Things have been happening to me in the last week or so that would make an old man grumpy, and they did.

My clutch went out, which turned into my transmission went out. It happened halfway down the hill from the San Diego Zoo, which is pretty appropriate. i sat there on a Tuesday afternoon for more than three hours, followed by an hour drive in a tow truck, time i had planned for doing something productive.

i won’t go deeply into the repairs but it will take at least a week and north of $5000 to get the car back. i am planning to have this car until i can’t drive anymore because i drive better with a standard transmission and about the only new cars left with standard transmissions are sports cars, and i am too old to drive a sports car. i had four of them in my life, loving every one of them, but i’ve seen old men driving sports cars. They look silly to me. The “courtesy car” the dealership loaned me is new and i can’t find the right button for anything. i couldn’t even turn the lights off at the Naval Air Station’s main gate. i finally found the right buttons and dials to turn off the rap music the previous driver had set on the radio.

This past weekend i had my laptop computer assessed and told it was working great. Of course, they reformatted the hard drive, and i had to restore a bunch of stuff. Then yesterday, it did something strange and i could not boot it up, even though i would have liked to boot it somewhere. With the help of Jamie at Apple Care, it is back. Not fun.

i am finding more things to ache due to my aging. Sometimes, it’s doing things i should no longer do. Sometimes, it’s exercising too much. Sometimes, it’s not exercising enough. Sometimes, it’s just from sleeping the wrong way. And i don’t know what the right way to sleep for me really is. Then, i feel guilty because all of my physical problems are minuscule compared to family and friends with real health challenges.

Grumpy.

But something made it all right.

Somewhere around the tale end of elementary school, my family began a tradition for Christmas. i suspect Aunt Evelyn Orr, my mother’s older sister, started the family doing it. When two of our family saw each other for Christmas, the one who said “Christmas Gift” first was supposed to get a present from the one whom they had met. At least, i think that was what was supposed to happen although i don’t think the “loser” ever gave that gift. Still, it was fun and for some reason when someone said “Christmas Gift” to me, it made me smile, even laugh, and feel good.

That tradition will not be practiced here this year with the possible exception of Maureen and i saying it to each other (and then giggle). One of our daughters will be with my son-in-law and grandson in Texas. The other will be with her man and his family near Las Vegas. We decided it would be best not to go to Signal Mountain this year for the trip we’ve made almost every year since 1992. We will have Maureen’s sister Patsy, and hopefully her son Mike over for brunch.

So, Christmas will be a little lonely this year.

You see on Tuesday, i had just finished my secret run for final Christmas presents when the damn clutch went out halfway down that hill. It was a beautiful Southwest corner day. i was buying special gifts and found myself wanting to buy more, spend foolishly for folks whom i care about dearly. i wanted to give more for all of my friends and family. i didn’t. After all, finances are a bit more critical than they used to be.

But the feeling i got was nothing short of amazing. i felt good. It felt like Christmas. The feeling was like the one i got when i read Judy Gray’s Christmas wish poem to her 1962 Lebanon High School class. No, i wasn’t in that class, i graduated from the military prep school across the street. But the fellow citizens my age of Lebanon Tennessee adopted me. There not too many things that have made me feel better than that in my life. And the poem brought back that sense of belonging. The poem and my last little gift acquisitions truly made it feel a lot like Christmas.

To all of you who read this, i hope you get that same feelings i had come over me, and…

Christmas Gift.