By Bob Gaydos 

The original Stars and Stripes

     Sunday, June 14, is the 251st anniversary of the birth of the U.S. Army. It is also the 249th anniversary of the birth of the Stars and Stripes, the American Flag. (Priorities. The colonials needed an army before they could declare their own flag.)

     It is still known as Flag Day, but it never had enough pull in Congress to be declared one of the “official“ federal holidays, meaning it’s celebrated but nobody gets a day off. So, no day off for Flag Day, but you wouldn’t even know it exists since the so-called mainstream media have ignored that fact in reporting on the mixed martial arts fights that are scheduled to take place on the torn up White House lawn on Sunday to celebrate Donald Trump’s birthday.

      Yeah, June 14 is his birthday, too. The gods must have been angry or drunk. So, no, there will be no ceremonies at the White House to honor the flag, its history and protocols surrounding it. (For example, civilians not in uniform do NOT salute the flag, as Trump does, but rather place their hand over their heart.) For that, you’ll have to go to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The Stripes and Stars Festival, honoring the flag, will take place there and at the Betsy Ross House and on Independence Mall. They get it in Philly.

      If you’re around New York City and in a patriotic mood the Committee for the First Amendment is presenting a Concert for the First Amendment at Town Hall Sunday night. Bette Midler, Patti Smith, Julia Roberts, Rufus Wainwright and Jane Fonda are among those scheduled to appear.  It will also be streamed for viewing at watch parties nationally. Local veterans groups also sponsor events to honor the flag.

     At the White House, you’ll get seven matches in which two men get into an octagonal “ring“ and try to beat the crap out of each other any way they can. No Marquis of Queensbury Rules. It’s kind of like the way the birthday boy approaches politics. Reports of cockfights scheduled on the back lawn for July 4 could not be verified.

     The grotesque fighting structure on the White House lawn, which Trump says he might want to just leave there when the fighting is done, joins the demolished East Wing and rising skeleton of a grand ballroom, the outdoor dining patio that replaced the torn up Jackie Kennedy Rose Garden and all the golden glitz inside as part of Trump’s focus on redecorating a house in which he is only a temporary tenant. An odd preoccupation for a man who has a war to fight.

     In any event, the Ultimate Fighting Competition Freedom 250 event (the 250 is the obvious token effort by the White House to make this seem like a patriotic event in honor of the 250th birthday of America, not Trump’s birthday) is scheduled to go on Sunday night with the full fight card, although some of the RSVPs might not be to Trump’s liking.

    Reports say some of the scheduled fighters weren’t too thrilled with appearing and some of Trump’s special invited guests were apparently not ready to cough up $1 million to sit in the box next to Trump as he dozes through seven matches. And the viewing screens set around the city were not expected to draw the huge throngs Trump typically predicts for events he sponsors. Also, it’s going to be brutally hot and it might pour. One can always hope.

     Maybe the gods will have sobered up.

By Bob Gaydos

    Let’s add party pooper (any way you want to take it) to the list of dubious attributes Donald Trump possesses. In the social consciousness area of not knowing when he’s not wanted and insisting on going where he’s not wanted, he’s clueless. In fact, he appears not to give a damn what the other partygoers think.

     So, Trump is going to New York City Monday night to crash the best garden party the city has known for decades and in the process create a lot of confusion and resentment.

     The New York Knicks are hosting the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden Monday night for game three of the National Basketball Association championship. The Knicks have won the first two games. The city is energized. It hasn’t had an NBA championship for decades and happy fans who can’t afford the pricey tickets have been celebrating outside Madison Square Garden, watching on a big screen, all season.

       They were there when the Knicks won the first game and it got a bit rowdy. People, including police, were injured. The city first said it would cancel the watch party, but relented.

       Then Trump said he was going, even though he didn’t have a ticket (which isn’t cheap), wasn’t invited and a lot of fans would probably boo him. No bother. He’s going.

       So the city again canceled the outdoor watch party because of serious security concerns with Trump and his entourage in midtown Manhattan. His presence will also make it more cumbersome and slow for ticket holders to get into the game. They are advised to arrive at least two hours before game time for security checks. Oh, and no purses, backpacks or tote bags allowed.

        All because Trump wants to soak in the adoration and glory of others’ accomplishments, thus draining the joy out of Knicks’ fans anticipation of a long-awaited championship. Talk about resentment.There will be boos.

     The truth is, Trump’s such a party pooper that when he announced his own party for June 24 to help celebrate America’s 250th Birthday, virtually all the announced B-list performers said they wouldn’t go because, well, for one thing, no one asked them about performing. Others said they didn’t like Trump. Others said they didn’t like the bad publicity attached to the so-called great American State Fair. Undeterred, Trump says he’ll be the entertainment. 

    He also appointed a group of supplicants to plan America’s 250th birthday party next month, replacing the official party planning group and the results are likely to be similar to the state fair fiasco. Dull, boring and a major disappointment to millions of Americans. And he trashed the White House Lawn for a fighting exhibition June 14, his birthday. Used to be Flag Day, a day of respect. He says he might just leave the ring there. 

     We deserve better.

     I keep hoping for better. In fact, the other day that young black squirrel I wrote about last year that was maybe moving into our neighborhood showed up again. Well, hello, neighbor. As I have noted, this one in 10,000 variety of squirrels is regarded in various cultures as a wise, noble, magic symbol of good fortune and good luck. 

    So far that luck has eluded me. Following my first sighting, Trump got elected. But the black squirrel, a persistent nut gatherer, keeps showing up. So I’m thinking maybe the young squirrel needed to grow into its magic powers. Like right about now. Maybe it can figure out a way to disinvite the party pooper permanently so that America can celebrate its 250th birthday party and more with dignity and gratitude. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

      If it happens, I’d be happy to supply all the nuts any squirrel could desire for the 251st.

By Bob Gaydos 

Trump tried to steal the name and reputation of JFK.

   Donald Trump is addicted to the Name Game. He loves nothing more than slapping his name on anything, especially things not even remotely connected with his talents or abilities or accomplishments, all of which are virtually non-existent.

  He has made a career of building monuments to his ego by constructing or buying buildings, golf courses, casinos — an airline — and gilding them with tacky gold everywhere before driving most of them into bankruptcy.

  There was Trump University and the Trump charitable foundation, both phony money-grabbing schemes which he was ordered to shut down and repay those he bilked. 

 He also sells the rights to use his name for those foolish enough to want to put it on their buildings. He even managed to bankrupt the historic Plaza Hotel in New York City for Pete’s sake and sully its reputation by gilding it with cheap gold and slapping his name on it before selling it for an $83 million loss.

    It seems he’s not very good at the game. The latest, perhaps most satisfying, example of Trump losing the game came on May 29, the birthday of John F. Kennedy.

     In what I refuse to believe was a coincidence, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper took the occasion of the late president’s birthday to order Trump’s name removed from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The judge said Congress had created the memorial and only Congress could change the name. Trump had no authority to put his name above Kennedy’s on one of the nation’s premier and most revered institutions.

    The judge also said Trump couldn’t just shut the center down for “repairs” because no one was going there since Trump’s new appointed board took over and top performers were refusing to appear there.

    The Kennedy family took its turn at the game also, honoring JFK’s memory on his birthday by presenting the annual Profile in Courage awards to Jerome Powell, outgoing chair of the Federal Reserve and the People of the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

    Powell was honored for protecting the independence and stability of the Federal Reserve against a constant  stream of threats and personal insults from Trump. The people of the Twin Cities were honored for risking their lives through peaceful resistance against an onslaught of ICE enforcement agents sent there as part of Trump’s war against America.

     The awards were presented at the JFK Library and are named in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Profiles in Courage,” authored by Kennedy and Ted Sorensen, his speech writer. Kennedy’s wartime heroics were detailed in the book, “PT 109.”

     Trump’s name on a library would be a joke and any book with his name on it was not about heroism and was written entirely by someone else who doesn’t brag about identifying a camel on a cognitive test.

    All in all, May 29 turned out to be a really bad game day for an insecure little man who likes nothing more than the sound of his own name. Well-played, Judge Cooper and Kennedy clan.

(While scrolling through my Facebook feed the other day I spotted a column I had written a year ago. Apparently, a friend had spotted it in his feed in the memories category and had reposted it. Well, how nice I thought. Always good to feel appreciated. I read the column to see what I had written and, wouldn’t you know, since it had to deal with Trump, etc., it still applies, although Susan Collins is now on the fence. Anyway, here it is again. And thanks, Patrick.)

By Bob Gaydos

     Had breakfast with a friend the other day, trying out a new coffee shop in town. Nice addition.

      The conversation touched on the usual stuff. Too much rain. What’s planted in the garden, the hummingbird count, the challenges in living in a house with another person. Living on a planet with certain other people.

      That last proved provocative. With regard to those certain other people, my friend offered that, if he were a praying man, he would pray for The Rapture.

      I got his intent, but I suggested that I thought he had it backwards. Having read “Left Behind,“ I knew it was the good, caring, kind, faithful humans who were transported off the planet to Heaven, I believe, leaving their clothing and loved ones behind.

      The others, the nasty ones, the ones my friend wanted to be rid of, stayed and, through a series of books, fended for and against themselves and other non-believers. So I suggested that, assuming we wanted to remain in whatever state this is for a while longer, what we needed was a Reverse Rapture.

   We needed someplace we could pray for all those You Know Whats to be sent to, without any get-out-of-jail card in the form of an Orpheus, if I may be allowed to mix my miracles.

     Hades. Yes, Hades. The Underworld would do.

     So, who would we want to go? Personally, I’d start with Trump and his immediate family. The whole crew. Every member of his Cabinet and White House staff. Every lawyer who ever worked for him, except for Michael Cohen. Elon Musk. J.D.Vance. Every current Republican member of Congress, except for Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The authors of Project 2025. Anyone who wears a Maga T-shirt or hat. Anyone who identifies as a journalist but works and lies for Fox News. Putin. Kim. Hamas and all the other terrorists. The pushers of fentanyl. Laura Loomer. (Speaking of Loomer and Kristi Noem and the Barbi press contact and the attorney general and all the other Trumpettes, Hades will come with no cosmetic amenities, including plastic surgeons. Zero. Just saying.)

    Also, all those mask-wearing ICE employees who’ve been enjoying grabbing people off the street, out of their homes, wherever, with no warrants or concern for the people or the law. And Clarence Thomas, to fulfill Hades’ DEI requirements.

     And, really, anyone who voted for Trump three times. What were they thinking? They get a special wing in Hades where The Apprentice plays on big screens constantly. In Spanish. And they have to use their bitcoin to buy English subtitles, but they already gave it all to Trump, who gave it all to the Saudi royal family (they’re there, too), who promised to build a Hades Trump Tower using white South African immigrants for labor. It could take a while, but who really cares?

     Now, all that cosmic deportation would obviously leave behind a whole lot of room, especially in this big, beautiful country, and a lot of available work for good, caring, reliable, nice, talented, decent, tolerant human beings, maybe from Venezuela or Mexico or Greenland or Panama or El Salvador.

      Too much to ask for, you say? Especially over breakfast? Hell, if you’re going to pray for anything, especially a Reverse Rapture, I say why not go all in?

       Besides, checks and balances seems to be broken.

                                     ***

Additions to the prayer chain are welcome.

(This is a revised version of a column I wrote seven years ago. I’m recognizing my birthday companions.)

By Bob Gaydos

    As a news story, Donald Trump pretending to be president got old for me very fast. Same story, different details every day. For 10 years now.

    A few years back, I wondered how people who still got paid to have opinions dealt with it. Maureen Dowd answered my question. I read her column in The New York Times that carried the headline, “Crazy Is As Crazy Does.” Yes, it was about Trump. It was still in his first term. 

     She began by describing her waking thoughts as another morning arrived. About the talents of an actress and an actor she admired and their TV shows. About a book she had apparently just read or was reading. And then, abruptly, reality set in: “Once I’m completely awake, a gravitational pull takes hold and I am once more bedeviled by our preposterous president,” she wrote.

         “I flip on the TV and gird for the endless stream of vitriol coming from the White House, bracing for another day of overflowing, overlapping, overwrought news stories about Trump. I’m sapped before I arise. …

        “My head hurts, puzzling over whether Trump is just a big blowhard … or a sinister genius …”

         Me too, I sighed. Glad to know I’m not alone. 

         I’m also not alone in my belief in synchronicity.

         Coincidence? I’m with Carl Jung on that. The Swiss psychologist who gave us the word defined synchronicity as “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved.”

     As in, what are the chances that, after setting aside Dowd’s column and being shamed into participating in a decluttering exercise at home, I would “stumble upon” a slim book I’d never heard of that instantly uncluttered my mind on how to explain what in the world was going on in Donald Trump’s mind.

     It’s “Bullshit.”

     Literally.

     Some explanation is necessary.

     The house decluttering was precipitated by a prevailing notion that I had collected too much stuff (an occupational hazard, I believe) and some of it had to go, but we would find a safe resting place for the stuff that was worth keeping. One of the safe places was a lovely, old cabinet in which other stuff was resting. Old tapes, photos and books. Among the books was the aforementioned slim volume.

      I read the title: “On Bullshit.”

      The decluttering came to a momentary halt. Was this a joke? As it turns out, no. Oh, there is humor in this 67-page essay, but the author, Harry G. Frankfurt, it also turns out, was a distinguished philosopher, professor emeritus at Princeton University, which published the book. This was serious. In fact, the book was a New York Times best-seller in 2005 and Frankfurt discussed it on YouTube, which tells you something about my attention to literary news.

       But the point, and I’m finally getting to it, is that after months of trying to out-pundit everyone else writing about Trump and continuing to wonder why he does what he does, Frankfurt laid it out in a way that anyone, except maybe Trump, can understand — the man is a bullshit artist.

       It dawned on me as I read Frankfurt’s explanation of the difference between liars — which Trump has been crowned champion of all time by those who keep score — and bullshitters. (If the language offends you, I apologize, but Frankfurt says “humbug” is not the same. Also, the times have changed and I’ve been labeled an enemy of the people for treating the truth with respect.)

      As Frankfurt explains, the difference between liars and bullshitters is that liars are acquainted with the truth. They have to be to maintain their lies. There is a discipline involved. Bullshitters don’t care. They make stuff up as they go along, saying whatever seems necessary to them at the time to appear to know what’s going on. It isn’t a matter so much of bullshit being false, Frankfort says, as of it being phony. It’s meant to convey an impression. It’s like bluffing. And too much of it can carry over into a general laxity about how things really are.

        As Frankfurt writes, “The bullshitter is faking things.” It’s not a matter of concealing the truth, because sometimes the bullshitter will speak the truth. It is a matter of concealing “what he is up to.” And, Frankfort says, those who are good at it seem to have no trouble attracting gullible believers. Boy isn’t that the truth. 

       Frankfurt mentions patriotic politicians who, on the Fourth of July, give grand speeches extolling all the wonderful things this country represents, not that those things are false or lies or B.S., but because the speaker wants others to believe he believes in them and is a true patriot. Again, sadly, history has shown this to be true. We can expect more of this on Flag Day, June 14, which happens to be Trump’s birthday. He’s celebrating with a UFC boxing exhibition on the White House lawn because what could be more American. Same old story, different details.

       One last word on synchronicity. Professor Frankfurt, who died in 2023, just happened to share the same birth date with me: May 29. His book, an unexpected gift, rests in a drawer in my bed stand, lest I forget.

By Bob Gaydos 

Don Sr., Don Jr. and Bettina, the new Mrs. Trump

RSVP: I regret that I will be unable to attend your wedding because the timing is bad and I have a lot of important stuff to do at home and people would be angry if I took the time away from that stuff.

Love, Dad

       No, he didn’t write that email to his first-born son, named after him. He just said it out loud for the world to hear. At least he didn’t say, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

        Donald Trump Jr., also known as “Dumb,” from the Dumb and Dumber duo, was married Friday on a small island in the Bahamas. His second marriage. A small, intimate affair. Just 50 family and close friends. Daddy, who once said, “The family is really the foundation of a prosperous and good society,” couldn’t make it. He was, he said, too busy. 

        Trying to wreck the New World Order. There was this annoying war thing in Iran. And, you know, that 30-year-old murder charge to file against Raoul Castro. Maybe even invade Cuba for some reason. And the Congress wasn’t buying his slush fund for the criminals who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020, trying to overthrow a newly elected government

        Stuff.

        It was simply too much to deal with just for a second marriage of your oldest son. Besides, there wouldn’t really be any voters there to try to impress. And the Bahamas have some kind of silly law about being able to deny entry to anyone convicted of a serious felony. And there was that speaking appearance in the Hudson Valley to support a loyal congressman who was elected by a small group of enthusiastic, well-organized supporters apparently pretending to be Democrats.

       Important stuff.

       Funny coincidence: Don Jr.’s new wife, Bettina Anderson, described as a “sociaIite,” is the daughter of the late Palm Beach banker, Harry Loy Anderson Jr., who had a mutual friend with Trump Senior — Jeffrey Epstein. The banker reportedly socialized with and helped Epstein get major tax breaks for his own special island.

       Talk about synchronicity. It’s too bad Trump had too much important stuff to deal with to attend his son’s wedding. Dad might have had some stories to share with his new daughter-in-law about her father and their fun days with Epstein. 

        Better luck next time.

By Bob Gaydos

There’s a rooster crowing somewhere and a tree groaning in the wind. I know. It sounds like the opening of a poem. It’s not. I have no rhyme. I have no reason. I have frustration, anger, sadness, impatience, embarrassment, outrage, despair, resentment, and, to some degree, utter disgust.

It’s 95 degrees and I’m sitting by the pond, not feeling poetic. Not really energetic. Sorry for the rhyme. It’s sometimes automatic. Helps to dull the static.

See what I mean?

This is going to be short and not at all sweet. You know the drill. Different day, different insult. No need to repeat. Trump sued himself, in effect, over taxes. His returns were leaked along with thousands of others. His hand puppet attorney general “negotiated” a deal. Trump and his family never have to go through a tax audit ever in their lifetimes. Oh, and the criminals who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2020 will have a $1.7 billion slush fund from which they can try to claim “damages“ for trying to overthrow the government.

Republicans in Congress, of course, think this is all just fine. Cowards toeing the line. (Sorry).

It gives me no great joy to repeat that I wrote a column in 2016 predicting that Trump would be the death of the Republican Party. It’s been proven many times over by now and reinforced on a daily basis with every embarrassing “speech“ he delivers. Each one is testament to his ego and ignorance and increasing mental instability. But the real MAGAS don’t care and the Republican politicians know they’re stuck with it now. No guts, no glory. Same sad story.

I’m coming up on 85 and still glad to be alive. But the America I grew up in and lived through most of my life has been raped and pillaged by Trump and his henchmen and women and, yes, it is depressing. Writing relieves the stressing.

It also nourishes hope. Hope that the Epstein files will soon indict every co-conspirator. That Clarence Thomas will receive the justice due him. That the millions of Americans who don’t bother to vote will realize what their apathy has done. That the mainstream media regains its spine and its voice. That future generations will be able to read the true history of this dark chapter.

There’s more, but you get the drift. Keep fighting. I’ll keep writing. If this were a poem, it would be an elegy, if not a dirge. I will continue to resist the urge.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together as they tour the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China,

By Bob Gaydos

   Donald Trump cut his trip to China short, returning to America with his planeload of billionaires, family and sycophants with no obvious “deals” on the war in Iran or commercial trade while also saying he had not made any commitments on Taiwan one way or the other in his private talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which surely worried residents of that independent island who have received guaranteed U.S. military support for more than seven decades, all of which made most Americans wonder what the heck was the purpose of the surprise trip in the first place other than for Trump to marvel at the number of Chinese restaurants in America and be impressed by China’s great hall (See?) which all took place while the Justice Department back home was talking about indicting Castro — Castro!? — no not that one, the brother, Raul, former Cuban leader who is 94 years old, for his supposed role as defense minister at the time in shooting down two civilian U.S. planes carrying a humanitarian group, over Cuba in 1996, the murder indictment to serve as a warning to the communist country (like China, by the way) that the U.S. might just have to take over control of the energy-starved Caribbean island, apparently because Greenland is too big and well-defended and China is really strong and still lusts for Taiwan and the U.S. might consider not stopping all the oil tankers from Venezuela from making deliveries to Cuba, which depends on those shipments to function, or just taking over the island, if Cuba would accept $100 million in humanitarian aid and allow U.S. economic and security investments in the island, a mixed message delivered to Cuban leaders personally by whomever is now head of the CIA, all of which happened as Rudy Giuliani, yes that Rudy Giuliani, was having “a very serious spiritual experience” while in a coma due to pneumonia, in which he said he was in a line leading to a “trial by St. Peter” but was saved when his friend and former deputy NYC mayor Peter Powers intervened, saying some “very significant words,” thereby apparently saving Rudy’s soul, allowing him to survive to talk about his ”miracle” on his broadcast show, which few people knew existed until now, and which apparently is not housed off the parking lot at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping business in Philadelphia, where Giuliani, now 81, previously was in a coma but didn’t know it … all of which happened in a couple of days and is proof positive that the world is totally out of sync.

   I needed the break.

By Bob Gaydos

Firing squads? Really? As in line them up and guess who has the real bullet? Blindfolds? A last cigarette? A special viewing section for special guests?

Lost in news of the war (are we still at war?) and the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting, Trump reinstated the use of firing squads as a means of capital punishment in federal crimes. Because of course he did.

The Justice Department, which is currently seeking the death penalty for 44 defendants, is in a mood to speed up executions. It said the melodramatic method would apply to undocumented immigrants who commit murder and those who murder law-enforcement officers.

The Justice Department also recommended reviving the electric chair and the gas chamber as approved methods of execution, but apparently stopped short of calling for the guillotine. Too French perhaps.

And just to cover all bases, the Justice Department reinstated the use of pentobarbital for lethal injections, a protocol that had been halted by the Biden administration due to concerns expressed by human rights groups over pain and suffering. Not Trump’s concerns.

The Biden administration had paused federal executions because of the unavailability of other, less-cruel if you will, lethal injection drugs. Some drug companies had become reluctant to provide alternative drugs because of the complaints about pentobarbital.

Let me pause here to be clear. One measure of a society, in my opinion, is the manner in which it treats the worst among it. People who commit murder would fall into that category. Currently, 27 states authorize the death penalty, while 23 states and Washington, D.C. have abolished it. Even where it is legal, a relatively small number of executions are actually carried out.

And the enduring argument against the death penalty is that the poorest among us, those least able to afford top caliber legal representation, are the most likely to receive the death penalty. People who can afford expensive lawyers tend to escape with their lives. With Trump, they could probably buy their way out of the firing squad.

In any case, whether one approves or disapproves of the death penalty, the firing squad as the means of execution is pure Trump. A dramatic show. A show of domination. A show where Donald can show up to say, “Fire!”

Five states currently authorize the firing squad to carry out capital punishment: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. Not a surprise in the bunch.

The expansion of the methods of execution has been denounced by human rights groups and the pope as an attack on human dignity. Ours, not the guy with the blindfold and cigarette.

By Bob Gaydos  

The pond in which the frog plopped.
RJ Photography

 I took the day off yesterday. Social media told me it was May Day and, in honor of workers, there was a nationwide strike called for to protest against the Trump administration‘s economic policies. Indeed, all of its policies. We were supposed to not work and not spend money on anything.

   Full disclosure: I actually had planned to do very little writing, but I was definitely looking forward to going out for lunch. Lunch got canceled, not by me. It kind of threw my whole planned schedule out of whack.

    Then I remembered something else I had seen in my social media feed – a post from my old Times Herald-Record colleague Brendan Coyne about Maurice Sendak, legendary children’s book author.

   Sendak, at age 83, was watching his partner of 50 years slowly dying and told a reporter, “I did not want to die with him.“ He said that’s why he had written his latest and final book. He said he wasn’t sad about growing old, but rather about the people he missed. In fact, he said it was a blessing to grow old and to be able to enjoy books, music, quiet moments and the trees outside his window. He gave the interviewer this bit of advice: “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”

    So I took a walk out back. Actually two, one with each dog. I enjoyed the welcome sun and the slight breeze. The dogs ran and a cardinal, blue jay and red-winged blackbird peacefully shared the spilled food together under a bird feeder. Would that humans could do the same, I thought.  A woodpecker hammered away.  A frog plopped back in the pond.

   I came back in the house, gave the dogs and myself some water and sat down to write this. I guess this is what I call taking the day off in retirement. 

   Sendak died a few months after that interview. His book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” was one of my sons’ favorites. They’re in their 30’s now. A friend I miss from long ago used to say, “Isn’t it great to be present in your own life?” Yes, Victor, it is.

  It pays to pay attention. Back to work tomorrow.

  Thanks again, Brendan.