radio

 

It was sixty years ago, a Saturday morning in Yokohama. We were at the dining room table. Malinda and Jody were watching television, black & white, blaring TetsuJin, a weekly Saturday morning Japanese kiddie cartoon. In the kitchen the telephone rang. Linda answered, listened a moment, and said to me, "Kennedy's dead." It was Bev Hatchett calling from across the cul-de-sac. I jumped up, ran halfway across the room toward the radio, irrationally stopped and ran back to turn off the television, then ran back to the radio, tuned to AFRATS, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, news from Dallas: President Kennedy had been assassinated, and Vice President Lyndon B Johnson was being sworn in as President as Jackie Kennedy stood beside him in shock,

The world is full of nut fringe cases whose derangement changes the direction of history. We are where we are, victims of hatred, our fragile American democracy that seemed so impregnable, in critical danger of being torn down because of all that has gone before. Robert Frost's road not taken that day in Dallas. It was Friday in Texas, Saturday in Japan.

When that happened, I was twenty-eight years old. The only birthday I ever dreaded was 1965, turning thirty, leaving my magical twenties. It never occurred to me then, but leoking back, personally, my forties were the top of my mountain.

On this Thanksgiving Day Eve I'm eighty-eight and counting. My friends, life IS short, so make haste to love, and be quick to be kind, because we haven't much Time. And Time is all we have.

Anymore I don't invest much Time, but I do waste a lot of Time. With this computer I can know instantly what the weather is anywhere on earth. Right now it's 2:12 pm in Casablanca, 69°F and mostly cloudy, zero chance of rain. If I could have my wish, I'd be there right now with Humphrey Bogart.

Or I could watch Israeli bombs fired into Gaza where I hope Khaled, a brokenhearted and terrified child, has something to eat today, and someone who loves him to hold him close and warm tonight. I do understand anger and outrage, but some Israeli government members wanted all this to happen to Palestinians all along, before October 7. Now they want Palestinians totally bombed out and left to starvation and disease. How does God stand us? becomes a rhetorical question.

TJCC arriving from Tallahassee today, to take charge of the kitchen for tomorrow. The turkey is Jeremy's province. I've already made my first casserole dish of holiday essence, it's superb except that instead of two quarts of oysters I should have used four quarts: Christmas is coming, eh?

Linda's Tgiving prep role is four pies today and not bustle around in the kitchen tomorrow. Two pumpkin pies and two ice box lemon pies. Huge bowl of whipped cream to pass around the dinner table at dessert Time and serve your own whipped cream on your pie. I like a sliver of pie, which I can't see at all for the mountain of whipped cream topping. Mug of hot & black.

Is that enough? I guess so. I'm thinking of that German radio we had in Japan. Bought it in the Navy Exchange in Yokohama, a Blaupunkt. It had a short-wave setting and I used to listen to the English broadcasts from Radio Moscow evenings, and Radio Peking with news about their heroes Chairman Mao, Premier Chou En Lai and Vice Premier Chen Yi.

Seems like a lifetime ago,

T88&c 

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