This morning as usual, i read “The Writer’s Almanac” in my daily email. One item struck me. Today is the birthday of Erich Maria Remarque, the German who at twenty was in the trenches during World War I. He’s the guy who wrote All’s Quiet on the Western Front. If you haven’t read it, you should.

As i read the item, i was struck with similarities between now and the time of Erich’s quote and the time of the item’s description of the later reaction in his home country of Germany. i have my vision of how it relates to now (and it wasn’t just ISIS), but i’ll let you come to your own conclusions about who, what, and how:

Remarque’s quote:

I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow.

The excerpt from the article:

The novel sold more than a million copies in Germany in its first year of publication. Nazis were beginning their rise to power at the time, and they hated the book because it portrayed World War I as misguided and pointless. It was one of the books they publicly burned in 1933. When the film version of the book premiered in Berlin, Nazi gangs attacked the theater. Remarque lost his German citizenship in 1938 and eventually moved to the United States.

i found the similarities terribly sad. Why can’t we learn from the past?

Please, please, please, as James Brown, the hardest working man in show business, used to scream, please, please please don’t tell my wife about this post.

This, obviously, will take some explaining.

You see, i am up in these mountains attempting to be reclusive, monk style, and write. i am surprised i’ve been pretty damn good at it. But there were a couple of things causing me…okay, okay, it was my choice…to wander from my monk-hood discipline of writing with walk/hike/runs breaks and otherwise isolation. As most of you already know, my last column was published in The Lebanon Democrat today. And one of my best friends ever, the Shreq of the Shreq and Donkey duo of which i was…yep, Donkey, Pete Toennies came home from the hospital today after shoulder replacement surgery yesterday. Pete, if you don’t know retired as a Navy SEAL captain. He and i met on a legendary 1979-80 deployment to WESTPAC.

So i thought i would celebrate a good run with my hometown paper and honor Pete.

Now there are many ways i could do this. If i thought hard enough, i could have probably conjured from the originally overstocked and fast dwindling groceries in the refrigerator and the cupboard. So i assessed. And i remembered. The assessment function revealed i still had a package of ground beef i had not touched in the refrigerator. i remembered a dish Pete and i revel in. Unfortunately, neither of our wives are thrilled with its nutritional value. Mine is downright revulsed.

In the early part of this decade, Pete and i were marketing to the Navy a product that made a lot of sense, would have helped the Navy meet some requirements, and would have saved a lot of money. So of course, the stakeholders eventually decided they didn’t want it. After all, it would be treading on their territory and they might (which they never did) figure out a way to do it in house. But in the course of our marketing, our old friend and shipmate in that long ago deployment, OW Wright, arranged for the two of us to brief a whole bunch of Navy security types in Pearl Harbor.

Pete and i flew in  and rented a car the day before the brief. It was past midday and we were hungry. We tried to find the monkey bar in Pearl City, but it had been quite a while and we couldn’t locate it, if it still exists, which is not likely. Not finding it was probably a good thing because someone later told me PETA or some other well-intended but misguided organization had gotten rid of the monkeys (hmm, wonder if they used one of those relocation services). Finally, we stopped at a a place advertising great food. It turned out to be a bowling alley restaurant on the overhanging balcony of the lanes. We checked the menu and weren’t particularly impressed. But we both wondered about the special, Loco Moco. The waitress described it, and we didn’t blink an eye ordering Loco Moco.

You see, Loco Moco is  a modern local Hawaiian dish on a bed of rice covering a dinner plate. Then there is a half-pound or more of cooked ground beef. On top of that is one or two fried eggs (you can get three eggs if you let the waitress know that’s what you want). All of this is covered with a shellacking of brown gravy. i now know why there are a lot of really big native Hawaiians.

Several years later, Pete and his wife Nancy began to have us join them on a Kauai vacation. It has become an almost every other year tradition. One reason is the four of us are good golf partners. Also Pete and i like to play when the women are pursuing more cultured activities. Our favorite course in Kauai is Kiahuna. There are short lava rock fences supposedly created by the Menehune, a Hawaiian version of Leprechauns. On the back nine between fairways is the remains of the rock home of the Portugee, a guy who became like an overseer of a good chunk of the island. The remains of his rock tomb vault is several paces behind the home ruins. Fascinating but off point.

However, on a day when the ladies were being cultural, Pete and i stopped for lunch in between a day of two rounds. And there on the menu much to our surprise (delight) was “Joe’s Loco Moco.” i am happy to report Joe’s is just as good if not better than the bowling alley version.  Of course, that could be influenced by the fact we washed Joe’s down with two mai tai’s, another thing Joe is very good at.

So tonight, i went back to the grocery and bought some packaged microwaveable rice and ready to mix and serve brown gravy. i made a dent on that refrigerated ground beef and decreased the number of way too many eggs and made my version of Loco Moco. It wasn’t bad and absolutely of no real nutritional value. So of course, i loved it, wished for Pete and hoped to god, Maureen wouldn’t find out.

It wasn’t quite as good as Joe’s on Kauai because i washed it down, gulp, with Pellegrino, not a mai tai.

In the last couple of days, i wavered on my intended mission in the sequestered sojourn to somewhere (Thank  you, Maren Hicks: i like the added adjective). But i’m back on task. And exactly somewhere has begun to reveal itself. Today, i will not blaming myself for taking breaks from writing my book. You see, the timing of this sojourn had some difficulties, some built in interruptions.

i suspect i will write more on this but my last column, number 500, appeared in The Lebanon Democrat today. i wrote and submitted it last week, an interruption to the sojourn i didn’t mind at all. After reading it this morning, i’m taking some time to digest something being part of my life being no longer a deadline to meet, no longer a topic to determine, no longer memories to fill out and clarify.

i thought the College World Series might require me to go off-line to watch Vanderbilt chase a dream of mine again. But Vandy quickly lost to Oregon State in the Super Regionals and the CWS no longer required my attention.

Then there was Father’s Day. And it really should be called “Father’s Days.” Recognition of dads began mid-week last week. Mine took up parts of three days.i had to, had to stop for that.

i also discovered even though i can write fairly solid for two weeks with walking/running breaks included, it’s damn near impossible for me to write on one thing for more than a work week. i can’t explain that except for it being in my nature. So i’m back to considering where i’m at while i’m going to somewhere.

But here is a continuation about where i am really:

i introduced Leopard in the last post. Yesterday, i found out he’s a neighbor’s cat who has taken up part time residence here.

i thought there was another solo act attracted by the birds and the feeders. A squirrel i called Orion.

Brave little fellow. While i was sitting less than four feet away, he would ignore me to chow down on what the birds had spilled from the feeder above. But it turns out Orion isn’t a solo act. Juliana, a friend of the owners of this Air B&B studio, came by to water the plants and fill the bird feeders. She pointed out some of the magnificent pines. They are dead and dying. Why? Squirrels. They are eating the new growth. As we talked, about a half-dozen of these brazen guys start running around pell-mell on patio rails, jumping from tree to tree. So Orion is really a bunch of these guys. Juliana talked about a service to catch them and remove them to another location. That doesn’t make sense to me.

i was happier thinking there was just one Orion living off of dropped bird seed.

So after i unpacked, and settled in, and met Leopard and Orion, i went on a suggested walk. An “Urban Trail,” Arrowhead Trail to be precise, winds up, and i mean up, for slightly less than two miles, probably an average incline of about eight degrees, and in one spot, a twelve degree grade. The path is about the size of a wide one lane road back home in Tennessee or a two-lane road with a turn lane in Ireland. Some views:

At the top is the tableland and “Buffalo Park.” There’s a bronze sculpture of a bison at the entrance with a plaque explaining the park. It says the park began as land dedicated to a game refuge populated with bison and antelope. Since i’ve been here i’ve only seen deer. i think they decided it should be more of a people trail place and the bison would be a danger to the new interlopers so they had them removed to somewhere else (sort of like the squirrels killing the pines). It hasn’t been crowded but there always at least fifteen, sometimes as many as thirty cars parked at the entrance. The trail system is expansive.

Did i mention this place is up high. This photo is of the higher mountain. It’s mid-June. That’s snow. It’s high up.

Below is a doe on the trail up, and below that is her fawn in the woods. i’ve seen about a dozen deer on my walks, nothing rare these days unless you live in a city like San Diego. i don’t understand why they are prevalent elsewhere like where i grew up when there were none there when i grew up and not any deer at our house in Bonita where coyotes, bobcats, foxes, and snakes abound. Perhaps they used a deer removal service.

It’s time to get back on that sojourn to somewhere. This has been a nice break.

My plan was to take today off. i ended up taking a chunk of that last night. Today, i fooled with a number of things but wrote most productively today compared to the others. It’s time to provide some thoughts about this sojourn to somewhere:

My first awareness of Flagstaff, Arizona occurred in 1950 when i was six years old. My parents returned from what i remember as a month or more trip with my Aunt Naomi Martin. i don’t think Uncle George accompanied them, but stayed home and worked and kept my cousin Maxwell.

My Aunt Bettye Kate Hall picked up Martha, 4; and Joe, 1; and me after her workday at the Lebanon Woolen Mills and we spent the evenings and nights with them in their home at the foot of Wildwood Avenue. In the morning she would take us to Graham and Mary Helen Williamson’s apartment on the first floor of an apartment on the corner of West Main and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Graham was our older cousin, and he took me under his wing up during my early youth. i vividly remember being in their next home. Graham was working on a band featuring his fiddle playing (he later was a back up fiddler for Roy Acuff). He would let me sing “Kaw Liga” when they practiced it.

During that summer we stayed with the Williamson’s, i most remember how kind Mary Ellen was and her serving us peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch. When we had sandwiches with peanut butter at home, it was always with jelly. i preferred grape. But peanut butter and banana sandwiches became my favorite.

Mother, Daddy, and Aunt Naomi concocted the trip to go see Uncle Wesley and Aunt Barbara Jewell somewhere in middle to northern California. i do not recall their route and other stops in-between, but i do know they stopped in Flagstaff because they brought back some souvenir glasses from wherever they ate there. So, at least part of their journey was on Route US 66.

The souvenir glasses could have been a set, several, or just one. But i remember it vividly. Why? Because a cowboy on a bucking horse was etched in black ink on the glass. i don’t remember any of the wording, but i remember that cowboy and that somewhere “Flagstaff” also was etched on the glass.

i was a cowboy nut. We had an 8mm movie of Hopalong Cassidy Daddy would show occasionally after some home made movies if my incessant demands wore him out. i listened to “Straight Arrow,” “Tom Mix,””Red Ryder,” and “The Lone Ranger” on the radio every chance i got. The backyard at 127 Castle Heights became the old west for the majority of time i played there, even though my wanna-be cowboy hat, and my double-holstered belt with my six guns must have looked a little strange when i only wore shorts in the summer. That glass etching inspired me even more. i imagined riding a bucking bronco in that cowboy heaven of Flagstaff.

In 1985, Flagstaff was in our plans coming back from Mayport, Florida to my final duty station in the Navy. We had pretty well stuck to our plan of not driving more than 300 miles a day, Okay, okay,  it’s almost 400 miles between Austin and Lubbock, and it’s a pretty miserable drive, and there’s not a lot in between. After a wonderful three days in Santa Fe, our plan was to stop in Flagstaff. But we changed when we realized, even though it was 374 miles, we had been on the road for twelve days and were anxious to get back to San Diego. We passed through Flagstaff. It was the worst decision we made on that trip, perhaps our worst travel decision ever. The ensuing drive was long and miserable when all the lodging in Phoenix was full and we continued to Gila Bend. Anybody who has stopped or even passed by Gila Bend will understand that.

My third exposure to Flagstaff was in 1989, thirty-nine years after my fascination with the cowboy glass. As a retiring commander, i agreed to be a chaperone for a tour of the west by a group of senior international officers taking an amphibious landing course at the Naval Amphibious School, Coronado where i was the director of leadership training for the West Coast and Pacific Rim as well as the lead facilitator for the Senior Officer “Command Excellence” two-day seminar. We had taken the Coaster up from San Diego and then transferred to an AMTRAK overnight to Gallup, where a bus took us for the rest of the trip. It was eventful: Canyon de Chelly, deep into Navajo land, my dinner with Tom Gorman, then we had a day and night in Flagstaff, mixing with foreign students at Northern Arizona U. before going on to other adventures and  back to San Diego. i was intrigued by Flagstaff, enough to look at real estate. Didn’t do it.

But i did make it to Flagstaff on Monday.

My studio apartment through Air B&B is just right for my purposes, my writing sojourn to somewhere. Alex and Celestina ensured all of my needs were met, and the studio with two outer rooms is perfect for three or four people (and a baby makes five) who need a overnight place to stay while catching all of the sites, like the Grand Canyon, of the surrounding area. And it’s just right for an old man on a writing sojourn.

Here is my patio, simple but pleasant.

The view out my front door. We’re talking cowboy rustic here:

There are new friends here. This black cat came by almost immediately. i think he has a home but i don’t know whose. He likes it here because there are tempting birds and this squirrel he has his eye on. i call him Leopard.

This is becoming much more of a project than i intended so i’m going to try and make it in installments so it’s manageable and not interfering too much in the sojourn to somewhere.

It was time. i just kept refusing to admit it.

Tomorrow will be the half-way point of my writer’s sojourn to somewhere. My plan was to gut it out for the duration. But the plan was not completely realistic. It’s pretty tough for a hard-living old fart to change his ways overnight.

But i kept at it for half of the journey to somewhere, and i actually feel like i just might be halfway to somewhere. i just don’t know yet where somewhere actually is.

Then i had a message exchange with Blythe. That’s enough to make me rethink just about anything. From my request, she forwarded me a photo and several more.

And i had promised myself to take enough of a break to honor my father on Father’s Day. i don’t really need any acknowledgement, but i did want to honor him and respond favorably when others honored their fathers.

Finally after another five mile power walk up the mountain and back — okay, okay, it ain’t really a mountain, just a fairly steep grade up to a tableland at about 7500 feet of elevation; but that’s another story — i realized i was fine with my routine of rigor but i needed a break. So i drove down to the closest grocery and got an off the shelf pizza and a bottle of decent red wine. i got the pizza because i was damn tired of preparing my own meals. They meet the basic needs but they are so miserable compared to Maureen’s fare. i got the wine, not because it was alcoholic but because my taste for liquids is narrow and i also have gotten damn tired of coffee, water, Pelligrino (even with lime), and the Jewell version of an Arnold Palmer.

So tomorrow is Father’s Day. Big Deal. i don’t need a tie. But i do need to talk about, as i once called him in a tribute, an incredible man. He was.

Those photos Blythe sent me? They were of my father with Sam (and one with my mother and Blythe) from a 2010 — see Blythe, i really do know what year it was even though i was originally a decade off — visit she and Sam made to my parent’s home in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Most of these are like many photos family members took with Grandpa. His children, his grandchildren, his great grandchildren, and even children who, just because they are children, have similar poses in photographs. But these are mine and special:

Then there is the coup de gras:

This is an 96-year old man taking his four-year old great grandson for a walk. They are mine. i am the missing link here. But it speaks volumes, i think, about a man and his relationship with all children.  i must confess i cannot look at this photo with crying a bit. In joy, happiness that it happened. That Sam James Jewell Gander had some precious moments with one of the most magnificent fathers, grandfathers, and lover of children the world has ever known.

Happy Father’s Day.