1. I belong to a private Facebook group with a handful of friends, most of whom I've known for thirty-five to forty years. I am the oldest member of the group, but the others are always catching up with me as they experience many of the passages that occur in life as we move into our fifties and sixties: ailing and dying mothers and fathers, children facing the demands of adulthood, and witnessing the consequences of our love and support of our children, as well as our missteps or oversights, breakdowns in physical health and realizing, sometimes, that the mind and spirit are strong, but the body is weak, and coming to realize that our bodies are vessels of inevitability. In our bodies rests our fate, not just the dying part, but the aches, pains, diseases, and ailments that we cannot escape, but that we do the best we can to manage, one way or another.
Today one member, who had not written an update on his life for a while, did so. I will keep what he wrote confidential, but he got me thinking about how growing old for me has been an ongoing accounting of how little I understood about life when I was young. In my twenties and on into my thirties, I often didn't really understand the fragility of friendships or other relationships -- I think I assumed they could weather anything -- and I'm troubled by having lost friendships, by no longer knowing some of the people I enjoyed, even loved, thirty-five, forty, even forty-five years ago. I seem to accept the physical vagaries of aging a little better than I do the loss of friends I've experienced and the ways I contributed to these losses. At the same time, I should add, I am very grateful for the friendships that have lasted all these years from when I lived in Eugene and for the continuation and renewal of old friendships that have resulted from so many returns to Kellogg and, now, from moving here. Experiencing these lasting and ongoing friendships makes this part of aging and growing old with others a deeply fulfilling, and, often, a really fun experience.
2. Around 7:15 or so, the Deke and I went over to Christy and Everett's for some delicious thin crust vegetarian pizza and to watch much of the second half of Gonzaga's nail-biting victory over the University of San Diego. Christy and Everett had had a busy day in CdA and they enjoyed a delicious lunch at Fisherman's Market. We got to find out what all happened -- I don't think it's my place right now to share details -- and Christy is ready, and has a lot of support, as she faces some challenges that lie ahead.
3. Back home, we suddenly got a second wind and decided to listen to two more episodes of the podcast, Slow Burn -- it's a podcast offering a fresh look at the way the break-in at the Watergate Complex dogged Richard Nixon from the time of his re-election in 1972 until his resignation in 1974. The episodes tonight focused on the work that was done behind the scenes by aides to the senators on the Watergate Committee to research the story and arrange in what order the witnesses would appear. It also explored the partisan tensions between the Republican and Democrat workers. The other episode examined the great amount of support Richard Nixon enjoyed as his second term got underway and why so many voters, as well as elected officials, maintained their support. That support began to erode when Alexander Butterfield testified that every conversation in the Oval Office and other parts of the White House was being secretly audiotaped, starting in on February 16, 1971.
If you'd like to listen to "Lie Detectors", click here.
If you'd like to listen to "True Believers", click here.
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