Monthly Archives: June 2022

Monday Morning Ramblings

A Pocket of Resistance

This morning well after first light, the perfect half moon in its perfect whiteness hangs high in the remaining deep, deep blue of the high sky. Pink has captured the eastern horizon. Quiet reigns in the cool of morning with only the doves’ coos interrupting the silence.

Jupiter remains visible to the moon’s east. Mars is a tad further and fading in the light of the expanding day. Venus — ah, i wish we had retained the earlier Greek name of Aphrodite for the goddess of beauty and love — continues eternally to be a flirt. Just over a week ago, she rode on the back of Aries, the ram, while this morning, she dares to taunt Cetus, the sea monster.

i stand in the quiet coolness, newspaper in my hand, wondering why i am so fixated on the planets, stars, and constellations. Oldness is the first thing that comes to mind. The years of navigating have imbedded this need to know and understand the worlds of faraway that guided me on the night watches.

i wonder how i cannot remember where i left the pencil only to find it held by my teeth while remembering moments, short finite moments, over the span of near four score years:

Standing on the front lawn in only shorts, so glad Mother has allowed it was sufficiently hot for us to head to Hazelwood’s pool, and later in my pre-teens at Hazelwood again on a blanket by the pool to hear Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk” for the first time, becoming entranced. Then a few years later, out at Horn Springs, the higher end pool for girls, hence where the boys went, at least those whose parents did not have the coins to join the country club, and hearing Bobby Darin, who someone at the county fair said i looked like, singing “Splish Splash” and decided i liked it before i began to denigrate “bubble gum” rock because it couldn’t hold a candle to the soulful blues of Jimmy Reed, Lonesome Sundown, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and many others. Feel it, man. Feel it.

Henry (Harding) and i hunting rabbits with a 12-gauge and 410 on Grandpa Arnold’s farm in the winter and me deciding to test the ice in the large tin watering tub for the cows with my right leg plunging through the thinness and sitting there for about an hour or so when George or Virginia came to pick us up as scheduled (and somewhere around 20,000 other misadventures with Henry and Beetle and Mike Dixon and Jimmy Gamble and Mike Gannaway and George Thomas and and Charles “Fox” Dedman and Alex “Country” Harlan and Pat Climer and Jimmy Hatcher and Earl Major, which i shall not mention here).

College Station, Texas in a small house i bought with bad reasoning on the cusp of an unwanted divorce where i would shed my hated polyester khaki uniform, shift into my running shorts and Adidas running shoes, which i bought at JC Penney for twenty bucks and never wore socks, managing to wear for five years, adding shoe goo to the disappearing soles until some crazy person stole them while i was taking a shower in Diego Garcia’s gym locker room. Running a five-mile route to return and put the coals in the small hibachi charcoal grill, closing it to create the flu and expedite the charcoal reaching maximum burning while i showered and returned to put on the one lone steak while i made the salad and toast to eat with a beer damn near every weeknight unless i went to Frank’s, a modern restaurant that played jazz of all things in western swing and outlaw music heaven, and sit at the bar with a sandwich and chips made on site while i talked to the bartender as we listened to jazz, even some Jimmy Smith stuff i brought with me and closing the evening with a Jack Daniels on the rocks before going home and sleeping in the bed alone except for my Old English Sheepdog “Snooks” and the three-legged cat “Shore Patrol” on top of me. And it wasn’t all that bad.

i breathe in the creeping daylight, return to the house to layout the fixin’s for my bride who will make another gourmet breakfast as we watch the hummingbirds feed on the Mexican sage outside our breakfast niche window, and as i pour my first cup of coffee well before she arises, think “maybe this is what one is supposed to do when they get old: remember moments.”

i do.

Fathers

A Pocket of Resistance

It has been a quiet Father’s Day for me. Maureen and i went to a locally owned bookstore and on to a nearby restaurant for brunch this morning. i became one of those potatoes watching baseball and golf. i got calls from both of my daughters. They made my day.

i’ve been thinking about my fathers. My Uncle Snooks Hall was a close second to being my real father. Then there was Jimmy Lynch, my former father-in-law. Then there was Ray Boggs, Maureen’s father who was also one of my best friends. Then there is Jason Gander, the best father i could wish for my grandson Sam. There are others. i read with delight Facebook posts extolling fathers.

i wanted to write something appropriate about my father. i will only repeat my poem previously posted here about him. When he read it for the first time, he simply said, “How did you know.” That’s enough:

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:
those hands could make Durer cry
with their history and the tales they tell.

his strength always was supple
beyond what was suggested from his slight build.
his hands are the delivery point of that strength.
his hands are not slight;
his hands are firm and thick and solid –
a handshake of destruction if he so desired, but
he has used them to repair the cars and our hearts.

his hands are marked by years of labor with
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors
(long before mechanics hooked up computers,
deciphering the monitor to replace “units”
for more money in an hour than he made in a month
when he started in ’34 before computers and units).

his hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bouganville, 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 itself into his hands
and beyond;
the tales of grease and oil and grime,
cleaned by gasoline and goop and lava soap
are etched in his hands.

they are hands of labor,
hands of hard times,
hands of hope,
hands of kindness, caring, and love:
oh love, love, love, crazy love.

his hands speak of him with pride;
his hands belong
to the smartest man I know
who has lived life to the maximum,
but in balance, in control, in understanding,
gaining respect and love
far beyond those who claim smartness
for the money they earned
while he and his hands own smartness
like a well-kept plot of land
because he always has understood
what was really important
in the long run:
smarter than any man I know
with hands that tell the story
so well.

Steel Decks and Glass Ceilings

A Pocket of Resistance

Dear Folks,

My long journey is not over, but it has cleared the biggest hurdle. Steel Decks and Glass Ceilings: A Navy Officer’s Memoir now has a publishing date of August 1, 2022. Pre-orders for the trade paperback version is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online book sellers.

For those who might not know, the book is about the USS Yosemite’s 1983-84 deployment to the Indian Ocean told from my perspective as second in command. She was the first Navy ship with women officers and enlisted assigned to experience extended time at sea.

Obviously, I hope you buy it, but of more importance to me is that you enjoy it and perhaps learn something from my experience.

Regardless, thank you for being a friend, relative, or shipmate.

steel decks and glass ceilings

Put Out to Pasture

New Palestine

Pre-sales for my book Steel Decks and Glass and Glass Ceilings: A Navy Officer’s Memoir, and the announcement of the publishing date is imminent. This is a quiet, anxious time for me. My hopes are those who want to read it will buy it and enjoy it, perhaps even learn a bit from it, and finally i hope i don’t lose money on the effort and cost of publishing.

My original idea was pretty simple, looking back on when i started thinking about it just over forty years ago. i did want it to be the best it could be, which morphed the process into a business — it also has given me thoughts of writing a short information piece about how, or how not to write a book for folks who might be considering such a venture.

Now as i wait these final days before the book becomes available, i find my home projects, tasks, and even golf not quite as fulfilling as i expected. So, i turned to writing about a fictional place i have been writing about since i was in my last years of high school, three score or so years ago. Some of those stories have been in these posts. i’m not sure if they will ever be published otherwise. That’s okay. i’m writing them for me.

As i have previously indicated, the place, New Palestine, Tennessee is not a fictional version of my hometown. There are some characters and some locations from my home of Lebanon, Tennessee from which i drew as i wrote, but none of what is in the book should ever be compared to Lebanon, Tennessee.

Abner Moses, a retired boatswain warrant officer, is the narrator of most of these tales. i will write more about him when i turn to this little place again.  i like Abner.

Below is another short story in my collection about New Palestine. Even though i claim i’m writing just for me, i thought you might want to read it.

Put Out to Pasture

            Abner Moses sat on the stool at the diner’s counter, waiting for Ratliff to show up. Broadus Ratliff had called Erlene’s Diner to let Abner know Buckner Auto Parts had a big order to place, and he would be a bit late for coffee, their weekly Wednesday ritual. When Broadus finally arrived, Abner stood and shook his hand.

Abner asked Ratliff about the parts order from Buckner’s. After some more small talk, Abner began another tale. Broadus smiled. He enjoyed hearing Abner’s tales about New Palestine and the Navy. After some brief discussion, Abner began on another tale:

Walter Hill lived on a farm in the northwest corner of Jerome county. The farm was about a dozen miles from the New Palestine square and just a couple of miles east of the viaduct into Bertram county where that county was wet, not dry like Jerome county. Walter was raised on that farm, about 200 acres with cattle, milk cows, hogs, chickens, about two acres of garden, a couple of ponds out on the west side, a stand of walnut trees, and the farmhouse sitting about one hundred yards west from the two-lane gravel road running north south. Two wooden steps sinking a bit during Walter’s later years, led up to the front open air porch. A swing and a rocking chair adorned the porch. The side of the house had a larger square porch, screened-in so visitors might sleep, free from the flies and night critters, on the daybed with the duck feather mattress. The CCC built an outhouse in ’36 about twenty yards out back of the house near the barn. They used that outhouse up until the late ‘50’s when they attached a bathroom with plumbing to the back of the house.

Walter was born and raised there, milking the cows; feeding the cattle; planting, weeding the garden, and reaping the produce; slopping the hogs; tending to the winter slaughter of the choice steers, heifers, and hogs; cutting and bailing the hay before manhandling the bales up to the barn loft before they came up with those new-fangled machines that took a lot off the workload.

Walter was a big man, about six-three and swarthy. But he was nimble and was a hit with the women because he could dance well and never tired.

He was an only child, and his father died when Walter was eighteen. Walter took over running the farm and taking care of his mother until she passed when Walter was in his early 30’s. He met a pretty local girl named Flora at a church barn dance and got married right before his mother passed. Flora took over the house, cooking, canning, taking care of the chickens, gathering the eggs from the chicken coop, and cleaning the house.

The two of them just kept at it until Walter was in his mid-eighties. Oh, they had fun. They continued to go to barn dances and loved to hit the clubs alongside the liquor stores just over the bridge in Bertram county on Friday and Saturday nights. Walter made other trips over that viaduct to the liquor stores, being Jerome County and Nashville were the only places not dry, where you could get liquor during those days. He would get a case or two of Falstaff beer, a bottle of Jim Crow whiskey when they needed it, and nearly always a bottle or two of Gordon’s gin.

Walter was big, weighing well around 250 pounds and held his liquor pretty well. He kept one fifth of vodka behind the seat of his old GMC pickup, and when working around the farm, he would reach back, pull out the bottle, open the cap with his teeth, spit the cap into his seat between his legs and take a swig of the vodka. He’d put the bottle between his legs, grabbed the cap, screw it back on, and put the bottle behind the seat. He had been known to drink a whole fifth on a long workday.

He loved living on his farm. He never had any desire to live anywhere else. He didn’t listen to the news or watch it on the small, black-and-white television he bought Flora one Christmas back in the fifties. They watched the sitcoms, and Flora watched the news, but the only news Walter got was from Flora or the afternoon paper, the Nashville Clarion.

Walter and Flora never had any children. But as they got older, Flora’s niece Fiona and nephew Alvin were treated like grandchildren.  The children loved to come to the farm. Their folks, Flora’s younger brother Bud Wycliff and his wife Minnie felt it was good for the children. The six of them would often have picnics under the large oak in the front yard. As the children grew up, the children began to help around the farm. Alvin was a big help working with Walter tending to the cows and hogs and baling the hay.

As the years wore on, Alvin took on more and more work while Walter sat in the old truck and took more swigs on the vodka. When Alvin was a senior and accepted by Auburn to study agriculture, Bud called a family meeting at Walter’s farmhouse. He told Walter he was too old to work the farm and Alvin would no longer be available to help Walter. Bud said the couple should sell the old homestead and move to town. He added he had found a nice bungalow for them at a good price, and the profit from the exchange would allow them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Finally, he pointed out continuing to live on the farm would put an unfair burden on his sister Flora.

Everyone, except Walter, of course, agreed. The only one who mattered to Walter was Flora. He knew Bud was right. When Flora quietly nodded her head in agreement, Walter lowered his own head and mumbled “All right, let’s do it if that is what Flora wants.”

The deal was quickly done and the move to town was made. One of the new purchases was a color television. Walter was not comfortable with going into town or doing the menial tasks around the house. Flora attempted to coax him into visiting with Bud and Minnie and others in the town, but Walter just wasn’t into it. He settled into the large recliner in front of the television and watched from after breakfast until after dinner. He still wouldn’t watch the news. When it came on, he would lie down and go to sleep on the old porch daybed that was now by the window in the front room. Initially, he called it a nap, but as the trips to the daybed became more and more frequent and lasted longer, he would just rise from the recliner and slowly move to the daybed announcing he was tired.

Flora and Bud tried to get Walter to get up and walk, but now Walter was only getting up for meals. When he refused to go to the doctor, they convinced the doctor to come to the bungalow. As much as he could check with limited resources, the doctor could find nothing really alarming with Walter other than Walter’s weight was now over 300 pounds.

After the doctor and Bud left, Walter asked Flora to come over to the daybed. She leaned over to hear him better.

“Flora, I am the farm. I belong on the farm,” he explained, “I don’t think I’m going to last much longer. Would you get Bud to ask the new owners if they would let me buried next to Mom and Dad?

“Their graves are out by that northwest pasture beside the pond Dad stocked with crappie and used to fish. Alvin knows where it is.”

“I know, darling,” Flora responded, “But don’t you talk like that. I can’t have you leave me.

“Now you get a good night’s sleep, and we will talk tomorrow,” she said as she leaned over, kissed him on the forehead, and patted his hand.

Nodding, Walter mumbled, “I love you. I wish we were on the farm.”

Walter Hill died in his sleep that night. They buried him on the farm. They put him out to pasture.

Flora lived for another dozen years. When she died, they buried her beside Walter.