Year-End Letter

I expect to be receiving some year-end letters from distant friends pretty soon so I thought I'd get a jump on mine.

Fishing on the Monongahela River was a highpoint or was it the Okeechobee? Actually I've never been to either one but it was fun writing their names.

I could tell about the time I was called to the hospital when my father took sick. I got there as they were wheeling him into surgery on a gurney. He whispered in my ear that there was five dollars under a flower pot on the window sill, ten bucks on page 137 of the bible and another fifty in an orange juice container in the back of the fridge. When he recovered he said to forget everything he had said because he changed them all. Except this happened to my friend, Fred, not to me.

Or I might talk about my days playing the sousaphone in the army band but that is Ralph's story or the time I sang a medley of show tunes at the Jewish Home for the Aged, but that Earl.

Instead I'll mention that home run I hit in the schoolyard last spotted over Lichtenstein and still in flight Those glory days get better ever time I tell it and I'm not even sure it ever happened.

We really did celebrate Valentine’s Day in Julian which is noted for its apple pie and long drive to get there. The pie was great but the apples were trucked in from San Diego.

Peggy and I went away for one night in March. I can't remember much of what we did except that the hotel room was furnished in a Babel of Moorish, late renaissance and early rococo with touches of Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

My calendar says that I had a dental appointment in April. All I can recall is getting a few words in edgewise when he let me rinse and spit.

We spent three nights in the Bay area and wine country for Peggy’s birthday in May. Remarkable how far they’ve come since the 1906 earthquake.

Peggy, who has genius for bringing things together in her poetry and collages, took it a bit too far in June when she aggregated her blood cells into multiple emboli. A few days in the hospital with anti-coagulants broke up those consanguinities. (another word I’ve always wanted to write.)

This was year the Dodgers were so bad I almost outgrew my infantilism...but not quite. I nearly became a Giant fan but attributed that to an overdose of artichokes and Vitamin D.

A few weeks ago I got up in the middle of the night and applied some toothpaste to an itchy genital instead of hydrocortisone ointment. It worked.

Also noted en passant: all those lunches & linners with friends, salads sufficient to feed sub-Saharan Africa, the thousands of pages we read which could stop a speeding bullet, plays hammed up, salons gathered and emails exchanged.

All this reminds me of my most dreaded class in school, English composition with the obligatory essay of what we did on our summer vacation. I spent most of August thinking of what to write.

Maybe it's not a bad thing to blank out on the past twelve months. It’s been a happy blur. All body parts accounted for though none are still under warranty. It’s been another voluptuous year in a very fortunate life ever since Peggy taught me how to be willing to be lucky.