The most photographed man in America when this, the last photograph of Lincoln, was taken April 10th, 1865.

Four days later he would be shot in the back of the head at point blank range, with his wife sitting beside him, while they were laughing. The murderer chose the funniest line in the play, hoping the laughter would muffle the sound of the gunshot. You can imagine the scene, with the First Lady screaming in horror, Major Henry Rathbone grappling with the attacker before being knifed, and the audience finishing the laughter, looking up toward the commotion. The round slug lodged six inches inside the president's brain. His wife held him as he bled and slipped into a coma, dying nine hours later, across the street.

This is my favorite photo of Lincoln, with that satisfied smile that replaces the dour look in so many of the other photos of him. He had reason to smile: the Civil War had been ended and won, but he also had reason to be dour. It was a brutal war, with 3 percent of the population of the country dying as a result. In the South, it killed one in five males. To be a leader in wartime presents challenges few men face and could handle courageously, but a war such as this is unimaginable in this day and age.

Abraham Lincoln is known for freeing the slaves, of course, but his principle intent was to hold the country together. He was quoted as saying:

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

He would do both. After he signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves, he said:

"I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper."

And in a letter to a friend wrote:

"If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong."

America today is often known for its history of slavery, but it is America that fought and died to free slaves. America led the world in ending slavery, where no country would. I expect Lincoln knew this, and he knew that if the Union could not be saved, there would be little hope of ever ending slavery, among other things, which is why he put saving the country ahead of ending slavery. It would be repeated over the next 150 years, that America would shed its blood for what is noble and right, and in this case, at the dangerous cost of risking the whole Union. Lincoln was a man who had his principles lined up in order of importance.

He kept the country together in its darkest hour, and getting people to work together was one of the things Lincoln did best. He was famous for hiring his opponents on in cabinet positions, so they could argue it out in his company and be forced to cooperate -instead of taking potshots from afar. I believe he had a secret to this success, and it was grace. His last official act as president was signing a pardon for a man who had thrice been convicted of espionage for the Confederates and was sentenced to die. That was Lincoln's intent for the South: forgiveness. Once, when a general asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederates should be treated, Lincoln replied, "Let 'em up easy." He signed the pardon, and it made him late for the play.

Lincoln and the First Lady went in to the booth at the theater and, though the play was paused to announce the president's arrival, the crowd cheered and applauded. They sat next to Major Henry Rathbone and his fiance, Clara Harris, who were the only people to accept the Lincoln's invitation. As the play went on, Mrs. Lincoln snuggled up to her husband and they held hands. She whispered, "What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?" The president replied, "She won't think anything about it." Those were his last words.

It's surprising to see Lincoln smiling at all in that photo. On the day of his assassination, Lincoln had told his wife that they must be more cheerful, as "between the war and the loss of our darling Willie, we have both been very miserable."

In February, 1862, two of the four Lincoln boys became ill with typhoid fever, possibly from drinking polluted water in the White House. While Tad recovered, Willie gradually declined, and died a few weeks later at age 11. His death devastated his parents. Lincoln was especially fond of Willie, who he felt had a mind like his own. Those who knew the boy considered him intelligent, generous, and kind-hearted. He also had a mischievous streak, which Lincoln was known to have encouraged. During Lincoln's train ride to Washington in February of 1861, Willie would ask visitors, "Do you want to see Old Abe?" and point to someone else.

After Willie's death, Mary Lincoln could not bring herself to attend his funeral, remained bedridden for three weeks, and would not emerge in public for months afterwards. Lincoln, who had stayed at Willie's side through his illness, shut himself in his bedroom in the White House after his son's funeral to weep. He often had dreams of spending time with his son and he never fully recovered from the loss. He was so distraught over Willie dying, that he had Willie's coffin exhumed twice so he could look at and hold him again.

Lincoln was no stranger to loss and heartache. Willie had been born about ten months after his brother Eddie died on February 1, 1850 at the age of 3.

And Lincoln knew failure. Back in 1832, at the start of his career, Abraham Lincoln lost his job and was defeated for the Illinois state legislature. The following year, his business failed. When he was finally elected to the state legislature, his first sweetheart died and he had a nervous breakdown. He was then defeated for the position of House Speaker and then ran for Congress, but lost again. He was elected the second time he ran, but then lost the renomination. He ran for U.S. Senate after that, but lost, and then even lost a second time when he ran for Senate again four years later.

He is considered by many historians to be our greatest president. He was born on this day, 199 years ago. I put the flag out.


"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."





~

Goodbye friends! Seems it's been people and parties in and out around the house this past week. Fine with me! People over is always a good excuse to drink the better wine and blow off worrying about things for a time. Then they leave and we go back to work with a heavy "where was I?" Life's no good and hardly worth living if the work isn't balanced out with family and friends and all the other fine things. Then, as if we needed more partying around here (we do, of course) we spent the remainder of the weekend at a two-year-old's birthday party at a local park. Good weather for it.

The highlight was HULLABALOO, a local kids' band that has all the moms a-buzzing. It's a couple of guys on guitar and rhythm and they just show up and play music. Nothing to it! But I've been listening to their first album N O N S T O P for the past few months and the Little Ditchman just digs it. The album's called "Twenty Songs Every Kid Should Know" and it is, well, 20 songs every kid should know. Begins with Yankee Doodle and moves all the way through She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain and closes with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. When my wife first played it I shuddered, Lord, we're going to be listening to this until our taste in music turns to gruel and we can't hear ourselves think but after a few listens I realized how wrong I was. The thing is, the guys' musical ability is a folksy, humble, get-out-of-the-way-so-the-music-can-get-through style that mixes a bit of country and folk rock that really sounds good. There's a reason why all these songs have been around for a hundred and fifty years, and Hullabaloo is likely to lend Americana to another generation. These are catchy, simple melodies that tell the story of our country in a homespun, Main Street sort of way, and when they're sung properly by someone who knows how to play an instrument (as opposed to an overstuffed, felt dinosaur plunking a chordless synthesizer) they're good. I heard my daughter singing When the Saints Go Marching In and it brought a tear to my eye. (It's a classic spiritual!) So Hullabaloo knows how to do it and get this: you can understand every word they're singing.

Their website is here, if you're interested, and they're also on iTunes. They have a few of their own tunes, too. One of them is called "Blah, blah, blah" which tells the story of what it's like to be a kid, where the kids hear the parents talking and laughing in the living room and all they hear is, well, blah blah blah. In the end of the song the kid goes and tells his dog, who only hears -yes, right- blah blah blah. They nail it with that one. It's catchy. Give the guys .99 cents and get it off iTunes. Support your local artists.

Not everyone likes it. One review on iTunes reads:

"r u serious? by hoested tonight -what was this guy thinking when he made this album...or what drug was he on. i'll give it a negative 2 stars. i think babies and children would be pissed if there parents made them listen to this guy" (sic)

Now there's a guy who's never heard of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band! I was in the French Quarter years ago and stood outside the Preservation Hall one night. It was real music. Music that sung to eternity, with Heaven itself smiling and nodding, and the angels tapping their feet.
Tap along. (I suggest track 10.)

You're dumb and wrong if you don't think music is a significant part of American culture and one of our greatest contributions to the world. There's a lot of good stuff out there, but let's keep the old good stuff alive, lest we forget how to make it entirely.

Thanks Hullabaloo.


~

It is Friday, heralded by Thursday, and scheduled for today as it's been duly noted on the calendar for some time now. Knew it was coming, I remember it from seven days ago, but I just lost track of the order of days, I guess. Something about my muscles and joints being in an arthritic fog all week. Time moves ever onward. Just try and stop it.

See this?


Yesterday was spent tearing it off the world and sending it to rot at the bottom of the landfill. It weighed 2180 pounds. I just backed up the trailer and loaded her in. Sometimes the world is made prettier through simple removal of ugliness. You don't have to be a beautician. You could be a Waste Transfer Specialist.

So that's where I was yesterday. The day before that was spent meeting a few new customers and signing contracts. These two were interesting, friendly folks: in their sixties, third marriage, with an eye for gardening and colorful walls. They were both pleased, more or less, to meet me. In this business, it's important to have both the husband and wife present at these things. The salesman sells the wife on the remodel, and she loves you for it. Then she tells her husband and sells him on it, through various coital exchanges and whatnot, I imagine. Then the contractor shows up and informs everyone on how it's going to be, with the bottom line and so forth. This is usually met with a certain amount of unwelcome consternation and a bowl of back-and-forth. In Ditchman Family Construction we're beginning to insist that both the husband and the wife be present at the meetings, lest we drag out the job in committee to the End of Days. The wife is usually swayed and convinced fairly easily -she knows what she wants- but it's the husband who has veto power, so any ideas he has must be met with patience, interest, and optimism, before being discarded entirely. At one point, he pulled out his watch and said, "I've got to get back to work. Look honey, whatever makes you happy. You sign it." I've seen it a thousand times.

Anyway, he had a nice watch. It was an old Elgin pocketwatch and I commented on it. Suddenly, he wasn't late for work anymore. He told me all about the thing, and the history of Elgin, America's contribution to timepieces, the superiority of their accuracy compared to the Swiss, etc. The wife rolled her eyes. I asked him how much he knew about old pocketwatches and he stopped and looked at me with a face that said plainly, I'm an expert. I believed him. When I told him that I had an old Elgin that I had inherited from my grandfather and that it still worked, he began to interrogate me on the subject as if there was nothing left of interest in the world. I hemmed and hawed, not knowing the whole story on it. Soon, he exhausted my limited knowledge on my own timepiece and, mildly exasperated, mentioned that I should bring it by. "Wind it once a day and check the time. You may be surprised." He was off.

Later, after the contract was signed, the wife was showing me the recent bathroom remodel and we passed through a room in the house that had literally hundreds of pocket watches on shelves, dressers, the desk. It was an impressive display and I stopped to look. She said, "Oh yeah, that's the price I pay, but I know every husband has his thing. It makes him happy." And she gave me the familiar look that I see on my own wife's face when I'm messing with the aquarium or typing this blog. She added, "And I have my own things... Check out this bathtub!"

On the way out I paused to look again, and noticed something interesting: they were all ticking. I pictured the husband getting up from bed every morning and walking over to his collection and diligently, carefully, winding each beloved little antique. The daily regimen. A patient, relaxing fixation that could not be neglected. I pictured his wife getting up and walking past him, running the water in the bath, and not noticing the gentle, rhythmic tiktiktiktiktiktik of a thousand timepieces. The passing of time itself, and the sweet-tempered sounds of aged, tolerant spouses, making each other happy.





~

"Well..."

I left the flag out this morning in honor of Ronald Reagan's birthday, He would have been 97 today. I've been reading a bit about him lately and found it inspiring, and I wanted to write something here but haven't the time to go into all the interesting (and funny) anecdotes and quotes there are -they fill whole books! Reagan lived quite a life, and quite a full one at that. Whatever you think of him or his policies, it is impossible to deny the images you get in your head when you think of the man: his optimistic smile, the flag. No one denies that he easily embodied the American spirit. (Can't you just see that glowing smile in your head?)

His first job was as a lifeguard at age fifteen. He would notch a log near the lifeguard stand for every life he saved, and he boasted 77 notches. If there was a notch for every life saved as a result of his undeniable contribution to ending the Cold War, it would be in the millions. If you consider for a moment that many people felt that the Cold War would end only in nuclear annihilation, well, that's one big notch for the Human Race.

If you're my age, Reagan was the man you grew up with on the TV, the man your parents talked about. Back then I knew nothing about him, having paid little attention to the world beyond me. After his presidency, he spoke to a packed house at USC. I was a student at the time and had a campus job working for Media Services. I set up the man's microphone, and was instructed to give him the best one, which we kept in a leather case in a special cabinet. I left before the Gipper took the podium and spoke, and have regretted it ever since.

He had a successful career in Hollywood, as everyone knows, and though he was belittled for it in politics, I believe it was exactly that career experience that prepared him for the presidency. His ability to tell a good story and explain a concept clearly and succinctly came out of his work as an actor, and earned him the nickname "The Great Communicator".

Who knows why someone leaves a lucrative career to enter public service. Evidently, it ruined his first marriage to actress Jane Wyman. They were married in the same little chapel as my own parents, had a child, suffered the loss of their second at birth, and then adopted one. After arguments over Reagan's political ambitions, he and Jane divorced -making him the only president with an ex-wife.

He went on to be the governor of California for eight years and was among the last of the American politicians that saw World War 2 and the Cold War firsthand, (which, in my mind, is the most profound argument in favor of electing McCain) and he was just the man to put it all behind us. A former democrat, he would be branded a "flip-flopper" in today's political climate, but it was he who famously claimed, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."

In 1964, before he became governor and while he was campaigning for Goldwater, there was The Speech, as it is often referred to. It's the speech that launched his political career, and the words defined him. Read the speech. If you have any questions as to what Reagan would be doing in Iraq or in the war on the Jihadists, here's a quote:

There can be no real peace while one American is dying someplace in the world for the rest of us. We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well, I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers...

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave-masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!" Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace -and you can have it in the next second: surrender!

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face... that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand -the Ultimatum...

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing is worth dying for, when did this begin? Just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots of Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain! Where then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance! This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength!" Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits -not animals." And he said, "there is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

~

Well, I put out the flag this morning and went to the polling place to cast my ballot. I like going to the polling place. I've never exactly understood the "absentee ballot", unless you're in the Antarctic or the Marianas Trench or on the International Space Station or something like that. I mean, if you vote absentee, you miss out on the whole Voting Experience!

And what if something should happen between the day you mailed off your ballot and election day? What if your man died? Or said something extraordinarily stupid and revealing? Or what if you got whacked on the forehead and came to your senses? You'd never get another chance. At least not until next year.

By that logic I should just wait until the end of the day, right before the polls close, and rush in and cast the infernal thing, but no, I don't have the time, of course.

My wife and I vote together and make it a point to ceremoniously bring the kid along. We used to walk across the street and vote in my neighbor's garage, which was always entertaining, but this year he shut down the shop for some reason and we had to motivate to a local elementary school. Walking in to the auditorium we noticed that there were several precinct tables and we stopped, waiting for direction. The volunteers just looked up at us, and there was an immediate subtle confusion. We all had that "who are you and what are you doing here" look, and I felt an instinct to seize control of the situation, but I held back. I figured -let them do their jobs- but I had to find my way to the right table. I asked around a bit, and then let Mrs. Ditchman take over. I think they actually asked us, "Are you here to vote?" to which you want to reply with some intentional boat-rocking "Why, no! I am a representative from the United Nations and am here to certify procedures!" (in a South African accent) but they're all old and you take pity. The woman looking up our names was mostly deaf. The man next to her didn't have enough wheels turning to push a shopping cart. I signed the form. I was handed a democratic ballot. I am not a democrat. They didn't ask for identification.

It all worked out okay, though. I'd wondered for a moment why no touch screens, but hey: no brains, no touch screens. I got my cheerful "I Voted!" sticker, which is really the best part of the process, and I took an extra one and stuck it on the Little Ditchman, who can recite all the presidential nominees in the cutest way. Then I went back and voted for my guy ten more times. (Just kidding.)

But I swear I could have! Which is very disturbing. We live in a society where they check your I.D. if you get on an airplane or buy a beer, but hey, anyone can vote. And by "anyone" I mean it doesn't matter how dumb you are or what language you speak, which saddens me, somehow.

I won't bore you with who I chose or what propositions I was for and against, but I do think you should get out and vote. People died so you could vote, you know. But if you can't be bothered to read the measures and understand the issues, to learn about the candidates and check their qualifications, then don't vote. Please leave it to the people who actually care about this country.



~

A week ago I checked out the extended forecast to see what kind of weather we'd be having for the 2008 Surf City Marathon. The graphic was a line of ten little suns with a rain cloud square in the middle: yesterday. I dismissed it. Since when are the weathermen right about a single day of rain, six days off? Since they heard I was planning on running a marathon, evidently.

It rained. Rain and rain. And wind. And it wasn't one of those pleasant tropical downpours like we had at the Honolulu marathon two months ago. Oh no. Those rains you can stand in your shirts and shorts, ambient temps at around 75, and laugh about it. This cruel rain, after dragging across the northern Pacific for thousands of miles, was a cold, windblown joust between the shoulder blades in the dead of winter. Temps were in the high 40s, which is stated with an optimistic tone -not taking into account the seashore windchill and the fact that you are soaked to the bone.

I spent a good portion of the race leaning sideways into the wind under a trashbag, and then, upon turning around, took the body-blow to the other side. Then, again. There was a lot of Rinse and Repeat in this one, but then there seems to be a lot of that lately. Unfortunately, dial settings were for COLD.

My back and shoulders have never had such a good workout from a run. I ran with my elbows jammed into my ribs, tensing up with every chilly windblast. It rained for most of it, let up around mile 18, and then poured down again upon finishing, but it was the wind that was the real mood-killer. It's hard to run in the wind. It throws off your gait, causing you to lean this way or that, messing with your muscles after a few hours of running. I saw more than one person fall, and if you did you were doomed to save yourself, as everyone alongside was suffering too much to help you stand. At one point, I looked up to see a pigeon about ten feet in the air, flapping wildly into the wind. It was just hovering there, aimed perpendicular to me, and I ran right under it. I will not soon forget that, the image of which defined the event and acts as a pointed metaphor. (Stupid pigeons!)

It was the 1st Annual Surf City Marathon, though they've been holding it for 11 years or so under the name "Pacific Shoreline Marathon". We can thank the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce marketing department for that, I suppose. The web site evokes all the luxuries of a SoCal paradise, with its picturesque beaches, Baywatch lifeguards and bikinis, and endless summer sunsets, but -surprise- we have winter here, too, folks. (You'll notice they didn't rush to get the photos posted on the web page.)

Overall, it was a well-run event with a great Expo, a couple of surf guitar bands, and an all-you-can-drink beer garden ("please limit yourself to two beverages" as we stood there in the rain, huddled under an umbrella.) The shirts are nicely designed and lack the ugly sponsor logos that typically graffiti the standard race-day garb, but it's really about the Half-Marathon, which attracts something like 10,000 runners. The 1700 full-marathoners are shuffled off to the side, with an out-and-back, out-and-back, out-and-back course that drives you to tears and encourages cheating. I had a surprisingly good time for me (4:05:15) which is a PR for rain-drenched marathons -my third (and a new category, as far as I'm concerned.) Am I glad I did it? Yes. Will I run this one again? No. I'm not a fan of the course. Though it goes along the beach and through a nice park, the sideways wind blowing off the ocean in winter is fairly common and never fun. I know because I lived (and ran) in Huntington Beach in 2002/03. I did the Pacific Shoreline Half in '02. It was windy and miserable that year as well. The doctor running alongside me had bloody nipples.

But hey, yesterday's race makes ten marathons in ten years! I'm very proud of myself. Here's to the next ten, and the ten after that, and the ten after that. I will live to be a hundred. And still running.

P.S. Even though she's been staving off further injury, Mrs. Ditchman ran the Half Marathon just for fits and giggles. What a woman.



~

My review of LOST from last night?

*eye-roll*

Of all the season premieres of LOST, this one was the least season-premieriest. It amounted to all the old structural devices seen in previous episodes, plus a full hour of recapping to boot. This Recap Syndrome. Unfortunately for all dedicated viewers, LOST seems to have invented the art. What was advertised as a "two-hour season premiere" was actually one hour of recap and one hour of show, so you had time to do the dishes after dinner. And it's not just the writer's strike to blame, because they were doing this all along -so oh well. A friend called yesterday afternoon and jokingly asked what he should bring to the LOST party. "Low expectations," I quipped.

Anyway, they killed off somebody, but then they came back to life, and then people were seeing ghosts and not dying even though they had knives in their backs -the typical convenient plot devices that all LOST fans are used to. Did they get off the island? Not when there's three seasons left they don't. Will they ever get off the island? Evidently some do. Just who exactly, may, (or may not) be revealed in 3 years or so.

*eye-roll*

Why do I bother? I'm not even sure anymore. Routine, I guess. My six-year-old niece was over and I explained to her that the show had to be watched, that there were no other options, that I'd waited months and months for this. "What's it about?" She asked. I gave her the short version: "All these people survived a plane crash on this tropical island and they're trying to get home." She promptly went to sleep on the couch.

So, it's Friday. Very little was accomplished this week. I had such high hopes for the thing, too. Perhaps I need to alter my list of daily goals. "Raise daughter" is now at the top of the list. (How horrid! It was down at 8 or 9, before!) I used to think I was busy before I had a kid. I was wrong. I was never busy. I also used to think I worried a lot, but I'd never even began to worry until Mrs. Ditchman got pregnant. And I used to think I would be the best Dad ever, without any clue as to how hard the job would be. I used to think I knew what sacrifice was. I didn't.

I also used to think I was at least moderately happy and fulfilled in life.

Wasn't anywhere near it.





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