October 23, 2005

• Chapter 9 – War (cont.)
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  My mother retired that winter after 12 years as children’s librarian at the Corvallis, Oregon Library. Though I didn’t know it, my father had begun his long journey through Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease that would eventually kill him and was busy with the many beautiful little wood carvings he would leave behind. And my 90-year-old grandfather was given a huge birthday party at his retirement home nearby. In an effort to rise from my ashes, I turned away from drugs and back to drinking and was prescribed antidepressants for the first time in my life. I began to attend classes at the College of Marin, in one of which I found out I still had an IQ of 140, the same as when my father tested it in my childhood. A month before I turned 33, the Watergate Hotel was broken into, setting the stage for a national drama that would last two years and result in the only presidential resignation in the history of our country. Coincidentally, only this year, 33 years later, was the identity of Deep Throat (the informant who helped break the story) revealed.

  That fall of 1972, as Jane started second grade in San Rafael, we had to take in a succession of roommates to make ends meet. We watched mesmerized by the events of the Munich Olympics when Arab commandos killed 11 Israeli athletes. At last, in January 1973, there was an official ceasefire in the Vietnam war, but it would be another two years before the last Americans pulled out and the last American soldier died. (to be continued)

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  Deep Thought: “I guess of all my uncles, I liked Uncle Cave Man the best. We called him Uncle Cave Man because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he’d eat one of us. Later on we found out he was a bear. “
  Today I am grateful for: Questions and answers
  Guess the Movie: “There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn’t good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!”
  Secret MoD poll: Iraqis Support Attacks on British Troops
  by Sean Rayment
  Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers has revealed.
  The poll, undertaken for the Ministry of Defence and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, shows that up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country. (Rest of article here.)

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