In talking with Mom, she said she hoped I was happy. We were standing on the dock of the lake, a warm breeze across the water, and warm light on the felty beach with its fuschia and white wall of wild roses.

What is happiness? I looked across the water, it seemed like an elusive bright shower of specks of the sun's reflection on the lily pads.

Dad helped me move the canoe down to the bay, and I paddled across it to a pebbly beach on the other side and back. In the middle of the bay, and viewing its head into the ocean, I could see all manner of sailing ships -- some race or something was going on. Sloops, two- and three-masted boats with wings, scallops and arrowheads. On the way back, a tourist boat flattened with folks chugged slowly over to Cabbage Island for a clambake-- waving limbs, hats, scarves gave the appearance of a barge filled with moss. The smoke from the bake sprayed, yellowish, into the air.

Last night I talked to Aunt M and Uncle J in Washington DC. We had a good laugh about presidents and politics and opera. They agreed that GWB was the worst president in *their* memory. Aunt M told me a story about Nana and her grandmother loving the opera and listening to it on Sunday afternoons. She told me that one such Sunday, she was working on a History of Art project in her room at the Wickliffe Club with her friend Polly Parker, when her grandma called up that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. "Ask your mother whether she remembers Polly Parker." Aunt M said.

After I hung up, I asked mom about Polly Parker and the Pearl Harbor Sunday. Mom made a face: "Nana hated the opera and used to make fun of grandma for listening to it," and then she mimicked Nana warbling like an opera-singer.

Watched "The Quiet American" with Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser. A Graham Greene novel set in Viet Nam 1954. Afterwards, dad told me a story how he was an officer on the deck of the USS Essex deployed to the Tonkin Gulf during the final battle by the French at Phon Phien, when a black book of instructions brought up. The Essex was carrying The A-bomb, and something was happening because of the Chinese Migs flying overhead. Dad said he felt very uneasy. But nothing happened and the carrier received orders to leave the gulf and return to the Phillipines. Eisenhower went against the wishes of all his generals and vetoed nuking N Vietnam. Dad found out about what a close call this had been when grandma, his mom, mailed a news article from some journalist once the boat returned to Manila. When N Vietnam fell, ultra-conservatives gave Eisenhower some trouble saying we did nothing to prevent the spread of communism, but Eisenhower gave a speech as he was leaving the presidency in 1958 warning against the combination of military and power.

Dad grew short with me because I instead asked more questions about grandpa witnessing 100s of people dying from the flu epidemic in a Southern military camp at the end of WW I.

Dad has been talking about his friends, coworkers, colleagues, and their children, all of whom are noteworthy and or successful as artists, writers, producers, judges, businessmen. The talk turned to people I knew in law school and I told dad I blocked out bad memories like swiss cheese, and that law school was one of those holes. I have some happy memories about my friends, like Nance, and about Denver, which I liked.

Late last night, as I turned out the light back in the cabin, I stood for a moment looking at the kitchen table in the picture window, lit by the streetlight like a bright moon. Shadows of the thick stands of pine trees crossed the pale, painted table and across old hanging plates on the knotty pine walls. Apparently GWB spoke tonight, but we didn't listen. All I could feel was sadness and an overwhelming sense of loss.

My life, my family, our country.