diary feb 11.docx

Click on this link to read my thoughts for today. Hah!

 

me at Newsweek circa 1969

 Feb 7, 2021

Good news. We have a new president, not without the drama of the orange ex president who incited an attack on Capitol Hill by his followers, not without the now 450,000+ people who've died from the Covid 19 virus. In July when I last posted the number of dead was 150,000.

my new digs at 30 Gallatin St

So I did retire in August, went to the beach for a week with Jojo, Willie, Neil and Sarah, plus Gunnar and Rufus. Sold the house in December and was lucky enough to have the Georgia Kearns, the Kentucky Kearns and Jojo celebrate one last Christmas at 7610 Helena Drive, moved into Jojo's basement apartment, am awaiting my second vaccine shot so I can hop on a plane to see my California Kearns in March after almost 16 months and, hopefully, begin traveling.

In the meantime, Josh treated me to this grand laptop so I can work on my post-retirement hobby of writing. We'll see how that turns out. I'm still learning its quirks but it feels good to have it and I've been working on it for about two hours now. After 54 years of working and raising a family it is going to be challenging to discipline myself to work with no other obligations to use as an excuse for not starting to write. 

When I say 54 years, that doesn't include my pre-teen strawberry picking years, or my vacation job at the Owl Shop in New Haven, but does include working at Reuters, Newsweek and the Financial Times as a mediocre reporter who was lucky enough to be in the right place at some unusual times: the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations, the 1968 riotous Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick bridge disaster, and the general events of the 60s and 70s.  And, tangentially through Rob's 30+ years as a reporter for Reuters, covering Watergate, invasion of Nicaragua, the wars in Bosnia and Iraq, cocktails with Clausen and partying at the White House. All in all, it wasn't boring.

On the other hand, what may look glamorous to some wasn't necessarily so. It all sounds good on paper but as I danced with President Ford with my Farah Faucett hair and my very chic dress courtesy of my mother, all I could think of was whether I smelled like poop, having just spent the previous hour in very close quarters with my 2 year old who unleashed 3 days of stored-up business. 

Dining at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo sounds posh - but in truth I was invited by a friend who had become Grand Chamberlain at the palace to have lunch...in the basement where the lights were 1930s dim and the food made English boarding school grub taste like a gourmet treat.

And those 54 years include 31 years running nonprofits, good ones and not so good ones. But all of these provide an opportunity to share a wide range of experiences and make me very good at crossword puzzles.