Goodbye Brightness, Goodbye Darkness

Dean left on Friday. We have been preparing for leaving for so long that the actual leaving seems anti-climactic. It won't make Monday any less sad. Dean has always been a rock. He was my go to guy for a hundred things, not the least was all thing Mac. Maybe the leaving is different now that I don't need a go to guy, since I'm not answering calls. People at The Times do. They called him until the end about their Mac issues, because they knew there would be a long wait if the issue went to India and then the guys next door. Long, you understand is relative. My camera's battery died as I was taking pictures. This is one I took before I went to India.

Just as Dean was about to leave, I went to the publisher's birthday party for all who had a birthday in August. I must admit being skeptical about yet another Chicago flunky coming in to take a top position at The Times. Sorry David, but from our view point, the line is very long. And without knowing you well, you all look pretty much the same. Remember Bohica? I learned that before Tribune bought us. Change happens constantly, it seems, at the top of this newspaper. After Otis left way back when, we've had VP's and publishers flowing in and out like water.

They were all sincere and caring men (mostly - mostly men, mostly sincere.) You want to trust. You want to believe that they have the good of the paper in mind. Old initiatives fly out the window, new ones come in. Trust me, trust me, trust me. I really want to. I can feel the hope rising again and it is scary. We saw Sam Zell on Thursday. He may have just bought the Tribune. Boy, I like that guy. Hope rising. Then the party with David Hiller on Friday. Hope continues to rise as he quietly takes notes about comments. I don't think he did that to mark who was bad or who marketed himself the best (and that guy would know who he was because he came with notes. Imagine.) It was a great discussion. I hope all these birthday parties help David get to know all who are staying.

Because I left that with uplifted spirits to come down to the Help Desk area and bid Dean farewell. Goodbye, brightness.

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Someone asked how I find these books. I have no idea how this one got into my book list. It was written in 1980. This is the one that Adrian and I started to listen to on our drive up to Sonoma. Manchester is a very good author. He wrote biographies of Krupp, Churchill and McArthur. He also wrote two books that I remember well, The Death of a President about the day Kennedy was shot and Portrait of a President about Kennedy's presidency. He really didn't like McArthur as a man, but thought he was a master tactician. I bet American Caesar would be a good read.

And that's how you find strange new books to read. As for this one, it takes us island hoping in the Pacific Theater of Operation in WWII from the view of a very young marine. Manchester was a student at Amherst when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He joined immediately.

This is a well written story of that part of the war and about the men who fought the war. It also tells about the United States in the 40's and the 80's. He is writing from his perceptions of that long past time, but he also tells about what we were thinking in 1980. For someone who loves history, this is enthralling. You do have to listen to a lot of battle and killing. That isn't so easy. It's hard to skip pages when you listen. Another thing that was hard not to notice was his feelings about the Japanese. He talks from time to time about how they were just like us, determined, hard-fighting men. But then he calls them Nips and Japs. Am I too politically correct? He didn't say it nicely, he said it demeaningly. It gave a good sense of his feelings, take them how you will.

You also get a sense of his pride in America and its fighting men. This is from a man who lived through Viet Nam and could see how times were changing. I was happy to hear it end, however. There is only so much horror that one man and one reader can take.

Goodbye darkness.