Description – JOURNAL 2025: The Year I Met My Biological Daughter is one of many yearly journals written by San Francisco author Joseph Sutton. In this 11,000-word journal, Sutton writes about his recovery from open heart surgery, Trump, Trump, Trump, aging, San Francisco’s professional sports teams, and about meeting his 58-year-old biological daughter.
JOURNAL 2025
Tuesday, January 7, 2025 – I’m back. My old heart is still ticking. It’s been almost four weeks since I had double bypass surgery. When I got home from the hospital, I had energy. Lately, though, I’ve been lethargic, no get-up-and-go. “Don’t fight it, Joe. You’ve been through a lot.” That’s what my doctor told me last week.
Who is to blame for putting Donald Trump back in the White House? Is it the present-day Supreme Court for giving a president total immunity from being prosecuted? Is it the weak, spineless Republicans in Congress who are afraid of Trump if they go against him? Is it former Attorney General Merrick Garland for not going full speed ahead in indicting Trump after the January 6th insurrection? Or is it Joe Biden, who, because of his ego, didn’t quit in time to let the Democrats as a whole select a candidate to run against Trump? Instead, he chose the candidate himself, Kamala Harris.
Whose fault is it then that we now have a megalomaniac about to reside in the White House for a second time? My answer is: It’s the people who voted for that lying, cheating, bullying, vindictive, shameless criminal of a man who has no sense of compassion and is only out for his own gain. That’s right, it’s those who were only thinking of their wallets and purses and not of the narcissistic, deranged man they voted for. It’s those voters who were not thinking of what he was capable of doing, which is to take this country back, back, back to racism, division, poor air and water quality, more expensive medical insurance, and so many more things that no one but Trump and his advisors can think of to bring damage to our democracy and make it into an autocracy.
Oh, America, what have we done to ourselves?
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 – Here I sit in front of my computer, five weeks after open heart surgery, learning how to walk without a walker, taking my pills, and with Joan dressing the infection in my chest every morning. For a time that infection was oozing pus. It’s not doing that anymore, thanks to the prescribed pills. I surely don’t have the energy that I want. They say open heart surgery is the most traumatic of all surgeries. Yes, it is, I feel it. I’m doing my best to heal. I’ve been lethargic on days when everything becomes a chore, like, just getting out of a chair.
Los Angeles is on fire. It’s been over a week since the fires started raging. Pacific Palisades and Altadena are burnt to a crisp. Malibu and Topanga Canyon have burnt down. My cousin Vic, who lives in the Hollywood hills, luckily his house and neighborhood escaped the fire. For a while, he said, it was a close call. It’s going to take years, maybe decades to rebuild houses, neighborhoods, and businesses. Oh, such devastation.
I hear now that arsonists are actually starting new fires, those sons-of-bitches. May they rot in jail someday. My old hometown of L.A. is burning due to the strong, dry winds coming from the east, known as the Santa Ana winds. There has been no rain at all this winter in Southern Cal. I feel so helpless and sad.
Trump will be president in less than a week. I hope it won’t be the downfall of our democracy. I hope, I hope. But he’s choosing people for cabinet positions who are only loyal to him and not the Constitution. That is what is called fealty. Such a sad state of affairs. Fires in L.A. and Trump, how bad can things get?
Thursday, January 23, 2025 – Donald Trump was sworn in on Monday, January 20. We again have four more years of him. We’re in for a long ride with this man, who is a dictator, autocrat, actually a King who can do anything he wants now that the Supreme Court has given him immunity against prosecution. States are beginning to fight against him right now, regarding the deportation of non-citizens, mainly Latino people. This man has complete power now, he knows it and is taking full advantage of it. Not only does he want to deport Brown people, he wants the U.S. to take the Panama Canal from Panama, he wants to take Greenland from Denmark, and he wants Canada to be our 51st state.
I found out yesterday that one-percent of the people who have bypass surgery, their chest incision becomes infected. I’m part of that one-percent. That’s why it’s taken the hole in my chest so long to heal. It set me back two to four weeks. That’s why Joan will have to keep dressing the infection for another two or three weeks before it closes.
Friday, January 24, 2025 – Mr. Trump is changing the landscape of America. Oh, America, why couldn’t you have seen through that man? He’s a menace, a virus, a plague. He has to get his way at all times. He doesn’t care about this country at all. I’ve said this so many times before: he is only out for himself and anyone he can make a deal with. He doesn’t care about the Constitution, he doesn’t care about working people, he only cares about enriching himself.
Friday, March 14, 2025 – This week, on Monday, I went to my first water aerobics class at the YMCA in three months. I took it slow and easy and left the pool early. When I got home I needed a nap because I was completely sapped of energy. Yesterday, Thursday, I overdid it in the pool. Plus, I went shopping, got gas, took out the garbage, and cleaned up in the kitchen. I was completely exhausted at the end of the day. Today I intend to walk around the neighborhood and get some exercise, for, as my friend Bill Hellums says, “Motion is lotion.”
As for what’s happening in the U.S. and the world, it’s all Trump, Trump, Trump and Musk, Musk, Musk. Both men are dismantling our government, going against the law, and going against the Constitution. Since the Supreme Court gave the President immunity from prosecution last year, Mr. Trump has taken full advantage of it. The man is like a bull in a china shop. He’s running roughshod over everything this country has built since we became a country almost 250 years ago.
In sports news, the Golden State Warriors are on a roll since they acquired superstar Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat. Out of the 15 games since Butler has joined the team, the Warriors have won 13. Quite a roll. They’re now a team that you can see is enjoying the game because of Butler, their unselfish teamwork, and Steph Curry making 3-point shots (he just achieved making 4000-3s last night in a win over the Sacramento Kings).
As for the 49ers, a lot of men have been cut or have signed with other teams, men like Dre Greenlaw, Charvarius Ward, Javon Hargrave, Deebo Samuel, and a bunch of offensive and defensive linemen. They just acquired quarterback Mac Jones, who played for the Jacksonville Jaguars, to be Brock Purdy’s backup. They still haven’t signed Purdy, who is expected to demand $40-$50 million a year.
The Giants seem like they could be a surprise team this upcoming baseball season, but that’s what every team thinks in spring training. They signed hard-hitting shortstop Willy Adames (Uh-dahm-es) to the most expensive contract in Giants history, they have speedy and decent outfielders, and it seems like their pitching staff has improved. We’ll see what happens when the season starts later this month.
Friday, April 4, 2025 – Here’s what’s going on: Tomorrow is a national protest against Trump and his administration. In every big city and suburb in America, people are going to peacefully gather to say Hands Off our democracy, Hands Off our Constitution, Hands Off, Mr. Trump, you are a man lower than the lowest man in this world for disrupting not only the lives of Americans, but the lives of everyone around the world. Just yesterday you laid down tariffs on products coming into America. What was the reaction? The stock market plunged more than 1000 points. The world doesn’t know what’s happening, there’s confusion, chaos, which means everything is up in the air about goods coming into the country and goods going out. Trump is doing his best to dismantle everything in our government. He, along with Elon Musk, is killing our country. We Americans are now the villains around the world because of Donald Trump. That man is just beginning four years of his second term and he’s already talking about running again in 2028. The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice….” There are other things in the Constitution that Trump is trying to trample on, such as, if someone is born in the United States, that person is a citizen of this country. Trump says people come to this country to have babies and that’s wrong. Well, a person born in the U.S. is a citizen of this country, end of debate.
There are so many things this administration is doing that go against rational thinking. Thousands of government workers are being fired from their jobs in a cost-cutting move that is being administered by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Just like that, willy-nilly, people are given their walking papers. Thousands of people. And really, from what I hear, that’s not lowering our country’s deficit. For instance, at the Internal Revenue Service, people are being cut. If the IRS is understaffed, that means the wealthy are not going to pay their fair share of taxes.
Tuesday, April 8, 2025 – Saturday, Joan and I went to the “Hands Off” protest at Civic Center. There were no speakers, so the only thing to do was to look at all the signs people created. I took three photos of signs and the best was “Stop Truth Decay.” Another was “F-ELON.” The third photo was of Trump, J.D. Vance, Musk, and Putin dressed in German military uniforms of World War II, along with the words “The Turd Reich.” I think there were maybe 25,000-30,000 people at the protest. Much smaller than I expected. But there were 1400 protests across the country. Another protest is scheduled in a few weeks. As Rachel Maddow said on her TV news show last night, “You have to be persistent to be heard by this administration.”
I’m starting to gain my full strength back. Yesterday I went to my water aerobics class at the Y and went full bore for half an hour. I can now walk over a mile without getting out of breath.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025 – I was listening to the Giants-Reds game on radio and the Giants were behind 5-0. I turned the game off because in the previous two games, Cincinnati had shutout the Giants two games in a row, and today, in the fifth inning, the Giants still hadn’t scored. Atrocious. Justin Verlander, who hasn’t won a game in the three starts he’s had so far, had five runs scored on him in one inning. I just couldn’t listen to the game. But then a couple of hours later, I turned on the radio and the score was tied 6-6. I couldn’t believe it. The sleeping Giants had awakened. It was the bottom of the ninth and the score was still tied. Giants’ lefty reliever Erik Miller, in the tenth, with a designated runner on second kept the Reds from scoring. Now it was the Giants’ turn with a designated runner on second, Matt Chapman. Heliot Ramos hit a long sacrifice fly to deep right to move Chapman over to third. And then Mike Yastrzemski, on the first pitch, hit a home run over the right field wall for a walk-off win. Great!
Our Dictator/President was going to tariff every country in the world today except Russia (Vladimir Putin must have something on Trump that he’s been holding over his head for the past eight or nine years). The stock market had plummeted in the last two days. It was telling the President that raising tariffs (taxes on us) is not the way to go. So, early this morning Trump paused the tariffs, except for China. Mr. Trump is the enemy of his own people.
Saturday, April 19, 2025 – As I type, I’m get a shooting pain in my right shoulder area. That’s what happens when a man is about to turn 85 and has arthritic shoulders and knees. Arthritis prevents me from sleeping well, from bending down, from walking at a brisk pace, and from reaching above my head. I can’t wish this arthritis away. The thing is, I have to adapt to it. Exercise of any type helps. I also take glucosamine, chondroitin, and MSM. They don’t seem to do anything to relieve my arthritis, but I still take those supplements, just in case.
Sunday, May 4, 2025 – Yesterday I talked on the phone with my biological daughter. You see, I donated my sperm way back in the mid-1960s for about a year, and lo and behold, through my niece, Jo-e Sutton, she found her cousin and my biological daughter on the DNA website 23andMe. Jane Schultz is her name. Her maiden name was Sanders. She’s now 58 and lives in Sebastopol, CA. She has three adult children, two girls and a boy. Joan and I talked on the phone with Jane, her husband, and father-in-law. We intend to meet sometime in late June at her son’s house in Oakland. Originally, I was against contacting Jane. I thought about it for a day or so and decided that communicating with her would open up a new perspective in my life.
Talking with Jane on the phone, I found out quite a bit about her. Her mother died at 94 earlier this year. Her father divorced her mother when she was two years old. She was born in Fontana, 50 miles east of Los Angeles, and grew up in Sebastopol. She graduated from UC Berkeley where she met her husband Josh. Josh is now an administrator in the Napa School District. Jane’s father-in-law, Malcolm Schultz, lived in Pacific Palisades. Although his apartment didn’t burn down in the tragic L.A. wildfires at the beginning of the year, the air is still bad to breathe because of its toxicity. As for Jane, she was her mother’s caregiver in the last years of her life. Her interests lie in interpreting her dreams and traveling. She now substitutes in the Sebastopol schools. It was a delight for Joan and me to talk to her.
Saturday, May 10, 2025 – I had a very bad back a couple of weeks ago. I visited Joan’s chiropractor, Michael Schneider, four times. He helped relieve the gruesome pain I was having. I’m now back to normal.
The Warriors are playing the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight. The 7-game series is tied one game apiece. The only thing wrong for the Warriors is: STEPH CURRY STRAINED HIS HAMSTRING AND HIS SEASON IS OVER. Translation: it’s curtains for the Warriors. [Note: Minnesota won the series 4 games to 1, ending the Warriors’ season.]
The Giants have a winning record so far. They’re playing the Minnesota Twins for the second time today. They lost yesterday’s game 3-1. They’re a game behind the first place Dodgers.
I started a new exercise class yesterday. Chair Yoga. Michael Schneider says I need to stretch more. That’s why I’m taking the class at the YMCA that’s taught by Barbara McCormick, a great instructor. She’s also my water aerobics instructor.
Ray and Ashley and the boys are moving into a rented duplex today. A contractor is going to redo their old bathroom and will be adding a new bathroom to their house. The duplex they’ll be living in for a couple of months is located just a few blocks from their house.
Thursday, May 15, 2025 – How does it feel to be getting old? Well, I’m a few months shy of living on earth for 85 years. It’s been quite a ride. I was invincible up through the age of 13 when, in a baseball game, I collided with our center fielder going after a pop fly from my shortstop position and tore a knee ligament. In high school, my senior year, I was hit extremely hard in my right thigh that turned out to be a serious contusion. Because of that, I had to sit out the final game of my high school career. In my second week at the University Oregon, I injured my knee badly in a football drill. Because of that injury I had to sit on the bench for most of the two years I was on the team.
Five months ago, I had double bypass surgery. Everything from junior high to five months ago, this old body of mine was telling me it was getting older and older. What has taken place over my lifetime is that I am now bald on top, my hair is gray, my teeth have been worked-on quite a bit, my shoulders are arthritic, the same with my knees, I’ve had two hip replacement surgeries and one revision surgery on a hip, and I have hearing aids. I wear glasses and I’ve had cataract surgery on both eyes.
The reason I mention all the above, is that I think of my son and his two sons. They will probably have to go through what I’ve gone through in my life. Maybe not as many injuries or ailments as I’ve had, but they’re going to feel pain and have surgeries and they’ll survive them all, like I’ve survived them all.
Old age, is it all worth it? Of course it is. Now, to prolong my life, I exercise, or try to get some exercise every day. I go to my water aerobics class at the YMCA and I just started taking chair yoga to stretch my muscles. I still feel a slight tightness in my back, but that’s nothing compared to how I felt last month when a sharp pain ran through my back with almost every move I made, in bed and out. One day I went to my water aerobics class and couldn’t do one exercise the instructor gave us. My back had never been more vulnerable to pain than at that time. It was a sharp, stinging pain. I had to leave the pool early. But, as the days went on, along with chiropractic care, my back started feeling better. And now, I’d say it’s almost 95% better.
I’m getting old. I have to keep exercising or else I’ll die sooner than I should. I supposedly have a rebuilt heart. I go for a walk on the days I don’t go to the Y for water aerobics or chair yoga. I’ve got to stretch and keep on stretching. I weigh 196. I haven’t had alcohol of any kind since heart surgery. That’s right—no beer, no wine, no bourbon, nothing. I’m afraid if I take even a sip of alcohol, I’ll start drinking again. Even though I love alcohol, I was never an alcoholic. At parties, though, I would kind of overdo it. No more alcohol, not only because of my heart but because of my total well-being. That’s something good that’s come out of my heart surgery.
Old. I can walk upstairs all right but going downstairs I have to hold on to the bannister and go down one step at a time, all because of my weak knees.
I have to exercise, think positive, stretch, eat correctly, and not sit for long periods of time.
Monday, June 23, 2025 – This past weekend I met my biological daughter, Jane Schultz. I also met her husband Josh, her daughter Rae, her son Rowan and his wife Jenny and their two-year-old son Nico. Jenny is expecting a boy by C-section on August 20. August 20 is my birthday. Is that a coincidence or not? And lastly, I met Malcolm Schultz, Jane’s father-in-law. Another coincidence is that Malcolm, when I asked where he grew up, he said, “Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.” I brought up my good friend’s name, George Krevsky, also from Harrisburg, and Malcolm said, “I know George! He was a close friend of mine from grammar school through junior high.”
Yes, I met Jane and we hit it off extremely well. Her mother didn’t tell her that her “father” wasn’t her real father until she was 21, and this forced her to become curious as to who her real father was. She searched on 23andMe and found out, through my niece, Jo-e Sutton, that they were cousins. Jo-e then contacted me and told me the news.
It was a beautiful, clean, clear day in Oakland. We sat outside in the sun, eating deli sandwiches and talked about where each person worked and what their plans for the future were. Before we sat down, Jane asked me where I wanted to sit at the table, and I said, “I want to sit next to you,” which Jane later told me was music to her ears. Jane and her husband Josh live in Sebastopol, California, about 60 miles northwest of San Francisco. My wife Joan used to live in that area in the 1960s on three hippie communes. Jane said she knew all about the communes. Jane went to the public schools in Sebastopol. She and Josh now own two houses next-door to one another. Jane’s mother used to live in one of them until she passed away. Her mother went to an artificial insemination clinic, the Tyler Clinic, that was next to the UCLA campus in her mid-thirties. She was falsely told that all sperm donors were either doctors or lawyers. I was a substitute teacher in Los Angeles at the time. I was paid $25 each time I donated my sperm, which turned out to be maybe once a week for about a year. It wasn’t good for my sex life because I was told to abstain from intercourse three days in advance of donating so as to make the sperm as potent as possible.
I’ve always wondered if I’d ever meet a biological child of mine. And now I have. It felt like I was floating in air being with Jane and her family. I found her to be a very thoughtful, intelligent, and compassionate woman.
Jane, no doubt, must have been thrilled to meet me. She had finally found and met her biological father. Her curiosity and quest have now been satisfied at the age of 58.
Saturday, July 5, 2025 – Yesterday, July 4th, our family from Oakland and Chicago were at James and Erma Johnson’s house in San Jose (Ray’s wife Ashley’s parents). It’s always a feast when we’re invited to the Johnson house. The day was not hot in San Jose as it usually is in July, the temperature in the mid-70s. The traffic going and coming was light, although driving an hour each way at my age is tiresome. We had BBQ ribs and chicken, potato salad, collard greens, salad, baked beans, apple pie and ice cream. I sat the whole time and didn’t move. I even closed my eyes and dozed off in a chair when everyone went for a walk in the neighborhood.
The Giants lost 11-2 to the A’s. Giants’ pitcher, Justin Verlander, age 42, got pummeled. He hasn’t won a game all year after 12 starts. Verlander is not the man he used to be. Age has crept up on him and it’s time that he turn-in his glove and spikes. That’s my opinion.
So much has been happening with Trump as president since he took office for the second time on January 20. So much crap, so much cruelty. If you are a Latino person in this country, it’s not safe to be outside, go to events, go to work, go to school, or go shopping. The Trump administration’s ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Patrol are out to get you and jail you and deport you to some other country’s prison. It’s incredible how this administration is doing what the Nazi Gestapo did to the Jews, Communists, homosexuals, and Gypsies in the 1930s and ’40s. I feel so helpless while this is going on. They’re building concentration camps (they call them Detention Centers) in this country for Latinos, whether they’re innocent of any crime or not. The government originally said they were going after criminals, but no, ICE is going after every Latino they can round up, whether they’re U.S. citizens or not.
We’re living in strange times with Trump as president. And to think, he has 3 ½ more years left in office. The Trumpists are doing everything in their power to take over our democracy and make it into a fascist, authoritarian state, with blessings from our own Supreme Court. Yes, the highest-ranking judges in our country, six of them, all extremely conservative, are not standing up for democracy, instead they’ve given full power to Donald Trump for reasons that are beyond my comprehension. What I’m saying is, those six judges are traitors, just like Trump and his whole regime are. I wonder if this country will ever hold trials like those held in Nuremberg, Germany, after the Second World War. I recently watched the 1961 movie, Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy on Turner Classic Movies. The scene that resonated most deeply with me was of a German judge, played by Burt Lancaster, who said to the Tribunal, “When the judges gave in to Hitler, that’s when he gained his full power,” or words to that effect. So far, many of our federal judges are standing up to Trump’s Justice Department, but it’s the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that former presidents have absolute immunity from being prosecuted. The ruling took place just before the 2024 election—otherwise, Trump would be in prison today for being found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, for inciting the January 6th insurrection, and for confiscating highly classified documents to store at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Those documents belong in the National Archives.
I haven’t written much in my journal this year. The reason being, I’ve been busy transcribing and revising my yearly journals. I just finished Journal 2005 earlier this week. It was the year that I had my second hip operation. My first hip operation took place three years earlier in 2002. It’s the 18th yearly journal I’ve completed.
Tuesday, July 8, 2025 – I talked on the phone to Charles Lewman yesterday, my friend who lives in Dana Point in Southern California. We’ve been talking on Mondays for maybe 10 years now. When Charles and his wife Karen lived in San Francisco, Charles and I would go for walks either at Crissy Field or along the Great Highway. We talked about everything, from sports to family to writing to Charles’ spiritual quest of how important it is for him to have a positive attitude in life.
What did Charles and I talk about yesterday? We talked about my team the Giants and his team the Dodgers. We talked about getting on in years. We talked about Charles being a “sprinter” in his day. “Every job I had,” he said, “I wanted to rise as quickly as possible in the ranks. I was a sprinter, Joe.” He sprinted for Thrifty Drugs, White Front, and McKesson Corporation. Charles’ main job at those companies was to motivate the sales force.
Wednesday, July 9, 2025 – The Giants are playing the Phillies right now. Justin Verlander is pitching. The last I heard, he was losing 2-0. The poor guy doesn’t get any run support when he’s pitching. This is his 15th start and he has yet to win a game. “Come on, Giants, give the guy some support.” Verlander, a dominant pitcher in his prime, will be an automatic Hall of Famer when he retires.
Speaking of the Giants, I was listening to the game last night and the Giants were two runs behind going into the bottom of the ninth. Casey Schmitt hit a double on the first pitch thrown to him. Jung Hoo Lee flied out. Wilmer Flores singled, making it runners on first and third and one out, when Patrick Bailey stepped to the plate. On the first pitch, Bailey hit a soaring flyball into Oracle Park’s famous Triples Alley, right center field. It hit the brick wall and bounced back onto the warning track in left field. Two runs scored easily as the left fielder for the Phillies chased after the ball. Bailey kept running and scored easily for a walk-off, in-the-park home run. Giants win 4-3. The Giants’ radio station, KNBR, before today’s game started, played David Fleming’s call of Bailey’s home run twice. It was one of the most dramatic and exciting calls a fan like me could hear.
But now they’re losing today’s game as it nears its end. Will they come from behind again, or will they be unable to support Justin Verlander in trying to win his first game as a Giant?
The Phillies scored eight runs in the eighth inning. Final score: Phillies 13, Giants 0.
Thursday, July 10, 2025 – Nathaniel Selvyn Wirt’s birthday is tomorrow. His middle name is Selvyn because he was born on the seventh month, eleventh day (7-11). We’ve known each other since we were 12. We met on the blacktop of Bancroft Junior High, about to line up for Abe Lober’s gym class. We were in the seventh grade, the beginning of junior high in those days. Nate was bigger than me and tried to trip me. I tried to trip him back. Mr. Lober only saw what I did, and so he called me in front of the gym class of about 40 of us boys. Mr. Lober said, “Bend down, Sutton. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” and he whipped my rear end with a one-foot leather strap that he called “Susie,” which stung like hell. In those days a gym teacher could swat you (some had paddles) if he saw you doing something wrong. A paddle was much, much worse than Mr. Lober’s “Susie.” That’s how Nate and I met. We were competitors in gym class and after school in football, basketball, and baseball that seventh-grade year. In the eighth grade, Nate asked me to join his YMCA club called the Eagles.
I joined the Eagles and was the star of the team in football, basketball, and baseball. Mel Wopner was our coach. Mel loved me as much as I loved him. He gave me great confidence.
To get back to Nate. I’ve been bothered by him, a Jew who became a born-again Christian, for trying to change my beliefs about religion over a period of about ten years of our adult lives. Because he kept harping on me that I was going to hell if I didn’t believe in Jesus, I called off our friendship. Nate said he wouldn’t try to change my mind anymore and has since been true to his word. Not only is he a religious zealot, he is also a Trump backer. But tomorrow, on his birthday, I’ll call him and wish him a Happy Birthday and we’ll talk about things other than religion or politics. He’ll be 85. In another month I’ll be 85. So, ever since we met on the blacktop of Bancroft Junior high at the age of 12, we will have been close friends for 73 years.
Friday, July 11, 2025 – Every day there’s something the Trump administration does that’s revolting. This past week, it’s the rounding up of people who, if they look Latino or Brown, they’re shoved into a truck or SUV and disappear. It’s truly a Gestapo because they wear masks, they treat people with heavy-handed maneuvers, like grabbing them, wrestling them to the ground, and handcuffing them behind their backs. This is beyond a nightmare for a Latin American living through what the Jews experienced in the 1930s and ’40s. I’m a Jew. Will I someday “disappear” like the Latinos of this country? We have an insane president who OKs this treatment, and a really insane advisor to the president, Stephen Miller. It’s Miller who’s behind all this rounding up of non-citizens. He’s the architect, along with Tom Homan who is known as the Border Czar. They’re like Nazis—no, they ARE Nazis, those two motherfuckers, one of whom, Miller, born a Jew, who should know better.
Joan and I employ three Latinos. Carolina, our cleaning lady, who comes every other week; Franko, our gardener, who sometimes takes care of the front yard and prunes the big tree out front once a year; and Elmer, a magician of a handyman. I wonder what’s going on in their minds about Trump, Stephen Miller, and Tom Homan.
Every day we’re sinking lower and lower into the depths of authoritarianism. The only people standing up to this crooked, corrupt and cruel administration are the Federal judges. If they’re unable to have any clout, then we, as a nation, are doomed. Most Republicans in Congress know about Trump, but they’re afraid to stand up to him because he will “primary” them—meaning, he will back another Republican in the 2026 midterm elections. That’s how much the Republicans fear Donald Trump. Instead of standing up for our country and maybe losing an election, they go along with Trump so they can stay in office. That’s how we lose a democracy, when people fear a vindictive, dictatorial person instead of confronting him. The Democrats are in a weak position right now. They have to take over both Houses of Congress in next year’s midterms or else we will become another Nazi Germany, if we aren’t already. Trump won’t stop until he’s six-feet under. It is my wish that he will be struck dead with a heart attack, but then there’s his vice-president, J.D. Vance, who is cunning and just as ruthless as Trump. I fear for our country. Our democracy has had to endure incompetent presidents, a Civil War, slavery, and many other injustices, but we have never experienced a TRUMP. He speaks for the worst in us human beings: racism, vindictiveness, greed, corruption. We can impeach him if both Houses of Congress turn overwhelmingly Democratic after the midterms. That’s the only way. But Trump is thinking ahead by making it hard for even eligible voters to vote, such as doing away with mail-in ballots and having ICE agents stationed at polling places to intimidate the electorate.
I talked to one of his followers this afternoon, my friend Nate Wirt. We didn’t mention one word about Trump, otherwise we would have gotten into a vicious argument on his 85th birthday.
Am I exaggerating about the president of the United States? Not one iota. He’s worse than anybody ever conceived. We’ve had to put up with 10 years of that man, and to think, we have 3½ more years left of his chaotic rule.
Sunday, July 13, 2025 – Joan and I had our son Ray and his two sons, Joe and Max, over to the house today. My first thought about my grandsons is that it’s tiring to be around a five-year-old and a one-year-old. They do things that make you have to constantly look after them. For instance, Joe, the oldest, was playing with a lamp light today. You tell him to stop, but he keeps turning it on and off. When they eat something as they roam around the living room, they leave crumbs or bits of food everywhere. Little Joe might do something like hit some small things in front of the TV that he shouldn’t be doing. In other words, those boys tire the hell out of Joan and me. Joan reads to them. I clean up the food dishes they use. And I’m constantly picking something up off the floor. They’re non-stop, those two. They are rambunctious boys, which is only natural. But after they leave, I’m tired as all hell.
Ray has become very helpful every time he comes to our house with the boys. First of all, he’s mainly the one to take care of them. Ah, youth, such energy they need and have to have. Ray removed four heavy concrete bricks from under my bed (I needed them to raise the bed after my heart surgery eight months ago). He assembled a desk chair that Joan had ordered. Ray is good at such things. He feeds little Max when Max wakes up from his nap. I’m constantly picking up things Max leaves on the living room floor or in the kitchen. Joe is a little destructive. He’s always been that way. He had a hard time listening to his father and me today. He had to be told several times to listen to us when we tell him that it’s wrong to throw things or try to damage things. I think Joe got a little too claustrophobic today. We should have taken him outside. But it’s summer in San Francisco, meaning, it’s overcast and foggy. I didn’t take one step outside today because it was so dreary.
The Giants and Dodgers ended their three-game series today. The Giants won the first game by a run, the Dodgers won the second game by a run, and today, the Dodgers leading 2-0 in the bottom of the ninth, Louis Matos of the Giants, with one out, hit a two-run homer to tie the game and send it into extra innings. In the tenth, the Dodgers didn’t score a run. In the bottom of the tenth, Casey Schmitt, the designated runner on second, after a long fly out to center field by Rafael Devers, didn’t advance to third. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t tag up and advance. So, the Giants were held scoreless in the tenth. But then came the 11th inning and the Dodgers scored three runs to take the series two games to one. The Giants should’ve won the series, in my opinion, if only Schmitt had advanced to third. But that’s baseball. That’s life. It was a close series, two one-run games and an extra inning game
I’m trying to get into the rhythm of writing in this ongoing journal of mine. My right shoulder is killing me as I type. I keep writing, though, because I’m a writer. A writer is supposed to put down his thoughts as often as possible. I’m thinking of my biological daughter Jane. She’s got a heart of gold. I just want to sit and talk with her. She’s very intelligent, very thoughtful, and well-educated.
Sunday, July 20, 2025 – I didn’t walk yesterday but intend to walk today. I find at my age I tire easily. I want to finish this entry before I get outside into this overcast day in San Francisco (it’s been overcast for almost a month). It’s depressing. I need to see the sun.
I’m working on Journal 1985: The Life of a Salesman. I started it this past week. It’s not long because that was the year I became a wholesale salesman of costume jewelry for JPR Jewelry Company. I rarely had the energy to write in my journal in 1985. I was making good money for the first time in my life. Joan was storytelling at children’s birthday parties. Sol was the typical teenager with a messy bedroom and constantly talking on the phone. It was like pulling teeth to get him to do any sort of chore around the house. Ray was four years old at the time. He was a good kid. He knew his alphabet and numbers from watching Sesame Street and Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood in the morning.
I read an article about ChatGPT in the New York Times Opinion section today. Before I started writing this entry, I asked ChatGPT how I could get one of my journal entries analyzed, and it said to copy what I’d written and ask it to analyze it. I can see how artificial intelligence is going to change things, especially for students. I hope I won’t become lazy and have AI do the work for me. I’m sure it’s enticing to have a question for AI and have an answer pop up immediately. But this old man ain’t gonna let that happen. I shouldn’t need a robot to do my work for me. But I can see what that robot is leading up to and I’m glad I’ve lived in the age of a person writing his own work, sweating over it, and going over it many times to mold it into something that’s meaningful.
Joan and I invited my biological daughter, Jane Schultz, and her husband Josh for lunch at our house on August 2. She answered my text almost immediately and was looking forward to seeing us again. I hope we will see more of each other as the days roll on. Joan and I don’t have many years left in our lives. I hope we don’t get those dreaded diseases of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Sometimes I can’t remember a person’s name. I say to myself, “Now what was that person’s name? You’ve got to find out that person’s name before you go on to other things.” Most of the time that name will pop into my mind. I’m fighting against Alzheimer’s. I’m fighting it with all that’s in me when I can’t remember a name or word. I’m thinking of my old YMCA friend, Leo Catalano, when he used to lash out at himself for not remembering a name. I now know how he felt. I used to tell him, “Look, Leo, you’ve been living 87 years. You have all those years of information stored in your brain. You’re not losing your memory, so don’t get down on yourself.”
I should take my own advice.
Friday, July 25, 2025 – I wish I had more energy. I get tired pretty fast nowadays. It’s not because of my heart, it’s because of aging. I find myself needing to rest more often. I wish I could sleep a whole night through without having to go to the bathroom two or three times every night. I don’t think I’ve had a full night’s sleep in many a year.
So, what do I do about aging? I have to keep going for as long as possible by doing some type of physical activity on a daily basis. As it is now, I go to my water aerobics class at the YMCA twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. On Fridays, I go to the Y to take a class called Chair Yoga. On the days I don’t go to the Y, I go for a 35- to 40-minute walk around our neighborhood two or three times a week. On Wednesdays I take out the trash, recyclables, compost, do my laundry, and take care of the front yard, all physical activity. This past Wednesday I had to rest two or three times to finish those chores. I was exhausted like never before. I completed more steps on my watch doing those chores than I do in a water aerobics class or when I’m out for a walk.
The whole month of July has been overcast or foggy. The sun peeked through a couple of days this week, but not for long. I read an article in the Chronicle that said this summer has been one of the coldest since 1965.
The Giants are four games over .500. They’re in third place, one game behind the San Diego Padres and 6 games behind the first place Dodgers. In short, no one has broken from the pack with about 60 games left play.
I’ve been reading a biography of Willie Mays called 24. What I’ve learned is that Willie gladly signed his name for any fan who asked him. He was an ambassador for Giants baseball and baseball in general. In the clubhouse there was a table called “Willie’s Table.” If a player asked his advice, he gave his honest opinion how that player could improve his baseball skills. Willie Mays was filled with a mass of baseball knowledge. He never forced himself on anyone. He especially loved being around young kids and never hesitated talking to them. He had a charity for young kids called the Say Hey Foundation. Willie was kind enough to sign the first of my three Giants World Series books, The Year the Giants Won the Series. He died last year at the age of 93. He was always giving of his time and knowledge.
I must never forget that at my age I have to be more mindful than ever before. If I slip, if I make one mistake, I can fall and ruin a good life. Being mindful is so important for people who are aging.
Last night, in bed, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I had to go to the bathroom twice, I kept reading Willie’s book to lull myself to sleep, and I had a very hard time trying to think of a great psychologist’s name. I even had a little trouble trying to think of the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback’s name. I finally came up with it, like I do with most names I’m having trouble remembering. Brock Purdy. But I really had a hard time thinking of therapist Richard Vogel’s name. The man helped Ray, Joan, and me in our lives. He was so important, and for some reason, I just couldn’t remember his name. I finally had to get out of bed to go to my office. Above my desk was a book of mine, Father and Son, to check the Foreword of the book that Richard wrote. Why was it so hard for me to remember his name, and almost Brock Purdy’s name? Is Alzheimer’s starting to set in? I don’t want to get that dreaded disease. I’ve got to do something about not getting it. And the doing (I just looked it up) is to do physical exercise on a daily basis, eating a healthy, balanced diet, and foster social connections. I do all three. I don’t even drink alcohol or smoke marijuana anymore. I haven’t had a sip or a toke since my heart surgery in December 2024. I shouldn’t worry about Alzheimer’s. What I need to do is be physically active, eat healthy, and be with people, like at Samm’s Monday group, Marcy’s lunch group on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, George Krevsky’s poker group once a month, chair yoga, and my water aerobics class, plus I talk on the phone once a week with my good friend Charles Lewman.
Sunday, July 27, 2025 – This past week, I was absorbed in watching a two-part documentary on Billy Joel—poet, songwriter, philosopher, genius. What a talent that man is! He’s an inspiration to me and millions of others in the world. In his later years he’s become very humble. This morning on YouTube I watched the celebration of his talent at the Kennedy Center in 2013, when Barack Obama was president. I teared up watching a whole chorus of people who joined in with performers Garth Brooks and Rufus Wainwright to sing Joel’s famous song, “Piano Man.”
I’ve been watching interviews on YouTube of Billy Joel, one with Howard Stern and another with Bill Maher. I, like Billy Joel, still strive to make a dent on our society. He’s surely done it and has received raves and honors for it. Me, I’ve written many short stories that have gone unrecognized. Maybe someday they might be recognized, maybe these journal entries might make a dent, maybe some of my books will be recognized, but, to be realistic, none of what I’ve written will be recognized. This Joel fellow, who I never followed in my life up until now, is an American gem. Hey, that could be a song, a poem, or a short story called “American Gem.”
My brother Charles was an American gem. He died too early in life at the age of 63. He died of a massive heart attack while chasing after a thief who had stolen a woman’s purse. Now, except for my brother Al, who lives in Israel, I no longer have my brothers Charles, Dave, Bob, or Maurice to talk to.
I still write from my heart and soul every time I put words on the computer screen. I don’t need the recognition, I really don’t. I have my own family, I have my friends, and I don’t have to worry about money. That should be enough to sustain me or anybody else in the world.
Sunday, August 10, 2025 – I’m thinking of Lynn Park right now. She edited my short story collection The Immortal Mouth and Other Stories that came out in 2003. Lynn was born with a rare bone disease. She had to use an electric wheelchair most of her life. She had a special car that she could get around in. She never complained. She was a woman who loved to read, to write poetry, and to take photos. I have one of her large photos framed on the wall of my office. Half the photo has the word BUMP on a bright yellow sign, and the other half has a beautiful blue sky with a couple of white clouds in it. She had an eye for the unusual, Lynn Park did. She had a website with a whole bunch of her photos on it. She had a perspective that most of us don’t have—from a wheelchair. Lynn used to call me and others “Dear heart.” I took her out to lunch a couple of times when she was alive. She had a cat whose name was Khat. Khat was her closest companion. When Khat died, Lynn was heartbroken. Lynn belonged to a church in the Potrero Hill district of San Francisco but lived in an apartment across the Bay in Hayward. She was a small person. She was a poet.
I’m still working on Journal 1985. That was the first year I was a costume jewelry salesman. It gave me and my family a decent living. But selling costume jewelry wasn’t up my alley. Previous to that, I was a teacher in the San Francisco School District. Previous to teaching I was a struggling writer. I used to write, and when I ran low of money, I’d substitute teach where I was living, in Portland and San Francisco. I originally started substituting in Los Angeles, got a regular job teaching at Fremont High School in South-Central L.A., but after one-and-a-half years, I quit teaching and moved to El Cerrito to become a writer in 1969. It took me over two years to write my first novel, A Class of Leaders, about my last semester of teaching at Fremont High. After finishing that book, I kept asking myself, “What will my next writing project be?” After living together for four years, Sharon Murphy and I split. I was a depressed person after the breakup until I hit the highways of America, which became material for my next novel, Highway Sailor. I started writing Highway Sailor in Portland and finished it in San Francisco. I met Joan Bransten soon after moving to San Francisco, and after a year of going together we started living together. Joan had a son Sol, and when we got married, Sol became my stepson at the age of nine.
Joan and I fought quite a bit about Sol. I thought he was spoiled and needed to learn how to do a few chores around the house. Joan thought I should leave him alone. Sol reluctantly did his chores, but it was like trying to get a stubborn mule to move. Joan gave birth to Raymond in 1981. Ray is now 44, Sol is 55. Sol lives in Chicago and is married to Jang Yin. They have a 13-year-old son Olby. Ray is married to Ashley and they have two sons, Joseph 5 and Maxwell 1¾
Saturday, August 16, 2025 – Today I’d like to write about two things. One is a poem about our group that meets on Monday afternoon at Samm McGregor’s house. We used to meet in her garage, where there were mice running around, but for the past year we’ve been meeting in her living room. We meet at 3 p.m. every Monday. This coming Monday we’re going to meet at 12:30 p.m. to celebrate several birthdays. There are six of us in the group, that is if Chip Olbrycht shows up. He rarely attends, whereas the rest of us have been meeting regularly since the pandemic began 5¾ years ago.
The second thing I’d like to write about is meeting with my biological daughter, Jane and her husband Josh, a couple of weeks ago at our house.
But first, I have to write a poem about our Monday group.
Once a week we meet at Samm’s house,
Not in her garage like we used to, but in her living room where there’s no mouse.
We talk about everything,
From politics to books to family to sports to neighbors to birds on the wing.
It’s great to be a part of the group,
We share, we cry, we laugh, we sigh, we’re in the loop.
We drink, we think, we even munch on pretzels and chips,
But no dips.
And that, my friends, is what we do on Monday afternoons,
A few blocks from San Francisco’s newest park—Sunset Dunes.
Joan and I had Jane and her husband Josh over to our house two weeks ago. It was a thrill to speak to her. She seemed extremely interested in me, and I can’t blame her. She asked me a few questions about my last published book, In the Time of My Life, that I gave to her in our first meeting at her son’s house in Oakland. We’re both interested in each other’s lives and what each of us does.
I have a great urge to see her again, to catch up on her life, her children, her interests, and what she thinks.
Tuesday, August 26, 2025 – Yesterday I woke up seeing double. I immediately called Kaiser’s advice nurse and got an appointment with an optometrist at Kaiser in Daly City. Joan drove. Everything went smoothly with a very thorough Dr. Grace Leong. She said my double vision was temporary and that all I needed to do was get liquid drops for “dry eyes.”
I didn’t do anything physical the whole day. Going to sleep, I read a short story by William Saroyan called “Hate,” a story about World War I, where Saroyan showed how Americans were propagandized to hate the Germans and their leader, Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm. And this led Americans to hate American Germans. “Hate” to me is a great story based on Saroyan’s early years in Fresno, where he and his brother joined a mob but didn’t like how cruelly the mob was attacking a young German boy at the elementary school they attended. Saroyan and his brother hated the hate that was being shown by the mob. That’s what happens in a mob, they don’t think straight, à la January 6th.
Which leads me to decide whether I hate Donald Trump. Oh yes, I surely hate that man for what he’s doing to our country. Every day there’s a new thing to hate him for. He has now sent the National Guard into Washington D.C. in response to people protesting immigration and deportation policies. He’s already done that in Los Angeles. He’s thinking of doing the same in Chicago, New York City, Oakland, and San Francisco. All these cities have Black mayors. Does this show a racist streak on his part? Yes, I believe it does. The man is extremely vindictive. He’s out to get his “enemies.” Not only that, but he’s making money being president, which is a blatant show of disrespect for our Constitution. There’s an “emoluments clause” in the Constitution, which is supposed to prevent a president from accepting a fee of any kind from an individual or from a foreign government.
What Trump wants is power, profit, retribution, and tearing the Constitution to shreds so as to break the balance of power that is written into it. Donald Trump has all the Republicans in Congress in the palm of his hand. Plus, he wants to outlaw mail-in voting. He wanted the governor of Texas and the Texas legislature to gerrymander five more districts for the Republicans, which they obediently did. The only person standing up to Trump is Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who is putting on the ballot this coming November a proposition to gerrymander more votes for Democrats in California so as to counter what Texas has already done. At least Californians are voting on it, whereas it was the Texas legislature that passed it. “You’ve got to fight fire with fire,” says Governor Newsom. “Go, Governor Newsom, Go. Stand up to that dictatorial narcissist.”
How do you get rid of a dictator? A majority of people have to vote him out of office. But Trump foresees that happening by trying to put the clamps on mail-in balloting and by having every person show their birth certificate or passport at polling sites. Now, who the hell is willing to go to the trouble of obtaining their birth certificate or paying for a passport?
We are seeing how one man can topple the longest living democracy in human history. We’re seeing it happen right before our eyes and it makes us feel helpless. The only branch of government doing anything to hold this man down is the judicial branch. But the judicial branch’s final say are the six ultra-conservatives on the Supreme Court who believe a president should be all-powerful.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 – Every day Donald Trump is thrusting a dagger into democracy’s heart, every day he’s chipping away at our Constitution. He wants to send troops into democratic controlled cities to “protect” us against the undocumented, he is tearing down the East Wing of the White House without Congressional approval so he can build a huge ballroom, he’s about to start a war with Venezuela, and the list goes on and on. Every day this man is doing something that will save him from being impeached, doing something to gain more power, doing something to hide the truth of what’s contained in the Epstein Files, doing something to leverage himself over different countries with tariffs, doing something from saving himself from going to jail, doing something to make himself a king.
This past Saturday, Joan and I went to our second national NO KINGS protest that was held in San Francisco’s civic center. It’s estimated that seven million people in 2700 cities and towns across the country participated in the protest. The Republicans called it a HATE AMERICA protest. Those of us who protested were saying, “WE LOVE AMERICA,” and that it’s the Republicans who go along with Donald Trump who are the pawns of one man and to hell with the Constitution and the balance of power.
I think now that Trump ran for president so he wouldn’t go to prison after inciting the insurrection on January 6th, and for filching a truckload of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate. Now it’s the Epstein Files that he’s trying to hide from the public, because if we find out he had sex with underage girls, he’d be a ruined man. What does a person do when he’s afraid of being found out? He dodges and weaves and does what he’s doing now, which is to dismantle a constitutional republic just to save his ass. It’s becoming clear to me that that is the reason why Donald Trump wants to become the bully, king, and authoritarian figure just so he can save his hide from being ridiculed out of office and possibly serve time in prison.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025 – I’ve finished 18 yearly journals since I began this project in early 2020, the year COVID began. I’ve been keeping an ongoing journal since 1970. That’s 55 years I’ve been chronicling my life and times. I wonder if anyone will ever read my journals? Probably not. But I still keep working on them, no matter if someone might happen upon them or not.
Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Joan and I have been married 46 years. We’ve been together since 1977, when we went out on our first date, which was on April Fool’s Day, making it 48 years we’ve been together. I’m the one who always reminds Joan that it’s our anniversary. We eat dinner out to celebrate the day.
Monday, November 17, 2025 – Today I turn to the San Francisco 49ers. It was good to see Brock Purdy play quarterback yesterday. I hope he didn’t do anything to damage the turf toe problem that kept him out of eight games. It seemed like he didn’t reinjure it. He’s so valuable.
The 49ers played an Arizona Cardinals team that made mistakes galore yesterday. Seventeen penalties were called against them. The 49ers won 41-22. Arizona’s quarterback, Jacobi Brissett, threw for something close to 500 yards. Arizona is a talented team, but they shot themselves in the foot 17 times with penalties and four turnovers. The 49ers had only one penalty called on them.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025 – Next week Joan and I will be flying to Chicago with Raymond’s family to be there during Thanksgiving. Sol and Jang will put up Joan and me. Ray and Ashley, Joseph and Maxwell, and Ashley’s mother Erma will rent a VRBO house for the five days we’ll be there.
I finished writing my 19th yearly journal yesterday, Journal 1985: The Life of a Salesman. All I have to write now is an epilog to summarize the next few years after 1985, when I came up with the idea of compiling quotations for my quotation book, Words of Wellness: A Treasury of Quotations for Well-Being, that was published in 1991 by Hay House.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025 – On November 24, Joan and I, Ray and his family, including Erma Johnson (Ashley’s mom), took a United Airlines flight to Chicago. We went to celebrate Thanksgiving with Sol, Jang and Olby, and with Sol’s close friend, Liz, and her large family at Liz’s house in Evanston, Illinois.
Chicago was cold. Joan and I went for a half hour walk two days before Thanksgiving. It was like 12-17 degrees. On Thanksgiving Day, we enjoyed a large party at Liz and Seth’s house. It was a feast with all kinds of food and desserts. There were about 25 people there.
The week after we got home, Joan came down with a very bad cold—until she took a COVID home test a few days later and found out she had COVID. Several days later I came down with COVID. I was able to get Paxlovid delivered a day after I found out I had it. My symptoms were a very runny nose, sore throat, headache, cough, and total weakness. Joan had a terrible cough for days. As of today, I haven’t heard her cough. I think it’s been close to ten days she came down with COVID. She didn’t find out in time that she had COVID, which made it too late for her to take Paxlovid. Yesterday she went to the market and wore a mask. She seems fine now. I have to take Paxlovid for three more days. I think it’s working. I don’t feel much weakness at all. My nose is not running as much. I don’t have a sore throat, although I have jags of coughing.
The 49ers are in the hunt to get into the playoffs. Their last game is with Seattle, a very tough team. It’ll be interesting to see if they can beat Seattle twice this season. Now that Brock Purdy is back at quarterback, they might put up a fight against a very strong Seattle team. If they can beat Seattle, they’ll have a chance to go far in the playoffs.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025 – Last week three major events took place. One: the killing of director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele by their son Nick, who slit their throats. Two: the mass shooting of Jews in Australia by a Pakistani father and son (influenced by ISIS) while the Jews were celebrating the first night of Hanukkah on a famous beach in Sydney called Bondi Beach. Three: a shooting on the Brown campus in Rhode Island where two students were killed and many others were wounded.
“The world has gone mad today, and good’s bad today, and black’s white today, and day’s night today….” Those words are a small part of Cole Porter’s lyrics to the song “Anything Goes.” I bring those lyrics up because with the Trump administration, anything goes. Bad is good to them, white is black to them, night is day to them, war is peace to them, up is down to them…. Trump still says he won the 2020 election, even though 60 challenges in the courts found that the election was NOT rigged. An insurrection ensued on January 6th, while Trump sat and watched on television the Capitol Building being ransacked. The insurrectionists wanted to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results because Trump incited them with “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” It took the President of the United States three long hours to finally call off the insurrectionists, over 1500 of whom were found guilty in court proceedings. But guess what? Trump, as soon as he took office again, pardoned those insurrectionists. The world has gone mad today, and bad’s good today, and black’s white today, and day’s night today….
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 – Last night the 49ers played the Indianapolis Colts. The big attraction was quarterback Philip Rivers, 44, coming out of retirement two weeks ago, to lead the Colts. The poor guy had cameras focused on him before, during, and after the game. Thank goodness the 49ers won 48-27. It was a back and forth game up until the fourth quarter, and that’s when the 49ers showed their superiority by running away with the game. The 49ers’ offense looked good, but their pass defense was porous. Two big games are coming up against the Chicago Bears and the Seattle Seahawks. [Note: the 49ers barely beat Chicago in a wild game 42-38 but lost to Seattle in regular-season play 13-3. The 49ers got into the playoffs and won their first game against the Philadelphia Eagles 23-19 but got humiliated in the second playoff game against Seattle 41-6. Seattle went on to win the Super Bowl by dominating the New England Patriots 29-13.]
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