Sayonara

Introduction

15 June 2025:

It all started with Diogenes looking for an honest man [I still want to find the specific Nebbishes comic strip from one of the Boston Sunday papers that I delivered as a teenager that had a character that looks a lot like the cartoons I drew back in the day with the style I copied for years - see images throughout the memoir-to-be]. I do remember splashes of memories from the time before that, some of which had profound implications for the course of my life.

I keep telling people that "I live in the now" but the older I get, the more confusing that feels (particularly when I look back through my life, not to mention my B.A. in History from UMass Boston in 1976). Writing a memoir seems almost like a contradiction in terms, except that living in the now and remembering the past is not contradictory at all. You can't remember the future, of course. But I think of planning and budgeting as living in the future (or trying to); I'm not particularly good at those things, so I think it's fair to say that I don't live in the future. If we believe the doctors, I won't live as far into the future as we all predicted anyway [104 or 98].

I also tell people that I am "process-oriented" rather than "goal-oriented", so making a bucket list seems pointless. I have recently been asked by a social worker to make one, so I am working at it (but it feels more like another To Do List to me - see the Appendix). I will probably share this draft with her and maybe she can give me more helpful direction about how to build a meaningful bucket list. Gale and I watched The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman the other night; great movie, but it didn't help me to come up with mine.

I also struggle with recall (a type of memory); I say I have "passive recognition memory", meaning that I recognize things when I see them, but have trouble recalling them without the support of notes or reminders (verbal, visual or audio). Oddly, my memory for restaurants, comic book artist styles, specific musicians (mostly jazz musicians from the thirties and forties) is pretty good. Also for actors and actresses before the sixties. Another weird exception is the ability to remember snippets of German, Italian, French and Russian (languages I studied in high school and college). I don't remember much Spanish or Hebrew or Greek or Tagalog, all of which I tackled briefly. I was never fluent in any of them, but I was able to get along as a foreigner in France, Switzerland, Canada, Italy and the Philippines and enjoyed helping tourists and relatives of friends visiting from their home countries occasionally (and co-workers and fellow students at university). My memory of these associations has faded significantly so I don't expect this part of my past will play much of a role in this memoir.

One absolutely major aspect of my memory style is that I have trouble remembering really important things (like people's names, chess openings and patterns, and even basic and fundamental coding techniques). As you can imagine, this has been a significant handicap all my life. I think I first noticed this sometime in my late teens or early twenties. I became an excellent note taker and diligent at preparing for exams, interviews and coding at work. I relied very heavily on books and notes to do nearly everything. I am not very intuitive, but I seem to be able to stay afloat. My social skills are pretty good and I am a people person (I remember faces, just not the names that go with them). I find and bond with nice people easily. I am fairly good at spotting people I don't want to know. This has led to a rather volatile work history. But I have many friends that I still keep in touch with from many years ago. They say "you can never have too many friends" but it's tricky organizing your time since there are still only 24 hours in a day.

Energy levels diminish as we age and the side effects from the cancer treatment definitely cause significant fatigue. I fall asleep watching movies and reading books (both activities I love). Fortunately I don't fall asleep during meals or conversations (so far). While I was a college student I was able to juggle a dozen books (for coursework and for pleasure). Even after college I would enjoy having several books going at once. I would read during meals, while waiting for appointments, while listening to my cats purr, etc.

At some point when VCRs showed up on the scene, my love of movies and cartoons took me off on a new direction, spending much less time reading books (though I still read newspapers and magazines voraciously). At first I rented a VCR and VHS tapes, but that didn't last long. I needed to have my own VCR. I bought or rented VHS tapes, then DVDs (tried Blu-Ray and decided to give it a pass). Somewhere along in this time frame the internet and streaming came along and I was able to record movies and news programming. I worked long hours, so I wasn't always able to even watch all the video that I recorded. My brother Rick and I used to laugh about the number of video tapes I would never be able to watch. I even tried to transfer the VHS tapes to DVDs for a while: Fool's errand. It took too much time and interfered with my other interests. I tried to find someone who would take them off my hands for free (to free up space in the basement) without much luck, except for one person who gave me money for the VHS to DVD converter and a box of videos. This year as part of the "Get You Affairs In Order" process, I tossed 28 boxes of video tape into the dumpster [the Dump Guy took them actually].

That left the DVDs. After weeding through them and giving a lot of them to Goodwill, I decided it might be fun to share them with people I know instead (family and friends, libraries, etc.). I will talk about my websites later, but I have posted images of the books and a list of the names (and even some other identifying information) to entice real people to accept the books for free on my website (with some success). It has the side effect of giving me a chance to do a little bit of web development (which is getting harder because I get tired and have to choose between updating the websites, sleeping and watching movies, etc.). There isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. I might repeat this thought more than once in this memoir.

I wasn't even sure this memoir was a good idea at first. Who am I writing this for? If you are reading this, perhaps I am writing it for you. Or perhaps I really am writing for myself. Going through my boxes of papers and books has certainly stirred some memories [remember, passive recognition memory]. For me, looking at these old notes, letters, books, magazine and newspaper clippings and DVDs is a bit like having a time machine. I will come back to that thought a bit later.

Unless I write down my thoughts (or figure out how to dictate them into an iPhone or iPad) they are soon forgotten. Giving away so many books and DVDs and music CDs (and potentially vinyl records) reminds me of the pleasure they brought me in the past, either through anticipation or realization. I often bought books but was unable to find the time to read them. Now that I am challenged with deciding which ones to keep and which ones to give away, the buck stops here. Time to choose! There is also the pleasure of sharing books and movies that I like or liked, of course. I recently bought a book by Genki Kawamura that I liked so much, I bought multiple copies and shared them with family and friends.

Back to my memory. For many years I felt hampered in conversation because I could not rattle off names, dates, events, the gist of books I had read (for particular authors I really admired or enjoyed like Karl Marx, Gibbons or Howard Zinn). Finding some of these books again has reawakened a desire to read them (either for the first time or again: see the Appendix Bucket List).

I wonder why I have saved Alice in Wonderland in English, Italian and German (but not in Russian)? I am also saving the Walt Disney animated version (along with Fantasia). There is always the John Tenniel illustrations connection, of course. I have always loved those.

I parted with Rocky and Bullwinkle (yes, all of them). Good bye to Crusader Rabbit and Max Fleischer's Superman [after a binge watch]. I have decide to let the Warner Brothers cartoons go (but maybe I will watch some of them one last time). Having watched them once, why do I want to watch them again (and again). I am still holding onto The Adventures of Robin Hood with Erroll Flynn, Casablanca, Reilly Ace of Spies and more. I have listed them all on the website as "My Copy" because I want to find time to watch them one last time. I attempted to watch The Court Jester one last time the other night but fell asleep and missed about half the movie. Gale hates the movie, so maybe I will try to watch the missing half tonight and then make it available on the website. Someone will want it. One aspect of owning the DVDs is that they can be shared. I enjoy watching movies with family or friends. Haven't tried watching them with strangers yet, but my friend Rodney has a Movie Night in his community which is very popular. He says that it is a great way to socialize, so maybe one of these days I will do that, too.

Father's Day is tomorrow. Hilliard left this Earth on January 20th 2024. I wonder what he would have thought about some of my memories of him. I am still amazed that he was able to win a cribbage game ten days before he died at the age of 98.

I will continue this in the morning. Time to make dinner and watch a video.

16 June 2025:

R.I.P. Dad! Even though I dated the previous entry on yesterday, I actually wrote a draft of the draft in my little pocket notebook on Thursday 12 June 2025 while I was staying in a motel in Machias, just packing up and getting ready to return to Waterville after a terrific visit to Machias and Lubec. I love food [haddock chowder and graham cracker pie at Helen's particularly] and chess [played two games against Dan DeLuca at the Lubec chess club on Wednesday night, lost one, drew one when we ran out of time, but I might have lost if we had kept playing. He is a strong opponent].

I suspect that I will be sharing this memoir as a work in progress with some family and friends while I write it. That should make editing the final version fairly quick. I won't be publishing this in a traditional way, of course, unless Gale decides to publish it after I am gone. My current thinking is to make it a page on my website. Maybe password protected (though I'm not sure what that would accomplish against AI, the dark web, etc.). Not necessary to decide just yet.

I am meeting with the Writing Group later this afternoon, so this will have to do for my first draft. Gale has several books about memoirs and I have a few about Winter Harbor and Downeast Maine that I will probably try to check out as I continue this process.

28 June 2025:

I wish I could remember all the thoughts that filled my head while I was driving home from the Maine Media College workshop event You have probably already seen Gale's video (reading her poem). I took my pills with yogurt and fruit in the motel room, then we went to Boynton's for breakfast (egg, cheese and cream cheese on a bagel). The Camden Public Library didn't open until 10 am, so I had Capuccino and a Coconut custart tart while I read another Foreigner novel by C. J. Cherryh. The library didn't have Robin Hood Returns with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn [unless that wasn't the actual movie title [which it wasn't!]. I was in a bit of a hurry, so did not take the time to look it up. Spoke to the acquisitions librarian. My books don't sound like a particularly good fit for Camden, but I renewed my membership anyway. Evan is either not back or not doing the Camden Chess Club any more. I will need to reach out.

I am reflecting on the feedback I have received so far: write more stories. Some of the stories I thought about while I was driving were:

I came up with some more working titles for the memoir (or maybe chapter titles), which I added above. Just green lighting without necessarily expecting that they will all survive. I am not the only editor, so the Writing Group and others can weigh in and move one option up or down in priority. They are not even prioritized yet. But I really like "Mistakes Were Made".

One thing I was thinking about is who were/are my heroes: Winston Churchill, FDR, Socrates, Zorro, Tarzan, Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, Adam Strange, Bernie Sanders (in no particular order).

I am meeting with the Writing Group every other Sunday afternoon, so I will try to publish this online and send out a link. Gale has several books about memoirs and I have a few about Winter Harbor and Downeast Maine that I will probably try to check out as I continue this process. Haven't made much headway yet.

29 June 2025:

I have reviewed my progress, tweaked a few things, responded to some of the feedback; couldn't get all of it incorporated into the online version yet, but soon.

8 July 2025:

I have added color to help you see what has changed since our last Writers Group. I have had many thoughts, but still nothing saved to paper or pixels. Remembering bits and pieces of things and reminiscing with friends and meeting neighbors and giving elevator introductions. Very busy with working the bucket list, watching the movies especially, but adding even more. Plus watching new movies online as fancy strikes us. Heads of State is particularly amusing.

Another topic that has been absolutely central to my life is food. I love food. When I worked, before coming to Maine, I ate three meals a day in restaurants (so I could maximize the time I spent on work and learning). Dining with friends (and potential friends) was also a major part of my social life from my early twenties.

I expect to talk about my enthusiasm and amateur efforts to attempt cartooning and my love of images in general. I like all kinds of images, not just line art. I tried my hand at drawing, cartooning, comic strips. Mostly just 'plagiarism'. All the while I was following current events, buying books of all kinds, magazines and comic books.

Music has also played a prominent role in my life. From learning to play the clarinet and attempting to learn how to play the piano and guitar, I also played the clarinet in public (and private) in some interesting places.

I definitely want to talk about my tendency to collect things and keep things forever [pack rat], which complicated moving around so much (gypsy); my brother helped me move throughout most of my adult life, even after I moved to Maine, but other friends pitched in as well. At one point I had three or four storage units, which were finally consolidated into one and subsequently moved into our basement in Waterville. Now I am weeding through them to try to find anything worth saving for posterity. I am finally able to say goodbye to much of it after trying Gale's patience for all these years.

Not in any particular order of importance, I will probably go over my job history because it is linked to my lodging history. I lived at a time when changing jobs and getting pay raises was probably a lot more common than it is now. Also, head hunters played a huge role in my job changes. I interviewed well, but I was always hard to manage. Finding a job seemed much more personal then; now it is frequently automated. I'm not sure I would do very well in today's job market.

I had a philosophical thought one morning recently, thinking about my place in the grand scheme of things: I am like a drop of water in the stream of life. Not insignificant, but just a small part of a bigger whole. Later in the week I just happened to watch a TED video about perception and reality that gave me a terrific insight into why voters are so hard to persuade and so hard to understand (why they vote the way they do). I will include links here for the TED talks. The same evening I watched a lot of video discussing the Big Beautiful Bill and the disillusionment of lifelong Republicans. And a lot of video about the potential impact of AI on us, even in the short term. I see so many of these videos that it is hard to remember much beyond the basic impression they make on me (I agreed, I disagreed, I was intrigued, I wanted to share, etc.).

26 July 2025:

I have decided to start chunking things both chronologically and thamatically and linking to the specific bits of prose as it flows. This will make it terribly interactive and a bear to review, but I think that is the most appropriate format for my memoir (if that is what this is). Some links won't work yet, but this should give you an idea of how I plan to proceed. For example:

NOTE TO SELF: CLEAN UP THE LINKS AND THE CSS FOR THE DROPDOWNS.