The ongoing emergency in Afghanistan continues, as described in many headlines day after day. I have not heard back from my friend in Helmand or anyone else inside the country in the past 24 hours, but some of you have been sending me alerts as the stories break, for which I am grateful.
Monday afternoon I hired a car to rush me into San Francisco and drop me at the Ferry Building. I was late, which is out of character for me, but I'd been engaged in a long phone call with a friend about a personal matter and had lost track of the time.
I was rushing to meet up with my youngest daughter and her best friend from college, whom I'd never met before. The three of us had a long, slow wonderful lunch on the patio at a nice waterfront restaurant nearby. [Photo at my blog]
I've always wondered how my children answer the question from friends: "What's your father like?" Everyone wants to know about each other's family background as they are getting to know one another, which is a good and natural thing.
In my case, I have no illusions about about what kind of father I was when they were growing up: I was gone a lot. My six children, three girls and three boys, are the products of two broken marriages, with a father lurching job to job in a high-pressure, precarious career that kept him away for extended periods of time.
And of course there was a direct connection to what happened in my career and what happened at home, or rather homes. But one thing I'm pretty sure of is that my kids always knew I loved them without reservation.
As we were having our lunch on the waterfront, the girls told me what it was like spending the last year-and-a-half of their college period isolated from their peers, professors and friends. It's as if their college lives were put on hold at the very moment that they were reaching the peak of the learning, networking, partying and early adulthood awaiting them.
They also talked about what they are experiencing now as they re-emerge from the isolation of Covid, resuming their search for what to do with their lives.
They asked me what it was like for me post-college.
That led to a flood of stories about successes, failures, experiments, risks, loves and finding my place, seeking an identity. At one point, I told them the story of how I fell in love Julia's mother, and at this she smiled a knowing smile. She likes that story, and has a photo in her room of us in the back of a convertible with our arms around each other, hair blowing in the wind.
Someone outside the family came up with a saying at one of our boisterous wedding parties. "If you're a friend of one of the Weirs, you're a friend of all of the Weirs."
As we recounted this, I told her friend, "So welcome to your west-coast family!"
Even if I could, at this point I would never care to control what stories my children tell their friends about me. That's for them to handle.
As for my daughter she'll find her way and create her own story to tell, apart from mine, but parallel too. Maybe now she will meet more of my friends and I'll get to meet hers. Over the years, whenever I've had a special new person in my life, she was typically the first to know, because I would I show her a picture if I had one. And then whenever my girlfriends left me they also left her, and we cried together.
But on Monday there were no tears, just smiles. We are both onto creating new lives now. When it was time to part, Julia gave me a big hug and said "I love you, Dad."
As I was making my way back across the bridge to resume my path toward my unknown future, I thought, "She and I share one big thing in common. We both know how to love."
***
THE HEADLINES:
* Biden decides to keep August 31 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan (CNN)
* Taliban Say They Will Block Afghans From Kabul Airport (WSJ)
* Taliban Reject Extended Deadline as U.S. Races to Finish Evacuation (NYT)
* The U.S. military reported its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan on Monday, but the deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul’s airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the airlifts. [AP]
* Afghan Refugees Find a Harsh and Unfriendly Border in Turkey (NYT)
* CIA head meets Taliban leader as fears for Afghanistan grow (AP)
* Taliban sends hundreds of fighters to final province beyond its control (WP)
* Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of about 48,000 people from Afghanistan, the White House said. A growing number of states, led by Democrats and Republicans alike, have announced their intent to do their part by taking in as many refugees as possible. Find out what commitments the states have made. [HuffPost]
* Airbnb Will Give 20,000 Afghan Refugees Temporary Housing (NPR)
* They Were Protectors in Afghanistan. Now They Need Help. -- Former soldiers from Nepal have long served as private security guards in war-torn Afghanistan. Amid the chaos, they worry that they can’t get home. (NYT)
* F.D.A. Fully Approves Pfizer-BioNTech’s Vaccine, a First for a Covid-19 Shot (NYT)
* Pfizer’s full FDA approval likely to boost vaccinations among the 90 million hesitant (WP)
* Israel's COVID-19 vaccine boosters show signs of taming Delta (Reuters)
* Here Comes the Flood of Vaccine Mandates -- Various institutions began rolling out COVID-19 vaccine mandates after the Food and Drug Administration gave its first full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The Pentagon and the New York City Department of Education announced they will proceed with a vaccine requirement. In the private sector, CVS Health is now requiring corporate staff and many store employees to be vaccinated. Chevron and United Airlines also announced mandates. [HuffPost]
* Oregon, once a virus success story, struggles with surge (AP)
* Co-Working Companies Benefit From Return-to-Office Uncertainty (WSJ)
* Lake Tahoe is choking with wildfire smoke, creating an unhealthy and sometimes hazardous environment for residents and tourists. (SF Chronicle)* U.S. Crops Wither Under Scorching Heat (WSJ) |
* VIDEO: Caldor Fire Burns More than 100,000 Acres in California -- Burning southwest of Lake Tahoe, the Caldor fire grew by more than 30,000 acres over the weekend. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed by the fire, officials said. (Reuters and Storyful)
* The massive Dixie Fire has burned through nearly half of Lassen Volcanic National Park. (SF Chronicle)
* Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: ‘Walls of water’ (WP)
* Fossil leaves may reveal climate in last era of dinosaurs (AP)
* An area in Oakland designated for a bust honoring the co-founder of the Black Panther Party was vandalized, according to his widow. (SF Chronicle)
* Baseball has always been about numbers. Analytics are changing how we view its milestones. (WP)
* Report: Loneliness Most Common Amongst Americans No One Wants To Be Around (The Onion)
***
[Thanks to Scamp. You always seem to know the right tune.]
They don't speak like they've been spoken to
By governments or emperors
Gonna line you up on the sidewalk court
You say we can't afford the slow down
But the skies won't take it no more
So we're gonna slowly pull the earth back together
They don't speak like they've been spoken to
By governments or emperors
Gonna line you up on the sidewalk court
You say we can't afford the slow down
But the skies won't take it no more
So we're gonna slowly pull the earth back together
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