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2012 Revisited

My daughter has started playing the clarinet. My wife has been playing with her.

One of those year-in-review quizzes from Jaquandor.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Maybe I’ll make some this year. This past year felt as though, if I could keep my head above water, it was good.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not that I can recall.

Did anyone close to you die?

Three SBDC counselors died. Steve Amell of Binghamton I didn’t know well but liked (and he was 49 and died of ALS); Mike Heftka from Buffalo, a swell guy who I’d know for a long time, another youngish guy, who’d been battling cancer for quite a while; and Don Dods out of Kingston, who I’d known for years, who was a great counselor and a tremendous guy.

Joe Morehead, one of my library school professors. Sweet guy, and very bright. Learned a lot about government sources of data. I remember running into him at a tennis match in Schenectady after I had graduated, and I could speak with him as person to person, rather than as student to teacher.

Nate Erlbaum was this guy I would see at these NYS Data Center Affiliates meetings and he would drive me crazy, mostly because I had no idea what he was talking about. As I grew to know him better, though, I recognized how important getting the data correctly and with accessibility was so important. Any time he could help me, he would; he was a font of knowledge. He retired from the NYS Department of Transportation on April 23, having been diagnosed 15 months earlier with lung cancer, and had been receiving chemotherapy, though lots of people working alongside him didn’t even know. He died about a week later at the age of 61. I did mention him here.

Mary Durkot, mom of a friend of mine, was 91. I wrote about her extensively here.

Albert Wood, 57, was in my church choir. He also knew my wife separately, from where she used to work. While I mentioned him somewhat on this blog, I wrote about him more extensively here.

Finally, Avery Cahn, who was 20 months old. I wrote about him here. But the story gets worse. While the babysitter initially stated he accidentally suffocated the child, later he admitted to killing the toddler “because the child would not stop crying.” On the front page of the local section of the paper, we got to see the smothered baby’s relatives tell the court of their devastation, particularly Avery’s mother, who is a member of my church. As I noted earlier, I also feel for the paternal grandmother, who is a good friend of mine.

What countries did you visit?

I’m a real nowhere man. Didn’t even leave New York State, except for the spring trip to Rhode Island and Connecticut.

What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?

More optimism.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Denise Nesbitt gave me ABC Wednesday to run for this round, and I didn’t totally derail it.

What was your biggest failure?

Failing to get out of my own way.

What was the best thing you bought?

Nothing is coming to mind.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Nate Silver, and anyone else who did math, or recognized the validity of science. Also, the voters who turned out those idiot legislators who talked about women who experienced “legitimate rape” who couldn’t get pregnant.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The good news is that Donald Trump no longer annoys me; he’s so jumped the shark with his rants. But all of those other people after the election who talked about secession and revolution. Also, those climate change deniers – has Hurricane Sandy changed your mind? And political pundits, who go with their “gut feelings”; remember President Romney, Dick Morris?

Where did most of your money go?

The house. Even though the mortgage is paid, there are always repairs for an old residence.

What did you get really excited about?

My daughter has started playing the clarinet. My wife has been playing with her; I hadn’t heard her play in years, and in fact practically forgot that she even had her instrument.

What song will always remind you of 2012?

I hear so few new ones that stay with me. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen was unavoidable. Especially when my daughter would dance to it while watching Dancing With the Stars, over and over and over…

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Sadder. The body politic has worn me down.

Thinner or fatter?

Very slightly thinner, less than five pounds.

Richer or poorer?

Mixed bag. The mortgage is gone, but I had some dental bills at the end of the year that ate up those savings.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Going to movies, always.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Thinking. Melancholy. Insomnia.

How did you spend Christmas?

Went to church, doing the gift thing.

Did you fall in love in 2012?

Yes, and it was the clarinet – her doing her art.

How many one-night stands?

As many as last year.

What was your favorite TV program?

CBS Sunday Morning, The Daily Show, Grey’s Anatomy (to my surprise).

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No, but willfully ignorant people continue to amaze me with their “skills.”

What was the best book you read?

11/22/63 by Stephen King.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

The music from Wicked.

What did you want and get?

I wanted music, both singing and buying recordings.

What did you want and not get?

Some dedicated time to blog. It’s still catch as catch can.

What were your favorite films of this year?

Argo.

What did you do on your birthday?

Well, I didn’t work; I probably ate Indian food.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?

“Fashion” is silly. Function over form.

What kept you sane?

Writing; singing; listening to music; learning new stuff; and then I suddenly realized that the question ASSUMES that I AM sane, which may or may not be the case.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Jon Stewart; Nate Silver; the CBS News, which is the closest to a real news network left of the Big 3.

What political issue stirred you the most?

The search for real truth, not spin, or lies.

Who did you miss?

I miss my parents.

Who was the best new person you met?

I “met” one or two interesting folks online this year.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012:

I LOVE my answering machine and caller ID, and my DVR. The numbers of political calls and ads I missed, even in this reliably “blue” state, were astonishing.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

There’s an Elvis Costello song called 20% Amnesia [LISTEN]. I started making up new lyrics to it and calling it 21st Century Romnesia:

Mitt’s positions are like Etch-A-Sketch. (21st Century Romnesia)
What he really means, I just can’t catch. (21st Century Romnesia)

He bashes the 47 percent. (21st Century Romnesia)
Then says that’s not really what he meant. (21st Century Romnesia)

He comes up with a misleading auto ad. (21st Century Romnesia)
His misrepresentation makes me so mad. (21st Century Romnesia)

To try to win, he’ll even lie. (21st Century Romnesia)
I must say that it makes me want to cry. (21st Century Romnesia)

I wrote about a half dozen other verses that I’ve lost, but you get the idea. Every time I heard a Romney/Ryan “misrepresentation”, I’d sing to myself, “21st century Romnesia.”

Shades of the autumn of ’04

2004 was the first time I had been to three funerals in a year; 2012 is the second.

I came home Friday night and realized I had forgotten my antibiotic pills at the office, which I was supposed to take every six hours. Worse, I couldn’t find my stinkin’ badge to get back into the building, even if I had returned to work. Reluctantly, I called a friend from work, and she picked me up, got me into the building, and helped me get my medicine.

Saturday, I went over to another friend’s house. I had been surprised to discover that she and her husband were separating. We’d been to their wedding only a few years earlier. I had asked her, who I had known far longer, whether I could help him get some of his stuff out of the house, and she had readily agreed. But after we’d loaded the vehicle, he declined my invitation to go to his new place to unload. However, when another friend came with HIS vehicle, it was necessary to reveal the location, only about 10 minutes away, and I helped unpack that next load.

Coincidentally, his new abode was the very same apartment complex where my friend from paragraph one used to live, where she had held the party before Carol’s and my wedding back in 1999, the one where Carol guessed correctly that my favorite book was the World Almanac, but I had no idea hers was 100 Years of Solitude. I hadn’t been there in over seven years.

The further coincidence is that the two women in this story lost their husbands to illness in 2004, indeed in the fall of 2004. I went to three funerals in that span, the third being the mother of still another friend, and there were other friends who lost family members in that period as well. Also, my main boss at work suffered a heart attack during that period; his first appearance outside the hospital was at our work friend’s husband’s funeral.

Oh, and the two women, who I do not believe know each other, have the same first name.

Carol and I always remember that most unsettling period. That was the first time I had been to three funerals in a year; 2012 is the second. But those 2004 funerals were all packed in about a three-month period. I wouldn’t want to call it annus horribilis, or terrible year, since it was also the year the Daughter was born. But what would be the term for a truly awful thirteen weeks, quartus horriblis?

Nora Ephron, Andy Griffith, and the sense of loss

Almost inevitably, I would get to know more about the deceased than I could have possibly imagined. Parts of their interesting lives to which I was not privy until it was too late.

I was looking at the situation all wrong. When Nora Ephron died last week, I was thinking about her top movie moments rather than her life. I was evaluating her films: liked Sleepless in Seattle, but You’ve Got Mail, not so much. Enjoyed Heartburn. Julie and Julia: Julia-yes, Julie-eh. Silkwood I enjoyed, but I wouldn’t even watch Bewitched.

Then I read John Blumenthal’s piece on how Nora Ephron took pity on him “as a lowly peon at Esquire magazine. Then she found me a job.” Or Dick Cavett’s Vamping With Nora, when a guest failed to appear on his talk show, and they had to fill 20 minutes. Plus some other pieces I didn’t cite. Or listening to Diane Sawyer talking about her friend on ABC News; I had no idea before she read the story that they even knew each other, but I could just tell, by her delivery.

And it reminded me of going to funerals of people I knew, or, more likely, people I didn’t know but attended the service because I knew a family member. Almost inevitably, I would get to know more about them than I could have possibly imagined. Parts of their interesting lives to which I was not privy until it was too late. And I feel sad, sad in a way I could not have possibly imagined. These people are losing this AMAZING person. I’d SO feel their pain, their sense of loss.

Oddly, with all the things I read about Nora Ephron, I was feeling the same way. I wish I HAD attended dinner parties with her, as someone had suggested because I’m now convinced she would have been wise and witty and entertaining. And so, I’m surprisingly sad that, at the age of 71, Nora Ephron has died of leukemia.

Mayberry

Whereas, my feeling about Andy Griffith, who died on July 3, was more immediate. My father and Andy were born in the same year, 1926. More than once, I wish my dad were more patient with me, liked Sheriff Andy Taylor was with his son Opie (Ron Howard). Not that he couldn’t be stern – the episode I remember the best is the one in which Opie kills a mother bird with his slingshot and is forced to become her babies’ surrogate mother. And Sheriff Andy believed in due process of the law.

For reasons I cannot clearly explain, I was a big fan of Matlock, with Griffith as a cornpone, but savvy lawyer in a light blue seersucker suit. I enjoyed his performance in the movie Waitress. But perhaps his greatest role was in the movie A Face in the Crowd, as Gordon noted.

Though beloved in his home state of North Carolina, I recall that Griffith took some heat for his support for an Obamacare proposal.

Read Mark Evanier’s remembrance, and check out these interviews with Andy Griffith.

Memorial Day History

It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day.

Mostly from here, because people seem to have no idea of the genesis of Memorial Day:

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that the date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

A long weekend!

The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Various Washington officials, including Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies. After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers, and singing hymns.

Shopping!

Local Observances Claim To Be First Local springtime tributes to the Civil War dead already had been held in various places. One of the first occurred in Columbus, Miss., on April 25, 1866, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in battle at Shiloh. Nearby were the graves of Union soldiers, neglected because they were the enemy. Disturbed at the sight of the bare graves, the women placed some of their flowers on those graves, as well.

Summer has begun!

Today, cities in the North and the South claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day in 1866. Both Macon and Columbus, Ga., claim the title, as well as Richmond, Va. The village of Boalsburg, Pa., claims it began there two years earlier. A stone in a Carbondale, Ill., cemetery carries the statement that the first Decoration Day ceremony took place there on April 29, 1866. Carbondale was the wartime home of Gen. Logan. Approximately 25 places have been named in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, many of them in the South where most of the war dead were buried.

Family get-togethers!

Official Birthplace Declared In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “birthplace” of Memorial Day. There, a ceremony on May 5, 1866, honored local veterans who had fought in the Civil War. Businesses closed and residents flew flags at half-staff. Supporters of Waterloo’s claim say earlier observances in other places were either informal, not community-wide, or one-time events.

Heavy traffic!

By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. State legislatures passed proclamations designating the day, and the Army and Navy adopted regulations for proper observance at their facilities. It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May, as were some other federal holidays.The origins of special services to honor those who die in war can be found in antiquity. The Athenian leader Pericles offered a tribute to the fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War over 24 centuries ago that could be applied today to the 1.1 million Americans who have died in the nation’s wars: “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.”

Big movie releases!

To ensure the sacrifices of America’s fallen heroes are never forgotten, in December 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” P.L. 106-579, creating the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance. The commission’s charter is to “encourage the people of the United States to give something back to their country, which provides them so much freedom and opportunity” by encouraging and coordinating commemorations in the United States of Memorial Day and the National Moment of Remembrance.

Let’s eat outside!

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation. As Moment of Remembrance founder Carmella LaSpada states: “It’s a way we can all help put the memorial back in Memorial Day.”
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Vice President Joe Biden and others spoke to survivors of fallen military members.

Union College hosts a milestone for ‘Taps’; “School graduate penned song 150 years ago; concert helps celebrate”; 24 notes

On Memorial Day Weekend, America Reckons with Torture by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

Erasing the Deceased QUESTION

How do you handle the written records of a deceased friend or loved one? Do you purge them right away, or is it a gradual process?

(Weird – I scheduled this particular post for this day a couple of weeks ago, before vacation. Didn’t know I’d be writing so much about dead people this week.)

I still have a print address book; you know, the kind made of paper. And when someone dies, I never know when to erase that person’s name. It seems that doing so means they are REALLY dead. The only time I’m likely to drop someone is if the book falls apart, I buy a new one, then rewrite the names in the new book, but only the living.

It’s no easier for me in my electronic address book. Deleting someone, especially someone I cared for, is tricky. I suspect that my mother’s still in the system, and she passed away over a year ago.

When Albert Wood from my choir died on Ash Wednesday, his logo picture kept showing up on my Facebook home page. But I didn’t want to “unfriend” my late friend, especially since people keep writing “to” him. A side issue: Are Users’ Facebook Profiles Are Part Of ‘Digital Estates’?

How do you handle the written records of a deceased friend or loved one? Do you purge them right away, or is it a gradual process? And should relatives be able to get access to their loved ones’ social media after they die?
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In the non-human category, SamuraiFrog says goodbye