The dreary day is becoming commonplace. It rained earlier, and the air is still damp. The sky is dark. It’s a turn on your inside lights sort of day. I went to bed late but the sound of blowers woke me up early. My landscaper and two of his guys were doing the final fall cleanup of the leaves and pine needles in the front yard, on the deck and the driveway. Gracie watched from the front door and then greeted them in the backyard. They know she’s a runner so they are careful going in and out the gate. They always smile and give me a wave.

Yesterday I did four errands, changed my bed and brought up, folded and put away laundry which has been in the dryer for a week or more. Today my back has moved from painful to stiff, a definite improvement. I have to do one errand today then I’ll just take the rest of the day easy.

Last night I watched All the President’s Men Revisited and was reminded of the summer of Watergate when I stayed inside glued to the television. I was pasty white that summer, the same color as prisoners long interned in solitary.

The retrospective followed the Woodward-Bernstein trail depicted in the movie then moved on to the Watergate Committee’s investigation. I watched clips of John Dean testifying, his wife sitting behind him, and heard again about the cancer in the Presidency. Rosemary Woods and her supposed contortions in erasing the tape are as unbelievable now as they were then. The Watergate Committee, gentle at first, became more and more aggressive as information came to light. “What did the President know and when did he know it?” It was a time of country over party, when law and truth were more important than partisan politics. Too bad we’ve forgotten that simple truth