Sophia in her new, red wagon – Christmas, 2007The picture was taken at our home in Concord, California.
Hillary
Hillary is a lifelong Methodist who likes to quote John Wesley, the founder of Methodism: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.” I can think of no better credo for a Christian—or anyone else. Hillary has been trying all her life to do well to others. She was raising money for the United Way when she was 10 years old.
Obama
“Obama distinguished himself in a talented field by pulling in young voters who normally disdain the ballot box and Republicans and Independents who normally disdain Democrats, and by offering an increasingly clear vision of a way out of the moral and policy depredations that have brought the national spirit to its lowest ebb in memory.”
David Remnick
The New Yorker, January 14, 2008
Voting
Billie and I marked our California ballots on Martin Luther King Day, January 15. She voted for Hillary. I voted for Obama. As Billie says, “We covered the bases.” Both of us will support the Democratic Party’s nominee. Obama claims, “It is time for a change.” It surely is.
The City Club
of San Francisco
Billie and I made our first visit to The City Club on January 14 to attend a reception for Brian Allen, new Director of the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover. The City Club is located on the tenth floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange tower, at 155 Sansome Street, in the heart of the financial district.
Arriving a little ahead of the crowd, we put on the Andover nametags waiting for us and seated ourselves in large, comfortable chairs at the base of the grand staircase, leading from the tenth to the eleventh floor. The City Club is considered one of the finest Art Deco style interiors in California. Over our heads, on the wall and ceiling of the stairwell, was a magnificent fresco painted by Diego Rivera in 1930.
The invitation stated “light refreshments,” but as people arrived and we joined them in the dining room, we discovered an open bar, a side table with a chef serving filet mignon, and waiters circulating with platters of hot hors d’oeuvres. At the far end of the room, which boasted a rich, gold ceiling, were rows of chairs and a projector for the evening’s presentation,
The attendees were mostly recent graduates of the School and a sprinkling of parents of graduates. I was clearly the only person there with a 55th reunion coming this June. We chatted with a couple of middle-aged parents, who were surprised when I told them the tuition my parents paid and that it took 13 hours to fly from Los Angeles to Boston in those days.
Brian Allen turned out to be a tall, shy man with a gentle sense of humor, who impressed us with the growth of the Addison Gallery’s collection in recent years and the fact that Andover remains the only secondary school in the nation with a major art gallery on campus.
In answer to the invitation from the Academy to attend the City Club reception, I had emailed my memory of the Addison when a student there more than a half century ago.
My first year at Andover was spent in Park House. Pat and Maude Morgan lived there. The house was hung with Maude's large, abstract paintings. The appreciation for modern art the Morgans gave me has enriched my life.
Pat was my favorite teacher at Andover and one of the unforgettable characters I encountered there. You had to love a man who walked around in blue jeans and patent leather opera pumps. He gave a brilliant chalk talk at the Addison. It began with a discussion of classic architectural features, which he illustrated on the board and ended with a few rapid strokes that revealed the Parthenon!
On my flights from Los Angeles to Boston, I always took out trip insurance and named Pat as the beneficiary. How is that for devotion?
I felt sorry for a classmate who was effeminate and shy. Then, one day, I attended his recital at the Addison. He had a beautiful voice! I thought of Emerson's "laws of compensation," and realized we simply have differing gifts. All are to be respected and valued.
When I felt "closed in" by campus pressures and confines, I would visit the Addison and find peace, quiet, and inspiration in the serene atmosphere of the place and the great works on display there. The Gallery was a treasured part of the Andover experience for me.
To my surprise, the “reception” for the new Director turned out to be part of “The Campaign for the Addison,” a $30 million effort to expand the Gallery, adding new space and restoring the current building. Billie had this all figured out before we got there, but it took more than a glass of wine and bountiful “light refreshments” for me to tumble to what was going on. Although we couldn’t write a big check, we were glad to listen to the presentation and applaud at the right moments. It was a fun night in the city for both of us.
iPhone
Billie and I had dinner with David at T-Rex Barbecue in Berkeley. He showed us his new iPhone. It was the first time we had seen one of these amazing gadgets. You remember Dick Tracy’s famous wristwatch radio? It seemed like a futuristic dream. The new iPhone, while too large to strap to the wrist, goes far beyond anything the fertile mind of cartoonist Chester Gould could have imagined.
Let’s consider just one feature, the photo library. David showed us full color pictures of our grandchildren. Sliding his finger over the face of the iPhone, picture after picture came into view. He could stop at one image, touch a face, and cause that one face in the picture to enlarge to a full screen view. If we had been in his home, he could have hooked the iPhone to his HDTV and shown the pictures in 36-inch relief.
When I was an avid reader of Dick Tracy, I was proud to be the official photographer of my class at Woodrow Wilson Grammar School in San Bernardino. I still have my reporter’s photo album. The black and white pictures are held in place by “corners” I first licked and then stuck to the page. Many albums later, I now slide color prints into plastic sleeves. It’s much simpler that way, but not much different from the way we kept our photos—and displayed them—a lifetime ago.
I have an inexpensive cell phone. I don’t need text messaging or the ability to take my music albums with me or check my email when I am away from home. The navigation system, I agree, would be an advantage in finding churches, museums, and restaurants. But for an amateur photographer who delights in taking pictures of his grandchildren, the iPhone could be seen as an absolute necessity!
If We Have To Have A Republican President…
I hope it is McCain. He is a true American hero. I wept reading his first book, Faith of My Fathers, in which he described his five-year imprisonment and torture in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. He refused offers to be released ahead of others in line before him.
McCain’s father and grandfather were both four-star admirals. When released, McCain and his buddies were taken first to the Philippines for medical examination and debriefing, after which, they were to go to Hawaii to be reunited with their families.
McCain’s father, stationed at the Pentagon, was told that he and his wife would not have to wait until their son got to Hawaii. They would be flown to the Philippines to see him. “Are the other parents being flown to the Philippines?” Admiral McClain asked. When told they were not, he declined to be given special treatment. That is the family from which the Senator comes.
I am in serious disagreement with McCain on a number of issues, especially the war in Iraq and a woman’s right to choose. However, I admire his willingness to go against the Republican majority to take strong stands to fight global warming, outlaw torture, reform Immigration, and regulate campaign finance.
In a January 23 column, the liberal columnist Robert Scheer, wrote: “Sen. John McCain has been far better than all three Democrats on both campaign finance reform and taking on the defense contractors who have been bleeding us dry since 9/11.”
