Monthly Archives: August 2017

Willie Nod and the Duck

i wrote at the very first of 1981 just before i flew to Honolulu with Captain Bruce Brunn, USMC, both staff members of Commander, Amphibious Group Five to plan the Hawaii exercises with the composite Marine Air Group and the Marine Landing Force who would board our ships in Pearl Harbor, and after the exercises proceed to the Western Pacific.

It was the year i spent ten months either going to and from or out there, way out there. i loved it, but as i was leaving i was sad about leaving my daughter Blythe and wrote this for her.

Ducks seem to drift in and out of my life. When JD Waits and i were writing our still unpublished leadership book, The Pretty Good Management Book, JD came up with the title of one chapter, “Never Take a Duck to a Cockfight Expecting to Win.” Every time i read “duck,” i think about Willie Nod or JD’s duck.

Willie Nod and the Duck

Willie Nod and this duck got together.
It was a most improbable place where they met:
No pond of water was within miles.
They quacked together for a while
(Willie had learned quacking
On a farm several years before).
They discovered, Willie and the duck,
They had a lot in common.
Willie had lost
All of his other animal friends
Because he moved around so much.
The duck couldn’t tell seasons very well;
All the other ducks in his flock
Had flown off and left him
One spring day.
The duck didn’t mind moving either.
So Willie Nod and this duck got together,
Which is right back where we started.

They were walking down this long flat road
In New Mexico in the summer.
The duck still couldn’t tell seasons.
Willie Nod spoke to his friend,
Quacking of course,
“Duck, do all the things in the world
Seem silly to you?”
Duck replied,
“A little sad perhaps,
“And always funny,
“But never silly.”
In spite of not being able to tell seasons,
He was a wise duck.
Willie Nod and this duck
Were together for a long time
Although the duck couldn’t tell
That it was a long time
For ducks tell time
By the passing of the seasons,
And now we all know
This duck’s problem in that area.
Then one day in autumn,
The duck quacked to Willie Nod,
In his own peculiar way of quacking,
“I’m feeling a chill.
“I do believe my season-telling is coming back.
“I think I’ll fly north.”
Some ducks can never get it completely right.

Willie Nod tried to convince the duck
He still didn’t have season-telling quite right yet,
He should wait
A couple of more seasons.
Duck quacked, wisely again,
“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
“It may not be right for everyone else,
“But you know when it’s right for you,
“And if you don’t do it then,
“You may never get the chance again.”
With that, the duck took wing,
Flying north on that cold fall day.
Willie remembered the duck’s words
As he watched his flight for the last time:
“A little sad perhaps,
“And always funny,
“But never silly.”

 

Willie Nod and the Geese

Willie Nod and the Geese

Willie Nod was on the eastern seaboard
traveling as Willie Nod was prone to do
more often than not.
Gray November, blustery Thanksgiving eve winds
buffeted against Willie Nod’s wool clothes.
Willie Nod liked the layers of wool clothes:
he felt snug.

As the winds blew, Willie Nod looked up to the gray, close sky.
a small gaggle of geese, seven or so, he figured,
flew low in their formation of vee
heading into the wind, dead south beeline
as they were prone to do,
in November’s gray-slated skies,
much as Willie Nod was prone to travel.

Willie Nod spoke duck and rabbit
but had not much luck with camel,
so he thought he would try goose
and
quacked to the low flying vee
in a variation of duck.

Surprisingly, the vee veered off its course;
the gaggle rolled over in unison,
banking back toward Willie Nod,
dispersing the vee,
flappingly landing around.
Once aground, they crowded around Willie Nod.

“Hi,” the closest and largest goose honked to Willie Nod in goose.
Willie Nod recognized the difference between duck and goose.
Soon they were all honking in goose about pretty much everything.
The geese told Willie Nod a lot.
They wondered why humans considered them to be noble.
“After all,” they honked,
“We mate for life,
“Tend to each other,
“Take turns at the point of the vee,
“Not because it’s extra right or noble.
“It’s just the way we are.”

Willie Nod noted that it was still rather nice
and
the world would be much better off if
humans acted more like geese,
although he did admit
the noise might become unbearable if humans honked instead of talked.

The eight geese nodded, bobbing their heads in agreement.

Finally, they noted it was time to be on their way again.

“South, i know,” Willie Nod observed.
“but where south?” he asked.

“Honduras,” the fattest goose replied.
“We use to winter in Florida,” he explained,
“but the old people fed us too much and we got too fat,
so we found this lovely lake up in the Honduran mountains
where people don’t come round very much.”

The geese rose flapping and honking,
quickly forming their vee in the gray sky,
heading south with an occasional good-bye
honk to Willie Nod.

Willie Nod watch the vee
get small in the southern sky and
mumbled to himself,
“Sad that geese don’t get to spend time
in deep snow,
or feel snug in layers of wool clothing.”

 

A Labor of Love

Sometimes i feel extremely lucky being old and regret i didn’t appreciate my past when i was younger. i was also lucky in that i began to appreciate my past when my father and mother would travel to the Southwest corner to spend a month or more with us to miss the harsher time of winter back home in Lebanon. They began that annual sojourn in 1986. My father was 72, my mother was 69. We shared many tales of our and Lebanon’s past for fifteen winters.

i don’t think most younger folks really understand the beauty and worth of family memories. i certainly didn’t. After all,  i had things like the Navy, three wives, two daughters, and many other distractions. And of course, they were old fogies and my generation knew how to save the world and themselves. Even though it didn’t happen. It seems the following generations are faring no better and perhaps worse in learning from their predecessors.

But who knows? i am too old to worry about it. i will just keep writing and talking about memories and my lessons learned and hope some of them will take just a little bit, maybe on anecdote to make the young’uns  lives a little better.

i usually post old photos in Facebook albums, primarily as an easy way to make the photos accessible to a wide array of relatives from both sides of the Jewell-Prichard family. Hopefully, family will appreciate the past and my using my post to share family memories.

But these photos are a bit special to me. You see, about sixteen years ago, my parents made their last fifth wheel run to the Southwest corner to miss the harshest part of winter in Tennessee. They began that tradition in 1985 and ceased making the trip in 2001, three years shy of my father’s ninetieth birthday. On this particular trip, one or two before they gave it up, a photo album was created. It was a compilation of old Jewell and Prichard photographs. What is really special about it is Maureen and my mother worked on it together.

i can see them putting it together. The descriptions of the folks in the photos written to the side is Maureen’s handwriting. i can see them taking each photo out of one of the cardboard boxes we have kept to organize all of our photos together. i can almost hear my mother telling Maureen a story behind each of the photos as they slide them into the plastic sheaths to protect them.

So when i look at the photos, i not only see some slices of history from our past, but i see these two women, so special to me, working on the project. Maureen and Estelle Jewell had a wonderful relationship. They truly loved each other and enjoyed each other’s company. It was always a great pleasure to watch them together.

There are lot of photographs here. i almost stopped several times. My inability to do proper layouts in WordPress is discouraging. But there was a stubbornness that overcame me and i was determined to finish. Maybe a bit of Estelle Jewell wore off on me. The captions here are mine.

And every time i look at the album or this post, i will think of the love these two shared. And i will be happy.

Again, i apologize for the layout.

So here are the photos:

My cousin, Johnny Orr, just before i was born in 1943
Uncle Pipey, James Orr, with me in front of our home on Castle Heights Avenue, 1944.
Aunt Evelyn, mother of Johnny and Nancy, wife to Pipey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cousin Jon, nee Johnny Orr on the Webster farm on North Cumberland.
Cousins, 1945

 

 

 

 

 

Three cousins, again, 1945.
Cousins, 1944.

 

 

 

 

 

Granny (Katherine Webster Prichard with three grandchildren, 1945.

 

 

Cousins, 1946.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Orrs, Red Bank (Chattanooga), 1958

 

 

 

Uncle Pipey, Aunt Evelyn, and Jon, 1966.

 

 

 

 

Jim with the Winklers, Jay, Nancy, Kathy, and Johnny in Cocoa Beach, 1973(?).

 

 

 

 

 

Ann Orr, Estelle Jewell, Evelyn Orr, Mama Orr, Granny Prichard; Red Bank, c late 1950’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jon, Aunt Evelyn, and Uncle Pipey, 1970.
The Orr’s, Red Bank, c 1970’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jewell’s. san Martha, Rockwood, c 1960’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Estelle, Blythe, and Blythe’s mom Kathie, 1977.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The den on Castle Heights Avenue: Maureen with Tommy, Jewell siblings, c1985.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother and Daddy’s 50th Anniversary party. Too many people to list here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cousins Jon Orr and Nancy Winkler, c 1980.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jimmy and Estelle Jewell, Evelyn and Pipey Orr; the Smokies, 1980.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Kate Jewell Hansen, several years before the Hansen and “Dr.” were added.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy couple in the first home they owned, c1987.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uncle Pipey Orr, none better, c 1980’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aunt Evelyn and Jon Orr; Chattanooga, 1985.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the last Navy photos of goofy guy, 1987.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful woman with goofy guy, 1987.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 sisters with lots of grit still left: Estelle Jewell, Evelyn Orr, Bettye Kate Hall, c1993(?).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lena, Sarah, Oliver, Christmas, 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jon Orr’s obituary, 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charlie Jewell. Jimmy Jewell’s great uncle. i’m guessing this was in the 1880’s/1890’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martha being pulled by a goofy guy, 1949.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beverly and Roberta Padgett with Martha and three goofy guys, two of whom would melt, 1950.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas at the Jewell home, 1948.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jewell children, 1955.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jewell children, dressed up for church obviously, 1955.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Estelle Prichard about the time she started dating Jimmy Jewell, 1933.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Betty Joy (nee Hall) Jasahke’s birthday at the Hall farm, July 22, 1953; Joe Jewell, Barbara Leftwich, Gary Hall, Betty Joy (5 years old) Randy Hall, Martha Jewell, Ann Chenault; the goofy kid in the back is the oldest one there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jimmy Jewell on his first date with Estelle Jewell, 1933.
Estelle Jewell on her first date with Jimmy Jewell, 1933.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wesley Wayne Jewell with a baby even goofy at that age, 1944.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The goofy kid, 1947.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Hall, a sensible young man with the goofy kid, 1946.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Granny Prichard with her flock: goofy kid, Johnny Orr, Martha Jewell, Bill (Butch) Prichard, Nancy Orr, 1947.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jimmy Jewell, showing off for his girlfriend, 1933.
Lovebirds, 1933.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evelyn Orr and Estelle Jewell; Paris, TN, 1945.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My great grandparents, Bishop Joseph Webster and Katherine Webster, his wife, 1932. Annotated in the album, Maureen wrote at my mother’s direction, “Mama and Papa Webster.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dapper Jimmy Jewell, his high fashion wife, Estelle. The car, i believe is the one they carried the blocks of ice on the front bunker for the ice box (now known as a refrigerator) in their first home, an upstairs apartment in a home on North Cumberland, 1940 although by the time of the photo, they had moved into the one-room home he built on the corner of her grandfather’s property.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The man! Joseph Webster, Methodist circuit rider, reverend, bishop, and a fixture in the Lebanon community. One of his last services was to marry Jimmy and Estelle (his granddaughter) Jewell in 1938. i’m guessing this was in the 1890’s.

Willie Nod in a Foreign Country

This Willie Nod poem was written for Blythe after my adventures in Somalia while aboard the USS Yosemite just after the 1984 New Year. That yarn is already done elsewhere and will be retold in my book about that tour. However, the poem was generated by a drive across the equator to a dinner with a Somalia plantation owner. It did look like West Texas to me, and our chauffeured early sixties Datsun damn near ran into a camel in the middle of the road that was eating the leaves off of an overhanging tree. The ship did go south to Mombassa, Kenya after the stop in Kismayo, Somalia…but Willie nor i talked to any elephants.

Willie Nod in a Foreign Country

Willie Nod
off and went to Somalia,
a land on the equator that looks a lot like West Texas;
he took no friends with him
because he hoped to make new friends;
unlike West Texas, he found Somalia
had lots of people and animals.

But then, Willie Nod did not wander off the road in Somalia;
he figured they might have snakes like West Texas,
and
although Willie Nod liked animals
and
could converse in most animal languages,
he hadn’t quite learned to handle hissing.
so, Willie Nod stayed on the road.

since there seemed to be only one road in Somalia,
Willie really didn’t know if all of Somalia looked like West Texas
except for all the people and animals
walking along the roadside and sometimes in the middle of the road.
from that one road, Willie Nod saw herds and herds of camels and goats;
there even were packs of wild boar with fierce-looking tusks
standing along the side of the road chewing grass.

Finally, Willie Nod, being a lover of animals,
could stand it no longer
and
stopped when he came upon this one lone camel
standing flat in the middle of the road
reaching for some leaves high in a tree overhanging the road.

Now, Willie Nod fancied himself quite a talker with animals,
and as a general rule,
he could talk with animals about as well as anyone:
he quacked with ducks,
roared with lions,
neighed with horses,
and
silenced with rabbits.

But even though
Willie Nod wanted to talk to camels, especially this one,
standing in the middle of the road,
he had one big problem with camels,
which wasn’t the same problem he had with snakes
(he wasn’t really too hot about learning how to hiss):

He just wasn’t quite sure how camels brayed.
he had brayed with some donkeys down in Mexico once,
but
camel braying was a great deal different from donkey braying.
Willie Nod’s problem with this particular camel
was made worse by the fact camels,
unlike donkeys (or for that matter, ducks),
are really quite dumb.
i mean, would you think anyone smart would stand
in the middle of the road to eat leaves off of trees?

So Willie Nod looked into the big, soft brown eyes of the camel
and
tried out some braying on him;
but
the camel just looked at him with those big sad eyes,
cocked his head to one side every now and then,
and
rolled those big lips up to show his bucked teeth.

When Willie Nod finally figured out he wasn’t getting anywhere,
he just headed on down the road, the one road in Somalia.
he didn’t stop anymore to try and talk to the wild boar,
or goats,
or even the people
using the road, or rather the side of the road.

Willie Nod decided to go see all the lions and elephants in Kenya
(he really wanted to try and talk to the elephants)
south of Somalia.

Willie Nod decided Somalia
really wouldn’t be all that bad if you liked West Texas
and
knew how to camel bray.
because there sure were a lot of camels to talk to.

Willie Nod was glad he visited Somalia
but
he wasn’t too anxious to go back anytime soon.

 

Atlantic Ocean

March II, 1984

Willie Nod and the Moon

Willie Nod and the Moon

Willie Nod walked with the full moon tonight.
He sailed across the dark heavens with no birds to carry him.
He had no wings as he flew past the stars and the planets.

Willie Nod saw the earth,
the people singing and laughing;
knowing it was good,
but
Willie Nod was above all of that.

He and the moon held hands
walking across the heavens.
They never laughed at the earth
or the people
or even the sunbefore it took their night away.

Willie Nod waved goodbye to the moon
As the sun took away their night;
He greeted the sun hello.
Willie Nod did not walk with the sun.
He saved that joy for the moon.
No one could take the joy away
from Willie Nod and the moon.