Jewell In The Rough

On the Foxhunter's Dying

2011-04-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

The great Foxhunter, at eighty-five, died the other day;
On a sullen afternoon, he was laid away.
His fox horn, moaning loudly, will call the hounds no more;
The hills are rather empty without his tune to score.

Come an autumn night on the top of Billy Goat Hill,
Men will gather to hear dogs run and close in for the kill.
But with horns raised to their lips, they'll know that he's not there.
For his sharp, clear saddening note will not pierce the cold night air.

Down on Third

2011-04-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

“Down on Third,” they say;
not First, but Third,
not quite the burger, taco franchises,
fancy banks and strip malls
of First,
but Third, not quite in:

Antique shops grown dusty baubles
cluttering the shelves;
music shops with noiseless instruments
hanging from the walls, selling
guitar strings to acne-scarred, straggly-haired young men;
music lesson studios with tinny piano sounds,
off-key guitars and saxophones,
young voices, all muffled wafting into the street sounds;
trophy shops with dusty, six-foot high examples of the craft,
standing tower-like in the store windows;
bridal shops with white-turned-gray flowing dresses
hanging on the headless mannequins;
old small restaurants, family-owned and mostly empty;
doll collections without their former young girl owners;
bars advertising karaoke nights
with dingy smells emanating from the dark foreboding
behind open doors;
empty shops with papered windows
from owners long gone.

Down on the south end of Third
a garish sign suspends over the avenue
of dreams, only dreams
to make sure everyone knows
they are down on Third.

Wednesday summer nights down on Third:
parking stalls reserved for old cars refurbished;
old guys with old cars
fixed up like they were in
twenty-nine, thirty-eight, forty-seven, fifty-two,
especially fifty-seven Chevrolets,
mingling with
young Latinos with old cars
fixed up to be low-riders hopping on demand,
smoking, joking, looking under the hoods,
at suspensions
down on Third.

Thursday nights down on Third:
sidestreet farmers’ market tent stalls,
dirty white tent tops covering
fruits and vegetables in wooden and plastic bins,
tamales, gyros, kettle corn, brownies and candies,
flowers in plastic buckets,
assorted crafts with
folks roaming through the stalls
smelling, touching, picking,
handing over cash to hands
over worn wood tables
soon to be stuffed into the vans behind the tents
with the unsold goods and produce.

Folks down on Third:
not quite in and not quite out –
although a few down and out but
not quite mad, lolling on the street benches
smoking, drawing sips from paper-bagged bottles,
mostly cheap wine –
others just folks,
not good, not bad,
trying to make a living, a dollar or so,
just like most of us,
down on Third.

Tsunami Brings Reality to the West Coast

2011-04-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – Friday, the tsunami generated by the Japanese earthquake smacked me and the Southwest corner with a dose of reality.

I had risen early to join my friends at the Sea ‘n Air Golf Course on the North Island Naval Air Station. Before leaving, I checked internet emails, news, and sports and learned of the 8.8 earthquake and the tsunami threat.

I could not fathom an earthquake of that size. I knew the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1904 Northridge earthquake were 8.25 and 6.7 on the Richter scale, respectively. I also knew the Richter scale was a logarithmic measure of the shaking amplitude and increases were exponential.

Wikipedia states, “…a difference in magnitude of 1.0 is equivalent to a factor of 31.6, or (101.0)(3 / 2). But that is a number to which I cannot relate. I do know the Northridge earthquake gave a significant jolt to our home, which is approximately 130 miles from Northridge. My mind just could not get a grasp on an 8.8 earthquake.

Even though I knew an earthquake’s destructive potential, I dismissed the tsunami. Such a possibility seemed to be an over reaction. I proceeded to my golfing rendezvous.

En route, I listened to KNX, the Los Angeles all-news radio station. The CBS affiliate reported the aftermath in Japan and the impact on local residents, as well as tracking the tsunami.

One reporter was in LA’s “Little Tokyo,” the Japanese section of the city. The background noise was chaotic as local residents attempted to find out the extent of damage and telling the reporter how they could not contact their relatives.

In a sidebar to the news reports, a reporter stationed in Newport Beach, a high-end coastal community between Los Angeles and San Diego, was at that beach. He reported a crowd of people had gathered to observe the tsunami when it hit the west coast.

I considered them crazy and turned off the radio as I reached the base security gate. After all, if the tsunami did reach the coast with energy enough to be observed, the last place I would want to be would be on the beach. It then occurred to me the golf course I was playing runs, yep, along the beach.

Again, I dismissed the possibility of the tsunami generated in Japan reaching the West coast with any degree of energy remaining. The epicenter of the earthquake is almost 6,000 miles from San Diego.

A fellow golfer reported the tsunami had produced a two-foot surge in Guam, 1500 miles from the source. We discussed the possible effect on our coastline in the Southwest corner. San Diego has a shallow sea floor slope, and shallow gradients expend the energy of a tsunami. We once again assured ourselves there was no worry.

The speed of the tsunami swell is around 500 miles per hour. The course marshal joined us on the tenth tee with the news the tsunami had arrived about 15 minutes earlier with no visible impact.

The marshal’s news was flawed.

San Diego experienced an approximate one-foot surge. A number of vessels were damaged, one overturned by the strong current. A barge in a marina near Sea World broke loose damaging several boats and yachts. It was reported a lifeguard brought a woman and two children to safety after they were swept into the water while exploring tide pools.

The original damage along the West Coast was initially estimated to be around $50 Million.

KNSD, the San Diego NBC television affiliate reported, “Many people ignored local authority warnings and came to San Diego’s shoreline with their cameras or surfboards expecting a show. Despite water receding by as much as 3 feet in some areas, the majority walked away disappointed.” They were as crazy as those in Newport Beach.

Another report indicated the carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, the destroyer Preble, and the cruiser Chancellorsville, all home ported in San Diego are off of Honshu, Japan, already providing disaster relief.

Although I should not have dismissed the warnings so blithely, I do have ample respect for tsunamis from my mariner knowledge. As it is with hurricanes, a ship is better off at sea.

But this is the first tsunami I’ve experienced first hand.

I hope it’s my last.

Flight

2011-04-16T14:35:00.001-07:00

the wings of the mallard beat furiously on takeoff;
shallow mud-gray lake water
rippled with the beat;
the hunter arose from his crouch in the blind
where he had scratched his genitals
waiting in his squatting position;
discharge of shot from the silver-gray barrel
smacked flatly against the cold, foggy morning silence;
the mallard escaped its awkward initial ascension,
veering unknowingly before the gun fired;
balls of shot dimpled the water, plip, plip;
the hunter spit in disgust;
the retriever, after tensing for the plunge,
settled back on his haunches,
resting his jowls on his front paws.
the mallard, out of range,
slowly glided up and into the low, dark clouds.
the hunter had expected the ducks from above;
the rise of the mallard
from its hiding place in the tall reeds
detracted from his normally sure aim;
still, as he watched the grace and freedom
of the mallard in flight,
he was relieved death had not succeeded
for a moment.

Harbingers of Spring and Memories

2011-04-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – Spring is weaving its fabric into the closing days of winter in the Southwest corner.

Monitoring Lebanon weather via the internet and phone calls, I surmise Lebanon too is experiencing spring’s emergence.

Although winter continues in the opposite corner of our country where my brother has returned, we are readying for one of the more glorious times of the year.

The harbingers of spring are subtle in San Diego not as glorious as back in Tennessee. Our weather warms to the mid 60s and low 70s, remaining there until real summer hits in July (we missed that last year with one of the coolest, dampest summer and autumn I can remember). The high and low temperatures vary only by ten to 15 degrees through the seasons.

Although I was in Riverside County about an hour northeast of my home, I played golf Saturday in shorts, an accurate prediction of impending Spring.

Earlier in the week while driving to an appointment, we passed a small home with a yard overflowing in irises. I reminded my wife the iris was the state flower of Tennessee. She thought our state flower was the “bluebell.” I mistakenly corrected her noting it was the Texas’ state flower.

In an ensuing phone conversation with my Austin daughter, I asked Blythe if the bluebells would be blooming in Texas when visited later this month. She laughed and corrected me, pointing out the Texas spring bloomers were bluebonnets, not bluebells. In Texas, “Blue Bell” is the famous ice cream.

Then when I commenced writing this column, I checked my reliable internet and discovered bluebells were indeed a similar flower and common in Western Europe. Internet gardening sites displayed horticulture rage and snobbism over people like me confusing the two.

The importance of these conversations is Maureen should get to see the glory of bluebonnets alongside the Texas roads while we are there.

But in my mind, spring in Texas and the Southwest corner does not match my memories of the glory of the season in Middle Tennessee.

I remember smelling the difference in Tennessee. Warmth had broken through the chill of winter, and suddenly, I could smell the blooms budding. The over-arching trees on the two lane (barely) drive from the concrete arch entrance to Castle Heights to Old Main (now the city offices) were turning green, shading the drive for the next six months.

We would not swim or water ski until May or as late as June, but Henry Harding and I would start wading Barton’s Creek where it crossed Franklin Road to fly fish for brim and sunfish.

All fisherman, including my father (I still have never caught enough fish to be called a fisherman), revved up for the bass and crappie fishing.

With the grass turning green, the brown dirt (or sand) green of Castle Heights’ nine-hole course became prominently visible in the campus southwest corner – now the site of Elmcroft and dental offices.

Down Hill Street, Frank North and Jimmy Allen would guide us through early baseball practice in anticipation of the season opener. Although in the initial practices, our hands would sting from the wood bats striking the ball, being outdoors felt good. Across town in Baird Park, the Blue Devils were likewise enjoying the spring rite of baseball. Members of both teams would meld together for the summer on the American Legion team.

From my recollection, it seems Lebanon simply threw off its winter overcoat and burst into spring. All senses told me everything was clearer, brighter, warmer.

Coming back from baseball practice, we could hear Jimmy Reed blaring over the speaker system for track team practice under the watch of Hugh Russell and Merlin Sanders. The field, now Stroud Gwynn Field in honor of Heights legendary football coach, was unnamed. The track was cinder.

Windows were opened. Screens were checked as they would become a requirement as spring raced toward summer.

Daytime was for being outdoors. That would remain so until the leaves begin to fall on the other side of summer.

Winter turning to Spring in Lebanon is more abrupt than here in the Southwest corner. After being here for almost 30 years, I can recognize the different seasons, but it is difficult for a visitor to do so.

Still, one thing I miss the most is four real seasons, like in Lebanon when Spring began to wake in March.

My Woman Turns Sixty Today

2011-03-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

My woman turns sixty today.

i have a bunch of special women in my life: wife, two daughters, mother, sister, sister-in-law, niece, and a number of friends. i have had many women in my life before now, likely more than most men.

But there is exactly one MY WOMAN, and she turns sixty today.

She doesn’t look like sixty. She is the most beautiful woman in the world for sixty, even though she has never resorted to surgery to keep her beautiful. She takes care of herself.

She is beautiful inside as well.

Although we have our differences and still disagree on numerous subjects, we fit like a glove. This fit is primarily because of her effort to put up with me.

Her ability to become friends with anyone regardless of how different they might be from her is incredible. Even more incredible is how much she cares for everyone. i particularly love her for her devotion and caring of her family and friends.

She has that feminine trait of nurturing her husband, treating him like he is a little boy. While it is irritating to be checked upon, monitored, and be worried about constantly, she does keep me on the right track in so many ways, i accept it, even though i occasionally bark about it.

I have many stories i could tell in addition to the ones i’ve already told about how lucky i am to have her, how she keeps my life funny and enjoyable, and how much i love her.

This is not to tell stories but a public declaration to simply to tell her i love her because she is and always will be my woman.

Happy birthday, Maureen. We met shortly after you turned thirty one. i hope i have another twenty-nine years to spend with you.

Sometimes, Everything Is Relative

2011-03-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – Sometimes I feel isolated in the Southwest corner, and last week was one of those times.

From here, it often appears Middle Tennessee has more calamitous weather than when I was growing up.

Perhaps Thursday’s high winds and reports of tornadoes in Lebanon impacted me.

Perhaps it is because I am growing older and memories of my home have shed bad recollections.

I do recall the large tree in our front yard being blown down in the middle of the night when my brother Joe was six months old (1949). That same storm played imp for our next door neighbors.

Back then, the empty lot north of our home on Castle Heights Avenue was the neighborhood playground. Across the lot, the Padgetts were our next door neighbors. Margaret Ann was older and sophisticated, but Martha, my sister, and I played with Beverly and Roberta almost daily. I think Margaret Ann got her sophistication from their mother, Margaret. Bob was a car dealer par excellence for whom my father had worked before setting up shop with Jim Horn Hankins.

In the mid-1950s, Rayburn and Cleo Bellar bought the lot and became our new next door neighbors, often having their grandchildren, Sandra, Dick, and Jack Lewis, stay over. They played with my sister and brother, but by then, I was too old but not sophisticated.

The 1949 storm grabbed the Padgett two-car garage (one of the few in the neighborhood), lifted it and sat it down in the next backyard. The two brand new cars in the garage were not even scratched.

I faintly remember several floods with water on the square and out of creek banks south of the square. But they seemed like part of the normal weather cycle, nothing compared to last spring’s flood.

During the past ten days, I learned to quit complaining about weather here. Lebanon weather is one reason. Visitors also influenced me.

My brother Joe, his wife Carla, and Carla’s mother and sister visited. On Wednesday when I apologized for the cold weather, they informed me I certifiably crazy. The temperature was in the high 50s as they sat poolside at the Hotel Del Coronado, a heat wave for those from the Northeast.

Last Thursday as the weather climbed back to San Diego normal for a day, Joe and I had a special time.

While the visiting women hit the hotel spa, I took Joe on a tugboat ride.

I wanted to show Joe some of the projects I was pursuing, and asked Pacific Tug Service if I could bring Joe down for a tour. My friend Steve Frailey, one of the owners, told me to bring Joe down to the pier and he would take us for ride on a tug.

Steve is one of the tug masters for the company and called in to action when necessary. So while the wind was wreaked havoc in Lebanon, we toured San Diego Bay aboard the “Harbor Commander.”

She and her smaller sister tug, the Harbor Cadet tied up to a Navy berthing barge outboard a minesweeper in the BAE shipyard. We moved the barge from the sweep to pier side next to the shipyard drydock. While we worked, Joe got to see Navy SEALS diving from helicopters and re-boarding the hovering helo above by line and hoist. Security boats shot back and forth around the bay in an area-wide training drill. Shipyard cranes loaded and unloaded. Yard workers and sailors scurried about on tasks like mice on a sinking ship.

Joe got a feel of what my previous life had been. We wished our father and Joe’s son, Zack, could have been there with us.

We often joke Joe has been a preacher and lived in the Northeast while I was in the Navy and lived in the Southwest to ensure we could be as far away from each other in all things. In fact, we have grown more alike as the years have passed. Our tugboat adventure verified our closeness.

I think that is a plus for me and so is the weather in the Southwest corner. I’ll quit complaining.

A few thoughts on "Passing"

2011-03-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

This post interrupts my normal flow, which is, of course, continually abnormal and sporadic. It is precipitated as I sit in my daughter's living room in Austin next to the wide-open windows in March, the most wonderful time of the year in the hill country of Texas. My near four-year old grandson, Sam, holds sway over all of us, dashing around the house at un-throttled speed, making us all laugh. But this bucolic scene (which is not really bucolic at all, but expresses my feeling more than reality) gives favor to my considering my home in Lebanon, Tennessee and Sam's grandparents.

My mother and father are going through a tough time. One of their closest friends, and my eternal teacher, J.B. Leftwich, has suffered strokes, heart trouble, and now dementia in his waning days. In a moment of clarity while my father was visiting him in rehabilitation center, which it is not for J.B., only a temporary stop, J.B., or as i call him, Coach, told my father he was his best friend. My father at 96 does not have very many old friends left, and i know this is tough on him even though he will not speak of it to me.

So my joy of being with my grandson, daughter, and son-in-law, who for all practical purposes has lost the in-law on his status with me is countered by sadness.

Below are two poems i wrote several years, which reflect my reflections as i sit here in the glory of spring.

Waiting Grace

the old folks sit in the room too warm,
television images blink randomly,
the mute button silences the room
although they do not know as the hearing aids
lie on their respective tables with
paraphernalia required for the elderly;
they sit knowing the time will come soon:
waiting grace.
Noble,
Sad,
All is right with the world.
They and the remaining few of their generation
know how to demonstrate
waiting grace.
No threat, no fret, no fear
shows in their continence:
they do what they can and
what they can decreases perceptively almost daily,
faculties fade and with the fading,
the joys of their industry escaping slowly:
waiting grace.
They have endured the test of time when
times were harder and
simpler and
they hold to those codes of right and
simplicity and
goodness to the neighbor, friend and
to service:
waiting grace.

Lebanon, Tennessee
October 22, 2006

Going Quick

Two men, father and son,
hunched over a work bench
a number of years ago;
working on a project quietly
in the glare of the naked bulb
hanging above their heads;
they talked a bit,
focusing on the task at hand,
smiling quietly at the bond
they continued to build;
then,
the old man with thick strong hands said,
“You know, son,
i’ve led a pretty good life,
got three good kids who have grown up well,
some good grandchildren, and
your mother;
‘bout the only thing I hope now
is when I go,
it’ll be quick.”

Bonita, California
June 7, 2008

Fiddlersburg and Billie Potts Resurrected: A Note to My Brother

2011-03-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

the little star over the left tit.
they buried Little Billie and
no one knew in that patch of land
between the rivers,
which was
Fiddlersburg, revisited and drowned
under the auspices of TVA,

i would like to resurrect Little Billie and Fiddlersburg,
but there is no more South,
only a filmy, flimsy image of what used to be
or a caricature of used-to-be South.
and Robert Penn would insert some Italian here:

i would ponder the depth of what he wrote,
but what you see is what you get with this old sailor;
the point is (without Italian)
we strive for balance, and it never is balanced,
especially in Italy, especially in Southern Italy;
in our South, balance ain't
Southern lonesome;
it ain 't passion;
it ain't.

i may be there again,
i may be suffering enough,
touching depths of my Southern,
unbalanced male soul,
yearning for tragic,
yearning for lonesomeness.
we are the last of a breed i fear;
i wonder how many still exist,
i even wonder about you, my brother;
but we can't tell even the most intimate soul mate,
even brothers perhaps;
for to reveal the awful truth,
shit,
even to write it,
which is what it is all about, will alter it;
will take it inextricably, permanently away.
we can no longer be the tragic figure
we wish to be,
even though we've never
really figured out the tragedy.

Sometimes, Everything is Relative

2011-03-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – After sending in my column last week, I vowed to write more about Lebanon, memories and thoughts of folks back there.

It seemed to me I had been writing too much about me and the Southwest corner, and last Monday’s column read like a giant whine to me upon re-reading (except I do like the story of my wife’s black and white rainbow.

The rain, wind and cold of Vanderbilt baseball games in San Diego are now a memory to brag about, and once I thought about it, watching my team win four opening games in February made the weather a whole lot better.

Then my brother arrived with his family last weekend. I quickly learned I should not apologize for highs in the low 60s to visitors from Vermont and Massachusetts in February. My brother’s wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law have now labeled me as certifiable crazy. My brother has had this tag on me for a long time.

The most gratifying time of the past two weeks occurred Thursday. I asked Pacific Tug Service if I could bring Joe down for a tour. My friend and business colleague, Steve Frailey, one of the owners, not only told me to bring him down to the pier, but that he had would take us for ride on a tug.

Steve is one of the tug masters for the company and called in to action when there quite few jobs the tugs are working.

For almost a month, San Diego exhibited winter weather I brag about. While the rest of the country, including Lebanon, was being buffeted by snow, ice, and cringing cold, the Southwest corner was perking along in the mid-70’s with clear skies.

Beachgoers were out (but not to swim: the Japanese current would turn a swimmer into, as Bill Cosby once said, “a giant goose pimple”). Even better, the mild Santa Ana pushed the evening thermometer down, allowing me flames in the fireplace.

After last summer’s unusual cold and damp and this autumn’s drizzle, weather prognosticators have heralded a woefully dry 2011. La Niña, the weather guessers declared, would bring arid back to the high desert coastland. And after all, when have those grand interpreters of meteorological phenomena ever missed a guess?

So early last week, I was pumped for visitors.

First, the Hicks brothers, Alan and Jim, would roll in for Vanderbilt’s season opening baseball games with two San Diego teams over the weekend. Alan transited from San Francisco via Long Beach, and Jim wandered from New York City and Connecticut.
Quickly on their heels, my brother, his wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law are slated to arrive Wednesday for a short week, stopping in Phoenix on their way from Vermont and Massachusetts.

We woke up Thursday morning – the day before Vanderbilt baseball and the Hicks arrivals – to rain: steady, cold, unpleasant rain, which continued until Friday morning provided a sunshine break. But by rendezvous and game time, gloom reclaimed the landscape. For two days, Al, Jim, and I proved to be stalwart fans, braving driving rain and piercing winds. Vandy beat the Toreros of the University of San Diego, 4-3 in a rain-shortened game and topped the San Diego State Aztecs, 7-3 with four runs in the ninth and two rain delays.

As I write this column, we mull attending today’s doubleheader (Sunday). Forecasters say the rain will abate while it is pummeling my courtyard outside. This story will be continued.

The prognosticators are predicting no rain but highs in the 50s while Joe’s family is visiting. San Diego is not behaving like San Diego. I often forget the Southwest corner is next to the sea, and she is a temperamental force. She has chosen my showoff time to rebel, raining on my parade, literally and figuratively.

Either the weathermen have been yanking my chain about La Niña; Murphy and the Southwest Corner are in cahoots; or I just have, as Kevin Kline so aptly put it in the western, “Silverado,” “Bad luck.”

Saturday, when one of the few sunshine breaks occurred during the baseball game, we spied a rainbow forming on the western horizon. I hoped it was a good omen, which it wasn’t weather wise, but it did lead to one of my favorite stories.

In the summer of 1984, my bride joined me in Mayport, Fl, our first home. The nine-month delay after our wedding was precipitated by my deployment to the Indian Ocean aboard U.S.S. Yosemite.

In the late summer, a fiercely tremolo storm rolled through the Jacksonville area. When the storm broke, an incredible double rainbow formed across the entire sky.
Maureen was enthralled. Rainbows are not uncommon in the Southwest corner where she lived most her life, but this double arch was impressive.

“Let’s get a picture,” she asked.

I dutifully grabbed the camera and headed outside. She stopped me before I reached the door.

“When I was traveling through Europe during college summers, a French friend gave me some high quality film. I have been saving it for a glorious photo opportunity. Let’s use it for the rainbow.”

She ran to a drawer and pulled out this treasured film.

“Certainly,” I replied in my best good husband tone, installing this high grade film in the camera.

Since she was so excited, I let her take the photos. We waited anxiously for three days for the photos to be developed. When returned, we opened the box in great anticipation.

The film was high quality. But it was black and white. I like black and white photography, but it doesn’t work well with rainbows.

Tennessee Steam Engine

2011-03-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

Grandpa Culley and son Jesse
back in thirteen,
when my pap was a year away from born,
rode the train to Nashville
– a half day's journey then,
fetching a steam engine,
the first portable saw mill in those parts.

Jesse was a strapping big man then,
a youth, not yet rounded with gut and jowls,
like when i knew him as Uncle;
when he told this story to me in eighty-four:
he wasn't so strapping at 93,
shriveled into the baggy old man shapelessness,
pale cream complexion with wispy thin, pure white hair,
in the lazy boy rocker chair in his youngest daughter’s den
that November with the trees bare and grass
straw colored in the brisk sharp sunshine
of middle tennessee.

The trip was before Grandpa Culley
lost most of the fingers on his right hand
in that very same steam-driven saw mill on someone’s farm.
his hair had not turned white as it is
in the lone picture i have in the family book.
Uncle Jesse said Grandpa was wiry thin strong like my father
who sat at the other side of the den paying respect to the family,
while i listened to the tale.
Uncle Jesse said Grandpa Culley was more than
pulling his weight rousting the steam engine.

On the way back, driving that steam engine,
they couldn't make it in one day:
Stopped the night
on a farm in Donelson Uncle Jesse related.
Pretty nice folks to put 'em up
without any idea who they might be.
had a good supper and pleasant conversation.
by my calculation the farm was
pretty close to where they built Opryland,
but the land was still country with
folks a lot more trusting than they are nowadays.

“When there's static in the air and you can hardly hear,
better turn on the radio of the Lord,”
A.P. and Mama Maybelle would intone.
Lonzo and Oscar, Lester and Earl, Foggy Mountain Boys,
even Minnie from Grinders Switch were real;
even Roy Acuff with his cave in Kentucky
would have made the show and held on till
the deep dark of three in the Nashville night
eating long after the opry closed for the night:
porkchopsandeggsandbiscuitsandgravy
with coffee in thick mugs at Linebaugh's
on Church Street downtown,
just down the hill from the Ryman.

Long after that shiny new steam engine belched toward
Lebanon from the Donelson farm front yard
by Grandpa Culley and Uncle Jesse
did the Opry begin at the Ryman
and much longer before Opryland
sprouted in its full festival of plastic country glory and
moved to the old farm land
where Grandpa Culley and Uncle Jesse
rested overnight just before the big war and
long before the pale, soft skinned old man
with sagging jowls and kind countenance
would tell me this tale
the last time i saw him.

Transporting on the time machine

2011-03-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

This column appeared several weeks ago in The Lebanon Democrat. I love the story for several reasons. Reports from home indicate J.B. Leftwich, a major character in this story is not doing well after several strokes at 90. He has been an incredible influence on my life and he and his family are as close to family as we can get. I am thinking of him as i post this.

SAN DIEGO – Occasionally in the Southwest corner, Captain Kirk’s transporter and H.G. Wells’ time machine have been combined to take me back home and the past.

Unfortunately, my transporting time machine has some dead zones. The contraption can take me to places I remember as if I am living in the moment again. Yet there are also many events I have forgotten completely. Then, beaming cannot be accomplished.

Folks in Lebanon, both friends and family, seem to recall a great deal more than me.
Perhaps the Star Trek transporter part is not required for those in Lebanon, and that function has some kinks in distances over 2000 miles.

In a quiet moment, my combo time-space travel machine will magically snatch me up and send me back to memories.

Just the other day, I went back to Tower, the Castle Heights building with cadet barracks on the upper floors. On the first floor, Major Lindsey Donnell’s classroom was located in the north front corner. Back of that room was Colonel Harvey L. Brown’s small classroom where the mustachioed colonel brought calculus and analytical geometry into reality.

The south side of the building belonged to Major J.B. Leftwich. His mathematics classroom was in front and the yearbook and newspaper office was in the back. A door connected the two so the major could easily access the two without passing through the hall.

I was transported to Tower on Thursday, October 13, 1960. Mike Dixon was sports editor of the “Cavalier,” the award winning newspaper. He and I skipped lunch formation. We hid in that office, turned on the radio at low volume, and put our ears close.

It was my first and last time to skip any formations in my four years at Heights. I believe it was Mike’s first as well. But our mission was important. We were listening to the seventh game of the World Series.

Mike and I were anomalies for Lebanon at the time. The majority of sports-minded citizens were St. Louis fans. The Cardinals were the closest major league team to the Southeast. There were Yankee fans, including my father, David Hall, the Cavalier editor, and Eddie Callis. I don’t know if Eddie skipped anything over at Lebanon High School to listen to the game. I hope so.

Mike and I had been died-in-the-wool Pittsburgh fans since the early 1950s. We could recite batting averages and earned runs of every Pirate and even mimicked their batting stances when we played our backyard whiffle ball baseball.

Thinking back, our knowledge was amazing considering we saw the Pirates only on rare “Game of the Week” Saturday broadcasts sponsored by Falstaff Beer and announced by Dizzy Dean (Pee Wee Reese joined Dean at CBS that 1960 season), and nearly all of our statistical information came from the weekly “Sporting News.”

In the previous six games, the Yankees had outscored the “Buccos” 52-10, but somehow our beloved Pirates had won three close games, forcing the final game in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field.

The Pirates’ early lead vanished in the middle innings. We were quiet in the bottom of the eighth inning with the Yanks leading, 7-4. But the Pirates scored five runs in the bottom half. Our excitement grew but was quickly deflated when New York added two runs and tied the game at nine in the top of the ninth. With Pittsburgh at the plate in the bottom of the inning, Mike and I stood as Bill Mazeroski came to bat against Ralph Terry. On the second pitch, the Pirate second-baseman drove the ball over the left-field wall.

Pandemonium struck the 36,683 attendees in Pittsburgh. It also struck in the Cavalier office. Mike and I whooped and jumped up and down on the desks.

Oops.

Major Leftwich also had missed lunch but to grade papers. He came through that door and caught Mike and me in the middle of leaps for joy.

I can still feel the shock of getting caught, but it did not dim the glow of victory. I was chagrin to be facing Colonel Dan Ingram, the commandant, the next day. Major Leftwich had put us on report. Fortunately, the wiry Virginian only gave me five demerits, two short of requiring me to march the “bullring” in punishment.

I blamed it on Mike.

No Jousting With Windmills; The Watch Is Over

2011-03-02T09:33:00.000-08:00

My watch for the decision on my Vanderbilt MFA application is over. I have awakened from my dream. Don Quixote is no longer jousting with his windmills. It is time for me to move on.

Last night, i received a very polite notification i was not accepted for the Vanderbilt MFA program.

It was a long shot from the beginning, and i am okay with their decision. It was probably the right decision for Vanderbilt and the applicants who were accepted.

And after all, it was just a dream of an old man who has dreamed all of his life.

Vanderbilt, from my perspective, remains one of the most wonderful places on earth. It combines the best of academia with a confluence of the most wonderful people i have known outside of family. The MFA was my dream to correct the degree i should have earned but screwed up a half century ago by bad decisions and lack of focus and misplaced priorities. This effort was my attempt to correct that.

And now i will never be a certifiable member of the Vanderbilt cult, only an outsider looking in.

That is enough of my selfish whining. More importantly, i now must decide how i will take this rejection and make it better for me and all those around me. One impact is my writing will take another course. I may intensify my writing efforts. I may just let it take me where it wishes to take me. I may rest for a while and turn to other tasks awaiting me. I may work on my golf game.

For the next couple of days, i will wrestle with all of that. i have wrestled with worse.

In many ways, the results were good. For example, i can get on with me growing old.
Regardless, i have learned from the hunt even though i did not catch the elusive fox. It has even been fun.

I am in great appreciation for those who have joined me in the chase: Carla Neggers, Pete Toennies, Dave Carey, Bob Koenigs, and Amelia Hipps who submitted letters of recommendation in my behalf; Dave Young who provided me with great advice on changes, significantly improving my writing submissions; all of those who continued to offer me support and counsel about all aspects of the application process, in particular my wife Maureen, my two daughters Blythe and Sarah, my brother Joe, my sister-in-law Carla, my niece Kate, and Alan and Maren Hicks. And thanks cannot overlook the impact JB Leftwich has had on me since he became my mentor in journalism and provided me the impetus to write seriously over fifty years ago.

i am looking forward to getting on with it. Besides, i don’t have to move from my home in Bonita.

The poem below was the last of those i submitted in my application. Somehow it seems to fit my current situation.

Dreams and Innisfree

Mr. Yeats, that revolutionary son of a bitch,
wrote of the Isle of Innisfree,
creating yet another dream for me,
which i did not need for
i have dreamed all my life;
it’s time to put aside such distractions.

tomorrow, i will meet a young woman,
not needing some dreamer to interfere;
we will converse, enjoy our time
discussing possibilities
in the ambience of the avant garde eatery:
she will go away again,
forging her own path.

i will go home to
play my role,
subjugating my dreams;
it is time i gave up dreaming,
but
then that ole sum bitch Yeats
tempts me with Innisfree:
I will succumb and dream again.

Some Mid-Watch Thoughts

2011-03-01T02:33:00.000-08:00

This watch has officially begun.

It is not a Navy watch, officially beginning on the hour for four hours (except the two-hour dog watches), but much like those bridge watches in that one really relieved the off-going watch fifteen minutes before the official hour – i am writing a long poem about those Navy watches.

My life does not hinge on acceptance or rejection to Vanderbilt’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing (i applied for one of the three poetry positions). As desirous as i am to be selected; learn to write better poetry; finally, actually get a degree from where i should have received a Bachelor of Arts almost half a century ago; and be near my parents for the next two years, i recognize such a venture will be very hard work, could be unpleasant, and may not be anything like i envision. I will be disappointed not to be accepted, but ready to turn the page, get on with my life, make a little money, and settle into growing old gracefully.

So i am up and awake in the middle of what would have been the mid-watch many years ago, on watch. The watch has officially begun.

I checked the internet, even though i knew news from Nashville would not yet arrive. The program administrator, in the program herself, emailed me a week ago, not answering my actual question, but explaining they were trying to make the final decisions and notifying applicants by today, the first of March and further explaining the number of applicants was much greater than expected (they were “expecting” over 600 for the six positions). I told Maureen, my wife for those who don’t know, that meant, like it means for all government agencies and academic institutions, the word would certainly come after the first and certainly not early.

Word of acceptance or rejection didn’t come early. I am up trying not to think about it so i can go back to sleep.

I am thinking about what to do with the rest of my life if accepted or not. That is a hard consideration to turn off.

So i have included a poem here i re-wrote and re-edited for my application. i have been placing the revised poems here for a while, but this one seemed fitting for an old codger…er, curmudgeon, as a group of old golfers call ourselves on watch in the middle of the night.

Incans

Thoughts about the discovery of the well-preserved and very old remains of an Incan boy and young woman high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, circa 1995.

the magazine photos riveted attention, fascination:
children, forced to grow up and die
before their time;
did they volunteer to the sacrifice?
now they stimulate interest in ages past
and macabre beliefs:
i only feel sadness.

hulks:
dead, empty hulks.
eyeless sockets staring out
into a world gone techno,
not a great deal more advanced from
what they saw when they could see:
world still full of ignorance, hatred and religious zealots
out to rid the world of all other gods.
the hulks,
not just dead, but dead and gone, yet not gone,
still here, rediscovered,
creating fascination, ghoulish interest in such relics.

hulk: dead warship lady
i wandered through during my navy days
hulk:
lady warship "mothballed" with foam
until cleaned up for her sacrifice,
i, sailor man, entered the hulk,
semi-official equipment scavenger
for my man-of-war, pronounced female,
herself already obsolescent:
aboard: quiet and eerie,
a presence here beyond me felt:
an old unfinished letter,
desk drawer of a small stateroom forward,
"Dear Clara," was the only identification;
nothing much more than the opening hello;
no great heroics here,
just a khaki clad lieutenant
meeting obligations to Clara.

down below in the steel machine guts of the lady,
the clang against the emptiness of fireroom ladders,
once filled with hiss and heat and screams over the blowers
stirring the moist heat to just above tolerable.
it was more incan.
i could see the sailors shirtless sweating,
changing spray nozzles as the orders from above
required they rev up the steaming to where
the sides of the boilers heaved.

gone.
just as gone as the incans.
eye sockets empty,
bodily fluids extracted or dried up long ago.
sacrificed,
but no petrification here.
no, she will be hauled to sea
to feel the heat of missiles,
practicing the art of war,
slamming into her innards
as her body is twisted, rent asunder,
gaping holes filling with the briny sea
as she slides, stem down
into deep bliss.
sacrificed like the incans,
dead and gone,
but no longer seen
like the incans.
at least the old war lady
will have some peace and quiet.

A break and a sea story

2011-02-26T19:03:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – Recently, these columns have been somewhat formulaic, and there were some people and things back home, who and which I wanted to mention.

But now I want a break and tell a sea story, which, by the way, can never happen again.

In the autumn of 1979, I was required to leave my Brigadoon, actually Texas A&M after almost four years. I was a single lieutenant commander, the senior Naval officer in the Marine-oriented NROTC unit, and an associate professor. The Aggies love the military and accordingly, held me in high esteem.

But duty called. I came to the Southwest corner for a month’s course in tactics before reporting to Amphibious Squadron Five as the staff current operations officer.

Joining the squadron was no mean feat. I flew to Los Angeles, boarded a Military Airlift Command chartered airliner departing that afternoon. At midnight, we stopped in Anchorage, Alaska where a young woman on her way to join her husband in the Philippines traversed from the aircraft to the terminal and back in short shorts and a halter top in 25-degree temperature.

After a snack, we re-boarded for our trek to Fukyoka, Japan; Okinawa; and finally Clark Air Force Base on Luzon: 26 hours with about three hours of sunlight. After a 60-mile bus ride without air-conditioning (the equivalent of a three-hour sauna) from Clark to Subic Bay, I lazed for a day before taking a 14-hour flight to Melbourne, Australia, where I caught a six-hour flight to Hobart, Tasmania.

Needless to say, I was beat. I reported aboard the flagship, U.S.S. Tripoli and was told the squadron would get underway the next morning. As much as I wanted to visit Hobart, I remained aboard and hit my rack (that’s Navy for going to sleep).

The next morning, the ships got underway. I began the process of relieving Lt. Cmdr. Conrad Borman. We spent a week in Sydney, Australia and another in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on our voyage north.

Two days after standing out of Port Moresby, we celebrated “Crossing the Line.”

For centuries, crossing the equator has been a sailor’s concoction of initiation, high jinks, hazing, and a break from the tedium of life at sea. Those who have crossed the equator before are initiated “shellbacks.” For those making such a passage for the first time, they are reviled as “pollywogs.” Although I had been at sea for nearly a decade, I remained a pollywog, until that day.

Normally, being a pollywog is a group thing. But the flagship had crossed the line on its way to Australia, and almost 2,000 pollywogs had magically become shellbacks and were anxious to initiate the new pollywogs when the ship re-crossed the equator. The new pollywogs consisted of 100 brand new enlisted Marines, and one Navy lieutenant commander.

Guess who got the most attention.

But Conrad promised he would look after me during the day-long initiation. For about three hours, he held to that promise, escorting me through donning my uniform inside out, limiting my weird breakfast concoction, ensuring the shillelaghs (Irish clubs, but made out of fire hose for the Navy ceremony) weren’t wielded with too much enthusiasm, and limiting my time “kissing the bosun’s belly” where a shellback rubbed the pollywog’s face into his very large, greased belly.

As I started my 40-yard crawl through the garbage chute, Conrad Borman was called to decrypt an incoming top-secret message. Although spent, I crawled through the yuk fast, anxious to get to the cargo net, where I would be hoisted with four or five of the Marine pollywogs and washed off with a fire hose spray, ending the ordeal.

But the shellbacks had other ideas for this inverse khaki clad officer. They rerouted me back to the start. I went through the route three more times before Conrad returned for my rescue.

Today’s Navy is not a raucous as it was then. Political correctness and women at sea have down graded such rough-housing frolic to wimpdom. There is no question, today’s Navy is much more capable and efficient, but I wouldn’t fit in.

And today’s sailors won’t have much of a sea story when they “cross the line."

Way up in the Rocky Mountains

2011-02-23T03:20:00.000-08:00

way up in the Wasatch mountains,
where snow covered the Mormon pretense
one hundred, fifty years or so ago;
passages to the west were few
except in the warm months;
only the hardy would climb so high
with mules, packs, jerky, coffee
to mine the silver,
hunt the plentiful game
in the cold deep white of the mountain.

now the heights are a playground,
cleared groomed slopes skied down after
rides up the mechanized chair
where hunters and miners
persevered in the hard months,
now playtime in the rockies
for the masses.
the old town street running up and down
the hill called Main
was general store, haberdashery,
gin mill, assayer,
probably a red light house or two,
amidst the good, lord abiding citizens;
now
pizza joints butted against
boutiques, fashion salons,
restaurants with high cost haute cuisine;
only the Empress theater and saloons
bear some resemblance to their former selves:
instead of grimy miners
swigging down the swill,
home brew out of pails,
rot gut whiskey.
now movie stars,
dressed to the nines
sipping wine
at the festival of cinema
named after an outlaw;
town and tourist drunks
drinking the trendy micro brews
Still, in the quiet after a late winter storm,
there are tracks
of rabbit, mountain goat, even elk,
if one dares to climb so high.

A different place in the Southwest corner

2011-02-14T19:18:00.000-08:00

This column was published in The Lebanon Democrat January 24.

SAN DIEGO – Last Thursday, my family went to a place greatly different from anything in Tennessee I know about.

This place where we went is good, but in some ways, it is bad, even sad. My visit rerouted today’s column.

I was going to write about Lebanon places, which no longer exist, or I was going to write about my lifelong friend Sharry Hagar who is challenged with health issues and hopefully succeeding. I have put those thoughts aside for later.

My daughter Sarah and I went to the Navy Medical Center, Southwest Region to get her a new dependent ID card and ensure she was covered on our healthcare program. To keep us both straight, Maureen joined the cavalcade.

We parked the two cars and walked to the modern complex downhill from the old hospital buildings. The medical center is in Florida Canyon, adjacent to Balboa Park and the Zoo.

Inside the “Personnel Services Detachment” (PSD), Maureen waited while Sarah and I went into the cubicle with three positions for processing, sitting at the end position. Soon a young man took the middle position. When he arose to leave, he drug one foot stiffly as he exited.

I hope he was completing rehabilitation from a disability while in Iraq or Afghanistan. The fact he was in administrative processing suggested he was on his way to recovery.

Sarah received her ID, and we moved to the next task. This time, Maureen accompanied Sarah into a cubicle while I sat in the waiting room. An attractive young woman sat down with one of those new-fangled combo portable crib-car seat contraptions. I admired the baby’s knit cap with bear ears on top and asked the mother if she was the knitter. The woman proudly gave credit to her own mother.

Looking at the tiny baby, I asked his age. She told me he was into his third day. The father rejoined them, and they disappeared into another cubicle: young adventurers serving our country in troubling times but encouragingly normal.

Paged by my wife, I went to our cubicle. Looking back, I watched a young man enter with difficulty. He was in a wheel chair with both legs missing from the knees down, obviously from military action. . He broke my heart.

I wanted to walk over and thank him and say something encouraging, but I just couldn’t think of anything encouraging to say. While I pondered, he received his needed information and left.

We decided to lunch at the cafeteria, walking through the plaza surrounded by the six main buildings. We saw almost a dozen casualties from military action walking about the plaza. Most had prosthetics for both legs, some with just one. Others were walking on crutches.

Maureen noted how she didn’t mind being routed to civilian dermatologists because the department here was overworked from attending to the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a lump in her throat.

San Diego’s Naval medical center is one of a few treating severe military casualties. The old hospital buildings, originally planned for destruction, have been renovated and are a rehabilitation center for hundreds of severe casualties from our conflicts.

There has been an incredible outpouring of volunteers and ad hoc non-profit organizations who are dedicated to helping these young veterans and their families to return to civilian life with as much normality as possible. The efforts have been, for the most part, successful and heart warming.

I am sure the people in Lebanon would respond with as much support as those in the Southwest corner. But the travesties of military conflict are in my face, unavoidable here.

With every young man and woman I passed in the complex last week, I cried inside. It occurred to me I spent over twenty-one years of active duty with the possibility of being like these young men staring at me. I was luckier.

It does not seem fair because it isn’t fair. It is life, and now a life much more difficult for them. I wish I had an answer for them, but there is no answer as long as terrorism and domination are the goal of idiots, locally and internationally.

So for the past few days, the Southwest corner with its beautiful sunny January isn’t quite as beautiful for me.

I was a sailor

2011-02-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

I was a sailor
when the boatswainmates
swept down and triced up
and the decks were spotless
and first division stood
at the ready on the forecastle to
cast away all lines
and the sleek greyhound visaged lady
got underway,
no tugs,
and no bow thrusters
like they, the pansies are required to use
today;
no sir:
we ruled the seas
standing proud in quarters standing out,
no manning the rails for show,
we did it like it was supposed to be
and the bow cut through the channel like
it owned the sea
and the trough slid up the side
only feet under the gunwale
and the stern wash was white with foam
and we were underway
rocking and rolling.

I was a sailor
back when being a sailor
was tantamount to
being a man;
there weren't no great number
of automatic controls back then,
not one hell of a lot of video games
or graphics to read:
you turned the valves and the steam hissed;
you cleaned the boiler plates on the lower level
with the blowers blasting air in your face
for relief from the hot wet heat;
inserting the plates and firing it up
hoping it wouldn't smoke white
and
blow your ass
off the naval station
to kingdom come;
and the boilers would rumble
and groan and croak
and spew their smoke out the stack
and build up steam
until there weren't no smoke
and the boiler tenders
down in the bowels
knew they would be
getting underway
soon.
we lined up the feed pumps
and kicked off the auxiliaries
and went on ship's power,
dropping our umbilical cords from the pier
like the doctor cuts the cord
on the newborn:
separating us from mother earth,
sending us to the bounding main;
when we turned the nozzles of steam
onto the turbines of the main engine
and watched the tree trunk sized shaft
turning slowly;
the engine room wheezed and coughed
and made us feel like we
were in a jungle of sweltering pumps and motors
while the distilling plants gurgled with
Rube Goldberg smugness,
making you wonder if
they would really make
good water
again.

I was a sailor
back when we manned the big guns,
not standing apart, aloof, with computer controls
in the air conditioned spaces
but inside those big guns,
metal death traps where
we stood alongside the breech
when the firing shook our brains, our guts, our souls
and we loved the thrill of it all
and the brass kicked out the aft end
and the hot case man with his asbestos gloves
smacked them out onto the rolling deck:
no automatic, manless machine of death
back then.

I was a sailor
back when we didn't know
what the hell politically correct meant,
back when they meant
what they said when they said,
"if the navy wanted you to have a wife,
they would have issued you one."
Navy was a way of life,
living on board, locker in a club
just outside the main gate
with civvies,
so
you could go down to sailor town
drink beer and cheap whiskey
enough to make the woman look
pretty enough to pay
for the night so
you could get back in time
for quarters at 0700
unless there was a fight.

I was a sailor back then
when men were men
and
sailors were sailors
and
then was then.

Old is Almost a State of Mind

2011-02-04T05:20:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – Age is a relative thing whether it’s in the Southwest corner or back home in Lebanon.

This past week I turned 67. I am not sure why the event seemed so much more cataclysmic than 65 or 66, but “67” just sounds older.

Before the first line of W.B. Yeats’ famous poem, “Sailing to Byzantium” was unfortunately stolen by Hollywood and used as the title for the violent movie “No Country for Old Men,” the poem addressed aging.

I like the poem but had thought little of it in the past few years. I revisited a quote from the poem courtesy of National Public Radio last Thursday. The beginning of the second verse goes, “An aged man is but a paltry thing / A tattered coat upon a stick.” I can identify with that whether my coat is tattered or not and even though my stick is a pretty thick, bald stick.

The NPR program “All Things Considered,” discussed productivity of the aging, dwelling on creative folks. The discussion was generated by “Lastingness: the Art of Old Age” by Nicholas Delbanco. Delbanco’s book discusses late productivity, citing examples of artists Claude Monet and Georgia O’Keefe and the composer Giuseppe Verdi, among others. Yeats himself wrote up to his final days when he died in France at 74.
Consequently, I decided I was into lastingness.

* * *

When I told my father, half-way to 97, I felt old at 67, he laughed, “You’re not old yet.”

He’s right, of course. I am fortunate to be in good heath. I can do most things I have done all of my life, but I do them slower with a lot more creaks, crackles and grunts than there used to be. I also have found it takes me a lot longer to do anything.

For example, I used to rise and be out of the house in 15 minutes to play golf. I arrived at the course and immediately went to the first tee. Now it takes me an hour or more to wake up, stretch, take pills, and check to make sure I am taking all that I need. Once at the course, I must stretch again, have a cup of coffee, hit a small bucket of range balls, practice chipping and putting before teeing off. It takes almost a full work day to golf.

* * *

For those of us who grew up in Lebanon from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, I am the second oldest of my high school class (LHS and CHMA). This doesn’t seem quite fair as Gayle Marks Bryne, the only person older from the 1962 class remains lovely and young looking.

So I’m going for “lastingness.”

I am even working on relating to the young. My youngest daughter Sarah and I will soon attend a San Diego State basketball game. The Aztecs have the longest winning streak in the country (20) and are ranked number six in the country. Sarah became interested in college basketball when I took her and her mother to a Vandy game two years ago when we were home for Christmas.

Sarah is buying a guest ticket, and we will sit in the student section. I plan on keeping my shirt on, not painting my body or face, and wearing my ear plugs. I don’t intend to act that young.

* * *

I seem to think about this growing old thing more than most. I am not sure why I am so wrapped up about aging. In fact, I find as I get older, I am less sure about a lot of things.

So I’m going for “lastingness.” And why not?

On my birthday, I received several cards and a number of emails wishing me well. I finagled two dinners and a golf game out of the occasion. Sarah made her grandmother’s boiled custard to celebrate the day.

On my birthday eve, I received a phone call from my parents who sang “Happy Birthday” to me. The next morning, my computer displayed an internet video of my grandson, courtesy of my older daughter Blythe, singing that song to me. Neither version was exactly on key.

But they were the two sweetest songs I have heard in a long, long time.
Right then, I decided there are a lot of good things about lastingness.

Mount Miguel February Sunrise

2011-01-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

This is the second in a series of revisions to existing poetry submitted to Vanderbilt for consideration of acceptance into their MFA program for creative writing:

East north east of my front door,
Mount Miguel wore a shroud this morning;
Low clouds draped across her shoulders
below the peak at sunrise.

By circumstance, my front door faces east,
greeting the sun god
like the Navajo’s hogan door has done for centuries
over in Four Corners, a mountain or so
east of here.

Man’s antennae now reach skyward
on Mount Miguel’s peak,
silhouetted black against the rising orange orb,
before it slings white hot heat and light low to the south,
moving through the day,
bowing to the Baja lands of Mexico,
as it is wont to do in the winter months
here in the high desert.

The instruments of new fangled transmission look foreboding:
Spanish castle towers of the inquisition;
I wonder if the Kumayai once sat atop,
above the cloud shroud,
lifting their own clouds of smoke,
transmitting their own news of the day.

The city folks implanted here
tend to forget what this land beneath them was;
really is.
We have learned to just add water
to get paradise,
now overrun with those that forget
to look East at the sunrise
silhouettes of the ghost talkers.

Obits at Sixty-Seven

2011-01-19T04:31:00.001-08:00

i do not know why
my hands turn the pages to
the obits
and
my eyes scan the listings there;
i am not from here,
and
not likely to know anyone
heralded as dead here,
and
if i did know someone
buried there in the obits,
i would already know
their kin, their age,
the disease or what it was
which killed them;
so why do i go there?
i ask myself with
no real answer;
yet
i go there almost daily,
scanning, reading the curious obits,
hoping i really won’t know anyone listed there,
passing by most of the really aged,
perhaps because i ain't there yet,
wondering
who these dead folks really were,
what were they really like,
if they died nobly,
how their loved ones feel, really feel,
about this death thing
and
what made them write or contribute
the words to the obit,
including or omitting pertinent facts
and
what were those omitted facts
and
realizing i am sad they are gone,
but
perhaps because
i am getting a bit long in the tooth,
i go to the obits
and
i am damn glad
it’s not me
listed in the obits.

Bonita, California
January 19, 2011

An Oil Well in Lebanon and What Might Have Been

2011-01-17T19:44:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – With all of my travels and other pursuits in the past month, I needed a break, and no, golf doesn’t count.

Last year, my father gave me a box of memories my cousin had passed on to him from my aunt. Naomi Martin, my father’s older sister not only kept her memories but also retained my grandmother’s memories in that box. It is a treasure trove I am trying to figure out how to disperse to my family.

I took my needed break and decided to go through the memory box again.

I picked out and carefully cradled a yellowed newspaper clipping in my palm, afraid it would disintegrate – Newsprint paper, like us, becomes fragile when it ages. Although there was no date attached, this fragile clipping was from 90 years ago.

The article was not from the Democrat. It had a Lebanon “special” dateline, a practice used only for out of town articles, and was most likely from a Nashville paper.

The news might have changed Lebanon’s future. It certainly would have changed mine. But a denouement could not be found in the box of memories

The headline would have startled readers today: “Crude Oil Found in Abandoned Well.” The four-paragraph article describes the oil being discovered by children playing in my grandfather’s yard.

The story reported these children had lowered tin cans into the well and pulled out crude oil instead of water and an analysis revealed the stuff was of “exceedingly pure quality.” The article explained experts predicted “should it be found to be in commercial quantities would equal to (sic) any crude oil in America.”

The article ended noting my Grandfather, Culley Jewell, previously had been a well digger and was directing well clean up with intent to lease the well.
“What happened?” I wondered and, as usual, sought Lebanon history information from my parents. While explaining my call, I asked my father if he was one of the “children.”

He laughed his knowing laugh, admitting he was around ten when he and others were dipping tin cans in the backyard well. So the oil discovery occurred around 1924.
The water well had been abandoned a dozen years earlier when city water became available. This struck me as funny considering city water availability today. My grandfather and father’s home was at the east end of West Spring Street, two whole blocks from the square.

Extreme dry weather – without Al Gore and his legions claiming global warming – had warranted reopening the well, but the restoration had not been completed.
My father told me he was playing with friends when they pulled up their cans filled with black liquid instead of water.

“We thought it was gasoline,” my father recounted. “We even put it in our old Ford and it ran on the stuff.”

“I couldn’t find any follow up clippings,” I explained. “Obviously, there was no oil or Lebanon would be replete with oil derricks today, and we would be rich,” I reasoned, “So what happened?”

“Daddy had it analyzed and they eventually decided the oil was just run off from a stream,” my father concluded, laughing again.

As he explained, I thought about how many experts today would be flabbergasted over such a sequence. Automobile makers would descend on Lebanon in droves to learn more about this magic stuff which could make automobiles run from straight out of the earth. Petroleum engineers and geologists would hover over the well and froth over the prospects of oil in Tennessee.

Real estate agents would clamor to buy up all of the property within miles and hook up with oil interests to mass produce and market the black gold. And eventually, an environmental protest against improper dispensation of oil would bring thousands to the square. Somebody would be arrested and have to pay a king’s ransom for a fine.

Politicians would make speeches, and enact 500 laws. All of the news networks would send hundreds of cinematographers, production crews, and pretty announcers to tell the nation nightly of the progress.

But in 1924 or thereabouts, there isn’t even an explanation of what ensued. My father didn’t even get his name in the paper.

I think I would have liked it better back then.

poems, revised by a faint hope

2011-01-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

Last fall, i applied for a prized goal, to be accepted to Vanderbilt's Creative Writing MFA program. It is the most selective program of its type in the country with over 600 applicants for six positions, three in fiction, three in poetry. It is one of the top 15 such programs in the country.

I applied for the program fully aware of my long odds. Acceptance would move me toward a long time goal of completing a degree from Vanderbilt, an opportunity i squandered almost half a century ago. More importantly, i have recently come to the conclusion poetry is my best avenue for my story telling and writing, a focus which should remain my passion for the rest of my life. i thought the pursuit of this degree would give me skills, knowledge, and discipline to write better poetry.

As i went through the application process, i found i was enjoying writing and editing my poetry even more than i anticipated. The application process itself help me transition to a different way of thinking about my creative writing, and, i think, has positively impacted my writing.

i still hope Vanderbilt's review board for the program will pick me. i think i am good enough of a poet to compete. But i also accept i am a bit older and the board member's personal preferences in poetry will impact the outcome. With stiff competition, i recognize it is highly more likely i will be rejected rather than accepted. If that is the case, then it's okay. This six month pursuit has improved me.

One significant contributor to this improvement has been Dave Young. Dave received his Master's in English from San Diego State and has retired from his teaching career at San Diego's Mission Bay High School. Dave critiqued the poems i intended to submit with my application. He gave me some wonderful guidance and i have taken all of his comments into account.

The original poems have been posted here previously. i thought you might like to read the improved versions. This is the first.

Hands

When most folks meet him,
they notice steel blue eyes and agility;
his gaze, gait and movements
belie the ninety-five years;
but
those folks should look at his hands:
Durer, if he saw them,
would want to paint them.

His hands are marked from
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors,
starting in ’34 at twelve dollars a week.
He has used those hands to
repair the cars and
our hearts;

His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bougainville, New Guinea, the Philippines.

His hands have nicks and scratches
turned into scars with
the passage of time:
a map of history, the human kind.

Veins and arteries stand out
on the back of his hands,
pumping life;
tales are etched from
grease and oil and grime,
cleansed with gasoline and goop and lava soap;

They are hands of labor,
hands of hard times,
hands of hope,
hands of kindness, caring.

His hands own wisdom,
passing it to those who know him
with a pat, a caress, a handshake.
His hands tell the story
so well.

Breakfast History

2010-12-27T07:34:00.000-08:00

The breakfast one day after Christmas consisted of Maureen’s apple pancakes, bacon, and other goodies. At the conclusion, an unrecorded history lesson occurred.

We have recorded several of these "breakfast history" conversations with Mother and Daddy, but sometimes aren't in a position to record. I attempt to recreate the conversations from memory when this occurs. This morning was one such incident.

In the midst of the conversation, Maureen fetched the coffee pot and refreshed her cup. Now Maureen is one of those folks who likes her multiple condiments and adds a bit of coffee for her breakfast drink. As usual, she poured in some hazelnut creamer, a bit of heavy whipped cream, a bit of honey (I think), and for the coup de gras, she returned from the spice rack and sprinkled cinnamon into the mix, topping it off with a splash of coffee.

My father (Grandpa to all the family; no other grandfather in our family claims that title), who continues to drink his coffee black as does his oldest son, watched incredulously. When she had finished sprinkling the cinnamon, he offered, “We have some black pepper in the shelf if you would like to add that too.”

This was good. It induced one of those fantastic laughs of Maureen, causing everyone else to laugh as well.

Then, we talked about the weather. Daddy observed the weather patterns had changed since his youth. He recalled three or four snows each season dropping at least four to six inches each time. One year during his elementary school years, it snowed 21 inches.

Culley Jewell, my grandfather and in charge of school maintenance, walked to McClain Elementary School on West Main Street to fire the coal heaters to warm the school before the students arrived. My father performed the same job for Highland Heights School on the corner of North Cumberland and East High Street.

After firing the coal heaters in the early morning, they returned from their respective schools to learn that the snow storm had brought about school being cancelled for the day.

This led to the tale of Grandma getting in trouble by helping me, a common occurrence my father pointed out. “She took you on your paper route quite a bit when it was bad weather,” he recalled. I don’t remember it that way, but a) I am sure she did once or twice, and b) I’m sure his memory is better than mine.

This particular incident was recalled when I described the beauty of the drive from the Castle Heights gate up to Main was after a snow fall. The concrete arch of a gate, barely wide enough to allow two cars to pass, was lined with hickory trees (I think) and they hung over the drive, a canopy of snow covered limbs.

But this winter day, it was very cold after a long night of rain. I had guard duty and had to report for duty before 6:00 a.m. My mother decided I should not walk in the weather and took me to the main building.

My father had parked his car (a used car for sale at the Hankins, Byars, and Jewell Pontiac dealership) behind my mother’s in the driveway. So Mother took me in Daddy’s car.

It was just before 6:00 a.m. when she dropped me off. As she started driving back down the entrance hill, the car ran out of gas. Dressed in her nightgown and robe, she walked back to the guard house and asked me to call Daddy. No offices were open yet and the only phone was a pay phone. Neither either of us or the other guard on duty had a dime. So Mother decided to walk home.

When she got to West Main, she hid behind the arched entry until there were no cars on West Main. Then she dashed across. When she saw a car coming north on Castle Heights, she stepped into a roadside ditch attempting to look like she had been outside and was going back into a neighbor’s house. The ditch was full of water from the rains and then she had one soaked foot.

When she got home, as Daddy described it, she was “plenty mad.”

Shortly afterwards, Granny, Mother's mother who was a house mother for Castle Heights Junior School (elementary school boarding students), called as usual. She complained to Mother about some nut leaving their car in the middle of the road, making it difficult to get to the school cafeteria behind Main.

Mother informed Granny that she was the nut.

I always did get her into more trouble than I was worth.

Liver and onions at Sunset

2010-12-20T06:40:00.000-08:00

The Sunset Diner is an institution in my hometown of Lebanon, Tennessee. It began in 1967 on what was then the end of the city proper to the south, the last business before the recently completed I-40, which is now chock-a-block fast food franchises, Wal-Mart, used car dealerships, and sundry businesses.

Every trip back home requires at least one, if not multiple meals at Sunset. Their Southern family cooking is award winning. On our first night back for Christmas this year, we went there. The following story is a result of that outing.

On Thursday night (December 16, 2010), Grandpa, Maureen, and I went to Sunset for dinner with Grandma’s order to bring back a hamburger.

She said, “Get the little one.”

Grandpa and I said, almost simultaneously, “They only have one size.”

As usual, Grandma and Grandpa argued. I remained smugly silent, and I thought wisely, sided with Grandpa.

When we were seated, we looked over the menu. On the right hand bottom half of the inside under sandwiches, the hamburger, at one-quarter pound, was listed. Directly underneath, the “Nokes Burger” was described as a seven-ounce hamburger with all of the trimmings. Grandma was right again.

Maureen, my California-born, haute cuisine, healthy-eating San Diego mama, had not been a fan of Sunset until our last stay in Lebanon when she had the cheeseburger (in my parents home and back in the Southwest corner, hamburger is synonymous with cheeseburger). This evening, she ordered the special of pork tenderloin and three sides: fresh tomatoes, lima beans and mashed potatoes with gravy. Grandpa ordered half of a roast beef sandwich with gravy.

As usual, I ordered based on what I was not likely to get often anywhere else, especially back in San Diego. I make a mean okra dish, but it is along the Cajun way with tomatoes and spices. I like to add Tennessee sausage but usually capitulate by replacing it with bacon for Maureen. About once a year, I buy turnip greens at the Navy commissary and cook up a batch. Several times a year, I make cornbread, much like but not as good as my mother’s version.

This night my order was liver and onions, pinto beans, turnip greens, and fried okra with cornbread and sweet tea.

In the course of the meal, I asked Maureen if she would like a taste of my liver and onions. Demurely declining, she finally relented when I, thinking she would be won over again, insisted. After the small taste, mostly onions, she scrunched up her nose, and said, “It tastes like liver.”

My father then started a tale, “When I was a young boy, six or younger, Daddy worked in the hoop mill.”

Note: At the time around 1920, Lebanon had a hoop mill that made the hoops for wood barrels somewhere around where the current high school football field and the baseball and softball fields are located. Close by was a stave factory, where the wooden barrel staves were manufactured.

Daddy continued, “I don’t remember why, but he took me there one day. In a barn area, there were two men dressing a cow they had just slaughtered. One came out, with the fresh liver in his hands. I have never liked to eat liver ever since then.”

I could feel Maureen sort of shudder. I continued to eat my liver and onions.
Shortly after the story, the party of four sitting at the next table collected their tab and departed, but the man in the party returned and leaned over and shook my father’s hand.

“I really liked your story about liver,” he said. “My wife won’t eat liver either."
I wish I had asked for his name.

I will continue to go to Sunset as many times as possible when I come back home, but now I will think about that story and have a hard time ordering liver and onions.

But I will occasionally.

A Curious Quest

2010-12-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

My part is done, kaput, complete, almost over.

This morning, I pushed the magic button which was labeled “Submit for review.”

I am now in waiting. It is a curious kind of wait.

I have waxed and waned in my attitude about my chances. Realistically, they are poor. I have told my wife rejection will not be depressing. The odds are too long, and the application effort has re-focused me on my passion. That should be enough.

But all of the above isn’t enough.

I got the initial idea a couple of years ago, but it was impractical. I wanted to go back to Vanderbilt from where I ingloriously departed in a slough of D’s previously unknown to human academia – 14 D’s in four semesters, surely a record. I wanted to expiate my expulsion from the school of engineering, civil that is, and gain a degree in literature, which should have been my pursuit originally.

My brother wisely pointed out the illogic in my vanity quest. Acceptance for a second undergraduate degree made no sense.

Within the year, I had modified my quest. I would apply for an MA in literature. My initial probes received obtuse responses or none at all. Then, a year later, the email said something like, “You idiot, we don’t have a masters in literature at Vanderbilt. If you are accepted in English and literature at Vanderbilt, it must be for a doctorate.”

I considered this option for about a nano-second. That’s how long my acutely honed mathematical brain concluded I would be as old as Methuselah when I received my doctorate. But in this process of unachieved quest, I stumbled across the answer: a strange, beautiful culmination of my life, something that made more sense than anything I have ever done before.

I decided to apply for a Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Vanderbilt. I was worried (still am) my age might be a negative factor in the selection process. I was also deathly afraid of taking the GRE. My last one was in 1968 aboard my first ship. I was especially concerned about the quantitative, i.e. math, section.But after being assured the writing submission would be considered first and primarily and all other inputs would be to validate I could handle the coursework.

So in August, I started my quest. Maureen, Blythe, Sarah, Joe, Carla, Kate, Al and Marin Hicks, Dave Young and many others provided guidance and support. Bob Koenigs, Dave Carey, Carla Neggers, Pete Toennies, and Amelia Hipp have kindly supplied letters of recommendations, which made me blush. Many others too numerous to mention have provided encouragement.I filled out the plethora of forms, ordered practice GRE exams, wrote and rewrote my statement of purpose, and reworked the 15 pages of poetry for hours and hours. For over four months, the application was my primary focus.

So relief washed over me when I hit the magic button.

As my brother and I said many times when discussing this over the four months, what will be will be.

Vanderbilt’s Creative Writing MFA is the most selective in the country with over 600 applicants for six positions, three in fiction, three in poetry. I have applied for the poetry. I am hoping the overwhelming majority of applicants are chasing the fiction option. If so, then I have somewhere between a 1/50 to a 1/200 chance of acceptance.

The first practice test I took I was encouraged, finishing in the top 90% in analytical (grammar) and mid 80% in the quantitative (math). I was not worried about the writing section. After all, that is what I’ve been doing, on and off for more than 50 years.

However, I scored worse on each succeeding practice test and plummeted in the actual GRE. My worse score was in the writing portion, which surprised and depressed me. I cannot understand why except my writing is not academic enough, 45 years since my last one created a brain void in test taking, or I am really not as smart as I thought I was.

Regardless, what will be will be.

Whether the reviewers select me or not, my focus is not on my writing. I am working with an incredible company, Pacific Tugboat Service, on training services and products for the military and other agencies. That may lead to more work next year, but it will share my attention with my writing.

If I am accepted, obviously a big change will occur in our lives. We are waiting until we hear the results before leaping to any decisions, but initially, it is likely I will go to Nashville by myself, and Maureen and I will work out a heavy two-way commute system until we decide what is best for the two years.

So I am at peace. I feel good. My quest continues but with a calmness I've not had for a long time. I am even excited about the future, especially with writing and working with Pacific Tug as long as I can.

I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas or other holiday you celebrate in the season, a successful 2011, and peace on earth.

rejuvenation

2010-12-02T20:33:00.000-08:00

Thank you for visiting my web site.

The site has been rejuvenated with even more emphasis on my writing than before with some vague idea that when people read my posts and my writing in the different sections, they will recommend it to others, creating a ground swell of popularity, and I will land a major book deal, a syndicated column gig, or both…and laugh all the way to the bank, as Liberace famously said.

More importantly, I believe my writing can help you (and me) through our days. I am not, nor ever have been good at self-promotion (a flaw when it comes to selling writing). But there is something in my blood which has always driven me to write. Accompanying that drive is the desire for people to read what I write. I can’t explain it. It just is what it is.

So rather than chasing agents, editors, and publishers by creating some false image of myself, I decided to let you and others you might refer to this site to read my works.

I am serious about this. I learned to be serious about my passion from my youngest daughter, Sarah. She is an aspiring actress and has been working to be successful in theater and drama with no reservation since the fourth grade. I have applied for Vanderbilt’s Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. I will find out if I am selected to this prestigious and extremely selective program in February or March. My chances of selection are slim, really slim, but I consider the effort as a means to refocus my life.

I don’t intend to ever really retire, but I am at the stage where I can redirect my priorities. My top priority now until the end of my days will be writing. I also view this as way to give back, to share my experiences of many varied pursuits over a half-century (damn, I’m old) for others to use in their decisions in their lives.

I don’t claim I can help anyone by telling them what they should do, but I do believe the lessons I learned through my experience, can help people decide what is best for them.

I have narrowed down other work outside of writing, ceasing active work in my leadership coaching, teambuilding, and other organization development pursuits. I am working with Pacific Tug Services and my close friend, Pete Toennies on several projects, which I believe will be beneficial to the Navy, the Coast Guard, and other government agencies in keeping our country safe. There is a section of this site, “Business Office,” which has information on this business enterprise. All else is about writing, writing, writing.

The site will be going through further revision after the turn of the year with the folks who have provide invaluable help for me.

Walker Hicks has been incredible and mostly responsible for this site’s appearance and navigation. He is a splendid talent in multi-media. Dave Zurell has contributed by keeping my computer and associated electronics up to snuff for this electronically-challenged author. Dave also has helped immeasurably by taking care of my wife and daughter’s computer needs.

My oldest daughter, Blythe Jewell Gander has provided astute and on-target advice and counsel on what a blog and website needs to be effective. Blythe is internet whiz who has her own very, very funny and somewhat off-color (a warning for the pristine) blog, http://themusicalfruit.net/.

I am rededicated to frequent (read more than once a week) posts and continuing to populate each of the sections with more of my writings. We are also slowly going through each section, cleaning them up, correcting errors, and hopefully making them more attractive for you to visit.
I hope you return many times. I welcome feedback about the site and my writings. I am a tough old seadog and can take negative criticism. Please send me an email, and I will try reply in short order.

Thank you.

jim

Whining is Good for What Ails Me

2010-09-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – This is a time-out column.

I have vowed to keep this column light and fun without political commentary or social critique.

I have maintained that vow except for one exception as I recall.

I also promised myself to avoid an annoying right of old timers. I have noticed folks my age or older view the good ole days through rose-colored glasses: life was harder but better, our ethics and values were above reproach, we were all wholesome, healthy, strong, and happy: all things were good back when.

Accompanying this selective memory is a demonization of today’s culture: people today don’t value hard work; everything is more complicated; paperwork is rampant; you can’t talk to a real person; politics is sordid (especially on the other side); everything costs too much; etc. It’s the “I used to walk ten miles to school barefoot in a snow storm” syndrome.

Two recent events in the Southwest corner drove me to declare this column time out. It’s my time to whine.

About two weeks ago, I retrieved the “San Diego Union-Tribune” from my lawn and found a completely new format.

Then last Wednesday, I watched television coverage of the hostage situation at the Discovery Channel’s headquarters in Maryland.

These two independent events sparked my ire.

* * *

Last year, the “Union-Tribune,” San Diego’s daily newspaper was sold to Platinum Equity, a business acquisition group with only one newspaper under its aegis. Platinum appears to believe less news can make more money.

I am an old school newspaper guy. J.B. Leftwich taught me and many others the fundamentals of good newspaper journalism.

Many of those fundamentals have disappeared. Costs and profit are now the drivers in owning a newspaper, not providing the best news. Fortunately, the “Democrat” and its cross-town rival, “The Wilson Post” have thus far fared well in providing the news.

This paper recently changed its format, but I haven’t discerned a decrease in news coverage. From the Southwest corner, news appears to have actually expanded a bit.

But the “Union-Tribune” has cut newsprint, decreased the width of the paper, subsequently reducing the font (type size) to unreadable without Superman vision.

For twenty years, the “Union Tribune” had one of the best sports sections in the country. Being on the left end of time zones, all scores were in the morning paper with summaries, and commentary on every major sporting event.

The new version has a brief summary of all sports in a quarter-page summary, coverage of the local teams, an attempt at humor, and a gossipy item on “sports and courts,” updates on criminal and judicial events relating to sports figures. This “UT” should receive a fifteen yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.

I am amazed bean counters figure they can make more money by providing less product. The new “Union-Tribune” is an excellent example of this bizarre approach to journalism as a business.

* * *

But last week’s television saga of James Jae Lee pushed me beyond the pale.

On Wednesday, I turned on the television during lunch, and as usual channel surfed while I ate. I paused at CNN reporting on the Maryland hostage situation. My interest intensified as I learned Lee had lived in San Diego.

I wanted to learn more.

But CNN seemed intent on not providing facts, but assessing innuendo from bystanders,
boasting of their own opinions, and calling for opinions from so-called experts who didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. Mostly, they crowed about the superiority of their coverage, their reporters, and their commentators. It was a gossip-fest.

I tried to find more news on the situation. Fox, that silly disguise of strident conservatism, actually had some good information for a while, but then Neil Cavuto decided talking to Lee’s brother-in-law for a half hour was more important than what was actually happening in Maryland.

I searched for more news on the situation. There was none. For that matter, on more than 900 channels, there was no straight news.

After 90 minutes, I disgustedly turned off the television.

* * *

In the Southwest corner, real news in the media is declining toward extinction. It’s an endangered species.

Where are Ben Bradlee, Walter Cronkite, David Hall, and John Cameron Swazy when you need them?

My time out is over. See you next week.

Good weather, good times and memories of Hazelwood

2010-09-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – In spite of again missing the Wilson County Fair and Del Mar horse racing out here, I finally achieved my summer feel good.

For a week, the Pacific’s marine layer left after an unusually long stay, only to march back in with a vengeance this past weekend. We actually had some highs in the mid-80s.

Perhaps it was the brief summer spurring my good mood and producing recollections of Hazelwood.

For those of you who don’t remember, the Hazelwood swimming pool was off of Rome Pike on a fork to the northeast of East High. My siblings and I spent many summer days at Hazelwood.

In my teens, I was more attracted to Horn Springs where more pretty girls were swimming and tanning. I went to one or two parties at the Lebanon Country Club, but membership was beyond our economic means.

Hazelwood & Suck Creek

Hazelwood was our “swimming hole,” just as Suck Creek behind the Lebanon Woolen Mills was my father’s (girls weren’t to be found at the Suck Creek for swim suits were not the fashionable wear for the boys who swam there).

My sister Martha and I took swimming lessons at Hazelwood. I learned poorly, but my merely adequate skills came from those lessons. Our mother also took our younger brother to lessons there. Joe refused, jumped into the pool and began to swim.

Hazelwood was owned by Dr. H.H. Fly and his wife, who managed the facility. It was named in honor of their handicapped daughter named Hazel. At one time, they also had a boarding house where, according to my father, James Cagney once stayed.

I remember summer days diving off the deep end boards acting…well, like a boy, rarely stopping long enough to lie to the side of the pool while wishing I could play ping pong in the screened-in structure beyond the shallow end.

I clearly recall one hot day when I returned to our gathering area and first heard Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk,” a song which mesmerizes me to this day. In my recollections, Horn Springs is aligned with Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” while Hazelwood and “Honky Tonk” are indelibly linked.

My summer mind wandering leads to more connections.

Sprinting with a Dog

The Fly’s moved up the hill across the street from our home on Castle Heights Avenue.

It was a different time and pet leash laws did not exist. One August day, I crossed the Fly’s yard on my way back home. The Fly’s big black dog took exception to my intrusion. He and I did a 30-yard dash worthy of world class sprinters. His final lunge and nip at this fleet-when-scared lad produced a slight contusion on the back of my left knee.

Oh yes, nobody sued; nobody called the police; and I learned to be careful around dogs.

As mentioned here before, pets were treated differently back in those summers. J. Bill and Bessie Lee Frame, immediately across the street from our house, had a dog named Tubby. Once, my mother pulled her car into the Frame’s driveway to deliver a package. Tubby considered this an affront and chased her back into her car.

Up at the top of the hill on Castle Heights, Ed Baird and his family had a boxer. I do not recall its name, but I had learned to keep my distance. The boxer became a neighborhood legend for its Easter antics.

My family attended the sunrise service sponsored by the Kiwanis Club (this credit to the Kiwanis is included to ensure George Harding does not reprimand me for omitting their contribution).

Ed Baird’s Boxer

While the service reverberated with singing and celebration, Ed Baird’s boxer wandered away from home. Ed found the sated dog as it finished off the Easter eggs. The boxer had dug up the eggs hidden in our yard for our egg hunt after the service.

I also remember Bill Simpson’s dog Daisy. Bill lived with his Grandparent’s, the Jacksons, and brought home the puppy in the basket of his bicycle. Daisy was as much a part of my summers as the other youngsters on Castle Heights Avenue.

The few days of real summer in the Southwest corner are gone. Soon our weather will be of the super dry autumn variety with threats of wildfires. But those precious few summer days engendered good thoughts of Hazelwood and summer in Lebanon when the dogs ran free.

Sea story: a submarine tale

2010-09-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – With August madcap doings in the Southwest corner, I postponed my trip back home and missed a unique reunion in Newport, R.I.

Several sailors from my first ship, the U.S.S. Hawkins (DD 873) held an ad hoc reunion in Newport, RI. I was honored they asked me to join as they had been enlisted and I had been a junior officer. Allen Ernst, my leading sonar technician when I was Anti-Submarine (ASW) Officer, had found me in the intergalactic space of the internet about a year ago. I suspect he instigated including me.

Regardless, Allen, Robin Lewis, and Norm O’Neal took the lead, and R.J. Beihl, Bill Durbrow, Bill Carey, Bruce Coulture, and Rik Tuinstra completed the group.

They sent pictures and reports. Then last week, Allen forwarded me an email train from a discussion they had had at the reunion. The email detailed an incident I will never forget, including a seven page breakdown of the Navy investigation.

After completing a major overhaul in February, 1969, the “Hawkins” sailed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for “refresher training,” two-months of intense exercises to get the ship’s company back up to speed before operations.

Submarine Exercises

ASW exercises with a real submarine were included. The U.S.S. Chopper (SS-342) was assigned to Guantanamo for these exercises.

The ASW exercises were actually a respite for me. Other duties required grueling 18-hour days. The ASW part was exciting and fun, and my first with a real sub.

Hawkins stood out of the channel February 11 and conducted engineering drills in the morning. General Quarters 1A (for ASW operations) was set immediately after the morning drills. I moved from the bridge to the small ASW/Sonar space in the after section of Combat Information Center (CIC). There was no time for lunch.

Quicker than expected, we gained sonar contact and began to track the Chopper.

Just finding a submarine with sonar remains magic to me. The sonar transmits sound beams, and if the beams hit the submarine, the returning echo alerts the sonar crew to the contact.

By maintaining contact, a good sonar team can track the sub, deducing course and speed and producing a solution to fire an anti-submarine weapon, such as a torpedo with some probability of actually hitting the submarine.

This did not occur often. We spent more time talking to the whales on “Gertrude,” our underwater telephone designed to communicate with other Navy ships and submarines, than actually locating submarines.

A Disappearing Contact

But this particular afternoon, we had good luck, establishing solid contact. We could actually see the submarine blip turning in circles on our fire control system.

Then the blip became progressively weaker and disappeared. We were stumped as to the cause, wondering what kind of maneuver the Chopper could have employed.

Within two minutes, the bridge reported the Chopper had shot almost completely out of the water, 100 yards off of our starboard beam, crashing back into the sea. It disappeared again briefly before bobbing to the surface.

The Chopper had lost its generator and electrical DC power. The sub’s down angle had increased to 15 degrees, then to 45 degrees and beyond. She had plummeted to over 1,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, dangerously close to her “crush depth.”

The emergency actions of the sub’s personnel finally took effect. The Chopper ceased its descent and began to rise. The crew couldn’t control the reverse ascent, and the sub was almost vertical in the water when it cleared the surface. She re-submerged to about 250 feet before finally bobbing to the surface.

No Injuries, But a Great Sea Story

Amazingly, she returned to port under her own power. The ensuing investigation determined she had suffered structural damage, and the “Chopper” was decommissioned a year later.

More amazing, no one received any critical injuries. This is even more startling in that the report reveals steel deck plates were not secured and were crashing about during the violent descent and ascent along with anything not tied down. The officers and crew carried out emergency procedures 90 degrees off the normal plane. It would be like doing house work in an emergency mode standing on the wall instead of the floor with furniture flying around.

The Chopper was just one of many impactful incidents during my Hawkins tour with those sailors. It was quite an introduction to anti-submarine warfare for this young officer.

I am still amazed.

Squared away memories

2010-08-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO - Recently, J.B. Leftwich began a feature in his column I like called "Person of the Past."

Reading about Bill Baird, Waldo Seat, and others has brought fond memories.

Additionally, two "Democrat" news items told of the "Capitol Theater" renovation and a new shop locating in the square. The thrust of these additions is unclear to me from the Southwest comer. But the Lebanon square of the past is a living entity in my mind, with a vibrancy and identity of its own. It's my "Place of the Past."

Considering my fuzzy memory, I called my expert back home to fill blanks. Estelle Jewell, my mother, gave me a detailed account of the square's buildings and their occupants from the 1930s through the early 1960s.

So this is not a one-column feature. It will be continued.

In my mind, the square was the center of the universe. Nashville was a maze of monoliths a day's journey to the west, not of my world. Everything happened on or adjacent to the square. If you banked, needed hardware, had to have a prescription filled, needed new clothes, were getting a photograph made, had to replace shoes, required some general merchandise, or wanted to dine, the Lebanon square was the starting and end point. There were some outliers, but even they were nearly all adjacent to the square.

Two banks occupied east and south exit comers of the square. There were no drive-through teller windows and, until savings and loan places cropped up, everyone did their banking on the square.

The Lebanon Bank was located at the exit to South Cumberland across from the courthouse. The Commerce Union Bank, where my mother had her first full-time job after high school in 1935, occupied the north comer at the exit onto East Main.

The seat of government, the county courthouse oversaw the square affairs with its dominating presence, occupying the entire the southwest side of the square in its regal impartiality, a yellow-brick road to justice with worn out concrete steps into and center-worn wooden steps up to the courtrooms.

I associate smells as much as sight or sound with the court house. There was a dusty lingering of cigar smoke in those high ceilinged halls and offices overwhelmed with oak file cabinets. Julius Williams, the chancery court clerk, occupied a first floor office with tall, single pane windows. Mrs. Lucy Cummings, his secretary, tutored my mother in shorthand during part-time work in high school. She taught Estelle Jewell shorthand and let her use the office typewriter to learn to type (around 80 words a minute, as I recall) from a typing book.

I remember visiting that room and feeling like one should not talk in such an official, cavernous place of justice and records.

Later, my mother worked for Curry Dotson, the long-time county court clerk.
Court house recollection is not complete without mention of the older men sitting outside chewing, whittling and philosophizing.

Two drug stores, Bradshaw's and Shannon's stood almost opposite of each other across the square before grocery chains had their own pharmacies and drug stores were not the chain department-store giants with drive-by windows. Bradshaw's had aisles of stuff but mostly un-interesting to a young boy. However, I distinctly remember my mouth watering at the thought of a cream filled chocolate when buying a box of assorted candy.

Shannon's was an old-style drug store, located on the southeast side. When my mother was working on the square (she worked at four different jobs on the square), she would lunch on a ham sandwich for a dime and drink a coke for a nickel at Shannon's counter. Later, it was the first place I have ever had a cherry coke. For someone my age, it was the nectar of the gods.

Until the late 1950's, the Lebanon square was Lebanon itself. Everything emanated from the square. "Going to town" meant going to the square.

Recently, we visited members of my wife's family in Prescott, AZ. The square there is much larger than Lebanon's square. The vast and imposing gray courthouse sits in the middle: Yet Prescott's square induced me to recall Lebanon's square. In Prescott, the square remains the heart, the core of the city.

Ah, but they cannot look upon General Hatton in their square.

To be continued...

Gremlins: My Old Friends

2010-07-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – Recently, a toilet in our home in the Southwest corner needed to have the handle mechanism replaced.

Unlike my father, who is good at just about any task, plumbing has never been one of my fortes. But I vowed to fix the problem.

When I was about four, I stayed with my aunt and uncle while my parents took my sister to see the doctor. Jessie and Alice Jewell lived on Fairview off of what is now the Baddour Parkway near the old LHS football stadium. Uncle Jessie was one of the better plumbers in Lebanon for years.

Somehow, I managed to lock myself in their bathroom. After a lengthy stay, my cousin, Shirley Jewell, now Mrs. Jay Smith, coaxed me into climbing out the window.Having that much problem with a bathroom then may have been the origination of my gremlins.

Gremlins

I believe in gremlins. Gremlins originated in RAF folklore during World War II as mischievous and mechanically oriented creatures. Some British folks believe the term came from the Old English “gremian,” meaning “to vex.”

Although I did not know it at the time, my gremlins began plaguing me when I was around nine. I had started mowing the lawns of J. Bill and Bessie Lee Frame and Fred and Ruby Cowan across the street as well as our yard.

On numerous occasions, the old rotary mower would balk when I yanked the power cord. I would fool with the choke, pull, and pull again to no avail. Finally, I would give up and call my father. He would come home from work, take one pull, and the mower would start.

It had to be gremlins.

In 1973 when I was the chief engineer on the “U.S.S. Hollister,” a World War II vintage destroyer with an engineering plant of mystifying and complex symbiosis, I became convinced gremlins really did exist.

I think my father had something to do with bringing gremlins into my world. Uncle Jessie of the great bathroom escape was his older brother. Then there were the old mower incidents.

Evap Gremlins

And when Jimmy Jewell came to visit us in Long Beach, I proudly took him for a tour of the “Hollister” engineering spaces, the underworld over which I ruled.

This quintessential automobile mechanic who once made a car out of two totaled ones, who had more knowledge of motors and mechanical systems than I would ever possess, climbed the ladders out of my realm, and commented, “I can’t believe you are in charge of something like this.”

He was right, of course. Now, I suspect his rightness again let loose the gremlins.

They first invaded my main distilling plant, or as we Navy engineers used to call them, the “evaps.”

The forward evaps were designed to turn seawater into fresh and boiler feed water at 720 gallons per hour. The after evaps were designed to generate 120 gallons per hour.

Shortly after my father’s visit, “Hollister” went to Hawaii. On the return to Long Beach, the temperamental forward evaps shut down. The little evaps huffed and puffed and miraculously started generating 200 gallons each hour.

This was enough to provide a small amount of boiler feed water, but the crew had to go on “water hours,” meaning no fresh water except for cooking and limited drinking for almost five days.

I was not very popular.

There was no rhyme or reason for the two evaporators not performing or performing far above their capacity.

“Gremlins,” I explained to my officers and chiefs.

Computer Gremlins

After I left the “Hollister,” the gremlins laid low until computers entered my world. The gremlins came back with a rush and have remained.

Accepting my computer expertise is just enough to get in trouble, I have a friend who puts things in order on a regular basis. Often, he shakes his head in wonder at how I have generated such bizarre conditions on my computer.

“Gremlins,” I tell him.

Now, the gremlins have possessed my toilet bowl. Resolved to triumph, I read instructions on toilet repair, went to Home Depot, and bought a repair kit.

Arriving at home, I flushed once before starting the repair. The toilet worked and has been working ever since. The repair kit is in our garage.

Gremlins.

Watch out. They are proliferating.

Two Views of the Old Navy

2010-07-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

Right after i wrote a column about the change in the Navy from my career until now, i found a poem i had written a couple of years ago but had not finished.
i was struck by the similarity in my thought as well as a bit different approach.
i hope you enjoy them.

i was a sailor

i was a sailor
back when being a sailor
was tantamount to
being a man;
there weren't no great number
of automatic controls back then,
not one hell of a lot of video games
or graphics to read:
you turned the valves and the steam hissed;
you cleaned the boiler plates on the lower level
with the blowers blasting air in your face
for relief from the hot wet heat;
inserting the plates
and firing it up
hoping it wouldn't burn white
and
blow your ass
off the naval station
to kingdom come;
and the boilers would rumble
and groan and croak
and spew their smoke out the stack
and build up steam
until there weren't no smoke
and the boiler tenders
down in the bowels
knew they would be
getting underway
soon.

I was a sailor
back when we didn't know
what the hell politically correct meant:
we lined up the feed pumps
and kicked off the auxiliaries
and went on ship's power,
dropping our umbilical cords from the pier
like the doctor cuts the cord
on the newborn:
separating us from mother earth
and sending us to the bounding main;
when we turned the nozzles of steam
onto the turbines of the main engine
and watched the tree trunk sized shaft
turning slowly;
the engine room wheezed and coughed
and made you feel like you
were in a jungle of pumps
and the distilling plants gurgled with
Rube Goldberg smugness,
making you wonder if
they would really make
good water
again.

I was a sailor
back when they meant
what they said when they said,
"if the navy wanted you to have a wife,
they would have issued you one."
Navy was a way of life,
living on board, locker in a club
just outside the main gate
with civvies,
so
you could go down to sailor town
drink beer and cheap whiskey
enough to make the woman look
pretty enough to pay
for the night
so
you could get back in time
for quarters at 0700
unless there was a fight.

I was a sailor
when the boatswainmates
swept down and triced up
and the decks were spotless
and first division stood
at the ready on the forecastle to
cast away all lines
like third division,
the anti-submarine pukes back aft
and the sleek greyhound visaged lady
got underway,
no tugs,
and no bow thrusters
like they the pansies are required to use
today;
no sir:
we ruled the seas
and
stood proud in quarters standing out,
no manning the rails for show,
we did it like it was supposed to be
and the bow cut through the channel like
it owned the sea
and the trough slid up the side
only feet under the gunnel
and the stern wash was white with foam
and we were underway
rocking and rolling.
Our big guns were housed in
a metal death trap where
we stood alongside the breech
when the firing shook our brains, our guts, our souls
and we loved the thrill of it all
(as B.B. used to lament),
and the brass kicked out the aft end
and the hot case man with his asbestos gloves
smacked them out onto the rolling deck:
no automatic, manless machine of death
back then.

I was a sailor back then
when men were men
and
sailors were sailors
and
then was then.

- Bonita, California
- July 19, 2010

Old Navy; Then and Now; But Not a Clothing Store

SAN DIEGO – For the past decade, I have worked on Navy related projects in the Southwest corner.

Sometimes it is lucrative. More often, I am, as a good friend states, the hardest working man he knows who doesn’t make any money.

Occasionally, this avocation, my previous vocation, allows me to mingle with the Navy’s operators, an attractive aspect. I freely admit I loved operating in the Navy while on active duty.

I do not mean the incessant planning or the major staff level influence games. Nor do I mean contractors, the infinite generation of spreadsheets, or the voluminous quasi-legal bureaucratic documentation.

I mean, as we old Navy folk like to say, being on the deck plates.

In these too infrequent brushes with the real Navy, I find the Navy is not the one I knew. Certain aspects remain. Some traditions are still extant. But by and large, my Navy no longer exists.

A major difference is women. I am a strong proponent of women at sea. My experience in my last operating tour in the dark ages of the early 1980s has been documented as positive and successful. Those women were pioneers for what is now a gender neutral profession, at least as far as numbers go.

Recently, women became part of the crews in the submarine fleet.

My Navy was all male until that penultimate tour. It was rough and tumble, and definitely not politically correct. We cussed, we smoked, we worked hard, and we went on liberty with abandon.

When the women came aboard, a way of life vanished. This is not a bad thing, but it was definitely different.

Another difference is steam. There are still a few of the steam-powered mastodons around, but gas turbines and computer controlled propulsion systems are the norm. My Navy consisted of wheezing, huffing boilers in firerooms with heat and humidity that would make the recent Tennessee weather feel like Alaska. The unrelenting blast of noise from blowers futilely attempting to ameliorate such conditions was constant except when the ship went, as we called it, “cold iron.”

Now, navigators pinpoint their positions with global positioning systems (GPS). When I steamed, celestial navigation and piloting were as much art as science, and knowledge of currents, prevailing seas, and chart interpretation was how we got around. The bridge team was ten or so watchstanders with integrated tasks to maneuver safely.

Now one or two folks operate with push button controls. They may even be stationed in the dark technical center of the ship, more “Star Wars” than my bridges.

As an ensign, I was the “check-sight observer” in a five-inch twin gun mount, tasked to ensure we shot at the right thing. Being inside the mount while firing was a trip to Hades with 13 men crammed into a space about the size of my home office. The effort required to manually load the powder case and shell into the breeches bordered on superhuman, especially during extended firing. The report of firing a round could move the ship and turn nearby spaces into shambles. Inside, the percussion would shake you to the core, the acrid smell of the powder burned your nostrils, and the noise from the explosion felt like someone slamming their palms on your ears.

Today, gun mounts, if used at all, are unmanned.

A large number of old salts bemoan the passing of what was their way of life. There are just as many who take great pride in the new Navy’s technological advances and the once impossible accomplishments the Navy has had.

I, as usual, have mixed feelings.

The new Navy has more equality, more effective weapons delivery, and smarter sailors. The communication within the Navy, with other military units and back home is efficient, effective, and immediate. Every aspect of operation is safer. The technology is astounding.

The old Navy had more characters, greater labor intensity, more risk, and more personal decisions in any ship operation or task. Communication was accomplished by radio messages, signal flags and semaphore. The connection to home was long awaited letters and a few international phone calls in the dark of early mornings.

I am glad we have the new Navy. I also am glad I was in the old one. I should add that pretty much applies to life in general.

Hot and Cold Weather Comparisons

2010-07-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – Out here in the Southwest corner, it is a bit different than home.
While most of the United States is being seared by record heat, we out here are waiting for real summer to arrive.

It is, in fact, too cool.

Last weekend while folks back home were sweltering, I wore a wind jacket to play midday golf.

For those mired in the heat, these highs in the 60s might seem lovely. But folks in the Southwest corner are wondering why “June Gloom” still looms in July.
San Diego is a beach goer’s haven. Coronado Beach was recently ranked the country’s third best beach by Professor Dr Stephen Leatherman, director of the Florida International University International Hurricane Center (no, I don’t know why a hurricane center rates beaches).

Three golf holes at Naval Air Station, North Island where I often play abut Coronado’s beach. It is a lovely beach with the Victorian Hotel del Coronado to the south and the Gibralteresque Point Loma to the north.

In recent weeks, beachgoers have been sparser than usual. A July 4th photo in the “Union-Tribune” depicted beach goers wrapped in towels and blankets, rather than lying on them.

So we continue to wait for our version of summer in the low 80’s to show. Waiting for the warmth, I remember times I was really cold.

San Francisco in July

Only a few times have I been as cold as in San Francisco in July. In 1976, “U.S.S. Anchorage” made a port call at moored at pier 36, south of city center. A shipmate and I took liberty to play golf at Harding Park, the site of the 2009 President’s Cup competition. In 1976, it was an inexpensive public course, certainly not ready for a PGA tournament.

It was July so we wore shorts and polo shirts. By the second hole, we wished we had worn parkas. Winds whipping off the Pacific and Lake Merced cut us to the quick. Being golfers, i.e. not having a great deal of sense, we played the entire 18 teeth chattering holes.

Pusan, Korea in February

Another bone chilling experience was standing in to harbor in Pusan, Korea in February 1970. I had just become executive officer of the Navy unit aboard the “U.S.N.S. Geiger (TAP 197). The troop transport took replacement Korean troops to Vietnam and brought home the troops they relieved. With a Korean liaison officer, I was in charge of controlling the troops, anxious to get home and consequently too daring, sometimes unsafe or dangerous.

Unlike San Francisco later, I had on heavy weather gear. It did no good. The winds off of the Korea Strait cut through me like a knife. My face felt like it had frozen to a red, chafed ice block. The cold did not deter the returning troops. It was my first and last time to enter Pusan (now Busan) harbor in February. I am warmed by the thought.

Even though Watertown, NY, where I was sports editor of the “Watertown Daily Times” in 1971-72, was much colder than any other place I’ve lived, I did not consider it cold. Perhaps it was because I became used to it, or we dressed appropriately, or I don’t remember very well. But I do remember wanting spring to come in late March and it occurred for two days in mid-June.

J.J.. Arnold’s Watering Trough

But the coldest I have ever been was off Franklin Road in the late 1950’s. J.J. Arnold drove his grandson, Henry Harding, and I to the Arnold farm and dropped us off in the February cold to hunt.

When we tired of our sport, we waited outside the barn for Mr. Arnold to pick us up. Next to the barn was a watering bin for the cows. It was a round metal bin about six feet in diameter and about four feet high. It was iced over.

The story varies here depending on whether it is Henry or I recollecting, but my version has Henry convincing me I should test the ice. I climbed up and gingerly put one foot on the ice, then shifted my weight to stand on the ice. The ice broke and my leg plunged about two feet into the ice water below.

Mr. Arnold did not arrive for another hour. That hour is the coldest I’ve ever been.

So remember: hot summers aren’t all that bad.

ride to work

2010-07-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

Changes to this web site and my pursuits continue.
Please let me know what you think of the site with an email to jim@jimjewell.com. Today after catching up on posting my column, "Notes from the Southwest Corner" in The Lebanon Democrat, i have again begun posting other writings such as the poem below. Thanks for dropping in.

i rode into work this morning reluctantly.

The rain was intermittent.

Strings of thought tugged me back toward home
but fruitlessly.

When i emerged from the truck in the parking lot,
there was a break in the rain, and
the wind was warm.

i thought of running in the rain alone,
then

i thought of daughter and i walking in the rain, then
i thought of walking in the zoo in the rain:
people sparse,
animals staring back with no more care for the rain
than we,
then

i thought of the two daughters walking with me
in the rain at the zoo with no one around
but us and
the chimpanzees, elephants, bats and
tigers and bears.

They were good thought to have
as i trudged
once again
up the four flights of stairs
to my office
full of things to do.

San Diego, California
February 22, 2004

Operation Stand Down: feel good connections

2010-07-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

Recently, i entered an explanation of why this site and my current status is bringing changes along with what is a radical poem for me. Primarily because of Walker Hicks, all of my site is back up and accessible after the site was hacked about six weeks ago.

Operation Stand Down: feel good connections

SAN DIEGO –Independence Day weekend was a whirlwind of activities in the Southwest corner, yet allowing time for reflection on the reason behind the holiday.
Before the July 4th weekend celebrations, the “Democrat” ran Hilda Trenda’s story about last Friday’s “Cruise-In” at the Snow White Drive-In. In my head, it all fit together.

Cruise-In generated donations to Gerald’s Fund, which in turn supports Operation Stand Down, a program to assist homeless veterans in Middle Tennessee. Stand Down has it roots in the Southwest corner.

The original Stand Down began in 1988 in San Diego under the auspices of the Vietnam Veterans of San Diego (VVSD). The founders, Richard Talbot, Van Keuren, and Dr. Jon Nachison wanted to provide coordinated, comprehensive services to homeless veterans over a three-day period.

Stand Down Connections

Stand Down’s 22nd edition will occur here, July 16-18. My youngest daughter Sarah is attempting to arrange her schedule to allow her to volunteer as she has done before. Two of the primary coordinators of this year’s event are Rod Stark and Darcy Pavich.
Rod is one of my constant golfing partners and came within an eyelash of reading my retirement speech at my Navy ceremony the day my daughter was born in November 1989 (I barely made it to the ceremony before Sarah was born later that evening).

Darcy is the wife of another golfing buddy, Al Pavich, who shared a stateroom with me on a Western Pacific deployment in 1981. We have been close friends ever since.

When Al retired from the Navy in the mid-1990s, he became the CEO of VVSD and was the figurehead and major driver of the Stand Down program until his second retirement in 2008. Al molded VVSD into a model for the rest of the country and brought the physical site to a modern, state-of-the-art facility (in 2005, the name was changed to Veterans Village of San Diego to signify it’s purpose was not limited to Vietnam era vets).

Currently, VVSD provides services for more than 2000 veterans every year. VVSD’s program to assist homeless veterans obtain a job and a place to live a normal life has been declared the most successful program of its sort in the country.

Stand Down is the most visible program in VVSD’s success story. This year’s Stand Down will provide much needed help for more than 900 homeless veterans and their family members.

Birdy Connections

There are more connections. To me, the Snow White Drive-In is a Lebanon landmark. I frequented the burgers-and-ice-cream version throughout my sojourn at Castle Heights, Vanderbilt, and Middle Tennessee. After it became one of the best Middle Tennessee barbeque sources, I ate its fare on every return to my hometown.

Then, there is the connection of Sandra Edmonds and her mother, Ann Birdwell, the current owner of the Snow White.

I do not know either but I did know Everett Birdwell, Ann’s husband and Sandra’s stepfather. I knew him as Birdy. His previous wife who has since passed away was known as Cat, and they operated Winfree’s Restaurant on West Main. Winfree’s started as a family restaurant, where my family would occasionally go to Sunday dinner after church.

When I was working at WCOR, I would frequently go to Winfree’s to mix with Cat and Birdy while playing shuffle board until closing time. Birdy was a delight with a booming voice and great smile.

So after the “Cruise-In” at the Snow White back home and during my frenzy of activities in the Southwest corner through the holidays, I paused on Sunday and connected it all to the meaning of Independence Day.

While there were parties, parades, picnics, and concerts to enjoy, they all contained a more serious connection to our country’s forefathers stepping up to the plate and forming the greatest country in the history of the planet. The festivities also honored activity duty and veterans of the military who have put it all on the line, many with the ultimate sacrifice.

It is good Sandra Edmunds, Ann Birdwell, others in Lebanon, as well as my friends in the Southwest corner are contributing more than just nice thoughts about the meaning of Independence Day by helping veterans in need.

Those are some very good connections, indeed.

That’s me: a member of the “The Peculiar Generation”

2010-07-06T14:05:00.000-07:00

Last week, i entered an explanation of why this site and my current status is bringing changes along with what is a radical poem for me. Primarily because of Walker Hicks, all of my site is back up and accessible after the site was hacked about a month ago.

That’s me: a member of the “The Peculiar Generation”

SAN DIEGO – Last week, my niece emailed me an editorial which labeled me as peculiar, something I did not know.

Kate Jewell Hansen is unlike her uncle in many ways. To start, she is a scholar. She graduated from Vanderbilt cum laude with a double major in history and anthropology, and she just received her doctorate in American History, specifically 20th century economic history from Boston University.

Kate was born and raised in the Northeast corner, where my brother lives to prove we Jewell brothers could be brothers, close friends, and as far away from each other as possible.

But Kate has roots in Lebanon, and thrived at Vanderbilt, Her doctoral research explores the impact of southern industrialization on political formation in its embodiment of the Southern Industrial Leadership Council, headed by John Edgerton of the Lebanon Woolen Mills. Her dissertation is titled “As Dead as Dixie: The Southern States Industrial Council and the End of the New South.”

I Am Peculiar

Knowing I am significantly older than her father, she forwarded me the editorial, “The Peculiar Generation,” written by Richard Pells in the on-line edition of “The Chronicle of Higher Education.”

I have wondered why folks from my birth year had not been labeled. My parents are in The Great Generation. My sister and brother are in the mass of humanity known as Baby Boomers. But Lebanon friends of my age and I were born too late to be in the Great Generation. And being born during the war, not after, we are not Baby Boomers either.

This has not particularly bothered me.

Pells decided he and I were peculiar. I didn’t even know he knew me, but he pretty well hit the nail on the head. I agree I am peculiar. Most of the folks I know back home who were born between 1939 and the end of the war in 1945 are definitely not peculiar. With just a few exceptions, they are good folks, solid citizens, and very loyal to each other. In that regard, I hope I fit with them.

Transitionally Awkward

Pells describes us as being in a “transitionally awkward generation who were too young to have personally experienced the Depression or the war, but too old to have been embroiled in the turmoil on college campuses in the late 1960s.” He suggests the image of us peculiars is that we were “presumably too blasé or sedate to have participated in the battles against the Vietnam War or for the equality of women, much less in the revels at Woodstock.”

Then he asks, “What contributions, if any, has this generation made to American political and cultural life?”

Pells bemoans most of us men had “respectable but hardly remarkable occupations.” And he describes the women of the Peculiar Generation as “A few of the women pursued careers in primary- or secondary-school education, but the majority said they had concentrated on their families and volunteer work.” He disparages that “Almost everyone, male and female, seemed to love playing bridge.”

He does not approve.

The rest of Pells’ article attempts to debunk his own description.
He claims we didn’t like rock and roll but were hooked on jazz, and we didn’t watch “Ozzie and Harriet” or Walt Disney.

That’s where he lost me. This is not a column promoting liberalism or conservatism, but Pell’s column begins to sound like a liberal defense.

He praises a few of our generation, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and John Kerry, for rising above being just good folks. He then notes President Barack Obama acts much like Henry Fonda in his movie roles, “with his aura of ironic detachment from the political furies surrounding him.”

Peculiar Indeed

And Pells pats himself on the back for participating in the Vietnam protests when he was a Harvard instructor. He further states his heroes from the peculiar generation and President Obama’s emulation of Henry Fonda is what our peculiar generation has provided to improve our country in the long run.

Peculiar indeed.

The Peculiar Generation is hard to capture because we were and are so diverse. We span and therefore have characteristics of both the Great Generation and the Baby Boomers.

But to paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen in a 1988 vice-president campaign debate with Senator Dan Quayle: Believe me, Barack Obama is no Henry Fonda.

And I like being peculiar if it means I am solid, responsible, caring, and a family man.

Belated Father’s Day and Other Thoughts

2010-07-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Last week, i entered an explanation of why this site and my current status is bringing changes along with what is a radical poem for me. Primarily because of Walker Hicks, all of my site is back up and accessible after the site was hacked about a month ago.

Please read the explanation in the Saturday, June 26, 2010 post, "Hacked and revisions." One change is more frequent entries, aka posts. Today's is below:

Belated Father’s Day and Other Thoughts

SAN DIEGO – Yesterday was Father’s Day in Tennessee and in the Southwest corner.

I was far from my father and had one daughter in Texas and the other visiting friends in Berkeley.

I am not overly concerned as I feel much like those folks who resisted Father’s Day becoming a national holiday around 1910 because they “saw it as the first step in filling the calendar with mindless promotions.” (Wikepedia.org) Still I would have liked to have been with my father, even considering the heat index difference between here and there.

On this Father’s Day, Maureen and I spent a quiet time at home, doing chores long put off and watching a bit of soccer’s World Cup, a Padre baseball game, and the the U.S. Open, at Pebble Beach.

No Pebble Beach

Although declared by many to be the best golf course in the world, I won’t play Pebble Beach unless they give me a free round. Green fees are $495 without a cart. Regardless of my being able to afford it or not, that amount of money to play one round of golf is obscene.

While you are reading this, I will likely be on one of the better courses in San Diego, Steele Canyon, paying significantly less than $495 and the amount will be for both me and my wife. It is my belated Father’s Day present.

On Saturday of this Father’s Day weekend, Maureen and I went to the wedding of a neighbor’s daughter at the Island Club, the former Navy Officer’s Club on North Island. The facility is now used for catering and hosting special events.

The wedding started at five in the afternoon. An arbor, replete with flowers and peacock feathers, was set up outside. The wedding party was framed by the backdrop of the beach, Point Loma, and the Pacific horizon.

The bride and her middle sister baby sat for Sarah. The bride’s youngest sister was one of Sarah’s best friends growing up. Neighbors and former neighbors shared a table for the reception and dinner festivities.

Enjoying Weddings

I have always enjoyed attending weddings. They are such happy events with just the right amount of ritual and commitment thrown in. Outside of my last one, my favorite wedding and reception was my daughter’s in Austin, fittingly about halfway between Lebanon and the Southwest corner.

That wedding happened 14 years ago come November in the historic, beautiful, and stately Central Christian Church. My entire family was there and my brother was the minister just as he had been for my sister and me.

I was recalling that evening 14 years ago as Saturday’s father of the bride was imploring the “neighbor” table occupants to help him with his toast. I could not help him, but his toast was just right: heartfelt, sincere, with a touch of humor, and not too long.

I remembered how easy it was for me to toast my daughter and brand new son-in-law. Even though my marriage had become an unbreakable bond of love and trust, I did not wish that wedding couple what we had. Instead, my toast to them was actually a toast to them and Blythe’s grandparents. In a way, it was a toast to my home town.

I toasted to Blythe and Jason having a marriage which would emulate the marriage of Jimmy and Estelle Jewell. It appears Blythe and Jason have a good chance of doing just that. Maureen and I also emulate my parents’ marriage, but getting to the 72nd anniversary will be bit tough considering I will be 111.

72nd Anniversary

In two weeks, my parents will celebrate their 72 years together. Such a solid, unwavering marriage was not unique for my parents’ generation. Those folks married and stayed married. And staying together was not out of convenience or fear of embarrassment. Staying together was a product of their love and trust of each other.

There are other couples still around, like J.B. and Jo Doris Leftwich, who have such strong and loving relationships. Sadly, there are not enough because many have left us. Their dedication to each other is hallmark of Lebanon marriages. We honored those on the distaff side last month.

This is a belated thanks and best wishes for this year’s Father’s Day celebrants of that generation, especially my father.

You have shown us what fathering is all about.

Stormy weather? It seems so calm to me

2010-07-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last week, i entered an explanation of why this site and my current status is bringing changes along with what is a radical poem for me. Primarily because of Walker Hicks, all of my site is back up and accessible after the site was hacked about a month ago.
Please read the explanation in the Saturday, June 26, 2010 post, "Hacked and revisions." One change is more frequent entries, aka posts. Today's is below:

Stormy weather? It seems so calm to me

SAN DIEGO – Late last week, a friend called early in the morning to tell me it was raining downtown.

“Rain,” I said, “What rain?” There was no hint of rain only several miles away. “Yep,” Steve responded, “It’s raining real rain here.”

Rain in June is rare here, spot rain even rarer. So there is yet another Southwest weather corner mystery.

The call regenerated thoughts of storms. Even though I was in the eye of a fledgling hurricane as I recently related, it was not the worst storm I experienced.

That storm came unannounced and unwelcomed.

In December 1972, the “U.S.S. Stephen B. Luce (DLG-7)” returned from a Mediterranean deployment with Destroyer Squadron 24. Being the holiday season, the squadron was allowed to exceed the normal limit of 15 knots.

After crossing the Atlantic on a great circle route to Charleston, SC, the “U.S.S. Stanley (CG 32)” detached and headed toward its homeport. The other five ships turned north toward Newport, RI, expecting to cover the 1000 miles in about three days, arriving two days ahead of schedule.

There were no warnings about what was ahead. Even without satellites, Navy weather stations normally did a decent job on weather reports, but not this time.

When the storm hit us, wind speeds approached 100 miles per hour, perhaps even more.
The bridge of the “Luce” was 75 feet above the water line, and green water, i.e. real waves, crashed against the bridge windows often.

We tied bridge watchstanders into their posts. Only the officer of the deck (OOD) and his assistant remained unfettered to frequently shift from side to side for better vision. Mostly, this OOD stood behind the center line gyroscope repeater with one arm around a handrail, making small course changes to find a better course.

The bow would climb up a wave and about one-quarter of the 500 foot ship hung in the air before crashing down, the bow plunging under water before settling out briefly and starting up the next wave.

Foam covered all the sea except when the wind gave a glimpse of the dark blue ocean. The other ships were often within a 1000 yards but seldom seen except for their masts, the rest of the ship hidden by the waves.

Our watertight doors proved less than that, leaking from the pounding seas. Over a foot of water rolled about the main deck passageways. The galleys could not keep food on grills or steady in the ovens. We ate what was available, cold. We did manage to make coffee for almost five days.

The “Luce” took innumerable 45 degree rolls. Hanging tightly on a bridge wing, it seemed as if I was parallel to the sea.

When two other officers and I ate in the wardroom, the chairs were tied to the tables, unavailable. We propped ourselves on the floor against the port bulkhead. After a bite or two, the ship rolled fiercely; we lost our seating and tumbled across to the starboard side, sandwiches and coffee flying everywhere.

One enlisted man with the top rack in a three-tiered section was sleeping peacefully when another jolt tossed him out, and down across to the adjacent tier where he landed in the lowest rack with another startled sailor.

The “Luce” lost two days and arrived in Newport on its original schedule. Two older destroyers arrived about a half-day later. One newer class frigate arrived a day later. The final ship, another frigate arrived a day after that.

On one frigate, a freak wave crashed off a forward bulkhead and ripped a three-foot hole in the back of the forward gun mount. The ship experienced flooding forward but successfully secured the breach with damage control.

When we pulled in, none of the usual weather deck projections remained: life lines, fire stations, and damage control equipment were gone. Ladders (stairs to the landlubber) between decks had disappeared. Plenum chambers for air vents had been ripped back from the exterior bulkheads, eerily resembling giant wings.

Remarkably, we only had one major injury. At the storm’s onslaught, our assistant navigator took a dive into the brass around the chart table and cut a gash in his forehead.

Strangest of all, the sun shone daily through the entire ordeal.

Never before and never after have I been so glad to be home for Christmas.

Pets: Who Owns Who?

2010-07-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, i entered a long explanation of why this site and my current status is bringing changes along with what is a radical poem for me. Briefly, we are undergoing some life changes and the site was hacked, sponsoring my rededication to make the site different and hopefully better - with the help of Walker Hicks.
Please read the explanation in the Saturday, June 26, 2010 post, "Hacked and revisions." One change is more frequent entries, aka posts. Today's is below:

Pets: Who Owns Who?

SAN DIEGO – One difference I’ve found between my Southwest corner and growing up in Lebanon is the attitude people have toward pets.

Several years ago, I swore we would have no more pets. As I write, there is a mutt about 11 years old at my feet, an orange tabby staring wistfully out the window at doves tending to their nest in our eave, and this crazed black and white kitten attentively watches my fingers, ready to pounce, and knock something else off of my desk.

None of this would have happened in my youth. Things were different then and there and before. Our parents had pets when growing up, but those were farm pets. They didn’t have rhinestone collars and did not enter the house.

Things changed.

Lucky?

At the 1954 McClain School Halloween Party, my sister won a cocker spaniel puppy in a drawing held by Mrs. Vasti Prichard’s fourth grade class.

I did not think this was fair. Martha wasn’t in the fourth grade. She was in the second grade. Mrs. Vasti’s classroom was across the hall from mine with Mrs. Major. I was older. I wanted the puppy to be mine.

We named him Lucky.

The three children were excited. Our parents were skeptical. Immediately rules were set: no puppy in the living room or dining room; he had to sleep in cloth-padded cardboard box.

The box started out in the basement. The box and puppy eventually made it to the landing just outside the basement door to the kitchen.

We took care of Lucky through the winter. We worried the cold was too harsh even though the furnace was in the basement. I worried the old bedside clock would run down and not provide its comforting ticking.

Spring came as we waited to take Lucky outside to play. But Lucky wasn’t so Lucky after all. He got out on his own and was wiped out by a car when he tried to cross Castle Heights Avenue. My grandmother saw it happened and called my father to take Lucky away before we got home.

It could be the worst time ever. I didn’t stop crying for two days. All three of us were disconsolate, inconsolable.

Shortly afterwards, our father brought home Trixie, a toy terrier to provide us solace. I don’t remember what happened, but Trixie wasn’t there too long.

Later, Martha brought home a kitten. The kitten did not like us and left of its own accord shortly after arriving.

Cotton

Our household remained pet-less until 1962 when my sister paid $15 for an Eskimo Spitz puppy. They got it from Ethel and Thelma Bass, maternal kin, who lived on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The puppy had long white fur, and Martha named him Cotton. Cotton was very independent. He roamed over the neighborhood – we really didn’t know the scope of his realm – but he came home at night. For a long time, we tethered him to his backyard dog house at night. But he became so reliable he would come home to eat, stay inside (den and kitchen only) for the evening, and sleep on the stoop of the back porch under the carport. In the coldest weather, my father would let Cotton in the back door to sleep inside.

Cotton stayed with the family for 11 years before he died. The three children had grown up and left. In addition to grousing about all of the white fur floating in the den, my parents hid well how much they cared for him.

Indoor/Outdoor Choice

When I married, I became a pet owner. Our pets have had royal treatment compared to Cotton. They have received the greatest care. In fact, I have paid more in veterinarian bills than what I paid for my first three cars.

They all stayed inside at night except the cats, who, up until our last two, roamed where they pleased when they pleased.

In the Southwest corner, we have lost four cats learning they are easy prey for the coyotes, rattlesnakes, hawks, and owls. Now our cats are indoor cats.

My previous lab, an independent cuss like Cotton would escape and roam, but I had to chase him down. Leash laws are prevalent in the Southwest corner. Roaming is not tolerated any more. Dogs don’t do as many dog things. Cats don’t do as many cat things.

It is different.

A toothless pony: thoughts on baseball and Memorial Day

2010-06-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, i entered a long explanation of why this site and my current status is bringing changes along with what is a radical poem for me. Briefly, we are undergoing some life changes and the site was hacked, sponsoring my rededication to make the site different and hopefully better - with the help of Walker Hicks.
Please read the explanation in the Saturday, June 26, 2010 post, "Hacked and revisions." One change is more frequent entries, aka posts. Today's is below:

A toothless pony: thoughts on baseball and Memorial Day

SAN DIEGO – In spite of recent weather aberrations, June rolled into the Southwest corner in classic form.

The standard “May Gray” arrived late and now “June Gloom” is fully established. While the rest of the country feels summer, this seaport town sits at the end of the Japanese current waiting until July for real summer weather.

For now, the cool marine layer overcast greets us for breakfast and rolls back in for the evening. A light jacket is required for raising and lowering my ensign (U.S. Flag) at the top of the hill. Early morning golf requires warm clothes at tee off and shorts and sunscreen by mid-morning, a logistics problem. My daughter and I went to a Padre baseball game last Wednesday evening, and Sarah was cold enough at the end of the 10th for us to leave before the game was over, a rarity for us.

* * *

There are few things I enjoy more than going to the ball park with my daughter. These outings elicit memories of Sulphur Dell and the Nashville Vols.

The Wednesday game was rife with connections for me as the visitors were the St. Louis Cardinals. For those of you who do not remember the Braves moving from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta, the Cardinals had a lot of Southeastern fans prior to 1966.

St. Louis was the closest team and a perennial competitor for the National League pennant. There were New York Yankee fans and Brooklyn Dodger fans, but the preponderance of the Old South rooted for the Cards.

Wednesday, four young men sitting next to us discussed baseball as if they were aficionados. Then the one next to me spotted a St. Louis fan wearing a team jersey.

“Who is S. Musial?” he asked.

Fortunately, one of his companions responded, “Stan Musial. Stan the Man was a hall of famer who had over 3500 hits.”

* * *

It was hard for me to accept there are current baseball fans who don’t know Stan Musial.

In 1953, Stan Musial was one of my heroes. I was nine and playing my first organized baseball, the Pony League, on the McClain School playground diamond. The manager put me at catcher and thus I became the wearer of the “tools of ignorance” forever, even as the backup when playing other positions.

The Pony League provided me another example of Lebanon’s community spirit.

Headed to McClain in the mid-afternoon, I pedaled my bike furiously down West Main. Somewhere between Castle Heights and Pennsylvania avenues, I spied the limb of a maple hanging high over the sidewalk.

Having a brain the size of a small pea, I decided to grab a leaf, some pitiful reenactment of snaring the merry-go-round golden ring. I held on when the leaf did not separate from the limb, skewing my bike into the rut created by proficient sidewalk trimmers.

Of course I crashed, not onto the grass but kissing the concrete with my face. One of my front teeth broke off. Blood was on the sidewalk. Being a brilliant nine-year old boy, I simultaneously wondered how to get to the game and cried for my parents.

Then the angel appeared. Mrs. Thompson, a gracious, gray haired lady driving down West Main, spotted the fallen pony leaguer, stopped, put me in her car, and drove me home. My mother answered the door and beheld this wonderful lady and a crying, bloodied, half-toothed gremlin screaming his head off because he was going to miss his ballgame.

Four years later, Mrs. Thompson was my home room teacher at Lebanon Junior High seventh grade.

To me, Mrs. Thompson was the epitome of Lebanon civility. She was intelligent, knowledgeable, and handled discipline problems firmly, but with kindness. She always did the right thing at the right time.

This old toothless pony leaguer will not forget Mrs. Thompson.

* * *

Nor will I forget the many men and women who have lost their lives in the service of their country, including friends. The list is too long to include here.

Our Memorial Day yesterday did not include attending any of the many ceremonies in this military town. But raising and lowering my ensign, I took the extra time to gaze across the Southwest corner and remember those heroes who died to enable me to enjoy such a view and live the good life I lead.

Storms from the Past

2010-06-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, i entered a long explanation of why this site and my current status is bring about changes along with what is a radical poem for me (at least of those i've shown to someone else). Briefly, we are undergoing some life changes and the site was hacked, sponsoring my rededication to make the site different and hopefully better - with the help of Walker Hicks.
Please read the explanation in yesterday's post. One change is more frequent entries, aka posts. Today's is below:

Storms from the Past

SAN DIEGO – By now, the waters should have subsided in Middle Tennessee, and the 1000 year flood is a memory wreathed in the losses among those hardest hit.

Although storms are few and far between in the Southwest corner, I have experienced the force of storms at sea. As I pored through the staggering photographs of Lebanon, Nashville, and other Tennessee towns in the the flood’s wake, I reflected on storms from my past.

Hurricanes, typhoons, and just plain storms fill a small but significant part of my past on the bounding main. The most interesting one happened on my last ship, the “U.S.S. Yosemite.”

In August 1984 with East Coast ships scarce due to deployments, “YoYo” was tasked to play the role of an “orange” adversary in a Caribbean fleet exercise. “JATO” rockets were installed amidships, and we went off to fire them, simulating a missile attack on the carrier battle group.

With the conclusion of our part of the exercise, the fleet scurried over the horizon and “YoYo” turned her bow toward Mayport, Jacksonville’s Naval base, and started home at a waddling 10 knots, pretty close to the top speed for a pre-World War II, 400-pound steam plant. The weather turned strange. It was one of those times at sea when there is no horizon. Our entire vista was gray, different shades, but all gray.

Strange Seas

In 1984, satellites were not available for weather reports, and we had not received any radio notice of bad weather. We wondered about the quiet, still grayness and the muddled sea around us.

On destroyer tenders, the executive officer also served as navigator. Lieutenant Noreen Leahy served as my assistant while filling the billet of operations officer. Noreen was one of the first women graduates of the Naval Academy and well-schooled in celestial navigation and piloting. Captain Frank Boyle and the two of us had not experienced seas like this before. Although it was calm, it was almost creepy. We were perplexed.

From the depths of my memory, an excerpt from and old version of “Knight’s Modern Seamanship” emerged while I stood on the starboard bridge wing one morning. The theory was if you faced into the wind and threw your right arm back as far as you could (about 115 degrees) your arm would point toward the center of a tropical depression.

I tried out the theory by attempting to face the wind. I moved to the port bridge wing and then top side to the flying bridge. There was no discernible direction to determine a depression center.

Eye of the Storm

I consulted the captain with Noreen listening in, “Captain, I think we are in the center of a tropical depression,” explaining my reasoning.

He agreed, and we altered course to the northeast, moving through the least dangerous quadrant of a depression. The winds picked up and back where we had been was indeed the center. After we had cleared sufficiently, the depression quickly became a tropical storm and then Hurricane Diana.

Back in Jacksonville, my wife Maureen heard the warnings and called Jan, a Navy doctor married to the “Yosemite” doctor, Frank Kerrigan (we four had become close friends). They both were from the Southwest corner and had no idea as to what they should do. On the ship, Frank and I wondered how our wives were faring as we stood out of harm’s way, about 500 miles northeast of Diana.

As the hurricane moved north, the warnings moved with it and were lifted for the north Florida area. The “Yosemite” once again turned homeward, finally entering the Mayport harbor three days after our scheduled return.

My Wife’s Hurricane

Frank and I had been greatly relieved when Diana only threatened to come ashore in Jacksonville and moved northward. We were glad our wives did not have to board up windows.

Diana rolled on up the coast, building up to 135 mph winds. A frontal system precipitated what the weather guessers call a cyclonic loop, decreasing her winds to around 90 mph. She came ashore at Wilmington, N.C. Although she never became the storm of massive destruction like Katrina, she did claim three lives and caused $65.5 Million dollars in damage before exiting to the Northeast.

It was Maureen’s only hurricane experience first hand. For myself, I will never forget being in the eye of a hurricane as it was forming in the Caribbean.

Hacked and revisions

2010-06-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Over a month ago, some buffoon hacked into this site.

i am not sure what he or she thought they accomplished unless it was just some bizarre and wimpy lost soul bent on being destructive. These sort of folks doing these sort of things have always struck me as lazy and below normal humans in reason and motivation. i almost feel sorry for them.

i am past my anger. Walker Hicks, the inventive and very professional multi-media whiz who designed this site (with precious little help from me), has successfully put the site back in operation except for the poetry section, which we are continuing to recover.

The hacking corresponded with some life changes, providing me the opportunity to refocus on the site and what i am doing and should be doing.

My wonderful wife, Maureen, is in the process of stepping away from a career which has spanned almost 30 years and all of our marriage.

Many of you know we met when i was one of her first customers at Parron Hall Office Interiors in March 1982 - i have written about that initial meeting previously (see "Our Twenty-Third Anniversary" under "Commentary" in the "Articles" section of this website).

Maureen's replacement arrives at Parron Hall in August. Maureen then will begin to pass over her work except for a few special projects she plans to complete herself. We anticipate she will be completely out of the business by the end of the year or earlier.

What is next remains unclear except that i must start making some real money soon or we will have to dramatically change our lifestyle. What that fallback position might be remains a work in progress. Regardless of what the changes eventually turn into, it is an exciting time but also somewhat frightening. i may actually have to grow up for real. Even though i declared my adulthood at 46 and other various times, this time it looks like no joke.

i have pared several of my hair-brain schemes for making money from my repertoire in an attempt to focus on those more realistically likely to actually bring in some real income. Consequently, Walker and i are in the process of revising the "Business Office" section of the site, and i am updating my bio.

The most impactful part of this reorientation to the site is i will resume my "posts," including catching up and posting my weekly "Notes from the Southwest Corner, which appear the Monday editions of The Lebanon (TN) Democrat.

As readers of that newspaper know, i am also writing a weekly business column entitled "Minding Your Own Business." I have not made these columns available to the general public on this site while i determine the most effective marketing strategy to syndicate the column. They may eventually be available to everyone in the articles section.

It occurred to me i am almost six months away from turning 67. i do not feel old, except for a few extra squeaks, occasional aches, and more hacking than i used to exhibit on a daily basis.

And by hacking i don't mean what happened to this website.

As it has always been, i have reflected upon all of this, and actually found a poem i wrote in 1997 that parallels some thoughts i have about all of this. The poem is included below. i must warn you there is some profanity and sexual content involved.

After all, i was in the Navy, and my vocabulary is a bit more raunchy than that of many of my friends. I happen to agree with D.H. Lawrence who felt we needed to exhibit this part of our language and bring these words into open common useage. It is not the words that are hateful, bad, or profane. It's the thought and actions behind them. I do not shy away from them except to spare someone's sensibilities who does find them offensive.

So please read the rest of this long post if you are not offended by such language.

And thanks for visiting my site.

******

thoughts about an old age male and others like me while walking a very old dog on an Indian summer evening

old men,
thick and sad with memories
they cannot replicate,
hock up phlegm from their guts,
spitting out the screen door onto the dirt
spackled by the rain shower gray day.

lived hard,
mostly forgotten along with the departed hair,
strength, suppleness of youth;
ho,
they don't pee on the garden flowers
after several beers like they once did;
the in betweens were shots of cheap bourbon back then:
eyes sparkled with piss and vinegar,
now are flat with blurred vision cataracts;

burping, peeing, farting, shitting-in-their-pants
liabilities they have become
after ruling the world.
some feign youth with not-their hair,
wonder drugs, makeup,
screwing everything that can get them hard
until hardness disappears forever:
sad old fuckers.
occasionally, some will defy the odds,
not deny but accept the inevitability:
growing old, dying.

looking close, their eyes have depth,
crinkles in their ruddy skin are defiant,
not old age silky paleness.

looking close, their eyes have depth,
crinkles in their ruddy skin are defiant,
not old age silky paleness.

memories are for the others,
fences are to mend,
fields are to plow,
life is to live,
death is to die
nobly.

- Bonita, California
- September 30, 1997

Brief Thoughts On New Year's Eve

2010-05-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

Frozen rain splatters against the black asphalt.
Laughing boys sneer delightfully
As their firecrackers burst;
The night is dark and cold;
Everyone's out celebrating the new year.

How can time pass so fast
With so little effect on the mind?
Coke does taste better out of the little bottle.

Lebanon, Tennessee
December 31, 1969

Time off: contemplation and an opinion of sorts

2010-05-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

It has been over three weeks since i have made an entry here. One reason was procrastination. As Amelia Hipps, the editor of the Lebanon Democrat can tell you, i am a champion of that particular practice.

But there has been more behind this layoff than mere procrastination.

Business took me to Hawaii, and i focused there. Keeping company with associates -- including the joy of playing golf -- was a full time job for a week. It was fun, but it was work too. i am not complaining but my focus was there, and trying to write around 11:00 p.m. with a three-hour time lag and a full day behind me just did not work. After all i am a bit older than i used to be.

But the real reason was i have been working on three long writing projects. The long read below is one of them. They are a four-part series of columns i wroted for The Lebanon Democrat's weekly "Notes from the Southwest Corner." The project remains incomplete, but the four columns are some initial thoughts on race relations since i started thinking about such things in my early high school years.

These are not meant to draw my line in the sand. I hope it is the beginning of a dialogue couched in reason and not rhetoric. i am sure folks on both sides of the issue of race relations between caucasians and negroes in the United States will take issue, but my objective is not to make policy, protest the current state, or add to the vile, sound bite, propaganda which fuels anger and bias. i simply want to make people re-think where they stand on the issue and what they might do, in some small way, to make it better.

But this is a long introduction to a long post, so i will stop and let you read, and, i hope, think a little bit.

The Other Folks in My Growing Up, part one

SAN DIEGO – Growing up in Lebanon, we had many visitors, friends and family, coming in and out of our home on a constant basis.

Guests, whether just stopping by or coming in from out of town and staying overnight or longer, were more frequent than now in the Southwest corner.

There also were regular visitors to the Jewell household. Two of those visitors came to work, and they are an unforgettable part of my memories.

Jake Hughes

One was Jake Hughes. Jake came every Tuesday (as I recall) to pick up the garbage.
In a world before garbage disposals and garbage truck compactors, Jake would arrive, park his wagon as much off of Castle Heights Avenue as he could without sliding into the drainage ditch, running between the yard and the road.

His wagon was an impressive sight, similar to the ones I saw in the westerns I loved to watch, but with automobile tires, rather than the, iron-rimmed, wooden spoke versions in the oaters. I wanted to ride Jake’s wagon but never did.

Jake would dismount, haul the garbage can out to the front, heave the contents into the back of his wagon, and return the large can to its normal resting place out back.

My overriding memory of Jake was not him, but the smell of garbage. Trash in those days was mostly foodstuffs. What we now simply dump into the sink disposal was deposited out back where it baked in the sun for a week or so.

When Jake completed his rounds, he and his mule would plod back home on a bend in Hickory Ridge Road and add the load to the existing pile. When we would drive out to Wynn Prichard’s farm further west at the intersection with Blair Lane, we got a re-smell.

Excluding the smell, I admired Jake. For me, he was a lesson in work ethic. With me, he was a kind, quiet gentleman but focused on his task at hand.

The City of Lebanon got into the trash collection business sometime in the mid to late 1950s, just before my bunch of buddies started working for the public works department under Jessie Coe. I remember being secretly relieved when Jim Harding was assigned to ride the new garbage trucks rather than me.

I assume these new compactors on wheels put Jake’s mule out to pasture. Sometime later, Jake sold his property as the area west of the city became populous in housing developments. An impressive home now sits on the bend which was Jake’s property.

I hope Jake made a lot of money off of his business before it closed. And I hope he profited greatly from selling his land.

He earned it, the hard way.

Vicey Shavers

Vicey Shavers was another influence on my young life. Vicey cleaned some but her principal reason for visits was to keep the Jewell children when Mother or our grandmother could not be there.

Vicey was smaller than my grandmother, no small feat as my grandmother topped out at four foot eight and eighty pounds.

I remember Vicey being kind but strict.

My fondest memory is when, around five years of age, I would stand next to her in the narrow kitchen while she washed dishes with the sun streaming through the kitchen window. Just for me, Vicey would tune the small kitchen radio to WSM and the half-hour “Sons of the Pioneers” program featuring Roy Rogers. Together we sang along to “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Cool Water”.

When my mother returned from her work or errands, she would load us all in the 1948 dark green Pontiac and take Vicey home, a small house south of East High Street. I believe it was at the intersection of Sycamore and Lake Streets.

I recall being excited about the short trip to Vicey’s home.

I loved Vicey.

Roy Bailey African-American Museum

The article generating this column announced the April long celebration of the Roy Bailey African-American Museum and History Center’s fifth anniversary in Lebanon. Special afternoon events at the museum have been held every Saturday this month.
I wish I could come back for at least one of the Saturday afternoons, but business precludes my return for the near future.
Still I will think of Jake and Vicey often. They are special people to me.

The Other Folks in My Growing Up, part two

SAN DIEGO – Last Monday, I wrote of people who were important to my growing up well in Lebanon.

There were others.

Sam Hearn

My brother Joe had a closer relationship to Sam Hearn than I did because Joe wisely spent more time than I did working part time and generally hanging out at Hankins, Byars and Jewell, the Pontiac dealership sandwiched between the old First Methodist Church and the First Baptist Church on East Main.

Still, I remember Sam Hearn well. He was an amiable guy and I remember him seeming to take me under his wing, a sentiment expressed well by brother. Recently my father, the maintenance supervisor and the “Jewell” in the ownership name (originally Hankins and Smith) told me Sam “helped me out a lot.

I also know my father was one of the few people who visited Sam on a regular basis in the hospital several years ago when Sam was on the final leg of his life’s journey.

Sam was a good man.

Dub

I must sadly admit I do not know the real name of the other man important to me and my coming of age. “Dub” was one of the two permanent city employees at Cedar Grove Cemetery. I worked with him for three summers.

Dub was a big man who had hands seemingly the size of hams. He came to work, regardless of the heat or cold in bib jeans (coveralls, some call them), a long sleeve shirt, a sports coat, and a worn brown fedora. He was the power part of the team, wielding a shovel or a pick like it was an extension, almost effortlessly, as we blocked off the grave site and created a smooth square hole in the ground, a little more than four feet deep.

He worked tirelessly regardless of how hot and humid the Tennessee summer had thrown at us. When there were three of us digging a grave, “Mr. Bill” – my mother and I believe his last name was Allison but memory, in this case, may be mistaken -- would take a few turns but he mostly was the supervisor as I took on more and more of the digging tasks.

Digging Graves

Still Dub would eventually do the bulk of the digging. His turn with the pick, loosening the clay; or the shovel, either clearing the broken earth or squaring the sides; was always longer and more frequent than Mr. Bill or my time in the grave.

In the maintenance tasks, Dub never seemed to slow down. He was a working machine, and I had a hard time keeping up with him.

But the thing I recall more than any other aspect of Dub was recognizing what an incredible man he was. Physically he was imposing. But even though he was illiterate, I eventually realized he knew everything that was occurring and knew how to handle it appropriately.

He was a kind man with a deep chuckle when something struck him as humorous. I recall the glint in his eyes when he nodded understandingly after I had done something a rookie grave digger might do or pull a mischievous prank.

My fondest memory came from Wednesday’s. He and Mr. Bill knew I played baseball on the Lebanon American Legion team. Home games were no problem, but leaving work and catching the old school bus for away games made it tight.

Invariably on Wednesday’s with an away game scheduled, Dub would look at his watch around three and comment, “Mr. Bill, I can’t handle the work we have for the rest of the day,” adding, “Why don’t we let Jimmy go now so he can catch that bus for his baseball game.”

Mr. Bill would always agree and I could get home, change into my uniform and get to the bus with time to spare.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

On my last day of work at the cemetery as I prepared to go to college, I decided to pull a prank. When the mowers ran out of gas as they did in the late morning on that final day, I would take the two large gas cans and fill them up from the tanks out back of Mr. Babb’s house on the north end of Cedar Grove. There were two tanks and rather than drawing from the gasoline tank, I drew from the kerosene tank.

After I returned and filled the mowers, I took to trimming around monuments as Mr. Bill and Dub started the mowers. In less than a minute, the cemetery was filled with white acrid smoke. The mowers coughed and sputtered to a very smoky stop.

Upon the mower gas tanks and smelling the liquid, Mr. Bill looked up at me and said, “Jimmy, I believe you don’t know the difference between kerosene and gasoline.”

I said, “I’m really sorry, Mr. Bill.”

“Well, it’s going to take us a little while to clean out these mowers before we can get back to it,” he continued, “You might as well take the rest of the day off.”

I looked at Dub. I knew he knew what I had done and why. I could tell by the gentle smile and the glint in his eyes.

We said our last good-byes.

Connections in a Far Away Land

SAN DIEGO – I was in Hawaii last week where the fusion of culture, ethnicity, climate, and vistas sparked many ideas for columns.

As usual, I did not record most. Several great columns lay on the cutting floor of my selective memory editor. I figure I need to go back to the islands to jog those memories.

On the last day of my trip, Mrs. Mary Harris, the director of the Lebanon African-American Historical Museum, called me to tell me about Pickett-Rucker Chapel’s upcoming 144th anniversary. The May 16 celebration will include a church service in the morning and a concert in the afternoon.

I wish I could be there.

Apologies

Much of the following is incomplete and requires my apology for poor memory of names. This personal fault is odd considering my heritage. I often call my parents in Lebanon to fill in the blanks in my column. My father, Jimmy Jewell, working on 96, is often my source for the history and geography of Lebanon.

My mother, Estelle Jewell has a bear trap memory, and at 92 still can recall facts and names from the beginning of my 66 years and beyond. When I was seeking information for my past few columns, my mother spoke to Mrs. Harris. The two worked together when Mrs. Harris was a teacher at Highland Heights and my mother was the secretary for Roy Dowdy, the superintendant of Lebanon City Schools.

As I wished I could be home for the Pickett-Rucker celebration, I made more connections.

A Great Sing

While commuting to Middle Tennessee in the mid-1960s, I worked at WCOR as an AM and FM disc jockey. Infrequently on Sundays, I would rush home for lunch while Coleman Walker, the station manager, held down the fort for both stations.

Somewhere around Trousdale Ferry Pike, U.S. Highway 70, and Bluebird Road, there was a concrete block church. If the timing was right, singing would be booming out of that church when I passed. Occasionally, I would pull over to the side of the road and listen. The music was magic.

I always wished to go in, but never had the time. I needed to get home, hurriedly eat, and get back for my afternoon “Top 40” radio program.

A Connection, Far Away

In the early 1990s, I went to pick up some cleaning and met a large, gregarious man.

As we exchanged jokes, he finally asked, “Where are you from?”

“Tennessee,” I replied.

“I thought so,” he said recognizing my accent, “What part?”

“Lebanon,” I said, “About thirty miles east of Nashville.”

“I know,” he said, “I spent my summers and a lot of time in Lebanon with my kin. I grew up in Nashville.”

Incredulous that two humans chatting in a store in the Southwest corner both had connections to Lebanon, I shared memories of home with him. His stories captivated.

Of course, I do not remember his or his family’s names. I do recall they owned or worked a lumber yard.

As I drove away, I wish I had gotten his phone number to invite him and his wife to dinner. But I did not and have often wondered how I might find him to extend that invitation.

That Ain’t Right

Several years later, I was playing golf at the Miramar Naval Air Station (Miramar is now a Marine air station). On the first tee, my friend, J.D. Waits, talked to the group in front of us.

After they teed off, J.D. told us three of the foursome had worked for him in an F-14 squadron. After the round, we joined them at their table for a beer.

I sat next to John, who had been a senior chief aviation technician (ATCS) and retired in the Southwest corner. When I queried him last week, J.D. could not remember John’s last name either..

John noticed my accent and I told him I was from Lebanon.

“I graduated from Wilson County Training School in 1956.” he noted.

“Wow! Where did you live?” I asked.

“Dixon Springs,” he said

“Huh?” I wisely queried.

“We didn’t have a high school in Dixon Springs where I could go. So my parents put me on a Trailways bus every morning. I rode the bus from Dixon Springs and back for four years,” he explained.

“That ain’t right,” I concluded.

Floods, a Long Jump, and a Long Way to Go

SAN DIEGO – In the Southwest corner, we followed the floods of Middle Tennessee closely with phone calls back home, media reports, “The Democrat’s” web cam of the square, and a surprising source, “Facebook,” the social networking internet tool.

I know there are hard times yet ahead. In that regard, the floods are similar to the fires in the Southwest corner of 2004 and 2008. The shock of such disasters wears down to a discouraging reality when facing the long road to recovery. After the media blitz reporting of the initial disaster and the follow-up national on-scene commentary, those left with the aftermath must grapple with the clean up and recovery pretty much alone.

My heart goes out to all of those who have suffered from the disaster and face the long, hard road ahead.

Pickett-Rucker Chapel

The floods interrupted my other thoughts about back home and wishing I could be there for the Pickett-Rucker 144th anniversary.

A church service and concert are suitable means to address the flood and celebrate a long history of goodness.

My recent columns have addressed other folks connected to my Lebanon who have shaped my attitude about people and relationships. A 1963 spring experience also impacted me.

Kent Russ & Ralph Boston

Kent Russ precipitated that moment. Kent was a post-graduate at Castle Heights my 1958-59 freshman year and a wingback in Stroud Gwynn’s single wing. He also was declared the Heights “outstanding track man of the past decade.”

Kent matriculated to Vanderbilt where three years later, I joined him, Jimmy Smith, and Hughey King as Lebanon members of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. In addition to running track at Vanderbilt, Kent also ran on an AAU 440-relay team.

Another team sprinter was Ralph Boston, a Tennessee State alumnus who broke Jesse Owens’ world record long jump, won the event’s gold medal in the 1960 Olympics and was the world’s Track and Field Athlete that same year. He continued as a track star until shortly after finishing second to Bob Beamon’s world record long jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

Kent asked me to join him at a Tennessee State and Florida A&M track meet. I jumped at the chance.

Arriving, we bypassed the grandstands and went trackside where Kent introduced me to Boston, who was a timer for the meet. After a short discussion, we moved down the track and watched Bob Hayes, later of Dallas Cowboy fame, break the world record in the 100-yard dash in 9.1 seconds.

Who Sits in the Back?

Afterwards, we thanked Boston and he asked for a ride to pick up his car at his mechanic’s shop. Approaching the car, I opened the back door.

“I’ll sit in the back,” Boston commanded.

Thinking an Olympic champion shouldn’t sit in the back, I started to protest.

“No, there is just too much hatred round here, and we could get into trouble,” he explained.

I thought, “This ain’t right.”

Sit-ins had become a common protest in Nashville, and Clarksville’s Wilma Rudolph, who had won three 1960 Olympics gold medals had been involved in protests there. Ralph commented Wilma got taken in by the more strident protesters.

After thanking us, he went to pick up his car.

Returning to campus, Kent told me the NAACP had ordered Boston to not compete in a Houston AAU track meet because of the segregated audience. Boston paid to fly to New York and confront the president, Dr. Robert Weaver. Boston told Weaver he would compete wherever he chose because he believed his performance would have more impact towards equality than not competing.

Children’s Hymn

I have refrained from political comment in this column for numerous reasons. I believe this issue transcends politics, rules, quotas, or protests.

I grew up with limited access to a wonderful bunch of folks like Mrs. Harris, James Cason, and many others: good folks with good intentions. I am amazed we still live in a mostly separate world.

One of my favorite children hymns when I was still going to Vacation Bible School was “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Three lines I particularly remember are “Red and yellow, black, and white, they are precious in his site; Jesus loves all the little children of the world.”

My feelings are similar to what I felt in the 1975 evacuation of Vietnam. I don’t know what we could have done or should have done, but we should have done something better.

It is time for us to get together in the truest sense of the term, both back home and in the Southwest corner.

There’s still a long way to go.

House Work, Then and Now

2010-04-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – This past weekend in the Southwest corner, I started working on cleaning out the garage while my wife’s attention centered on our version of spring cleaning.

Sometimes I believe, at least subliminally, garage cleaning is an avoidance ploy to escape spring cleaning.

Cleaning the garage is never complete, which means the other spring cleaning – now called “deep cleaning” – is done by Maureen or hired help. Saturday, when the hired help didn’t show, Maureen cleaned about one-third of the windows on our house.

Even my garage cleaning had been postponed for a required golf round. I was sheepishly ashamed when I returned to find how she had spent her Saturday. I would – really, I would – have sacrificed the golf and the garage cleaning to clean the windows.

My feeble excuses recalled a time when there was no excuse for missing spring cleaning.

Tasks for Home

Growing up, my mother would assign my spring cleaning tasks, which was nearly all of them. I knew every nook and cranny of our Castle Heights Avenue home.

I stripped and waxed the wood floors, and all were wood except for the kitchen until living and dining room carpets were installed and the den was added in the back. I washed windows. I cleaned out the basement. This was on top of the sibling shared chores of mowing, hedge trimming, dusting, vacuuming, and dishwashing.

Of course, my youthful chores were a mere dip in the bucket of soapy water compared to my parents’ contribution. They grew up working and have never stopped.

My mother cooked, cleaned, and got a penny for every housefly she swatted to a quick and merciful death.

An aside: I wonder if cotton wads plugged the holes in the screens of their homestead on the North Cumberland farm like those at my great uncle’s house on Hickory Ridge in my youth.

My father performed home chores as well as helping my grandfather, including stoking the boiler of the portable sawmill when he was six.

It seems pretty much everyone in that generation grew up doing manual labor and home chores. Just last week, my father and mother (a reminder: they are 95 and 92) picked out flowers and worked the flower beds around their home in Deer Park. My father washes the dishes, cleans and mops the floor, and fixes anything which needs it.

Ship Tasks

When I reported to my first ship, I was greeted with a whole new concept of cleaning. We had about six stewards on my first ship. They were mostly native Filipinos who, at that time, were not allowed to serve in combat ratings. There job was to do chores for the officers.

They cooked and cleaned the dishes. They woke us up in the morning and made our racks (beds). They cleaned our staterooms and the wardroom. They did all of our grocery shopping, and they even cleaned our shoes.

I got used to it. I even explained it as practical by telling folks it gave me time to do the myriad of leadership and combat tasks, including watch standing. Of course, I never mentioned the 300 enlisted crew members still had to perform their cleaning chores as well as their work-related tasks.

The steward rating was discontinued in 1974. Officers now have to do their own personal chores.

Satisfying Tasks

But my parents raised me well. I actually missed the daily (and deep cleaning) chores while on ships. Ashore, I reverted to my old working ways (in spite of the subliminal evasions).

I am not so sure I have given my children the same appreciation of chores.

If there is one thing which causes me concern about our follow-on generations is working hard on home chores has pretty much disappeared. Perhaps this was just me, a doting and often absent father of two beautiful girls. But it seems today’s children are much more into being entertained with television and video games, and are not plugged into real housework.

Yet when I visit my older daughter, she and husband have evolved into real workers. They clean, wash, mow, tend to the yard, plant, deep clean, and even have done major home makeovers by themselves. It seems they actually enjoy those chores.

I am glad. Except for missing this past weekend’s window washing, I find a sense of satisfaction in doing chores around the house.

Excuses and an article

2010-04-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

i have many excuses for not posting anything here in almost two weeks. In my mind, none of them work. This was to be my top priority when i started it over two years ago, but of late, business opportunities, personal tasks, and of course, golf have gotten in the way.

i am not complaining, mind you. This layoff was of my doing and my choices, and many of them, golf excluded, were a product of responsible and realistic priority setting. Still, there is no question in my mind what i am recording here is more important to me than almost anything other than family.

The fact i am having a great deal of fun and feel like i could be usefully contibuting to our country's defense again make my business opportunities easy to put at the top of my priority list.

And golf? Well, i am playing a lot and shot a 40 on the front nine at Sea 'n Air on the North Island Naval Air Station yesterday. This makes it damn hard to sacrifice that escape.

So...i apologize. i hope to make at least four or five postings in the next two days. If you miss them, they will be in the appropriate section in the archives here.
i will try to do better.

Notes from the Southwest Corner:
JD, Wanda Peal and the King of the Cowboys

SAN DIEGO – Even with a Tennessee-like spring (although it was a bit earlier than the real Tennessee springs), the Southwest corner is not as much fun as it used to be.

One reason is one of my best friends and old shipmates left a number of years ago. On occasion, I have mentioned JD Waits in this column and have even related a story or two from his repertoire.

About a dozen years ago, JD and his wife, Mary Lou, left for Houston, then Raleigh, and now Bastrop, TX, near Austin, the last appearing to be a permanent move. Before his last tour at the Strike and Air Warfare Center” as Aviation Maintenance Officer in Fallon, NV, JD had spent his entire Navy career of 30-plus years based in San Diego.

Naval Aviation Wizard

He was an exceptional maintenance officer, winding his way through airman recruit to master chief, to warrant officer, to limited duty officer, and finally to an aviation maintenance restricted line officer before retiring as lieutenant commander.

When he was commissioned as a line officer, his active duty clock started over and he could have remained in the Navy until he was 67. But his detailer (assignment officer) insisted the next duty station would be “Belleau Wood” (LHA 3). The “Belleau Wood” was home ported in Sasebo, Japan with 70 percent of time spent underway. Mary Lou would not move to Japan, so essentially it would have been a two-year “unaccompanied” tour.

JD told his detailer to stick it, submitted his letter for retirement, and came back to San Diego. I was happy as I got to spend about another ten years with him. Even better, his tales of growing up in Houston and his Navy anecdotes were so good they eclipsed the term “sea stories” and were singled out as “JD tales.” Many could never be related in this column, but they were all funny.

My wife loved all of JD’s tales and still will burst out laughing when she thinks of one.

Wanda Pearl and the King

JD was born and raised in Houston. After his father died, JD’s mother, Wanda Pearl Waits stayed there until she moved to Austin just before JD and Mary Lou moved back there.

In the late 1980s, Wanda Pearl came to visit JD and Mary Lou in San Diego, a rare visit. JD gave her the grand tour, culminating with a trip to Apple Valley, CA.

For those who are not familiar with the Southwest corner, Apple Valley is in the desert between Los Angeles and Barstow. Development has finally blossomed there, but for years, there wasn’t too much attractive about Apple Valley.

But Apple Valley was famous. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans established their ranch there in the early 1960s and opened their museum there in 1967. The museum was moved to larger accommodations in Victorville about five miles away in 1976.

Wanda Pearl had been a Roy Rogers fan since he began singing with The Sons of the Pioneers in the early 1930s, which made my adoration of the King of the Cowboys merely child’s play.

When Wanda Pearl and JD returned from Apple Valley and the museum, we invited them and Mary Lou to dinner. The mother and son waxed eloquent over the Roy Rogers Museum.

My father later told me he was not too impressed with his visit there: “For one thing Trigger had been stuffed and was sagging a bit.”

Cowboy Gallantry

But Wanda Pearl gushed with her recounting of the museum visit. Then JD revealed why.

When they first arrived, the King of the Cowboys was near the entry in his full cowboy regalia. With few visitors there early, he offered to take them on a personal tour. JD trailed behind as Roy Rogers escorted Wanda Pearl through the memorabilia.

As they completed the tour, Wanda Pearl shyly asked Roy, “Mr. Rogers, would you mind if my son took a picture of the two of us?”

Roy pulled off his ten-gallon Stetson and replied, “Why little lady, I would be honored.”

Sadly, I never visited the museum. It was moved to Branson, MO in 2003 and closed last year.

That’s another reason the Southwest corner has lost some allure.

But I bet Wanda Pearl still has that photo of her and Roy.

Lost and Found; Found and Lost: a Brief History of Math and Me

2010-04-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – “Your middle school is now a jail,” he shook his head incredulously.

I tried to explain it was an evolution of a building in a small town; how it wasn’t a middle school, it was Lebanon Junior High.

I tried to explain how it was built in the 1930s when the former high school with the gymnasium in the basement had burned down.

How it was the high school up the hill from the football field, where the Sellars Funeral home is now located, before it moved across town behind the hospital, which is now a care facility, and how the building became the junior high; how it was built on the corner across the parking lot from the new elementary school named Highland Heights with the cafeteria in the basement.

But this native Californian was not buying it, honed in on a school being turned into a jail.

Donkey Basketball

My explanations seemed to just make the whole idea even more nonsensical.

I told him the 1936 gym ran along the north side between the two schools. It was where I saw donkey basketball when I was in McClain elementary. The locker room was in the basement. That was where my best friend Henry Harding, the ring leader, and other football players put itching powder in my underwear while I showered, and how it stung and burned, and eventually got Henry into a bit of trouble.

“You went to school in a jail,” the Californian kept muttering.

Apparently, they don’t reuse buildings out here in the Southwest corner: just tear ‘em down and build something else.

And I remembered how that old building was the beginning of my math cycle, found, lost, found, and lost.

I had done okay in math at McClain and the first year at LJHS, getting it done with as little effort as possible so I could watch Howdy Doody in the afternoon and Milton Berle’s “Texaco Hour” before going to bed. But in the eighth grade, I struggled until one afternoon. Mrs. Mora Purnell was helping me solve a problem. An explosion went off inside my head. I smiled and Mrs. Purnell responded with a smile of her own.

“I can see you’ve got it,” she commented wisely.

Major Leftwich/Colonel Brown

This would be a better story if then Major Leftwich had been my math teacher at Castle Heights, but his job was to mold me into a decent journalist and a better man.

I drew Colonel Harvey Brown. He had been a real Army colonel, ramrod straight, pencil thin mustache, and a short brusque flattop. He laughed wryly out of the side of his mouth and drove an MG sports car.

He was cool.

My math under Colonel Brown flourished. I am not sure how I made the cut, but I was in an accelerated program with LeRoy Dowdy, Frank Sutherland, John Thompson, and David Whitten. I took to it and stayed with the front runners through trigonometry, analytical geometry, and integral calculus. I’m sure Mrs. Purnell had a great influence on it happening at all.

Then in spite of my natural inclination, I chose an engineering major at Vanderbilt.

Somewhere in about a month into my first semester, I lost math. I don’t know where it went, but it was gone, not a good thing if you are a civil engineering student with the proclivity to play more than study.

So I struggled, specifically 22 hours of engineering calculus and statics, and left Vanderbilt not a great deal wiser.

MTSU/Daughter’s Trig

At Middle Tennessee, I profited from extremely wonderful English professors. Dr. Richard Peck and Dr. Bill Holland immediately come to mind, but all of that math stuff was gone, lost. Then as I entered the last summer before graduation, my advisor informed me I needed one math course to graduate. All of those D grades in calculus had not transferred as credit.

I found it again. Of course, it was rehash but I got an A in trigonometry.
Five years ago, my daughter asked me to help her with her high school math homework: trigonometry. I was thrilled and could not wait to demonstrate my acumen.

It was gone again. I couldn’t remember anything.

Maybe they should send me back to jail.

buffalo bob and jeezus

2010-03-31T16:24:00.000-07:00

Where do we live, in heaven or hell; why not either? ho jeezus.
is it restlessness, human nature, or abject and terribly humane stupidity driving us toward
life in a fast lane leading to no exit from the super highway down the road. oh
yes.
my problem is i was/am an innocent, well unarmed to seek a feasible, feastible answer while
the world runs amok,
looking for the next best thing to change,
which really bears no difference to the last change where
we reel, rockin' n' a rollin' way 'til the break of dawn, shoobey doo wah.
Christ,
mohammed,
errol flynn,
joe dimaggio,
mickey mantle,
gone to
other things of which we know not but are unwilling to admit
other than our own interpretation.
mister aspiration: don't hide your arm, and smoke a lucky, and tell the truth.
tomorrow, someone may ask us where we've been:
homer: long game winning ball or the iliad.
christ.
live well among the cedars of the limestone-pocked hills where the cherokees
did not cherish nobility anymore than the white invaders who
bought, sold and still try to own the negras
who changed their name several times to avoid their own perception of embarrassment or
the other coast where high desert promotes the same silly-ass idea of superlativeness which invades places, our spaces
having no climate but drinkable water. ho, santa ride, ride, ride Rudolph,
have you heard of
mr phinneas t bluster and, god bless her, princess summerfallwinterspring? maybe buffalo bob and howdy doody had it right all along
after all.

- Bonita, California
- August 28, 1996

To Judy: Shards of Glass

2010-03-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

i have had dreams;
seen most shattered:
shards of glass on the concrete roads i've traveled.

i laughed most of the broken dreams away
(the others no one knew
are still around,
not laughed away).
i survive laughing.

there is a gentle incline
up the road to your house;
two horses graze peacefully
in the pasture
on the other side of the fence;
i drove past your house last night,
turning in the cul-de-sac,
passing the horses again
on the way out.

i hope your dreams
are not shards of glass
on the concrete roads
of texas.

- College Station, Texas
- July 31, 1979

Late Postings

2010-03-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

i have been delinquent this past week. Some very important business, some immediate work on household needs, daughter's mid-term project, daughter going to see her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, and Maureen's birthday took my attention away from writing stuff.

So this is catch-up, sort of...

Last Monday's column from my Lebanon Democrat work is included. Leading off is my tribute to a beautiful woman who turns 401K withdrawal age today, even though she looks world's younger, an incredible accomplishment considering she has had to put up with me for twenty-eight years.

i will try to get back to regular posts this ensuing week. Today is dedicated to the woman i write of.

To Maureen

i have nothing to give this morning.
i feel ashamed;
it is a significant step in a meaningful year for you
and
i have nothing to give.

i would have shopped for you
i know several shops with things you would like;
i thought of getting airplane tickets or
room reservations
to places you would like to go
but
money’s tight, and you more than I,
have serious concerns about spending
so
i have nothing to give.

i am ashamed because
you have given me so much;
oh, you have, by mutual agreement,
been the major wage earner for our marriage;
oh, you are the instigation for living in this house;
your sense of style and grace have appointed it
in comfort and taste.

You have given me our daughter;
You have become a mother to our other daughter;
You are Grandma Mo;

You have taught me finer things in life;
introduced me to gracious new friends,
become close to my friends;
You are my editor, in writing and in life;
You are my friend;
You are my lover;
and
I cannot give you anything…

but me, a piddling little something,
and
my love, which is greater than fate or the universe.

- Bonita, California
- March 28, 2010

A Sad Note Before a Story of Spring

SAN DIEGO – Regretfully, I must start this column on a sad note: Mrs. Emmy Lou Dowdy passed away Saturday in Montgomery, Alabama.

Unfortunately as I write this column, my only source for information has been my mother’s email. I will not deal with particulars here because I’m sure “The Democrat” will cover her passing thoroughly elsewhere in this edition.

Mr. and Mrs. Roy Dowdy were pillars in the Lebanon community when I was growing up. He was the Superintendant of the Lebanon City School system, and she was a third grade teacher at McClain Elementary School. Byars-Dowdy Elementary School was named for Mr. Dowdy and H.M. Byars, both of whom were close friends of my family.

William LeRoy Dowdy is their oldest son and my life-long friend. He and I went to Sunday school, church, and the Methodist Youth Fellowship together for most of our first 18 years. We attended Castle Heights together, where he was editor of the award winning “Cavalier” newspaper and I was the sports editor in our senior year.

As always, he topped me academically that year. He and I both were awarded Naval ROTC scholarships, he to Duke where he graduated and received his Navy commission, and I to Vanderbilt where my chase for adventure took off.

LeRoy is currently a professor at Alabama State University in Montgomery where he moved Mrs. Dowdy to a care facility so he could be with her on a continual basis. He has written me that he read JB Leftwich’s and my “Democrat” columns to his mother each week.

Emily, the younger child, is now an attorney in Panama City, FL.
Growing up, I thought they were the smartest family on the planet, but I will always remember how kind both Mr. and Mrs. Dowdy were to me.

And of course along with my parents, they were members of the long standing bridge club, which included Snooks and Bettye Kate Hall, JB and Jo Doris Leftwich, Bob and Syble Spain, and Charlie and Erma Baird among others. I will not list all of the others as an old column of JB’s is the definitive work on that group.

I will miss Mrs. Dowdy. She was an elegant and erudite woman in that special generation of strong women.

Perhaps a story from my mother best describes her. When my brother Joe was entering third grade, he was already demonstrating intelligence beyond mine.

My mother with her inside information as Mr. Dowdy’s secretary – even the term of executive assistant would not adequately cover her job description – told my brother the name of his new teacher. Recognizing the value of intellectual and kind teachers, he cried and said, “But I want Mrs. Dowdy.”

I think that pretty well sums it up.

* * *

Last week, it turned spring in the Southwest corner, about a week before the official date of spring.

I know because I saw about two dozen men wearing shorts during my Friday morning golf round. The vast majority of those legs should never be seen in shorts, especially after a three month hiatus in long pants. It was pretty ugly.

The sight brought back a recollection from home many years ago. I was around seven and the time was May or June, not at the cusp of spring and winter, certainly warm enough for one of my age to be put in shorts.

We had piled into the 1948 dark green Pontiac and driven out North Cumberland to HM and Fanny Byars’ farm, which was one farm south of where the Castle Heights Avenue extension runs into US 231 North. Harry and Bill Byars, both a number of years older than me were in the field just past the gate. Both were wearing denim jeans.

I was envious and entreated my mother to let me wear jeans. I was big enough. She refused. I wasn’t old enough, and besides, shorts looked “real nice” on young boys.

Out here in the Southwest corner, I wear shorts from March through November except for going out and when on business. I have two sets of jeans, which I take home and wear over Christmas.

And next Friday, my legs will join all of those others that shouldn’t be seen.

Two poems

2010-03-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

Grand Canyon

Snow:
until the lights hit the banks of the roadside,
blurting whiteness into the driver’s eyes,
it had not revealed its presence in the night.

Driver:
at the wheel since L.A. mid-morning,
staring bleakly at the white
long since ceasing to distinguish colors and shades,
reacting to only black and white.
recognizing the significance in the blanch of
late night white,
he slowed:
that those uphill climbs around the curves
had brought them to the mountains
sunk in.

Car.
Slipping slightly, it slid over the median
into the glazed parking lot of the inn.

Bar.
Sunny, bearded cowboy
singing in the bar
accompanied by his guitar,
wired for sound:
electronic Tumbling Tumbleweeds.

Imagination?
shabby dirty man alongside
white robed man with wool-hooded jacket, looking like
Jesus in Pomona, returning to Sambo’s
after turning heads by asking for five balloons
and announcing,
“I’m going to bag some heroin.”
a real bad effort to impress
i guess.

Holes in the mountains.
Snow outside is real;
the cowboy has sung his song,
turned off the amplifier;
daughter, curled beneath the covers,
is sacred.
Full day.
grand canyon, cowboys, and
white robed, doped up jesus in Pomona
and sleeping daughter in the snow.

- Grand Canyon, Arizona
- December 21, 1981

howling

howling rage of age,
have i become a past tense?
or perhaps i always was
only i could not decipher
my mediocrity
in the illusion of
the present tense.

well here i am now, baby,
wondering when the nickels
will cover my eyes
among the clods.

i don't find a great deal
anyone would remember me by
except the stone at my head.

Miss Peggy Lee once said,
"Is that all there is?"
or should be?

- Chula Vista
- January, 1989

Navy terminology: a “one-armed Goekle”

2010-03-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO – In 1968, Boatswainmate Chief Petty Officer Jones, a small, wiry Arkansan, befuddled the chief’s quarters on the U.S.S. Hawkins.

Upset, he barged into chief quarters announcing, “You just can’t get anything done right with a one-armed Goekle.”

The Hawkins chiefs, crusty experienced destroyer sailors were perplexed. They had never heard of any deck equipment called a Goekle, much less a one-armed Goekle.

The previous April, I reported aboard in Malaga, Spain for my first tour before the ship steamed through the Straits of Gibraltar and headed for her homeport of Newport, RI.

I became the first lieutenant, a surprise, as I had just completed a two-month Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) school in Key West, FL, and wrongfully assumed I would immediately become the ASW Officer. But the reigning ASW officer didn’t leave the ship until autumn. So I became the first lieutenant, or deck officer.

For the rest of my career, I benefitted from those first six months with boatswain mates. Deck seamanship with “tin can” sailors was a vital elementary education.

Twins

Shortly after we returned to the states, two twin brothers reported aboard and were assigned to my division. They were clean cut Mid-western boys, sincere and well-intended. But they were about one brick shy of a load in the intelligence department.

Soon afterward while chipping and painting, the eternal task of deck seaman, one twin was chewed out by his leading petty officer. Upset, he drove his fist through the screen of an intake vent, breaking several knuckles and cutting his hand, which required stitches and an arm cast. For BMC Jones, this twin became the one-armed “Goekle.”

Chief Jones retired that August, returning to Arkansas to become a gem cutter. The Goekles and I remained on the “Hawk” through a six-month overhaul in South Boston, a three-month stint in Guantanamo, Cuba for refresher training, a change of home port to Norfolk, VA, serving as the Apollo 12 Atlantic recovery ship, and the observation platform for below-surface Polaris missile test firings from submarines off of Cape Canaveral.

Legends of a Different Kind

I became ASW officer in September. The Goekles became legends.

One twin attempted to qualify for the storekeeper rating and was in charge of the ship’s paint supplies. While in the Portsmouth (VA) shipyard to strengthen the fantail deck to hold the Apollo capsule – it landed as planned in the Pacific – paint supplies were moved to a large conex box on the pier.

As command duty officer, I was in charge of the ship on a summer weekday when the duty boatswain mate reported this Goekle twin missing. We searched and discovered he had locked himself inside the pier paint locker. He never adequately explained how he did that.

His brother one-upped his twin after he became a “striker” for radioman. That autumn, the Hawkins was nested inboard another destroyer at the Norfolk piers. Again, I had the duty.

This Goekle had watch duty until midnight. His major responsibility was to receive messages and deliver them to the command duty officer (me).

After I took my tour of ship’s spaces around 2100 (9:00 p.m.), I turned on the wardroom television for the local news.

Tropical Storm

The first story reported a tropical storm had been headed northeast but made a sudden west turn, was upgraded to a hurricane, and was bearing down on Hampton Roads. Apparently, Navy ships had been ordered to make an emergency sortie.

I immediately called the senior duty radioman and asked if any radio traffic concerning weather and a sortie had been received. He said Goekle had been on duty.

About ten minutes later, the duty radioman came to the wardroom and handed me a pile of messages. The top message ordered an emergency sortie based on existing instructions. I had pulled out the instructions and determined, because of her status of repairs, the Hawkins would not be required to get underway for 72 hours. I called the commanding officer and reported the situation.

The storm turned again and we, nor any other ship, was required to get underway.
It turns out this Gloekle twin had locked himself out of the radio shack and was too embarrassed to tell anyone.

So now I always remember Gloekle’s need two-way locks and it’s difficult to get anything done right with a one-armed Gloekle.

To Maureen, Christmas 1990

2010-03-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

i sit in this house alone;
it is a lovely, lovely house.
i sit in the house alone
because it is my job to sit here alone;
together is in my mind,
separating aloneness and togetherness on paper;
even sometimes
putting them together again.

it is a lovely, lovely house
a central theme in our lives:
this house, this lovely, lovely house
houses our daughter, our essence;

this house, this lovely, lovely house.
i sit in this house alone.
it is a lovely, lovely house.
The sun makes this house
glow while i sit writing alone.

i love this house,
the way it captures the sun,
pouring it into my soul
like a morning cup of coffee,
making writing alone easier.
yet the glow of the house is not warm,
the beauty of this lovely, lovely house
is not complete
until you come home to
this lovely, lovely house
making it, and me, complete.

- Bonita, California
- December 23, 1990

graffiti

2010-03-11T21:08:00.000-08:00

little boys who write on walls
call it tagging and think it calls
for courage and defiance great,
think it makes them look first-rate.
they sneak around in dead of night
afraid they'll get caught in the light,
believing it makes them daring
as if someone is really caring
about little boys who write on walls
who think their deeds show they have great gall
when those who see the tagging, scorn
the boys' destruction in the morn.
knowing boys who write on walls
really have no balls at all.

- Bonita, California
- September 4, 1996

Connnections Again

2010-03-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – Once again, I have made connections in the most unexpected places.

This past weekend, I attended a SYMLOG International Conference in Rancho Bernardo, about thirty-five miles northeast of my home in the Southwest corner. SYMLOG is the group dynamics system I have used in my consulting business since 1991.

Many attendees were high powered consultants, either internal in companies or independent. They came from Japan, South Africa, Mexico, and Canada as well as across our country. The majority were PhDs. And then there was me.

I arrived late on Friday due to another business commitment. The second session was nearing completion. The presenter was Bob Harig, the vice-president of Human Resources at Cracker Barrel.

I had missed Larry Newton’s earlier presentation. He is a consultant for Peter Rock Consulting in Charlotte, NC, and also works with Cracker Barrel. Another attendee, Lisa Hartmann from Indianapolis, is the Human Resource Manager at Cracker Barrel.

After Bob’s presentation, I mentioned to them I was from Lebanon and wrote columns for this newspaper.

We then began talking about Danny Evins and Lebanon, especially the Mitchell House, the Chop House, and Castle Heights. They praised Danny for his business acumen and his integrity.

Saturday morning, a humorous and insightful man named Luther Johnson spoke about his work with SYMLOG. Luther was an Air Force chaplain in Vietnam before becoming a successful consultant. His home is in Louisville, TN.

He spoke of his work with Post Traumatic Stress veterans. Two of my closest friends and golfing buddies in the Southwest corner, Al Pavich and Rod Stark, are associated with the Veterans Village of San Diego. Rod is the executive assistant to the current CEO. Al is retired from the CEO position and is the force behind VVSD being one of the most successful veteran rehabilitation programs in the country. Many of the veterans who have left the homeless ranks and beaten alcohol and drug addition, and many who are presently in the program suffered from PTS.

Luther went on to explain how he used SYMLOG in politics and how he worked with Wesley Clark in the last presidential campaign. Later, I told him of General Clark being a boarding student at Castle Heights while I was there.

Finally Luther described his successful work with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Department of Energy. In our later conversation, I mentioned I had done consulting work at the Hanford nuclear reservation in eastern Washington. Luther told me he was going up to the DOE office there in the near future to discuss using SYMLOG with them.

A later conference presenter was Joe Powers. Joe is the Director of Group Psychotherapy at the renowned McLean Hospital, a arm of the Harvard Medical School. He had worked with Freed Bales at Harvard in the 1950s when Freed was beginning to create the SYMLOG system.

Although the connection was not as direct, I went to Boston in 1985 as the subject matter expert to assist McBer Company in the final production of a case study, which was subsequently used in the leadership seminar for Navy senior officers. There I briefly met David McClellan. McClellan is best known for his work on motivation and was a contemporary of Bales at Harvard. In his appearance and dress, McClelland reminded me of Orville Reddenbacher, the popcorn czar, who lived on Coronado Island in San Diego and always wore turn of the century styled clothes.

The conference had been a regular occurrence in the 1990s but had been dormant for about ten years until this past weekend. Even though I had been somewhat awed by the intellect and knowledge which filled the room, I always learned something and left feeling empowered to use the system to help teams and individuals. This year was no different.

This year I also left with a sense of how small the world is. Thanks to the Navy, I traveled over a large of it and the number of times I have met someone with a connection to Lebanon or another part of my past is incredible, even more so considering most of those connections have been in far away places.

In spite of the exponential population growth in the world and the continual integration of cultures and the blurring of nationality through world-wide immigration, connections continue to make this a small world.

On the Foxhunter's Dying

2010-03-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

Olympics: Good and Sad Memories

2010-03-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – This past two weeks of watching the Winter Olympics has brought back memories, both happy and sad.

My recall was triggered by last Monday’s U.S. upset of Canada in men’s hockey, wonderfully introduced by NBC’s Al Michaels revisiting the monumental upset of the USSR in the 1980 Lake Placid games. I had just returned to the Southwest corner from a “West Pac” deployment.

I had become friends with the UDT advisor on our amphibious squadron staff. Pete Toennies remains one of my closest friends. As a result of his friendship, I became an add-on to Navy SEALS who played volleyball on San Diego’s Mission Beach. Most of the SEALS were tall physical specimens. But one, Al Schaufelberger, was close to my height. We always played on opposite sides for that reason.

We became friends and enjoyed ridiculing each other. Al, a Naval Academy graduate, was an incredible photographer, especially in underwater photography. He was witty, warm, and had an ironic sense of humor, a trait which brought him, Pete, and me even closer together.

Watch it like it’s live

As those 1980 Olympics progressed, we complained about delayed televised replays of events actually occurring earlier. Al invited us and Pete’s wife Nancy to his home to the semi-final match between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. We agreed to not listen to the live radio broadcast or any scores in order to watch the replay as if it was live.

Greeting us at the door, Al asked Nancy if she would like to bet him on the game. He volunteered to take the Russians. Pete and I immediately knew Al had listened to the earlier broadcast or heard the score. We beseeched Nancy not to bet. Watching the entire hockey game, we refused to believe the U.S. would win until the last half-minute, about when Michaels made his legendary, “Do you believe in miracles?” play-by-play call.

We laughed a lot about that night until we all left the Southwest corner. Pete and Nancy went to Korea a few months later. Al was ordered to duty as the senior Navy representative at the U.S. Military Group, El Salvador, advising the Salvadorian military on counter insurgency and weapons traffic interdiction.

In May two years later, I headed east to see my daughter and rendezvous with Maureen, my fiancé, in Austin en route to my school in Newport, RI before our wedding and my subsequent reporting as executive officer to the “U.S.S. Yosemite” in Mayport, FL.

Bad News

To miss afternoon and morning commutes in El Paso, I stopped overnight in Las Cruces, NM. The next morning, May 26, 1983, I checked out and sat down for breakfast.

After ordering, I picked up the Las Cruces newspaper. On the front page was a one-column headline reporting my friend and jokester, Lieutenant Commander Schaufelberger, had been assassinated.

He had parked his armored vehicle to pick up his fiancé after her classes at the university in El Salvador. The bullet proof windshield was down due to the broken air conditioner.

Four men in a van pulled up; two armed men took security positions, one keeping Al’s fiancé from the car. The third man ran to the driver’s side of Al’s vehicle and fired four bullets point blank into Al’s head.

A Sad Loss

At my age, I have lost many good friends and relatives. As I age, I recognize this experience will increase with greater frequency. All of those departures have made me sad. But I don’t recall any having quite the impact on me as losing Al.

I spent my 600-mile drive to Austin that day thinking about Al. The image of him laughing with unrepentant joy as Pete and I realized he had successfully yanked our chain at one of the greatest events in U.S. athletic history kept coming into my mind.

One of the U.S. hockey players interviewed on the pre-game show Monday night pointed out there are a number of historic events we clearly remember where we were and what we were doing when they occurred. Nearly all of them were tragic in nature: JFK’s assassination and 911, for example. But one, the U.S. upsetting the Russians in the 1980 Olympics, was incredibly positive.

For me, even though I too clearly remember my whereabouts, this is no longer quite true. There is a hugely sad aspect to that Olympics historic moment.

Sunken Ship

2010-03-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

This commentary was elicited by an email sent by my former commanding officer of the USS Yosemite after she was sunk in an exercise. The Yosemitewas commissioned in 1945. i served as her executive officer from August 10, 1983 until April 25, 1985. She was decommissioned in 1994 and served as a training ship for youngsters, Sea Scouts. NJROTC cadets, etc. from decommissioning until several months before she was sunk.

Sunken Ship

The news came, as expected, from the Commanding Officer, a man who has Navy blue for blood in his veins. I did not call him “CO” or the aviator term “skipper” – he would have chopped off my head with that insult. I called him “Captain.” Without fail. I now call him Frank and a friend.

The USS Yosemite (AD 19), destroyer tender par excellence is gone.

The Navy radio message, the means of communicating throughout my Navy career, was the bearer of the news, forwarded by the Commanding Officer in the new mode of communication: e-mail.

The message subject was “sinkex” as in gone. That means she was sunk as a target in a Naval exercise. Since the message came from a destroyer squadron commander, I hope it was a surface ship that shot her down.

And I mean down. Two thousand, three hundred, and forty fathoms. That’s about 14,040 feet. Deep.

It is right that she went down that way, and hopefully it was shells from a gun mount, not a missile, but I suspect the latter sang the final hymn, read the final prayer for the good ship Yosemite.

Sailors use the feminine gender to describe ships. There is probably some politically correct group out there trying to neuter the tradition. That it is sad because the Yosemite and the other ships I served on were true ladies of the sea, elegant, practical and fearsome in their different ways. I loved all of those that carried me as part of their wardrooms.

The Yosemite was special. I confess I had to learn to love her. I went to her to serve as executive officer in 1983 for the sole purpose of attaining the necessary qualifications to screen for command at sea. I did not like tenders: they did not go to sea enough. They did not land amphibious troops and equipment; they did not fire guns and missiles; they did not hunt submarines. They did not scream around at twenty-seven knots with the spume of a rooster-tail off the stern and the wake as wide as a four-lane highway extending to the horizon. They did not belch landing craft out of the stern of a well deck in rolling seas.

But Yosemite had been there when I first met the Navy in 1963. She was the flagship of Cruiser Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet, tied up at Pier One in Newport, Rhode Island. I was a midshipman on my way out of NROTC because I didn’t have good study habits nor good sense at nineteen. She seemed massive and imperturbable as I walked passed on my way to my destroyer and an eight-week cruise.

She was in Newport when I came back from deployment on my first ship after being commissioned from OCS in 1968. Her deserved reputation was such that we would figure out ways to get our repair work to her, rather than to take it to our “parent” tender.

And she was my last ship, the penultimate tour for me and the penultimate step toward my never achieved goal of command.

She could wheeze out fourteen knots with her four hundred pound boilers, but we steamed at ten knots most of the time. The fact sheet lists her top speed as nineteen knots but that was several tons and numerous years before I became her “XO.”

She steamed like a champion for my tour. We deployed for seven and a half months just a month after I reported aboard. She was the first ship with women as part of the crew who spent extended periods out of port (Most before had transited from port to port and provided repair and maintenance services pier side or moored). She provided repair availabilities for destroyers and cruisers while anchored off Masirah, Oman, and she accomplished in four days what normally took two weeks back in the states. She did that for fifty-five days, took a break and then did it again for forty-five days.

She had a crew of 900, including 106 women, and a wardroom of 44, six of whom were female, and gave me a completely different perspective of women at sea: the Captain said it best when he announced, “We don’t have women on this ship. We don’t have men on this ship. We have sailors on this ship and we are going to operate that way.”

She was given a letter of commendation for being a member of the Indian Ocean Battle Group, an unheard of honor for a repair ship.

She steamed as a member of the orange force in a Caribbean exercise, something tenders do not normally do.

She was in the middle of the eye of a developing hurricane, eventually escaping to the southeast before the winds and seas reached full hurricane strength.

She was proclaimed the best repair organization in the Atlantic Fleet.

Her crew was an amalgamation of old sailors, repair personnel who had seldom spent any time at sea, and young wide-eyed men and women, learning how to be sailors.

The first lieutenant was the best boatswainmate I knew in twenty years, even though he had outgrown the title.

The doc was so new he didn’t know how to salute or how to dress in Navy uniforms. He has become the godfather of my daughter and one of my closest friends.

And there was this special woman, the operations officer, a lieutenant, who was one of the best officers with whom I served.

And there were many others who had an impact on my life.

She was commissioned in 1944, the year I was born. She was decommissioned in 1994.

It is fitting that she went down the way she did. She spent her life supporting the fleet. She was sunk supporting the fleet, providing one last service.

And she and Davy Jones will sleep well together.

- Bonita, California
- December 2, 2003

Disingenuous Disgust

2010-02-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – This column is disingenuous, putting me alongside those I criticize.

I had three columns in my head and one about half written when the sports media disgusted me last week.

My disgust has been growing in the Southwest corner. Having some limited knowledge of human nature, I suspect the subject of my disgust is the same back home. It certainly is rampant at the national level.

No, this is not my first foray into politics. My vow not to dip my ink into that mess remains intact. But my old business of sports journalism has reached a murky depth in my opinion, and I am compelled to comment.

Bias West Coast

The seed of my disgust began as a sports fan from Tennessee in the Southwest corner. For twenty-five years, I’ve lived in a world biased to West coast sports. This blatant “homer” attitude resurrected my rooting for the Big Orange. Growing up, I was a fervent fan of Bowden Wyatt, Johnny Majors, Tommy Bronson, the Canale brothers, the single wing, quick kicks, high top shoes, orange jerseys only, and an open end Shields-Watkins Field.

I became a dedicated Commodore fan during my short lived stay at Vanderbilt and while sports reporting for Fred Russell at “The Nashville Banner.” But I rooted for the Vols and the Commodores until Doug Dickey put UT in white jerseys, low-cut cleats, and abandoned the single wing.

Vandy basketball’s John Ed Miller’s telling me about hairs on the back of his leg being pulled when he was in-bounding a ball in Knoxville drove me further away. Then at the 1969 Vanderbilt loss in Knoxville, I sat in the end zone in my Navy uniform and had Vol fans continually curse me and throw their drinks on me.

But Henry Harding sent me audio cassettes of the UT games during my Vietnam tour, and I rooted for my state’s other team as well as the Commodores.
When I came back to the Southwest corner, the Vols frequently played West Coast teams. I rooted for UT to win partially in protest of local whining about the “biased East sports media.”

A Tennessee Anomaly

I became an anomaly for a Tennessean, rooting for Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and the Southeast Conference. I railed against biased reporting and uninformed observations.

My dissatisfaction with West Coast sports reporting – Jim Murray of “The Los Angeles Times” being an exception, reminiscent of Russell at “The Banner” – burgeoned with the growth of sports talking heads who mangled facts with brutish manners.

About the same time, ESPN became a phenomenon. At the outset, they televised many sports, including Australian football, which I loved to watch.
ESPN went big time. Talking heads dominate sports television and radio, not sports events. Sports show hosts resemble playground pre-teens with gossip, opinion, and useless statistics.

I don’t know about you, but I am not really interested in who just made the first triple double somersault dunk around the left cornerback in the Rose Bowl, and I’m pretty sure it really doesn’t show some trend in the won-lost records.

I can’t complain too much because ESPN has allowed me to watch almost every Vanderbilt basketball game this season in the Southwest corner.

Over the Top

But this Tiger Woods thing is over the top. The entire nation has been bombarded not only with incessant sound bites from last week’s 15-minute speech, but also by the most hypocritical, senseless, and pointless folderol presented with sham voices of authority by golf experts, public relations consultants, and marriage counselors, not to mention any one who happens to be walking by a microphone.

I cannot presume to know enough about Tiger and Elin Woods, his finances, or his golf to twist myself into a pretzel over what happens next. For someone with his stature or notoriety, Tiger’s statement was news.

A two-paragraph story buried on the fourth sports page would have covered it adequately, but we have blown it into a tabloid nuclear blast. And I have joined the hue and cry, disingenuous at best.

My conclusion is only that every aspect of the situation with Tiger is sad.
Golf is a wonderful game but over-hyped by the golf channel and the mega-million show time of the PGA.

I remember Jimmy Smith of Pennsylvania Avenue golfing for Castle Heights on the dirt greens of the nine-hole campus course and thinking, “He’s cool and so is golf.”

I wish it were that way again.

Two Poems

2010-02-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

These two poems were written close to each other in 1996. They have some connections for me. "Tennessee Steam Engine" followed "frustration" as it does here.

frustration: the root of all my problems:

oh damn you, mister cummings and mister warren, too
i've wanted to write poetry but unfortunately i've read you.
most of the stuff i want to write
you and others have already written;
though it wouldn't bother most nowadays,
i find myself still smitten
with the idea of originality
which probably does not exist
so i struggle to find my own voice
in the void you two jokers insisted
in making real.

so i think i'll go buy a farm.

- Bonita, California
- February 8, 1996

Tennessee Steam Engine (more factual than before)

Grandpa Cullen and son Jesse
back in thirteen,
when my pap was a year away from born,
rode the train to Nashville
– a half day's journey then,
fetching a steam engine,
the first portable saw mill in those parts.

Jesse was a strapping big man then,
a youth, not yet rounded with gut and jowls,
like when i knew him as Uncle;
when he told this story to me in eighty-four:
he wasn't so strapping at 93,
shriveled into the baggy old man shapelessness,
pale cream complexion with wispy thin, pure white hair,
in the lazy boy rocker chair in his youngest daughter’s den
that November with the trees bare and grass
straw colored in the brisk sharp sunshine
of middle tennessee.

The trip was before Grandpa Cullen
lost most of the fingers on his right hand
in that very same steam-driven saw mill on someone’s farm.
his hair had not turned white as it is
in the lone picture i have in the family book.

Uncle Jesse said Grandpa was wiry thin strong like my father
who sat at the other side of the den paying respect to the family,
while i listened to the tale.
Uncle Jesse said Grandpa Cullen was more than
pulling his weight rousting the steam engine.

On the way back, driving that steam engine,
they couldn't make it in one day:
Stopped the night
on a farm in Donelson Uncle Jesse related.
Pretty nice folks to put 'em up
without any idea who they might be.
had a good supper and pleasant conversation.
by my calculation the farm was
pretty close to where they built Opryland,
but the land was still country with
folks a lot more trusting than they are nowadays.

When there's static in the air and you can hardly hear
better turn on the radio of the Lord,
A.P. and Mama Maybelle would intone.
Lonzo and Oscar, Lester and Earl, Foggy Mountain Boys,
even Minnie from Grinders Switch were real;
even Roy Acuff with his cave in Kentucky
would have made the show and held on till
the deep dark of three in the Nashville night
eating long after the opry closed for the night:
porkchopsandeggsandbiscuitsandgravy
with coffee in thick mugs at Linebaugh's
on Church Street downtown,
just down the hill from the Ryman.

Long after that shiny new steam engine belched toward
Lebanon from the Donelson farm front yard
by Grandpa Cullen and Uncle Jesse
did they start the Opry at the Ryman
and much longer before Opryland
sprouted in its full festival of plastic country glory
in that self-same place
where the farm once was which was,
just before the pale, grown soft baby skinned old man
with sagging jowls and kind countenance
would tell me this tale
the last time i saw him.

- Bonita, California
- November 7, 1996

A Flight from Fancy

2010-02-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

The flying experience takes many twists and turns. If one can keep his wits and not dwell on the inconvenience and lack of customer service, it can be an entertainment medium through watching the characters. It can be a lengthy version of going down to Home Depot.

In the long lines and mostly ineffective security measures employed in San Diego, i embarked on this business trip today. Even before i got on the flight, i witnessed a montage of characters that would have fit well into a novel of international intrigue.

Amidst the seasoned travelers, trying to act like they were seasoned while still perplexed at the continuing change in rules, regulations and procedures, and the wide-eyed questioning new air travelers, i found my way to the Delta counter.

A tall slender Muslim woman was at the next counter to the automatic ticket processing, which i have come to use rather than the redcaps. She wore a head-to-toe black veil that was attached across her face at the left ear. While checking in, she unattached the veil in order for the counter personnel and, later the TSA security guards to match her identification with her features. “Ahh, i wondered with no malice, “i wonder what Allah thinks about this particular waiver for progress?”

While going through these checks, she would demurely hold the garment across her nose with her graceful slender fingers of her right and touching the lobe of her left ear. When requested, she would open out the veil just enough for the evaluator to see that the face did indeed match the holygraphed photo on the plastic card.

After each check to see if she was really who she really was, she would reattach the veil so it would drape across her face of its own accord. From my vantage points, this semi-permanent visage reminded me of the “Black Bart” characters in the black and white western movies of my youth – Oh Hoppy, where have you gone?

For her, the veil enhanced her allure. The floor length garment was of fine material and it flowed elegantly around her slender frame. The garment would occasionally flitter open, revealing a blue and white sheer taffeta gown underneath. The chic, square-toed, black leather and low-heeled shoes slipped out from underneath the black folds when she walked. They strangely fit the image of this mysterious lady.

Her eyes were deep, dark and fetching. But in one of those vulnerable moments of identification verification, i caught a brief glimpse of her face. The skin was flawless and matched the beautiful eyes. The nose, however, was long and hooked, ill fitting, and it shattered my illusion of her allure.

Later while waiting for our aisle numbers to be including in the boarding process, a well-dressed lady with a sharply pulled back pony tail, short sleeve sweater and slacks passed the Muslim lady while moving toward the boarding pass screening. She looked directly at the lady of the veil. Her look was a combination of loathing and fear. Inexplicably, she made the traditional Catholic sign of the cross gesture and moved quickly away.

I felt sad and powerless.

* * *

In between the introduction to the Lady of the Veil and my final sadness from her repudiation, i crawled with the masses through the black ribbon maze toward the security check. i noticed a couple with two young children, a boy and a girl. From the young father’s haircut and mannerisms, i surmised that it was an enlisted marine family, likely heading for Quantico or Camp Lejune in a change of duty.

While i was looking at other interesting characters navigating the maze, the young marine slipped below the ribbons and took his position as close as he could get to the last turn. He was preparing for his farewell from close, but not intimate range before his wife and children would pass through the electronic screening and fade into the cavernous lobby and down a concourse to their gate.

I noticed his absence only when the line moved through yet another u-turn. The younger child, the daughter of about three was crying because she too had missed her father. The mother was attempting to console her.

As we snarled toward the last point, tears streamed down the distraught child’s face while the boy of six marched stoically at his mother’s side. The father, yet another turn from the point of no return, was attempting his own version of stoicism by feebly waving with his right hand and bearing a weak smile. He stood silently, unable to communicate verbally due to the din in the terminal. His chiseled, dark tan features did not fit well with his futility.

His wave died and he clutched a waist-high post of the maze. While i watched him, i found myself identifying with him. His jaw was clinched. The muscles tightened and rolled up his face from the lower jaw to his temple. I knew from experience more than i cared to remember that he was fighting back tears.

I saw his eyes and knew the tears were welling up in the lower lids like mine had done those many years ago. I knew the young marine’s feelings. I did not ponder the reason for the family schism. Later, i surmised the departure was most likely produced by an imminent deployment of his unit and that wife and children were headed back to their home of record to stay with the folks while he was gone.
The moment was over and the reunion, when it followed, would be just as joyous as the departure was sad.

At least, i hoped so.

I have my feelings about these two juxtaposed moments of observations. I recalled bus terminals and how they were lonelier but more hopeful than today’s airline terminals and how the business of our world overwhelmed moments of reflection. I have drawn my conclusions and i was tempted to pass them along.

But I trust you can do just as good of job of that as i can.

-- Bonita, California
-- August 19, 2003

Memories of a Different World

2010-02-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – I sometimes marvel at how I ended up in the Southwest corner.

Then I wonder at how different the world was for me back home a long, long time ago.

My marveling usually starts during strikingly different weather out here and back home. My inclination to recall my youth in Lebanon was recently enhanced by JB Leftwich’s recent columns here.

Then, my daughter Blythe posted some photos of Sam, my grandson, on the internet’s Facebook. You see, when Sam was born, Blythe asked me what I would like Sam to call me. Almost instantaneously, I responded, “PaPa.”

The Original PaPa

Almost two years ago, I wrote here of Wynne Prichard, the old foxhunter who was also my surrogate grandfather as both of my parent’s fathers passed away before I was born. Every child in our extended family called him PaPa. My grandson Sam now calls me PaPa.

Finally, I was struggling to come up with a topic for this column when I went up my hill to raise my flag on Saturday morning. I scanned the vista of Mount Miguel to the east, Tijuana to the south, the San Diego skyline to the northwest, the grey ships of the fleet to the west, and the Pacific dominating the western horizon. As I began my descent, I was thinking of the East being blanketed with snow while I was walking in the winter film of green over the summer brown of the rest of the year.

After the rains here, it felt like spring sending an early calling card while back at home, snow was showing its white teeth again.

It was then I was carried away, back to that other world of my youth, which even Lebanon will never be able to capture except in memories.

Screen Doors

I was carried back to the summers of the late 40s and early 50s on Castle Heights Avenue. Once May got a good grip, my brother Joe and I rarely wore anything but shorts. Our sister Martha was clad in either shorts and a top or a pinafore dress.

The front door was open for the breeze with a screen door to keep the flies outside. I laughed thinking how “screen” doors are now made out of glass to keep the heat and cool inside. And it seemed we had a steady stream of visitors.

Every Wednesday, PaPa would chug up in his 1929 Model “A” Ford, returning from the farmer’s market. He parked on the street in front of the sidewalk, straight-lined to the front door.

An aside: That would be a dangerous move today considering the traffic, but then Castle Heights was not a thoroughfare and the road to Nashville was U.S. 70, nee Nashville Pike, nee West Main. There was no I-40 and therefore no need for most folks to head south on Castle Heights Avenue. Even the Immanuel Baptist Church, which now dominates a huge chunk of the Castle Heights and Wildwood intersection, bought their first land in 1948.

Three Musketeers Bar

When PaPa walked down that walk, Martha and I would run to him and maneuver to be the first to leap into his arms. He would reach in his pocket and pull out a Three Musketeers candy bar for me and a Milky Way for Martha. Joe was included in this process, but I don’t recall his candy bar as I considered myself grown up around nine years old when Joe really got into the act.

My recollections were interrupted when I started packing for a two-day trip to Palm Desert with our friends. We drove the back roads through the rough mountain terrain of Aguanga and Anza, descending into the valley through the incredible scenery and switchbacks of CA-74.

We had planned to visit with our friends during the short trip, but one was going to Utah to ski and the other was going to Colorado to watch professional and college hockey. The desert was awash with a conglomeration of snowbirds of winter residents and tourists enjoying the 80s sunshine, golf, tennis and swimming.

It occurred to me different worlds nearly always seem more attractive than the one where we currently reside.

I will let it suffice to enjoy my grandson calling me PaPa, and the next time I see him I will give him a Three Musketeers bar.

Womanchild

2010-02-15T06:42:00.000-08:00

Quietly opening the door,
i see weeping beauty and a goofy dog
lying on the dark covers of the bed.
i lean over and kiss the beauty’s
sleeping
weeping
head.
the fresh smell of her long dark hair
sweeps over me:
she is a womanchild of mine
i want to lie beside,
cuddle;
hum my soft songs in her ear like
nights
when she was young
drifting off to sleep
until
i left her with the sandman
before the goofy dog.
i rise,
pat the goofy dog on the head
who watches me carefully as i
quietly, softly cross the room and
close the door.

- Bonita, California
- February 27, 2004

Southwest Corner Waterfront and the Old Navy

2010-02-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – A Southwest corner vestige of the past is going to eventually succumb to the beat of progress.

Pacific Tugboat Service leases its pier from San Diego city. The contract with the city stipulates Pacific Tug replace the current pier with a state of the art concrete pier.

This makes good sense for the city and Pacific Tug.

However, the current economic situation, including a 40 percent drop in revenue for United States tugboat companies last year, requires delaying the pier renovation for some time.

When I first walked down Pacific Tug’s current pier, memories were evoked.

The pier is one of the last creosote wood piers on the San Diego waterfront. Shipyards, marinas, cruise lines, the Navy, and even the San Diego Maritime Museum which boasts of a World War II submarine; and two tall ships, Star of India, and the replica H.M.S. Rose have replaced the wood with modern concrete piers and quays.

When I walk down that old pier, I can feel the soft, aged timbers beneath my feet. I experienced the same feeling on many piers in many places for a significant portion of my life.

The brackish bay water laps against the seawall, flotsam floats or wafts below the surface. Seagulls ply overhead in search of meals within the sea trash.

Two landing craft, LCM8s bought from the Navy, await conversion to cargo vessels while nested off one side, more nostalgia for this old amphibious sailor.

My first years in the Navy with settings such as these did not occur in the Southwest corner but in Newport, RI, caddy cornered from here. In the summer of 1963, the destroyer U.S.S. Lloyd Thomas (DD 764) was my midshipman home for eight weeks at sea.

Back then, sailors were a different cut of cloth. They lived a rough life. They were rough themselves. The Thomas had numerous sailors who would have never been accepted into today’s Navy. Some were there because a judge gave them the choice of joining the Navy or going to jail.

Being a sailor was a way of life. A frequently heard admonition was “If the Navy wanted you to have a wife, you would have been issued one with your seabag.” Most sailors lived on board, primarily because their pay wouldn’t cover rent.

Many had been up and down the promotion ladder several times. A second class petty officer retiring after 20 years was common.

A sailor’s clothes, personal items, and toiletries were stuffed into a three by four foot locker below their racks, i.e. beds with aluminum frames with canvas stretched across. The racks were usually three high. Pea coats were stored in communal standing lockers.

Whatever else they owned, usually a few “civvies,” were in a locker club just outside the nearest gate exiting the base. They always left and returned to the ship in their service dress blues or whites.

They worked hard and they played hard. The Uniformed Code of Military Justice was in existence, but life on board was also protected by the sailors own code. It was considered bad form to have anyone in your division to face the commanding officer in Captain’s Mast.

Punishment for offenses, real or imagined, could result in the leading petty officer “losing” one’s liberty card for as much as two weeks. Severe violations could result in a trip to an isolated part of the ship, such as the boatswain’s locker, for a beating.

They stood 24-hour duty every third day in their home port and every other day (port and starboard) in other ports. When extra labor was required, division officers and chief petty officers set about to find “warm bodies” to take on the task, duty or not.

Polite folks, except for the wardroom – officers were dubbed gentlemen when commissioned, thusly falling into the category of “nice folks” – would have been taken aback by a sailor’s life. My early Navy days were closer to Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad’s life at sea than today’s Navy. Sailors now own cars, homes, go to and fro in working uniforms, and have duty once every six to ten days.

It is good the Navy has changed in many ways. But walking down that creosote pier under the Coronado Bay Bridge allows me to fondly recall an earlier Navy I loved.

Whispers from the Dead

2010-02-08T14:50:00.000-08:00

i did not know the young man Josh.
i will not know him:
he died yesterday morning walking to high school.
a car took him down.

i did hear Josh whisper since.
Josh’s school locker was next to my daughter’s,
a friend since elementary school.
death and grieving abound here.
Tough for a parent to determine
when to cut it off,
get back to business.

Again Josh’s whisper comes.
i try to remember being a junior in high school,
hoping to communicate better, do the right thing;
you know.
ruminating through my seemingly endless years;
jobs and war and loves,
touching other lives, good and bad.
It is hard to remember.

Josh’s whisper helps;
Not just whispers from the recently dead young man,
but also whispers of friends and kin who died young and old.
Through the whispers and my faulty recollection
i search for the right things to
say and do with my daughter.

Josh whispers again.
Is it me?
i told my daughter she should carry on
as she felt the young man
Josh would want –
it worked for me when my father-in-law,
a close friend as well,
passed (as they say) several years ago.
He whispered to me more than a decade ago.
i have been around when others passed (so the saying goes);
felt so empty, dead myself, until i heard the whispers.
They are mostly comforting to me, these whispers.
i pray to god that such whispers,
when my daughter hears them,
will comfort her.

- Bonita, California
- October 25, 2005

Snow and Recalling Letting Go

2010-02-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – Early last week, my youngest daughter and I walked out to her car as she departed for class at San Diego State.

It was one of those intriguing Southwest corner mornings, sunny and crisp in the mid-50s before warming to the winter weather one finds in the San Diego tourism ads.

I confess as wonderful as our winter days are (when there are no Pacific storms passing through) I felt a little chagrin when my parents told me of last week’s snow storm in Lebanon. I remember snow in Lebanon as true winter wonderlands for me.

As our morning hit us with its glory, I’m sure Sarah wasn’t thinking of the weather.
After all, she is 20 and there were way too many other things on her mind. As usual, she was a bit late to pick up a friend, and had auditions and stage manager tasks in addition to her classes and work at a dance studio.

Snow, Zoo, Responsibilities

On the other hand, I wished to be going to the zoo with her rather than chasing our responsibilities.

She backed out of the driveway and waved as she headed down the cul de sac. I was struck with the parallel of past moments.

You may recall from earlier columns, I am one of those lucky men of my generation who became a mister mom. Sarah’s delivery coincided with my navy retirement date, and I went from a military ceremony to the delivery room and then to caring for one of the two most precious results of me being around..

My daily responsibilities waned as she grew and a significant part of our day eventually became getting her to elementary school. Each weekday – except for an absurd number of days off for holidays and teacher conferences – we would walk from the bitter end of the cul de sac down to the first through street. The school bus would stop at the corner and about a dozen children would board.

The first day we took that walk, I recall having mixed emotions. Not only was I giving up a significant chunk of daily time with her, I was the only male at the bus stop and significantly older than most of the mothers there with their students. I thought I heard several whisper and snicker as Sarah and I walked by. Perhaps it was just my imagination.

Parents Letting Go

Regardless, that first day when she boarded, sat next to a window and waved back to me was one of those lonely moments we have as parents letting go.

Standing in front of the garage last week, I recalled that first day and then remembered, or thought I remembered my first day at McClain Elementary in 1950.

We only had one car at that time in our lives, and my father drove it to work at Hankins and Smith. My mother put my brother in the stroller (Joe was one), held my sister’s hand (Martha was almost 4) and we walked to Little Eskew’s on the corner of Tarver and West Main, the last intersection before the school.

My mother tells me I stopped and told her, “You don’t have to go any further. I can go my by myself.” I often wonder when I walked the last half block on my own if she felt as I did when I waved goodbye to Sarah 52 years later, but suspect she had enough on her hands with two others not to reflect for very long.

No Snow Regrets

I no longer know all of the elementary schools in Lebanon. Of course, I can locate Byars-Dowdy, named after close friends of our family, H.M. Byars, and Roy Dowdy. I also know from my occasional roaming while home, Castle Heights Elementary is on the new extension to our old homestead street. Internet services list ten elementary schools in Lebanon and 19 in Wilson County.

Obviously, there are a lot more mothers and mister moms waving goodbye each day in Lebanon nowadays compared to my first grade days. This means there were a lot more scrambling to deal with the young ones staying home due last week’s snow storm than when McClain closed due to inclement weather.

You see, I also regret Sarah never got a day off from Tiffany Elementary to play in the snow.

wicked web

2010-02-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

ah, the wicked web:
the old man still tried
to make sense of it:
it would not come to sense;
connections did not;
assumptions weren't;
desire was couched in innuendo;
listen did not hear;
perhaps saddest of all,
passion was subjugated
to illusions.

the old man leaned on the cane
rising from the rocking chair,
prodding the old dog with his foot.

love may not be enough,
but it wins
even though
the lover may lose.

– Bonita, California
- November 19, 2002

Three Poems

2010-01-30T08:27:00.000-08:00

Grissom Street

i walked the length of Grissom Street,
never met a soul:
too early in the morning,
too late, too dark, too cold.

i found some solace in my walk;
i cannot tell you why;
perhaps the darkness and the cold
felt better than to cry.

dawn’s first light was lurking near;
i walked back to my flat,
not much more than empty rooms;
i require no more than that.

my days are spent in cheerless grind
to make a buck or so
before returning to my flat,
and the sleepless nights i know.

i’ll walk on Grissom Street again,
breathe in the dark, the cold;
i might balk at a startled cat
for i am not too bold.

the cold night air on Grissom Street
allows me to think quite clearly,
accepting things that have to be;
wondering what i hold too dearly.

there are no signs on Grissom Street;
those who walk here know the way;
it’s not a place to dawdle;
nor a place to stay and play.

Some late, cold walks on Grissom Street
i sometimes give in to dreams,
as dark as my realm of Grissom Street:
they are as bleak as the dark street seems.

i’ve grown older during these cold, dark walks;
though no strangers did i greet,
i’ve heard some voices telling me
I’ll remain on Grissom Street.

– Bonita, California
- April 3, 2005

To Maureen and Sarah on Discovering a Photograph of Maureen on Dictionary Hill

Silhouette in eighty-five,
a dream she let me share;
the silhouette and dream
remain today.
Even better,
there are now two silhouettes to
frame in my memory.

- Bonita, California
- November 2007

Land of Yeats

They, like us, are not getting it,
Thirty years or so, by my count,
later than us:
Land of Yeats,
first edition and autographed,
even the literary rebel Wilde collected in
musty shelves of the bookstore,
next to “Duke’s” pub;
both of which would be
plastic clean franchised –
courtesy of Mr. Kroc, et al –
by us
by now.
we digest the mustiness of the old books,
the dark brew of Guinness with Irish stew,
gusts of seawind and racing clouds outside.
Thirty years ago or so, by my count,
we had hootenanny folk,
free love – which is never really free –
which we packaged, marketed, promoted:
sales, sales, sales.
Now we gather in the land of Yeats,
next to the North Sea
for a sales promotion
to experience what?
These folks of this land of Yeats are
thirty years or so, by my count, from
plastic and sales
but
have been around
a thousand or more years, by my count,
longer than us;
so perhaps
they will not succumb to plastic packaging too fast,
so
the musty books,
the dark brew
will remain
part of the land of Yeats
seawind swept landscape for
another thousand years or so,
by my count.

– Dublin, Ireland
- March 17, 2005

Goofing Off

2010-01-28T10:06:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – The Southwest corner is normally great goofing off, but when growing up back home, I found there to be just as suitable.

I should get a lifetime reward for goofing off, both indoor and outside.

Right now, the Southwest corner is suitable only for indoor goofing off. The storms raged last week leaving floods and mudslides in their wake. Many trees are down from the 60-knot winds – the predominant eucalypti have shallow roots, grow tall and majestic, and are prone to falling over in stiff winds.

Streets are flooded. Worse, outdoor goofing off is off. Golf courses have bunkers, fairways, and even some greens under water.

* * *

An aside: an unpleasant aspect of the Southwest corner is folks either never learned or have forgotten how to drive in rain. Visitors are not aware of the second worst driving hazard out here during rain. After local drivers, the worst driving hazard is oil.

We normally see very little rain. Last week, some areas received more than five inches, more than half of the annual total. Consequently, roads are soaked with oil, which goes below the top surface. Then with rain, the oil rises to the surface, the roads are slicker than ice, and spinouts are frequent.

If you are out this here and driving in a rainstorm, first watch out for the crazy California drivers (rain or no rain), and then be wary of oil-slick roads.

* * *

I am not sure where I got the talent of goofing off. I don’t recall any of my relatives, especially my parents, goofing off. My father went fishing, but he was not goofing off.

He fished at every opportunity. He particularly enjoyed fishing for striped bass on Center Hill Lake. After supper, he would drive up to Sligo Boat Dock with a fishing buddy, sometimes allowing his son to come along. There they would find a good fishing spot – I always wondered how they knew it was a good place – hang a Coleman lantern over the side and fish just below the shad which were attracted by the light.

He caught an amazing number of stripes this way, sometimes more than 60, with at least two or three lines over the side simultaneously. He could be catching many while his son, a.k.a. me, would sit on the bow and catch…nothing.

The darkest nights were the best. So when the full moon came up or dawn approached, he would come home, arriving for maybe an hour or less of sleep. Then he would go to work for the day. Sometimes, to take advantage of the moon’s phases of darker nights, he would go two or three evenings in a row, getting by with what sleep he could get before work and a 45-minute nap at lunch.

My father is not a big fish-eater. When he came home, regardless of the size of the haul, he would clean and dress his catch in the back yard then give to friends.

That is work. That is not goofing off.

* * *

I developed my goofing off trait early. Sometime around nine, I started mowing J. Bill Frame’s and Fred Cowan’s yard across the street. I used our old rotary blade power mower. I would mow for an hour and then take a break, going back to our home. The break could turn into an hour itself.

I don’t know what I did. Television was either not on during the day or the single program was for women (although I did like to watch “Queen for a Day,” hosted by Jack Bailey). I believe this was the origination of goofing off.

The old mower was balky, requiring a deft touch with the choke and a strong, swift pull on the starter cord. Frequently, I would flood the carburetor, and try as I might, I could not start that stubborn mower. Eventually, sore armed and frustrated,

I would call my father at Hankins and Smith, informing him the mower was “broke.”

My father would stop work, drive across town, and pull into the driveway where I usually “worked” on the mower. He would step up to the mower, make one flick on the choke, pull the cord once, and the mower would start.

I believe he thought I had been goofing off.

Fiddlersburg and Billie Potts Resurrected: A Note to My Brother

2010-01-25T20:23:00.000-08:00

i don't usually publish posts more than twice a week even though i keep promising to publish more. Tonight, i was trying to clean up this office which resembles my daughter's room so i can't give her a hard time about cleaning up and i found this poem. i remembered it and edited it again, and here it is. i hope you like it as much as i do. In fact, i hope you enjoy all of my writing as much as i do.

Fiddlersburg and Billie Potts Resurrected: A Note to My Brother

the little star over the left tit.
they buried Little Billie and
no one knew in that patch of land between the rivers which was
Fiddlersburg, revisited and drowned
under the auspices of TVA,
the government men.

i would like to resurrect Little Billie and Fiddlersburg,
but there is no more South,
only a filmy, flimsy image of what used to be
or a caricature of used-to-be South.

and Robert Penn would insert some Italian here:
i would ponder the depth of what he wrote,
but what you see is what you get with this old sailor;
the point is (without Italian)
we strive for balance, and it never is balanced, especially in Italy, especially in Southern Italy; In our South, balance ain't
Southern lonesome;
it ain 't passion;
it ain't.

i may be there again,
i may be suffering enough,
touching depths of my Southern,
unbalanced male soul,
not brooking balance but
yearning for tragic,
yearning for lonesomeness.
we are the last of a breed i fear;
i wonder how many still exist,
i even wonder about you, my brother;
but we can't tell even the most intimate soul mate,
even brothers perhaps;
for to reveal the awful truth,
shit,
even to write it,
which it what it is all about, will alter it;
will take it inextricably, permanently away.
we can no longer be the tragic figure
we wish to be,
even though we've never
really figured out the tragedy.

there is a sadness in joy
because of all forgotten.
there is a joy in sadness
because of realization.

the schooner, sails hauled down,
motors into the narrow pier
in the mist of twilight.

- Bonita, California
- October, 1996

Two poems

2010-01-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

Walker Hicks and i continue to work on the web site, hopefully making it better and easier to use. You can now comment on my "blog" entries. Currently, if you do not have a google account or another in the drop down menu, you can send your comment by selecting "anonymous." i am looking forward to hearing from you.

who i am

i am a time traveler in my mind.

Crystal illusions on the waterfront,
Sail and red checkered table cloths.

The problem is i do not know
who i am at what time i am whomever i am.

Spackle of grey clouds allows the sun
to dart between, glare at the sea gulls flapping.

i keep these secrets with me,
not knowing who i am, when, and mostly why.
I cannot tell any one,
especially those who have come to know:
no political correctness here,
just concern for all of those, even her,
just not i.

Old world harbor town gasping hard against
the new world up and coming.

Responsible resistance to secret revelation,
a yearning emptiness of sweetness.

Lovely young smile and quick mind
Sharing a moment which cannot be more.

It is a secret
Which i wrestle with like a bear
With no resolve as to how much, when or how
i should tell to whom;
…and the world goes round
While people do foolish things,
i among them.

old man nodding, smiling at the beauty,
the symmetry of it all
while the city structures loom
silhouettes of the times:
those which are,
those which never will be.

Smile Mr. Fitzgerald;
Another day for Gatsby has arrived.

- Bonita, California
- October 12, 2006

Waiting Grace

the old folks sit in the room too warm,
television images blink randomly,
the mute button silences the room
although they do not know as the hearing aids
lie on their respective tables with
paraphernalia required for the elderly;
they sit knowing the time will come soon:
waiting grace.
Noble,
Sad,
All is right with the world.
They and the remaining few of their generation
know how to demonstrate
waiting grace.
No threat, no fret, no fear
shows in their continence:
they do what they can and
what they can decreases perceptively almost daily,
faculties fade and with the fading,
the joys of their industry escaping slowly:
waiting grace.
They have endured the test of time when
times were harder and
simpler and
they hold to those codes of right and
simplicity and
goodness to the neighbor, friend and
to service:
waiting grace.

- Bonita, California
- October 22, 2006

Misadventures and Connections to Home

2010-01-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – Many years ago, I had a part in a bizarre incident in a year of bizarre incidents, both large and small.

Last week, I recalled this particular incident amidst a business meeting in the Southwest corner. Small arms ranges were in discussion when someone asked if a 50-caliber machine gun or sniper rifle could be used in an indoor range. The answer was yes, once. That generated my memory.

In 1970, a couple of 50-caliber machine guns and I got to know each other better than I would have preferred.

I was executive officer of an 18-man Navy unit aboard Merchant Marine transport ships of the Military Sealift Command, which carried Republic of Korea (ROK) troops to Vietnam and back to Pusan, Korea. We would pick up 1500 troops and sail to Nha Trang and Qui Nhon, swapping incoming and outgoing Tiger division (Korean marines) personnel in Nha Trang and repeat the process for the Palm (supply) Division in Qui Nhon.

Beautiful Resort

Nha Trang was a beautiful location. Then, it was undeveloped. We would snorkel in the crystal clear waters in view of the president’s summer palace. Pictures of Nha Trang today suggest it has become a tourist mecca, as I predicted then.
Qui Nhon is also a tourist resort today, something I did not predict.

The sea entry to Qui Nhon is a narrow channel surrounded by densely forested, steep peaks. The “USNS Geiger (T-AP 197)” would stand in to the harbor dropping percussion grenades over the side to discourage Viet Cong sappers from sabotage while ROK troops in resident would water ski past us, a bizarre sight.

In 1970, the small habitable areas except for the seaport on the south side of the bay were fishing villages. Directly across the bay from the port was “Market Time,” including a guard post atop a peak. “Market Time was the Navy’s anti-interdiction force.

A small Army officers club stood on a point west of the pier near the end of the U.S. base. Our five officers, including me, found it quickly. It was about half the size of Rose’s Diner, the eatery on South Cumberland Street from the late 1950s until its demise sometime after I left Lebanon.

Our little officer’s club was on a point directly between the Army’s guard post and the Market Time guard post. The officers club was a rudimentary bar, but it met our needs.

Crossfire

Late, one evening as we departed the club after some serious imbibing, a fisherman in his small boat was returning from a coastal fishing venture. The army perimeter post somehow decided the fisherman was a security threat and opened fire.

Their aim was off.

When the Army’s 50-caliber machine gun opened fire, the sentinels at Market Time apparently thought the fire was directed at them, or also spotted the poor fisherman with a similar conclusion to the Army guards. Regardless, they returned fire. The fisherman and our group were caught in the crossfire.

We dove for cover beside a pile of wood railings conveniently left after some construction project. The firing continued, a brilliant fireworks display to exceed any Fourth of July extravaganza, if for no other reason than this one was for real.

As we lay huddled with tracers and sincere 50-caliber bullets whizzing over our heads, we watched the fisherman slowly move down the bay, past the Army tower and calmly tie up to a small wooden pier at his village. He chucked his string of fish over his shoulder and disappeared quietly into the village.

Shortly afterward, the fireworks display on both sides ceased. I still do not know why. But I am glad it did.

Jim Harding

Toward the end of spring, I connected with Jim (Beetle) Harding in Qui Nhon. Jim, then an Army captain, was running a medevac operation for the 101st, one of the more dangerous operations in the conflict. Growing up, Beetle and I had spent many hours water skiing on Old Hickory Lake with his father and mother, George and Virginia, and his brother and my best friend Henry.

It was a wonderful morale booster to see someone from Lebanon, especially an old friend. I suspect it was just as good for him.

I did not ask him if he ever thought of water skiing or fishing in the bay at Qui Nhon.

Thoughts to My Daughter for Her Eighteenth Birthday

2010-01-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

Thoughts to My Daughter for Her Eighteenth Birthday
(and something i wish i had said to my other daughter much earlier and hope she passes to her son when it is time)

When people fill the world with noise,
With gestures, spittle, and venom,
They likely will not hear what you say:
Speak softly; they will listen.

For those who still do not hear your voice,
Don’t worry about what they are missing;
They are not worth fretting about;
They wouldn’t hear, even if they listened.

In this world, time is finite;
Time with good folks a precious treasure;
Speak softly and run with those good folks
Who stop, pause and listen.

Remember what goes around will come around again;
Refrain from your own shouting;
Listen to those who hear what you say
They will have something for you to learn.

Bonita, California
December 1, 2007

Change of Command: A Story with Some Teeth

2010-01-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – I was going to brag about the weather in the Southwest corner when I sat down to write this column.

But it seemed familiar, and I found an earlier column where I had bragged more than enough. I think I have ridden that horse into the ground. Besides the Pacific is likely brewing some first class storm clouds to the west, which will roll in for a dreary month or so of rain, clouds, and dampness in February or March.

Then a friend from my first ship, the “U.S.S. Hawkins,” emailed me some old photographs, asking me to help identify a couple of officers from that wardroom long, long ago.

1968 Ship Photos

The photos were from 1968. Sailors were still a rough and rowdy bunch with most ship evolutions requiring brawn more than skill or knowledge. When a task was looming, many officers and chief petty officers were looking for “warm bodies,” not expertise in some specialized skill.

It was a beautiful August in Newport, RI, when my first change of command occurred. I had been aboard for about four months.

The change of command is a high point of ceremony on a destroyer. This one was to be even more of an extravaganza than most. The commander of the Cruiser, Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet, a three-star admiral was the guest speaker. The ship was rehearsed and inspected to death in preparation for the grand event.

As the first lieutenant (in charge of deck operations and boatswain mates), I discovered I was the officer in charge of the honor guard by virtue of my position. We rehearsed even more than the rest of the crew. For the ceremony, the admiral would be “piped” aboard and then inspect the honor guard, presented by me.

The ceremony was on a Saturday morning. The previous Monday evening, I was driving back from liberty when a car pulled out in front of me. Unavoidably, I smashed into the side of his car and totaled mine.

Lost Teeth Again

My rider, another ensign, went through the windshield and was hospitalized for about a week with many cuts and various bruises. The steering wheel stopped me from a similar fate, but it also knocked out my front teeth (again) and pretty well bashed up my face.

The “hail and farewell” wardroom party was held in the officer’s club, the “destroyer-submarine” club, four days later, the night before the ceremony. The admiral attended, and I had almost a private audience with him when he noticed my injuries. I explained the incident. He seemed to be most understanding. The other officers were envious I had so much time with the brass.

The next morning, the crew assembled in dress whites. I was resplendent in my white choker collar, white shoes, and Naval officer’s sword, if no one noticed the scars scabbing over and my puffed lips.

I assembled the honor guard, mostly second class petty officers, inspected their spotless uniforms, and had them fall into ranks under the awning on the fantail, rigged just for the occasion. The rest of the crew was assembled at quarters; the side boys were posted at the end of the brow leading up to the quarterdeck.

Admiral’s Remark

The sun was shining brightly. Red, white, and blue bunting decorated the life lines. Precisely at 1000, ten a.m., the admiral strode down the pier with a gazillion ribbons on his chest and bristling with “scrambled eggs,” the interlaced braid on the bill of his cap.

He came aboard to the band’s rendition of “Ruffles and Flourishes” while the side boys saluted him as he passed through their cordon and the boatswainmate of the watch “piped” him aboard.

He made a sharp turn and approached me. I commanded to the troops, “Hand salute” and flourished my sword in salute as well.

“Honor guard ready for your inspection, admiral,” I snapped as he returned my salute.

“Ready, to,” I ordered for the crew to end their salute as I briskly brought my sword back to my shoulder.

The admiral looked at me for a second and then asked, “How are your teeth this morning, Ensign?”

I then knew I was going to like the new captain. He was following the procession and began silently but visibly laughing behind the admiral’s back.

Ode to Three Sisters and Their Mother

2010-01-11T07:25:00.000-08:00

The old lady came busting out of the old century;
where she had been
an exquisite china doll of immeasurable beauty;
young men chased her
to allowable limits in the Victorian South
after we turned from reconstruction
while Teddy was roustabouting with Spain
in that little skirmish we often forget.
Remember the Maine.

But Granny came busting out;
fire in her belly, grit in her craw, pluck in her spirit, gleam in her eye;
with the handsome man who won the chase,
taking her and his bloodhounds
to the retired circuit rider’s farm out on the pike
where Granny’s circuit rider father would
preach occasionally without the horse or mule
in the hamlet of Lebanon,
smack dab in the middle of Tennessee,
Where some bright folks built the square
over a cold water spring
they discovered in “Town Creek”
in yet an earlier century.

…and the children would come around wartime,
dropping among the years of the first big one
we resisted until the Luisitania
took its hit and sank like a rock;
…and the children came,
five in all until one died
as young family members often did
in those pre-antibiotic days.
The handsome blood hound man who chased
criminals through the woods
took his own hit,
a decade after the war.
So the little maelstrom with grit in her craw
packed up the chillun’s and the belongings
making the trek to the groves
of central Florida
for a couple of years to
escape the sinking of the hound man
and the attendant feelings thereof.

In thirty-two, they came back home,
each with some grit in their craw.
Granny, the queen of grit,
went to work,
taking care of those who needed care
outside the family in order
to take care of her own.

…and the children grew up early,
cooking the meals, washing the clothes, cleaning the house,
gathering eggs, milking the cows, pulling the weeds;
before playing ball,
earning money until
they went to college in the little town,
or went to work,
or both.

The second big war came, again
in a wave of terror,
This time in an atoll’s pristine harbor,
taking hits, sinking to the shallow harbor depths.
Remember the Arizona.
The brother went off to war after marrying
a woman of another religion from down the road,
west a bit, in the big city.
He flew a plane named after his lady Colleen,
returning to the Tennessee hamlet, still
with fire in his belly, grit in his craw, pluck in spirit, gleam in his eye
before leaving for the orange groved paradise
he found on the southern trek several years before.

The preacher man was gone;
The hound man was gone;
The brother was gone;
The three sisters and their mother,
fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes,
with their three new men
stared at the world,
staring it down straight in the eye,
wearing it down with their labor
until the world cried “uncle,”
admiring their fire and grit and pluck.

There were circles entwined with circles of family;
the circles orbited around the threes sisters and their mother:
all was well.

…and the world rolled on;
Granny finally gave up her pluckish ghost with grit in her craw;
no longer would she braid the waist long hair,
tying the braids atop her head
as she had done for so many years;
the three sisters rallied with
fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes.

The grandchildren of the matriarch
spread with the four winds, remembering.

When the circles got together,
the three sisters remained the constant,
demanding the world stay in their orbit,
and the world was warm with laughter and love and
a sense the world was safe
as long as they all inherited
fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit; gleam in their eyes.

The world is older;
Granny is gone;
the youngest sister recently joining her,
the oldest failing fast:
The three sisters leaving us slowly with
the fire waning to embers, but still there is
grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes;
staring down the world.

Such a lovely world they have shown us.

Bonita, California
March 10, 2007

Living Room

2010-01-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

The below column appeared this past Monday in The Lebanon Democrat. i intend to publish my Monday Democrat column's on this site on Wednesday or Thursday of the week to not compete with the newspaper. i also intend to write at least one article or "blog" a week with thoughts not quite copacetic with a hometown/memory op-ed column. In addition, i plan to put at least one poem or free verse piece on the blog/website each week. As in the past, these will be archived in the appropriate sections of this website.

i remain not exactly sure where i am going with this. It is certainly not the traditional major publishing house process to get published; nor is it the current variations of co-op or self-publishing. In fact, i'm not even sure why i am compelled to write.

But compelled i am. It is not for fame or notoriety. i'm long past that -- nor do i have any desire to be seen on national television at a sports event or "The Today Show" making a fool of myself for a very truncated Warhol-fifteen-minutes-of-fame moment. Perhaps i wish to give back something, thoughts or words which will induce laughter, pleasure, or a new idea.

i shall not ponder this long. My brother is a much better and deeper philosopher than i.

i will soon send out an email with the gist of the above thoughts to get those on my email mailing to visit the site and hopefully become habitual returnees.
i am working to actually have the mechanism for comments, replies, etc. like my much more web savvy daughter Blythe can do on her site. But that is a while off.

This seems crazy in that i am taking on the responsibility of making more income so Maureen can have life-style change options. This means while trying to increase my writing productivity and more frequent inputs here, i am pursuing income producing work in about four, completely unrelated directions.

It's fun, but i am old, and i am not too sure how long i can keep it up. But i have vowed writing will remain a top priority and this site is where it will be exhibited.

i hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think by emailing me at jim@jimjewell.com.
Now, on to living in the living room:

SAN DIEGO – When we returned to the Southwest corner last week, we departed my parent’s home through the back door.

Even a few blocks north on Castle Heights Avenue, departures had been made through the back and side door since the late 1950s.

My parent’s current living room rarely sees a lot of action. Our Christmas tree, freshly cut from a small copse on Eddie and Brenda Callis’ acreage, prominently occupied a corner there. Occasionally, I snuck in after lunch and obliged myself a nap. Our daughter walked through from her bedroom in the upstairs loft. We welcomed callers at the front door and escorted them through to the family room.

Most living rooms I know today, including ours in the Southwest corner, rarely do more than display nice furniture, gather dust, and serve as a pathway. Many homes now are built with “great rooms,” but even these often don’t see much living.

Living in the Living Room

Our original family living room on Castle Heights Avenue saw a lot of living. My parents moved into this home, one of the first two on the block, in 1942. There was a bedroom, bathroom, short hall, unfinished upstairs, kitchen, breakfast nook, back porch, basement, dining room, and…ta da, the living room.

Later, my father turned the upstairs into two bedrooms, bath, and storage area. I suspect my presence in the single bedroom configuration had quickly become a nuisance after my father returned from the war.

Even with the first remodel, sleeping happened in the bedrooms, food was consumed in the breakfast nook or the dining room depending on the number of eaters, bathing was done in the bathroom, and living was done in the living room.

What a concept. Such accurate descriptions were long before Madison Avenue boomed with its glut of clever, catch misnomers.

Living occurred in the living room constantly during waking hours. I crawled there. I created havoc there. My father wrestled with me and tickled me on the coarse wool fiber of the patterned rug there.

Living Room Radio

The radio occupied a corner and my attention. I sat cross-legged or lay on my stomach propped on my elbows listening to “The Lone Ranger,” “Gangbusters,” “Tom Mix,” “Amos and Andy,” “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Fred Allen,” “Jack Benny,” and “Baby Snooks.”

The focus of living was toward the front. Before air conditioning, the arched doorway provided circulation through the screen door. Everyone entered there except my father when he returned from work, parked in the one-car detached garage, and walked through the back porch, through the kitchen into, you guessed it, the living room.

We played in the front yard. My mother and grandmother could keep an eye on us while living in the living room. We climbed the three peach trees on the south border of the lawn, laid blankets for playing under the tall Chinese maple on the lawn’s north side. We rode tricycles monotonously up and down the straight arrow sidewalk. Dressed in chaps, vest, and mini-version of a ten-gallon hat back, I pulled a small, wooden red wagon laden with a football, baseball, glove, and bat back and forth between the cinder driveway and those peach trees.

Television Takeover

Dismantling of the living room began surreptitiously in 1954. The old radio was replaced by a 14-inch black and white RCA cathode ray tube with accoutrements, our first television.

“Milton Berle,” “Red Skeleton,” “Martha Raye,” “Dragnet,” became the night time focus in the living room while “Kate Smith” led the afternoon lineup, followed by “Howdy Doody,” and concluding with Van Dyke adorned “Ruffin Ready” who introduced the gamut of cowboy stars to young whippersnappers.

But television presaged the end of living in the living room. The growing family and financial stability led to expansion. The pine paneled den was added with an enlarged breakfast room in the back. The back porch was gobbled up. The down stairs bedroom became the guest room when the master bedroom was added above the new den.

The television sat squarely in the middle of the den’s north wall. Living still occurred, but it was diluted with almost constant TV watching.

The living room was relegated to furniture, dust, passing through, a few formal gatherings, and Christmas.

Of course, we keep on living, but I sure miss living in the living room.

Time is a Relative Thing

2009-12-31T06:40:00.000-08:00

AUSTIN, TX – Tomorrow, my three-week odyssey will end when my wife and I fly back to the Southwest corner.

Over a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, it occurred to me Einstein had it right: Time is a relative thing (or something like that).

More than a few years ago, three weeks were just a blink of “time’s winking eye” as Robert Penn Warren so eloquently put it in his epic poem “The Ballad of Billie Potts.”

Throughout my Navy career, a long time gone meant I was away from home for seven months or more. Three weeks was my ship’s maintenance availability in Naples, Italy when in the Mediterranean or Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippines when in the Western Pacific, a blink of an eye compared to the entire deployment.

In 1990s consulting work, 18 months away from home base was easy for me. I still had the wanderlust which took me away from my hometown in 1967.

But these past three weeks seemed to be lengthy.

Time is a relative thing.

Incredible Feats

As my flight soars for three hours between Austin and the Southwest corner tomorrow, I will, as usual, marvel at our ancestors who made this the east-west trek in wagons. Those early pioneers carried their own meals on wheels. There were no McDonalds or Cracker Barrels. The stops were dictated by how far they could travel in a day, nearly always less than 30 miles. They had to time the travel to miss the brutal heat of the summer on the southern trails or the killer cold and snow of the northern passages over the Rockies.

Oh yes, flights were for the birds (only) and had Global Positioning System (GPS) existed, wagon-wheel ruts would have been the directed route, not I-8, 10, 20, 40, etc.

What will take me five hours total travel time from Lebanon to the Southwest corner took those folks of yesteryear more than a year. My annoyances of high-priced airport fare, security inconveniences, loud and inconsiderate nearby passengers, decreased flight service, and slow baggage claim doesn’t quite seem so bad considering their problems with broken wagon wheels, insubordinate livestock, dust, river fords, and marauding Apaches.

Time is relative.

Instant Development

During my Austin stay, I marveled at development time. Grandson Sam, crossing to the short-side toward three, went from diapers to “pull-ups” when he started to use the toilet proudly on his own (I know as I was the beckoned spectator a half-dozen times one morning as he displayed this newly acquired step toward maturity).

He also went from vigorously resisting teeth brushing to a strong self-starting supporter of dental hygiene in the space of three days. Six months ago, he was learning his first words. Now, he has running, voluminous commentary on almost everything, although occasionally, I am not sure what he is saying. This is likely due more to my hearing than his speaking.

Time is relative.

My two daughters grow closer together. They are 17 years apart in age, but their relationship is as strong as if they were only a year apart. They adeptly and speedily converse on “Facebook,” “Twitter,” and “texting,” while I wrestle with my email and web presence. Their time is in the realm of “Star Trek.” My time is in the realm of those pioneers and their Conestoga wagons.

Time is relative.

In another three weeks, we will turn around and repeat the Tennessee part of the journey. Christmas in Tennessee is the Southwest corner Jewell’s tradition. This will be our nineteenth straight year for the round trip.

I have about two months of work to chase during the three week turnaround. Of course, I must also catch up on my golf in the Southwest corner with my old Navy buddies, who have happily adopted the group moniker of “curmudgeons.”

Time is relative.

Old Friends Back Home

Christmas in Tennessee will surely take me back to the days of my youth but perhaps not as dramatically as during the Veteran’s Day week.

But I will spend time with my close friends, Henry Harding and Mike Dixon, something not afforded in the November junket. Hopefully, I will get to spend more time with other close Lebanon friends, and even meet anew old friends as I did with John Thompson on my recent visit.

We will recall our past adventures with varying degrees of accuracy and wonder where others have gone over these two score years.

Einstein was right: time is a relative thing.

Thanksgiving: No Smoked Turkey but That’s Okay

2009-12-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

AUSTIN, TX – As I write this column, Thanksgiving preparations are underway and will be “all ahead full” when you read this.

My wife, Maureen, and our daughter, Sarah, will arrive tomorrow (Tuesday) for Thanksgiving with our other daughter, Blythe, and our nuclear family. Before then, Jason, my son-in-law, and I will have completed the bulk of the shopping.

This time last year, we had hoped a family tradition of Thanksgiving in the Southwest corner would take root and last longer than two years. But son-in-law’s new job prohibits travel during the holiday season, so Austin Thanksgiving is now the tradition…this year.

The one tradition which will not carry from the Southwest corner is my smoking the turkey. This is ironic since I first learned of smoking turkeys Christmas 1971 in Paris, TX. My then father-in-law, Colonel Jimmy Lynch, nailed turkey smoking. I think that turkey was the best I have ever tasted.

Even without smoked turkey, this is certainly a time for thanks.
Our focus will be on grandson Sam, who half-way through his third year, has welded this family together.

I thank him every day for that.

Cross-Country Thanksgiving

My parents will celebrate in Lebanon with my cousins, Bill and Kathy Denny. My sister, Martha, and her family will celebrate in Signal Mountain. My brother and his family, including his new grandson, Leo, will eat turkey in Queechee, VT. Our nephew Bill Boase will take over the turkey smoking for Maureen’s family in the Southwest corner. We will pretty well cover three-fourths of the country with our thanks giving.

Last week, I began the thanking season by thanking those who contributed to our family’s pride in the Veteran’s Day parade. It seems each trip back I discover yet another reason to thank Lebanon and its denizens.

Before I left, I reconnected with John Thompson. John, now a surgeon in Gallatin, was the Battalion Commander in our senior year at Castle Heights. The two of us and his wife Jan had a long discussion. The last time we had seen each other was 1962 when we graduated. He had my utmost respect 47 years ago and that respect continues today.

Ironically the next night, my brother Joe connected with John’s brother Eric for the first time in 42 years. “Young whippersnappers,” I thought.

Dee Jay Reunion

Also before leaving, I relived my radio days. Coleman Walker interviewed me on his Friday “Coleman and Company” program. He, Clyde Harville, and I shared the bulk of the announcing duties at WCOR from 1965 until I left for Navy OCS in 1967.

Preceding me, Coleman’s guest was John Jewell, director of the Wilson County Emergency Management Agency. John was another announcer for the AM/FM station, now WANT FM and WCOR AM, during my time there. Unplanned, it was old radio home week.

The route there is different now. I missed a turn before I found Trousdale Ferry Pike. From outside, the station building looked the same, ignoring the additions which are more than double the 1967 size.

Inside, it was a brand new world. The old FM broadcasting booth is now a closet as is the production room of that era. The AM booth is now a coffee station. MJ, the morning announcer sits a booth which makes our consoles look like Fred Flintstone compared to Star Wars.

Radio Then & Now

I left with the thought that some things change and some things don’t.
There is no more record cueing there. In fact, there are no 33 RPM records or the 45s we used to spin. It’s all computers and compact discs. I guess the disc jockeys can still say they are spinning them.

Coleman remains smooth, affable, and has retained his inquiring mind. I must confess I liked his “Birthday Club” better than his current program. His current one is on target and well, current, but the “Birthday Club” was ultimate entertainment. Nashville disc jockeys listened in to get material for their shows, high flattery in radio land.

So when I come back for Christmas, there will be more folks to visit. The list keeps growing. I’m thankful for that as well.

I will have a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family. I hope all of you in Lebanon have a wonderful holiday.

When this trip concludes early next week, I will have been on the road for 21 days. I will be thankful to get back to the Southwest corner.

Ode to the Last Sister

2009-12-24T16:46:00.000-08:00

Ode to the Last Sister

The scene was quietly stately;
The halls were hushed; the talk quiet.
She sat by the casket, a sympathetic smile on her face.
Those paying their respects would stop for a minute,
beside the casket and look at the lovely lady in repose,
to pray i think;
then step aside, stoop and shake the sister’s hand,
the last sister I’ve taken to calling her,
condolences they would say in several different ways.
Occasionally, she would see someone dear;
her older husband, but still lithe at ninety-two,
would offer her his arm;
she would shuffle over, have her conversation,
return to her chair.

It is difficult to lose a younger sister,
almost as bad as it would be to lose a child.
With her younger sister in repose,
her older sister in Florida, not quite right
in recollection and failing slowly,
this middle sister donned her coat of family responsibility,
wearing it regally,
playing to the needs of the visitors,
worrying if all was going smoothly,
asking about others,
worrying over not remembering names.

It struck me she was queenly.
when the family gathered at her place
she was the center of it all.
As always, her man was circling, getting things done,
but she was the epicenter.
Her hair was white and pretty,
not plastic blue:
she never varied from the natural color;
her eyes still had the gleam of humor:
when one brow was arched,
everyone still scrambled to get out of the way
of whatever was to come next.

Another family member said it best as we struggled with what was going on:
“We are saying good-bye to a different age.”
And so it is.

And the world rolls on, caroming off of what makes sense
to find paths of illogic and darkness
when light and hope should be on the trail.
But the one last sister has her own world,
which she rules
by herself now.
As I think back to the scene,
I recall her moving toward me
(for i am her oldest son)
in a moment of weakness
at the “visitation” as they call it in the South.
As she neared, I could see she didn’t want
to be regal or responsible
for that infinitesimal moment;
I moved to her as a tear or two escaped.
As I held her against my chest,
I could tell the moment had passed,
kissed her on the forehead
and
let her return to her civil regality.
From my reflection, I knew she would be all right.

Sure ‘nuff, she rebounded, took up the gauntlet
doing what she had to do
with that fire and grit and pluck
and ooh, that gleam, that wonderful gleam in her eye.

That is the way in the middle of Tennessee,
or rather has been the way,
and will be the way,
as long as she can keep the fire stoked;
And there are others, daughters and other women kin
and other women in other families
who will keep the fire lit,
but
we are saying good-bye to a different age.

Bonita, California
March 18, 2007

Thanks to My Home Town

2009-12-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

EN ROUTE AUSTIN, TX – As you read this, I will be winging toward grandson, daughter, and son-in-law in Austin with yet more fond memories in my treasure chest of Lebanon.

I just had a whirlwind trip into and out of my hometown. As a result, I have many thanks for all of you good folks.

Previously, I have written of Lebanon being “Brigadoon” to me and the people here being “Dear Hearts and Gentle People.” I must now add “Americana” to the list of my reasons for continuing praise.

Last Wednesday, I watched Lebanon pay homage to the service of its veterans, and the Grand Marshall was Jimmy Jewell, my father. He rode Jay White’s 1921 Ford “Hack” at the head of the parade, smiling and waving, sometimes even standing on the running board and leaning out, hanging with one arm on the roof, waving to the crowds.
Martha and Tommy Duff, my sister and nephew, rode along.

Parade Perfection

The weather was November perfect. As participants gathered on South Hatton, I thought this was the way parades should be, more people oriented than extravaganzas as is often the case in the Southwest corner.

The reason for the parade was noble in intent and respectful in execution. Veterans were honored. Those who made the ultimate sacrifice were at the forefront as it should be everywhere.

High school bands (Lebanon and Watertown) gave the flavor one must have at such proceedings. Assorted motorcycles, antique cars, the Shriner’s miniature 18-wheelers, and local politicians in show cars – regardless of political leaning, one had to be impressed with Susan Lynn walking behind her vehicle throughout the parade – and the Castle Heights elementary group, all added to my sense of being somewhere long ago.

I appreciated the Junior ROTC units of Army, Air Force, Marines, and particularly the Navy, but missed the Castle Heights marching band and drill team.

Watching the observers was as heartwarming as watching the parade. They too were a slice of Americana.

The concluding ceremony was just right.

Sacrifice Honored

The recent sacrifice of SPC Jonathon O’Neill brought veteran’s contribution to the present when his family assisted in laying the wreath and unveiling the monument in front of the court house.

The Gold Star Mothers, women who lost children in their country’s service of spread the salute to veterans across the years.

Of course, brother, sister, and I stood proudly while Lieutenant Colonel Henderson read of my father’s contribution.

It was a feel good day.

A Special Supper

The previous evening rendered another special moment. When supper rolled around on Castlewood Lane, the original family of five sat at the same round oak table where we sat over fifty years ago. We could not remember when just the five of us had been together since those meals in the breakfast room on Castle Heights Avenue. We have gathered many times since, but a spouse, another relative, a friend or a next-generation member was with us.

The fare: meatloaf, fried squash, string beans with fresh onions, coleslaw, and biscuits with ice tea and chocolate pie for dessert (Grandma Specials, I call them).

Our family has been particularly blessed. There are not many families with three children born in the 1940s who can sit down and have a meal together just as they did over a half-century ago.

Giving Thanks

Thanks need to be proffered to those who made our supper, and more importantly, Lebanon’s tribute to Veterans possible.

Jim Henderson had a major role in every aspect of the parade, including the Grand Marshall selection. Jerry Hunt played a significant part in the choice of my father, and J.B. Leftwich was involved in the initial idea as well as contributing to the selection process.

Donna and Larry Odom and the other folks at Henderson’s Florist provided a chair for our mother to sit while watching the procession and a blanket to ward off the wind, a kind gesture not forgotten.

Of course, I also appreciate all of the participants, the onlookers, and the ceremony attendees.

Finally, I want to thank the City of Lebanon and American Legion Post 15, the parade sponsors.

My world is a little bit brighter, my appreciation of my home town has grown a little bit more, and my pride in veterans, including my father, has grown even more.

Thanks, Lebanon and you good folks who make it what it is.

Going Quick

2009-12-20T19:24:00.000-08:00

Two men, father and son,
hunched over a work bench
a number of years ago;
working on a project quietly
in the glare of the naked bulb
hanging above their heads;
they talked a bit,
focusing on the task at hand,
smiling quietly at the bond
they continued to build;
then,
the old man with thick strong hands said,
“You know, son,
i’ve led a pretty good life,
got three good kids who have grown up well,
some good grandchildren, and
your mother;
‘bout the only thing I hope now
is when I go,
it’ll be quick.”

Bonita, California
June 7, 2008

My Father’s Moment: A Salute to His Generation

2009-12-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – Two days after this column is published, Jimmy Jewell will be honored for his military service.

Recently, “The Democrat” last week, announced my father will be the Grand Marshall of Lebanon’s Veterans Day Parade and included a splendid photo of him in his Seabee uniform.

His three children will be there to watch him marshal, even though I have no clue as to what a marshal does – this vision of a McClain School hall monitor keeps jumping into my brain.

In case you missed my earlier columns about “letters from home,” my father is 95. He looks and acts much younger. He volunteered for the Seabees in 1943 while my mother was carrying me, their first child, in pregnancy. He left on a Liberty ship roughly four months later and got back for my second Christmas, two years and five months of service.

South Pacific in WWII

He saw combat on in the South Pacific while running a motor pool for the 75th Construction Battalion. His stories enthrall me. He has earned the honor the City of Lebanon and the American Legion Post 15 have bestowed on him.

I am immensely proud of him.

I am a veteran also: Navy Surface Warfare Officer, 20 years, ten months, three days on active duty, and four years, 11 months, and change with the reserves. I am proud of that service.

I also am proud of all veterans we honor this upcoming Wednesday, which has avoided the recreational tone other national holidays relegated to Fridays.
Salute to WWII Vets

In a sense, honoring my father is honoring more than him. It is a tribute to the veterans of his generation.

Their sacrifice and dedication cannot be calculated by the mind-numbing statistics of that war. It was the last war, conflict, or whatever we call government forces killing people of other governments, in which our country’s very existence was threatened.

Even though 9/11 was a horrific, insane tragedy, our country has not perceived the threat to be more than localized terrorist attacks. In World War II, our country was faced with the very real possibility of invasion on both coasts.

Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan have been far-away wars. We debate and our policy ebbs and flows based on ruling parties weighing the threat against lost lives of military personnel, monetary expense, and political persuasion.

But I am not erudite enough to provide an informed opinion of rightness and wrongness of any of these conflicts. While in service, my job was to not question policy, but to say “aye-aye” and carry it out. This has spilled over into my post-service days. Regardless, that is not my purpose here.

My purpose is to note my father and those of his generation who served during that war left our shores, not only knowing they might not come back, but knowing that if they failed, our way of life could be changed for the worse forever. They had our future in their hands and they knew it.

WWII was different

In the subsequent conflicts, our warriors have known they have been putting their lives on the line, but the sense of our way of life being changed forever doesn’t seem to be included in the equation. Al-Qaeda has given us a taste of a threat to our existence, but the sense of impending doom has drifted back toward a far-way war with the passage of time away from September 11, 2001.

For four or so years in the 1940s, the sense of potential doom was real.

It would be impossible for me to list all World War II veterans from Lebanon and Wilson County, or even those who made the ultimate sacrifice. I wish I could.
Tennessee earned its reputation and its “Volunteer State” nickname in the War of 1812. The state and our hometown have continued to step forward at an amazing rate to volunteer for service. That too is something of which we should be proud.

So Wednesday, I will stand alongside my brother, sister, and many of you to watch the parade with my father as the Grand Marshall. I shall stand at attention and place my hat over my heart (Navy tradition does not include salutes while in civilian clothes).

My gesture will be to honor all veterans and especially those from father’s generation.

He and they have earned that honor.

Smoked Dreams

2009-12-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

Another dream went up in smoke tonight;
It may have been my last;
i’ve been a dreamer most of my life;
It may now all be in the past.

My dreams were quite magnificent;
i never dreamed too small;
My life has never been as well spent
As the dreams i still recall.

Now, there are no dreams to chase;
i’ve watched them fade away;
i have my duties for others’ sake;
Dreams are luxuries anyway.

i sit in my chair, not dreaming,
Beside my unlit reading light;
My world is empty seeming;
In the pitch dark of summer night.

Bonita, California
August 4, 2006

A Wedding and a Great Man

2009-12-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO – As I was prepping for coming home to Lebanon next week, a wedding took me to Upland, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles east of Pasadena at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Upland is an escape from LA bustle with big old homes with spacious porches lining wide thoroughfares with walking paths between the towering eucalyptuses on the street medians. The weather was Southwest corner perfect.

The wedding was a cacophony of cultures. The bride, Tawnie Cook, my wife’s second cousin, has an all-American paternal side, and maternal grandparents who emigrated from Mexico many years ago. The groom, Joey Ferrara, is Italian and several of his family members flew over from Sicily.

The ceremony was held in the large and well-appointed St. Denis Catholic Church in Diamond Bar.

The reception, including dinner, was at the beautiful Spanish-styled Padua Hills Theater in Claremont, where the mountains begin their steep ascent to the heavens. Cultures, age groups, and a variety of lifestyles celebrated together, a special feeling.

The bride’s sister and maid of honor Natalie, or “Cookie,” is close to our daughter. This spring, Cookie graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a dream-like campus on the ocean about 100-miles north of Los Angeles. Sarah visited her there UCSB before deciding to attend San Diego State.

So Sarah was almost a member of the wedding party without being in the wedding.

Beautiful bride, handsome groom, glorious setting: the entire day was just about perfect for a traditional wedding. Tradition crossed the world from Italy to Mexico to the Southwest corner. The vibes made me feel good. I even smiled in Italian a couple of times.

For me, a special part of the evening was the reception. Our assigned table included the brothers of the bride’s father and their wives. Maureen and I sat next to Rafer Johnson and his wife Betsy. Betsy’s mother was the best friend of the Tawnie’s grandmother and Maureen’s friend when they were growing up.

Betsy and I shared delightful conversations. She even found the Vanderbilt, South Carolina football score on her blackberry for me.

But I said little to Rafer.

There were many things I wished ask Rafer. But it did not seem appropriate to launch such discussion at a wedding reception – I later reflected this reluctance to invade another’s space as probably a good reason for not pursuing news reporting as a career.

I have since discovered many people no longer recognize Rafer Johnson when I mention his name. Rafer won the decathlon in the 1960 Olympics in Rome and earned the title of “The World’s Greatest Athlete.” He also captained the USA team.

After the Olympics, Rafer acted in movies with Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Elvis Presley, and Woody Strode. Following acting, he rose to vice-president of Continental Telephone and drew crowds as an active member of the “People to People” international goodwill program.

As good friend of Robert Kennedy, Rafer was at his side when the presidential candidate was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968. Rafer was credited with restraining the slayer, Sirhan Sirhan, from fleeing, and retrieving the murder weapon.

I could not help but feel I was in the presence of greatness. Rafer exudes a gracious, quiet presence. The reticence in talking to him was mine. I suspect he would have abided had I been more forward.

Since the reception, I have thought often about Rafer and our dinner together. I have winced at the non-regonition when I mentioned his name to others.

Rafer should be the athletic model for our children (and us adults as well) to emulate. He should be the one everyone immediately recognizes when his name is mentioned.

Instead we talk about vain and very rich baseball, basketball, and football players, who make headlines with dysfunctional and even illegal behavior.

Rafer overcame prejudice, injuries, and other misfortunes to rise above and succeed through hard work, maximizing his athletic potential without performance enhancing drugs. And he has succeeded in life, big time.

I wish today’s college and professional athletes would have taken their cue from Rafer, not their agents or the media which fuels their fire for fame, rather than living well.

Regretfully, I do not think that is going to happen anytime soon.

sea dream

2009-12-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

i have found at my age i can get into a funk. i call it "a dark place." i have never spent a great deal of time in my "dark place," for it is a place i do not like to go. When there, i also have found it is easiest to get out by writing poetry -- or free verse or whatever it is i write that isn't exactly poetry.

i wrote this last night.

i am no longer in my dark place.

i think,
no, i dream
what was once,
it seems
to me
to be
when I went to sea.

i loved going to sea
because
there were no roads to follow;
there was simply landfall
somewhere
out there
over the horizon;

the choice of heading
to sail
was really
entirely
up to me.

i no longer go to sea
with limitless possibilities
for heading
or dreaming:

i am on roads,
someone else’s roads;
worse,
the roads are narrowing
with fewer forks.

i have finally
come to grips with me
but
find I am no longer
in control
of me
or the roads
i go down.

i must live to expectations
i created:
the narrow road
with decreasing turns.

i wish
or dream
i had a cabin
in a woods somewhere
with a clearing for a garden.
i would hunt and grow
my food.

i would write with a quill
on parchment
by the fire and candlelight
in the evenings.

i would climb
into the feather bed
by the fire
close to where
i sat and wrote.

before i would fall asleep,
i would gaze out the cabin window
at the heavens
with millions of stars, planets, and moons,
visible because
i was in the dark
in the middle of the wood,
far away from the lights of
people population,
civilization, as they smugly call it,
just like it used to be
when i stood evening watches
on the bridge
on the sea
i love
with no roads.

Bonita, California
December 10, 2009

The Diver by Steve Frailey

2009-12-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

This article was the genesis of a recent business leadership column from my "Minding Your Own Business" series in The Lebanon Democrat.

Steve Frailey is a vice-president of Pacific Tug Service with whom i have been doing work on small arms ranges on barge projects. He told this story when he and i were waiting for a meeting with a team mate company. i asked him to give me some more specifics and this is that product. He gave me permission to print it here. i will archive it in another section of this website before removing it from this blog.

My partner in the tug boat and marine business and best friend, Grant Westmorland, is a tall, some would say lanky, quiet type. He spends his days at the office perched in front of his computer in silent study of numbers and data. His routine is a nine hour grind with a few carrot sticks or a can of unadorned tuna breaking his day into equal halves. In winter Grant rarely sees his home or wife Robyn and his two young boys Connor and Spencer in the light of day.

We have been partners in this business since January of 2000. In that time we have gained a senior partner during a merge which caused our once small-time family operation to grow into a moderate small business with multiple locations and nearly seventy employees. Of this much larger “family”, I am the only one who really knew Grant “before”.

The mild mannered Grant Westmorland, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of a corporation today was once a man of steel and fortitude who bore little resemblance to Clark Kent. When I tell tales of a swashbuckling Super Grant who lived days by his wits and will out on the sea and by his charm and bravado at night aboard his flashy yacht very few believe or even humor me.

Not What He Seems To Be

It’s all true what they say about a book’s cover. The plainest of bindings and a simple canvas can belie a treasure of adventure, humor, danger and romance within. Even years later, under a thin layer of dust the story awaits to be retold;

In 1985 in San Diego, I just off a four year Navy hitch and back from Sardinia with my young wife. At twenty-two and full of ambition and youthful expectations I went in search of work.

I landed at the old Campbell Shipyard on the San Diego waterfront. It was a salty old-school seascape of rusting tuna clippers and saltier shipwrights. The sound of sea-gulls, caulker’s mauls and welding arcs was the occasional sound-track.

Sadly, the golden age of tuna fishing was dying a slow death and along with it the art of shipbuilding in the traditional style. Amidst the grayness of life in the shipyard were some outstanding characters full of color. In my first days learning the ways of my new life of coveralls and a tool belt I came across an exceptional find. Lying low in the water; nearly awash in fact, was an ancient barge built of wood. It rested against an even older pier at the end of the shipyard.

The barge was far beyond its most optimistic life expectancy but refused to sink into oblivion without a fight. A solitary figure rose up out of a watery hold grasping a length of steel wire in one hand and a huge wrench in the other. I watched as he struggled and won a minor wrestling match and dragged the wire back again into the depths of the barge.

The Diver

Time and again this man wove his wires into and out of the barge and over the span of a week or so he spun an intricate web of rusty steel sewn into the very spine of the old barge. Its purpose eluded me but I was captivated. I never spoke to “The Diver” as I came to think of him as he never paused in his labor.

I chanced a wave on occasion and it was returned heartily, wearily. He would be at his cause from when I arrived early for work and be at it yet when the lonely whistle blew at the end of a long day. The Diver was a man of steel conquering a ship of wood. He was tall, lean and grim. A Don Quixote tilting against a benign but mighty enemy!

The impression The Diver had on my young adventurous spirit was strong and lasting. I learned the shipyard had hired The Diver to ballast and dispose of the reluctant old barge by sinking it off shore. To send it to its watery grave, The Diver had to attach many tons of heavy ballast, hence the lattice work of steel wires. He had to attach huge steel tanks of air to buoy the mass until the fated day.

The undertaking was big enough for a small group of tough men. It was a grand feat for single man to accomplish, and accomplish he did.
The venture netted The Diver a tidy sum from which a business was launched. Over the course of ten or more years, I watched. My own career on the waterfront evolved and so did the The Diver’s.

Sweat, determination and guile would see The Diver through many a challenge, both physical and intellectual. That never-say-die attitude formed the feisty basis of a small tug boat and marine business that swam on a sea divided by mighty competitors.
A willingness to perform at any cost and a commitment to succeed for the customer built a reputation that is hard earned on the waterfront. Those who knew The Diver then knew him much as I did. A small slice of precious territory was earned for The Diver and his business.

Grant Westmorland

The Diver was Grant Westmorland. As we became friends and over the span of years I have been a cohort, shipmate, mutual shoulder to lean on and tilter against windmills with Grant. His single minded determination and will to persevere were only equaled by his good will, good humor and good taste.

Grant’s successes always have been celebrated in style. His flashy cars, the live-aboard yacht (complete with disco lights and wet bar) and Gucci fashions led to his greatest accomplishment; a trophy wife with brains and a heart as big as his.

Time marched on. Grant’s yacht gave way to a tract home on land, the Ferrari became a Ford. A couple rambunctious boys, a few salty-gray hairs, reading spectacles and a bigger, more “corporate” career and the trappings of middle age crept into and re-shaped the persona of The Diver.

The Grant of today is the picture of an American, nose to the grindstone, small business executive. Our many employees and customers have had an acquired impression of Grant as “The Suit”. We now have up and coming young bucks eager to stomp and roar on the decks of ships but opportunity to flex muscles and match strength on the waterfront has given way to flexing brains and matching wits.

The days of steel men and wooden barges are long gone. Grant’s youth was witness to the last days of cowboys on the waterfront. But The Diver is still in Grant. I see it all the time. I can’t look at Grant and not see The Diver and I wonder at how others perceive him as docile desk jockey.

The Diver Reappears

I have reason to tell this tale of The Diver. He recently made a grand reappearance to the astonishment and grudging approval of even the grisliest of our colleagues. This story will not make news or even waves, it is a reassuring pat on the back feeling that an old friend still has what it takes. The Diver was back again with grit and guile…

San Diego was once home port to vast fleets of gray ships of war. Bountiful tuna clippers crowded the docks with their catch and giant piles of net. Shipyards and their smaller cousins the boatyards were bustling, noisy places of activity.

The collective waterfront was San Diego’s identity. The sea air was San Diego’s signature on life. San Diego was more of a frontier town than a city then. Rules of conduct were loose and competition was...spirited Characters abounded in San Diego clear through the seventies into the eighties.

Gradually, the decline of the tuna industry, the end of the “Cold War” and a downsized navy fleet gave way to lollipop trees and gum drop bushes along the waterfront. Like teetering dominoes, once stalwart employers of skilled craftsmen fell to the wrecking ball as a convention center, a ball-park and hotel chains were filled with minimum wage earners serving hordes of wide-eyed tourists.

Entire livelihoods and traditions faded but were not forgotten as San Diego changed. Our Bay went from a military/industrial port to a shopping mall pond, seemingly overnight.

South Bay Waterworld

All the glitter pushed a minority few into a small corner of the South Bay, which became home to a rabble of waterborne vagrants, misfits and miscreants. The infamous A-8 Anchorage was a sprawling “Waterworld” collection of worn out yachts, fishing boats, barges, tankers, trawlers, skiffs, rafts, dinghies and even canoes.

Anything that barely floated and was not welcome elsewhere found its way to the A-8 and a slow death. A “Who’s Who” of San Diego’s vice called the A-8 home. Chief among residents was the “Party King” of San Diego. A floating empire known as the “Castle”, “Neptune’s Palace” and a fleet of makeshift water taxi’s serviced an underground clientele seeking an…alternative lifestyle away from the eyes of law.

Inevitably progress found its way to the A-8 and the powers of the Port Authority sought to clean out the anchorage. Legal battles were fought and won, little by little the last remnants of San Diego’s more unseemly past were evicted and the Bay began to sparkle as a whole.

The famed “Neptune’s Palace” sought refuge as a shadowy church as a final bastion against the establishment. The final blow was not a judge’s gavel however, but a winter storm that broke the moorings holding the Palace in place and allowed it to drift into the shallow flats in the middle of the South Bay. It became an environmental and visual nuisance to all.

Fast forward to 2009. Grant Westmorland is Executive V.P. of Pacific Tugboat Service at the San Diego headquarters. His responsibilities are varied and complex. He oversees a diverse business model and equally diverse workforce and management team.

His attention is laser focused on the bottom line and how best to meet the company’s, employee’s and customer’s needs. The friendly smile, dash of humor and good will are ever present but nary a hint of the old “Diver”.

Palace Removal

The Port of San Diego finally contracts the removal and disposal of the old “Palace” in the Bay but concern over the sensitive nature of the environment and the dilapidated state of the Palace make the undertaking a very selective process. Ultimately Grant Westmorland develops a proposal to salvage the wreck with no impact to the environment.

His was a daring plan that involved careful placement of underwater lifting devices, coordinated timing with tides and prevailing currents and concerted efforts of tug boats and crews. The risk of the structure collapsing and causing a major navigation and environmental hazard was very real.

From concept and planning to execution, Grant was at the epicenter of the project. He put in countless of hours of preparation at the drafting table. When it came time to install the lifting devices Grant trusted only himself to go into the cold water and perform the work.

For two weeks Grant worked tirelessly in the water attended by increasingly impressed crew members top-side. “The Diver” was back! He forecast the day and time of salvage to be at the height of the highest tide. It happened to be a late-night/early morning in the dead of winter. Grant entered the water early in the morning the day prior to adjust and prepare. He finally emerged from the water some thirty-six hours later.

Admiration Earned

To the astonishment of everyone except me, Grant spent well over thirty hours of continuous, strenuous work in cold, wet conditions with no rest, no break and the threat of failure hanging over his every move.

The precision of the salvage plan and the criticality of timing meant Grant could only rely on himself to make the right move at the right time. Only once the Palace was lifted clear of the water at a local boat yard could Grant relax. As is typical, he smiled and quietly cleaned off and went home.

The next day he was back at his desk as though nothing had happened. The many scratches, bruises and blisters told the story.

The eighties were an era. San Diego became a “City” and San Diegan’s felt the growing pains but got through it in style. Grant was a product of that era and his work ethic is deeply rooted in a time when uncertainty led to either complaisance or fortitude.

Grant is a success because of his fortitude. I am richly rewarded to have Grant as a friend and partner. I am gratified further that Grant has re-established himself as “The Diver” in the eyes of his peers. He does not swagger in his step, he does not need to.

That long, lean frame casts a longer shadow than ever these days.

Too Long

2009-12-04T19:36:00.000-08:00

The world is a beautiful thing.
if not in it,
i could sit,
watch it
go by for hours.
but the seat is hard;
it's a pain in the ass
to sit on the cold concrete
too long.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Fall 1966