on my bike 13 miles from Eagle Rock to Beverly Hills and then back. One morning I was pedaling up Sunset and thought I needed a higher gear. When I went to shift I saw I was already in the top gear and I was going up hill. When I got sober I rode to meetings, so much they thought I had lost my driver’s license in my journey to AA. I hadn’t.

I was also a hiker in the San Gabriels and one day I borrowed Benjamin’s BMX bicycle and tried going up the Arroyo Seco behind JPL above Pasadena. As quickly as I could after that I bought a Schwinn Sierra mountain bike. I bicycled the San Gabriels, down the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, up to the top of Mount Monrovia and back down and back to the car. I routinely rode over to the Verdugo Hills and up from the streets to the fire road across the crest. Mount Lowell was also a favorite. One time I rode up Mount Baldy as far as I could and then hiked to the peak. The hours long hike back to the car was short and quick on a bicycle and I smiled as I passed my fellow hikers.

I had seen cyclists going up the Angeles Crest Highway to Mount Wilson and thought that was an amazing ride. One day in 1987 I tried it myself and was amazed that while it was hard, it was doable. I did that a few times and rode in the back of the Angeles Crest from Red Box up to Waterman a few times. I flew past a Highway Patrolman going downhill on Angeles Crest and heard from his car loudspeaker “58 miles per hour!”

In 1988 I bought a Trek road bike and put a third ring on the crankset. I bicycled to work in downtown LA sometimes and often drove my bike down to Glendale Avenue and cycled to work. It was downhill mostly and I didn’t work up a sweat and had a nice ride back. I never did touring but I thought about it. I did long rides, mostly by myself, sometimes with a club. I loved cycling. I bought an old cruiser bike and fixed it. I had a mountain bike, a road bike and a cruiser and I used all three of them. Later in Mill Valley we got a tandem. I lost the tandem in the divorce. It’s probably hanging in a garage somewhere and never used.

I used the BART and the bike to go to San Francisco Juvenile Hall from Oakland. In the 1990s I stopped mountain biking, it was too hard on my back. When I became a Ranger on Mount Diablo I enjoyed the long rides up the hill on my days off and sometimes I’d go short distances on the back roads. On Angel Island I used a bike to patrol the West side of the Island and on my own time I rode around the island frequently and taking a ferry to Tiburon and rode through Marin County on days off.

In retirement I’ve continued to cycle. I bought a Jamis Coda commuter bike when I bought Adam their first bike in 2014. I try to bicycle every day and it’s still my favorite form of getting around. My 20 mile rides in my 60s, became 15 miles and then 10 mile rides as I aged. Now days I try to ride 5 miles or thirty minutes each day, I often do 10 and 15 is doable. At 76 years old my good health and mobility is because I am a cyclist. I love it.

Foreword

This is the Foreword for the autobiography I have posted on this blog.  The next step is put this in a hard bound format and publish a few copies to give my kids and grandkids.  And organize the biography in this blog.  

My purpose in writing this book is to leave a record for my great grandchildren and their children. When I was 12 years old I spent a couple of weeks with my grandfather, Munroe Lashley. He told me the family history and he knew it to his great grandfather Thomas Lashley who had been a Captain in the Confederate Army. He knew the Lashleys were from across the pond and had started their American journey from South Carolina Piedmont. In the Duggan Family my grandfather and his brothers told their own stories and everyone adored their mother the Duchess, my great grandmother whom I met. Her husband was the youngest son of Michael Duggan, the immigrant from Ireland to Missouri.

These stories are the stories I would wish to have from my Great Grandfather. I wish I were a better writer. My own vision of an autobiography would be more complete and better writing than these, but this is my answer to the Hollywood saying “Do you want it done or do you want it perfect?”

I was inspired to write this book when a friend quoted his father from his biography. I was surprised Richard’s father was a published author. “No,” he said, “he just wrote it for us.” A book, I thought, had to be good enough to publish and I wasn’t capable of that, but I could make a record for my family. I am not Emily Dickinson who wrote poems that were only discovered and appreciated after her death. When I write I want people to read it and for that I started a blog, Stories I Tell Myself, and all of this was published there first as a blog post.

I have some readers. One or two I know about and some who are a mystery to me. In 11 years I’ve had over 15,000 hits on my blog. In the world of blogs it’s not much, but it’s a few. I suspect most of them are tractor programs from remote parts of the world looking for personal data, but some of them, maybe a few, are from real people, people who know me and people who don’t.

For my family, people I’ll never meet, I’ve put in as much detail as possible, places, dates and events. It’s a personal history not a general history but I hope it gives a sense of what it was like to live in the last half of the 20^th century and the first part of the 21^st. I think of my grandmother who was born in 1892. When she was born there were no cars on the road. When she died in 1963 the country was crisscrossed with freeways and cities jammed with cars. She went from horses to cars, from trains to planes from telegraph to television. And like her I’ve seen some changes to the world and this is how it felt. It has been an interesting time.

I’ve told the stories honestly, not fictionalized anything I experienced. The people I admire I’ve used their real names. People who would be embarrassed by these stories, I’ve changed the names and clouded some of the facts. People I disliked or had bad experiences with I’ve changed the names. My experience was bad, but of course, there are two sides to the story and people I don’t like aren’t necessarily bad people.

I hope you enjoy these stories. I hope they tell you something about where you came from, who your ancestors are or just what it was like to be an ordinary man in this place and these times. Maybe they’ll inspire some of you to write your own record, an essay at least or a book. Thank you letting me tell you these stories.

The Pandemic

My grandmother died in 1918 and though it was in childbirth, a few months before the first signs of the flu, in my mind it’s always been connected to the ‘18 flu. After 1918 nothing like the World Flu Pandemic has afflicted us for over 100 years and then the COVID-19 pandemic struck. We learned we are just as vulnerable today as the world was in 1918.

In December, 2019, there were reports of lock downs and quarantines in Wuhan China, a city most of us never heard of. In 2020 the news was full of the novel coronavirus but but like Ebola and other outbreaks it was a virus far away and didn’t seem relevant to the United States.

In 2019 my sister in Iowa began having seizures and we made a couple of trips to see her. Our second trip was in February 2020. In January the virus had broken out from China and isolated cases were showing up all over the world including the United States. At first outbreaks were traceable back to China. A cruise ship was quarantined in Yokohama. But by January there were cases of “community spread” on the West Coast. The first case in the Bay Area was January 31^st related to China and then the first “community spread” in the Bay Area was February 28^th.

On February 23^rd, when Adam and I went through O’Hare Airport in Chicago a few people were wearing surgical masks, mostly Asian. In Asia masks are common during cold and flu seasons and Asian ethnic communities here, but it always seemed a little neurotic to me. I wasn’t worried about the novel coronavirus yet, but in the Chicago airport some people were.

As March began it became obvious that the novel coronavirus was loose in the United States. By mid-March cases were multiplying each day, 4 became 8, became 16. Trump was incompetent as a national leader. In the first week in March a cruise ship in the Eastern Pacific with hundreds of infections was looking for a safe port. Trump said, “he didn’t want to bring the Grand Princess’s passengers back to land because doing so would increase the critical count of US coronavirus cases. I don’t need to have the numbers double of one ship that wasn’t our fault. I’d rather have them stay on, personally.” The ship parked outside in International Waters outside of the San Francisco Bay March 4^th and finally March 10^th docked in Oakland.

By March 15 Alameda had community transmission unrelated to travelers. It was in the Bay Area and infections were multiplying exponentially. A few cases in February had become hundreds of cases by mid-March. Adam’s school canceled classes for March 15 and said they would consider what to do after the weekend.

Saturday I went to the supermarket to pick up a few things The atmosphere at the Nob Hill in Alameda was tense and there were people with full carts, some with two carts. The shelves where there had been toilet paper and sanitizer were empty. Sunday we went to Shop Rite in our neighborhood. It was crowded but less tense. Monday, a free day, it was announced the school would close indefinitely and school would be by distant learning online. On Tuesday March 17, the six county Bay Area declared a regional Shelter in Place order, closing schools and all but essential businesses. On Thursday March 19 Governor Newsom issued a statewide Stay at Home order.

It seemed like we were under siege. When I bicycled in the East Bay Shoreline Regional Park on Wednesday, the maintenance worker wasn’t sure I could be there, it was still being argued. Not until the next week was the order altered to allow outdoor exercise. Similar orders in Europe and Asia were being enforced by cops writing citations and making arrests of anyone outside their apartment for anything but essential trips.

On May 28^th twelve cases of COVID-19 were reported at Cardenas Supermercado in our neighborhood. My brother-in-law Alan Bruemmer, Kate’s brother, had Multiple Sclerosis. His MS required frequent hospital visits. He was infected and died in December, 2020. Alan’s death was the only one of two of someone I knew. An elderly neighbor Mrs. Smith lived two doors down from us. Her house was a gathering place for her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. At first the family stayed away but after a couple of weeks the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren returned. Some wore masks but younger people in our town were less careful. Mrs. Smith died of covid during the summer.

A high school classmate, a gentleman with whom I had reconnected 15 years before, had gone full Q-Anon on rumors and paranoia. In our last phone conversation in November 2020 according to Bill the pandemic was a plot and a hoax and the vaccine was dangerous. I was shocked that he believed it all. I knew he was a Republican, but he had always seemed rational to me. He died of covid in August 2021 unvaccinated. Until today, March 31, 2023, Suzette, Adam and I have been uninfected. We took precautions and when vaccines were available we got vaccinated.

In the first days we wondered when things would return to normal. They never have. Early in the pandemic I heard a radio host respond to the question, “How are you?” with the answer, “Under the new normal I’m doing pretty good.” 

I’d been baking our bread for over ten years. I buy active dry yeast by the pound and it lasts a year or more. In the beginning of the pandemic my supply of dry yeast was running out. Baking at home had become a national past time and yeast and flour were hard to find. I found a 25 pound bag of flour at Shop Rite. I made a sour dough starter at home and three years later I’m still using it.

The year before the pandemic I had gotten interested in specialty coffee. In November before the pandemic I bought an espresso machine. And so in the pandemic I indulged my interest in coffee, exploring the Peerless offerings at their roastery buying from a table in the doorway and then online at Amazon. My coffee obsession reached a new level. We began doing weekly shopping trips online at Amazon. In April we went to Starbucks in San Leandro and waited 45 minutes in a long line of cars to buy our drinks at a drive-up window. It was a real treat.

In the beginning of the pandemic I thought if we could take the proper precautions we might eradicate the virus. We watched the various indexes, the Worldometer, the CDC maps, the New York Times maps, the State Data sites, the County Data Site. Reading charts like baseball statistics, trying to parse out infection rates R(t)s, deaths, infections, testing and ICU capacity. We watched the transmission rate closely, wishing it below 1.00 where maybe the virus would die out. Or a vaccine, only vaccines take years and that wasn’t going to happen soon.

At first we didn’t go anywhere unnecessarily. We stopped seeing friends. Gary, our neighbor four doors down and I began meeting for morning coffee on his porch on Tuesdays. We sat and discussed the pandemic and politics for an hour and a more. We met like that for 2 ½ years.

By May, 2020, I realized masks could make a major difference. Experts were not recommending masks. I think it was more they were in short supply and they didn’t want to start a run on masks that would worsen the shortage for health care workers. I wore a bandana over my face and slowly China was able to ramp up their masks production and we could all get masks. In June California mandated masks in indoor settings and the pandemic prevailed. I ordered 50 surgical masks from Amazon. There was no longer any hope of stopping it before it became widespread.

In June I talked to a friend in Redondo Beach who had gone inside a restaurant to eat. Restrictions were easier there and I was jealous. We hadn’t been to a restaurant for months. At first delivery had been fun and then it was boring Then we went for a drive to Inverness and went to a deli where after we ordered our food we could eat outside at a picnic table. It seemed such a special treat that day in June. I remember the first time we went to a restaurant with outdoor dining at Jack London Square. We had to have our temperature taken and wear masks except at our table. After that we returned to the restaurant scene outdoors as often as we could.

The pandemic deaths in the United States were in the thousands each day. The vaccine was rolled out with a limited supply in December, 2020, an incredible accomplishment by the scientific and medical community. The pandemic peaked in January, 2021 with over 4,000 deaths per week in California alone.

There was a scramble by people to get the vaccine. At first you had to be 75. I was 74. Then there were loopholes and cracks and people I knew spent hours on the phone were able to get in for a vaccine. By the end of February I got my vaccination and in March Suzette got hers. The worst spread had been among the elderly decreasing with age and children mostly were unscathed.

There was this sense of new freedom. By June, 2021, fewer than 100 people a week were dying and it seemed the dying were the unvaccinated. There was another surge in February of 2021 at a third of the death rate of 2020 and since then the virus has been with us, many people infected but fewer deaths. A few vaccinated people died but overall it was at a rate 50 times less than the unvaccinated. Death was no longer a strong possibility but more like the flu a remote possibility. After my vaccination I never worried much about dying of covid. And then the variants started infecting vaccinated people, but like flu, a couple of weeks of being sick for most people staying at home, not hospitalizations. Today there are antivirals that are very effective if used early.

In the first flush of enthusiasm and relief I made plane reservations for a vacation in Puerto Rico. I was feeling protected. Later we changed to Chiapas Mexico when Adam’s close friend made plans with her father to return to where they had spent a year before. And we went to Chiapas. Chiapas had experienced low infection rates at the worst of it in Mexico and the vaccine was generally available by the time we arrived in July. We were careful on the plane. Mexico was much easier than the United States. There was no political divide. Mexican society has much more social cohesion and most Mexicans were careful about protecting themselves and their neighbors. Stores and nearly everywhere else required you to put a hand up for a temperature check and wear a mask. An attendant at the door enforced the rules.

There was no worry about scofflaws or skeptics. And the rates of infection showed it. For a month in Chiapas we were aware of covid but didn’t see any infections. The locals were concerned and acted so and the covid they had they blamed on International tourists like us but there wasn’t active animosity. Leaving for the United States we had to have an antigen test within a few days of our departure. It was hard to find, the demand was very high and the availability limited, but finally at a pharmacy we were able to make an appointment and it was an easy process.

Back in the States the politics were poisoned. Areas like the coast of California and liberal regions were safer but even here compliance wasn’t universal, the possibility of non-compliance, the lack of will was obvious, unlike Mexico. In Mexico everyone paid attention. In coastal California most people did wear masks indoors and in Eastern California it seemed to be a statement of patriotic independence to ignore it. We went to Yucca Valley where many people were defiantly unmasked and many gave us the fisheye when they saw our masks.

The Omicron variant came while we were in Mexico and at home there was renewed caution with people more careful about mask wearing. The Zocalo, a favorite cafe in San Leandro, allowed people inside but only after showing proof of vaccination, washing your hands, and wearing a mask. The whole staff was masked of course.

Vaccines were approved for 12 and up in 2021 and Adam got theirs when they turned 12 in October.

I went to Iowa in November, 2021, my sister was in hospice. In Iowa people wearing masks were in the minority. The politics were that lock downs and closings limited our freedom and was bad for business. The Republicans apparently were practicing Social Darwinism. After all the worst effected by the pandemic were the elderly, the poor and people of color. It was so amazing that it was clearly a political issue for Republicans, Trump at first had been on the side of prevention and caution, but when the Populists angrily denied acts of empathy and thoughtfulness as infringing on their freedom Trump followed.

Slowly the pandemic waned, less transmission. The politics continued toxic. The Democrats won back the Presidency.

This is the new normal. Life doesn’t seem constricted. We do what we want, go to restaurants, shop, travel, and visit with friends. Some people are more cautious than others. Here in the Bay Area most people seem respectful, putting on masks when asked to. Our Unitarian Church started in person services again in March 2022. We were more conservative than most churches. There had been some intense discussions about requiring vaccinations or not. We are still required to wear masks indoors except when eating.

Hugs and closeness, not everyone is comfortable riding in the same car with other people, sharing an elevator, inviting people into their homes. One friend still won’t eat indoors with other people.

There is this feeling of unease that’s always there, mostly unconscious. It’s a constant we’ve all learned to live with. We’re never going back to what we called normal but things today are normalish. Nature has shown us our own fragility. Life is a gift.