The American Spectator

TAS Live

(Page 3 of 3)

Saturday br> I am back in L.A. now. I did my gig for the Public Library association. That is about 8,000 librarians, the nicest people you would ever want to meet, and my sponsors, from Gale Research Software, which can do wonders. And the day went fine except for a stint at a pretentious restaurant that made us eat a very expensive and inedible tasting menu. Still, the Gale folks and the librarians at the dinner were so pleasant that the evening was worthwhile. What great people those librarians are. To help young and old people get the information they need, the mysteries they need, and then to do all of that for so little pay that it shows true devotion. Well, I am touched. /p>

Anyway, I am back at my house in Malibu and I cannot sleep at all. I am thinking of what good examples my father taught me about saving -- although I still worry that I don't have enough -- and about hard work, and about politeness. I came across some memos and letters my father had written about budget policy for an AEI conference he chaired in 1996 with the good Senator Kerrey. The letters and memos were so diffident, so devoid of any kind of boasting, so genuinely decent and open-minded to Democrats and Republicans alike that I was truly moved. I hope I can be that polite. My wife already is, but I must strive to do better.

Then I thought about the future, and how I have already lived most of my life. What do I recall as my happiest moments? I think, for sure, early days dating Alex, Tommy's childhood, and my time at UC Santa Cruz in the forests and in the sunshine. Glorious, glorious, glorious Santa Cruz. Glorious days. Every single other person there was a Democrat, but I still had glory days in the redwoods. Where can I go now that would be as free and easy? "Wooden ships on the water, very free, easy the way it's supposed to be, tell the people on the shoreline, we must be, very free, and easy....". Who knows what song that's from? I do. "Wooden Ships." By Jefferson Airplane maybe. Or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. My only links with UCSC now are John Mankiewicz, family man and screenwriter, and Larry Wilson, ace magician and orchestrator of the slip'n'slide, which I will tell you about another time....

And then I think about the catastrophe about right to life, and it breaks my heart.

Anyway, I got up and called my wife. She was still awake at our house in Beverly Hills.

"I had an adventure tonight," she said. "I went to dinner with Pam Morton at a new Italian restaurant on Beverly. On the way back, my car overheated because the hoses [on her BMW 740iL] had come loose. So we stopped at Morton's, where they're getting ready for the Oscar Party, to which, as always, we are not invited. There were a whole bunch of English guys who helped me by pouring bottle after bottle of Evian into the radiator. From glass bottles, not from plastic. Isn't Hollywood great?"

At first, I thought, "What extravagance, what waste. What pretension." Then I had a better thought. "What nice people to help out my wife." I think that's what my father would have thought.

And then I could fall asleep.

topics:
Education, Trade, Social Security, Hollywood, Military, NATO