All posts by Jim

Good Morning.

A Pocket of Resistance

This morning, i thought about what “Good Morning” means…not just the definition.

Today began with a good morning.

Yesterday, our grandson, the grand Sam James Jewell Gander, turned sixteen. He was a bit grumpy as he wasn’t allowed to skip school (is that a new tradition started by fifteen years ago like “Mule Day” in Lebanon, Tennessee was a high school holiday, a tradition by some of the boys, including my father who might have been a ringleader with his buddies, H.M. Byars and Jim Horn Hankins, at Lebanon High School around 1934?). But it is a right for sixteen year boys to be grumpy. Perhaps the testosterone levels are kicking up. Although i am unwise and very disconnected to the current teenageism, i’m pretty sure the gamut of emotions running through a just-turned sixteen teenage boy, remain a controlling factor. Sam’s fine. He just turned sixteen yesterday. i’m proud of him…and his parents.

Yesterday, we played golf at Bonita Golf Club with the Toennies and shared an early supper there. Maureen is getting better and better. It’s fun to watch. i improved slightly from awful, and better yet, the old age biting of back and knees stayed away, hopefully a new trend.

Did i mention the Southwest corner weather was perfect for a late morning tee time? It was, cloudless with a slight breeze and temperatures in the high 60’s, low 70’s. Southwest corner spring weather. The drear of damp, cloudy, and chilly (for San Diego) apparently is finally run its course (the least wonderful of any Southwest corner winter i’ve experienced. We seemed to have missed the April-early May bonanza of perfect as May Gray has started early, which will lead into June Gloom. That’s okay. It’s seaport weather, and in spite of having to add and subtract clothing layers as the marine layer goes through its cycle, it is always comfortable.

And last night, my Padres beat Tommy Duff’s Cubbies. ‘Bout time, the gazillion dollar team came through.

Those things led into my appreciating the deeper meaning of good morning. i arose a bit later than usual, still early for my bride and turned on the kitchen light. The breakfast room looked like:

“Lucky,” i thought, “It’s a good morning.” The scene reflected my thoughts. The table was my great aunt’s. The secretary was my parent’s. The roses on the table and the orchid on the stand are Maureen’s. The arty cookbook is gift from Maureen’s brother. the teapot on the table is one Maureen got a while ago. The woven basket under the window is a Filipino wedding basket i bought during one stop at the Subic Bay Naval Base on Luzon. The Mexican sage outside the window is the menu for hummingbirds who breakfast with us. The flagstone path is to our patio sans top (my brother pointed out the silliness of calling it a “sitting area”). The secretary holds an old ink well from my parents, Maureen’s Dutch teapot and cookie jar. The secretary’s book shelves and drawers hold cookbooks, lots and lots of Maureen’s cookbooks and two of mine.

In short, this is the story of Maureen and me we enter into every morning.

When i have retrieved the paper, made the coffee, put up the dishes in the drying rack, and set the table, it looks like this:

Maureen’s prepares another wonderful breakfast. We dine, say hello to the hummingbirds, and read the paper, repeating the tradition of both sets of parents sans the newspaper (they both got the afternoon paper, the Nashville Banner and the San Diego Tribune). It is a nice connection for me a wonderful way to start a “Good Morning.”

And i think of everyone else who hopefully are having a good morning. All of the connecting stuff is great for us but not necessary. i just hope that as many as can are having as good a morning as we are, and those who can’t because of the conditions they are facing will soon be able to have a good morning as well.

Good Morning.

Frolicking in the Magic of Yesteryear, I

A Pocket of Resistance

For a couple of weeks, i’ve been happily wallowing in college academia, a place that provides me with good feelings about myself…from a long time ago. It was something, decent work, for me to do. While doing so, i have been escaping to other yesteryears.

And, my music, claimed by Apple but my smart phone and i still resisting, put on my 45’s and LP’s from a forgotten era. Jimmy Reed dominating my “shuffled” songs originally heard on late night, early morning WLAC with Big John R, Gene Nobles (a Vanderbilt professor of all things), and Hoss Allen.

Bob Seger’s line from “Against the Wind,” “…wish i didn’t know now what i didn’t know then,” keeps resounding in this old empty head.

It is, here in the Southwest corner, the first real San Diego spring day. In other words, perfect. i am grilling a steak outside after sitting down in the late afternoon sun and sipping a “Martin.” Not misspelled by the way. That term came from yesteryear, from a spectacular chemist out of Washington, D.C. and VMI.

My recent email to closer friends involved with my recollection from yesterday retold my recollection:

Last evening, i had forgotten we were going out to dine. i was preparing my martini, when i realized that would not be a good thing to down since i was driving and would imbibe during our evening out. i pondered on what to do with the gin i had poured into my glass mixer with the spritzing of vermouth.

And then i remembered that classic man of Old Hickory fame, Cyril Vaughn Fraser, Jr. i took the glass mixer and put in the freezer.

Tonight, i pulled the concoction out of the freezer and poured it into my chilled martini glass with a couple of olives. Before i took my first sip, i toasted the man. You see, the elder Cyril would take his bottle of gin, infuse it with a small dousing of vermouth and put it in the freezer to store. When he pulled it out and poured his drink, he called them “Martins.” As i recall he made his with Beefeater and i make mine with Bombay Sapphire, but we will let that slide.

As i drank my Martin tonight, i realized that wonderful man had it right. They are much better the way he did it. i will resume that practice in his honor and to my benefit.

The addendum to that is a doozy.

Across the street on the corner was the home of neighbor friends of Cyril Jr.: Cyril, III, and Walt, or “Whitz” his family and i called him. The neighbor’s dog was a Saint Bernard. One summer afternoon, Norma, the distaff side of the neighbors, came across the street with her Saint Bernard to visit with the elder Fraser. He offered Norma a “martin” as they sat on the front porch, discussed all things important in the world and the neighborhood. One “martin” led to another, and another. Then, it was time for Norma to go home. Trying to get up (which i’m sure anyone who has had too many martins or martinis including me, have found to be an enormous challenge), Norma just couldn’t make it on her own. So, she fell across the back of that old faithful Saint Bernard who carried her across the street and to home.

This is a Fraser legend, which i do not doubt at all.

A Sister’s Birthday

A Pocket of Resistance

By all expectations, we weren’t supposed to be close, to even know each other.

She is nine months older than me, give or take a few days. But that’s about it. She was born and raised in the San Diego area, lived a couple of years in Detroit, but has been back here in the Southwest corner since then, a long time ago. i think you know enough about me to know i’m from a small town in Tennessee, about 2400 miles away.

She has been a waitress for most of her life, a superb one. i have kicked around in all sorts of things with the two defining pursuits being writing and the Navy. Other than baking the tortilla chips in the kitchen of Bilbo’s Restaurant on Orcas Island in 1980 that lasted oh, about twenty minutes, i have never been involved in restaurant work.

Yet Patsy Boggs and i have become close. i’m glad.

You see, i found this magnificent woman who, for some strange reason, agreed to marry me. That’s when i discovered the whole package included her sister. Yep, Patsy is Maureen’s older sister.

i’m a lucky man. These two top out on sister love. They have taken care of each other since i have known them. They care for each other and everyone who is connected to the other. Patsy is curious like her father, wanting to know how and why things work. She reads extensively and deep. She follows the events of our day with enthusiasm and has an independent spirit. She is a major San Diego sports fan. That makes conversing with her a pleasure.

Did i mention she’s fun and funny?

But best of all is she allows me to be around one of the strongest and best relationships i have ever witnessed: two devoted sisters caring for each other.

i care, too.

Thanks, Patsy, for accepting me and allowing me to be part of your life.

Oh yeh, Happy Birthday with love.

Patsy and Maureen, circa 1983:

Notes from the Southwest Corner-009: A Grave Situation

Notes from the Southwest Corner

The series of previous Lebanon Democrat columns continues. Due to the times of publication, the columns will not be in sequence. For example, there were two columns published earlier than this one, but the subject of both was Christmas. This is one of my favorites:

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 21, 2009 – A story by J.R. Lind about vandalism in a Cedar Forest cemetery ran last week in The Democrat. The vandal’s motive for digging into a grave was unclear.

I thought of the Mel Brook’s movie, “Young Frankenstein,” as Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman dug in the graveyard for the body to become “Frankenstein.” I e-mailed J.R., “They were looking for a brain.”

The story also brought memories.

In 1958, I started summer work with the City of Lebanon. After several early assignments, I worked at the water works on Hunter’s Point Pike with Truman Garrett and Elmer Elkins.

The following summer I hoped to drive a bush hog tractor but was told I was too small. My big friends, Henry Harding, Charles “Fox” Dedman, and others were assigned the bush hogs. With a twist of logic I did not grasp, I went to the Cedar Grove Cemetery.

In that era, digging graves was accomplished by hand. When not digging graves, mowing and trimming the 35 acres was the bulk of our work. The two permanent workers, “Mister Bill” and “Dub” (I apologize for not knowing their last names. I’m not sure I ever did) took me under wing. They were pleasant, interesting, and fun.

Mr. Mitchell “Bush” Babb, the manager, lived adjacent to the cemetery. He reputedly was the only one who knew the grave locations after a fire destroyed some cemetery records. I was impressed Mr. Babb. had played against Ty Cobb in the Tennessee-Alabama League before the Georgia Peach went on to fame in the majors.

Once I got over my queasiness, I found the cemetery interesting. I studied grave markers, especially the older ones.

The Mitchell-Smith monument was impressive. My father had told me about the huge granite slab’s (roughly four by six by eight feet) trip to its final resting spot. He was “seven or eight” when the monument arrived at the train depot where Shenandoah Mills now stands. He snuck away to watch part of the two-week process. After offloading from the flatbed, the monument was set on four wooden logs, roughly a foot square. The logs were slicked with “octagon” soap. The four horses or mules pulled the monument forward while the workers rotated the logs from back to front.

There were many other interesting stories I gathered from the markers.

Sonny Smithson, a seminary student at David Lipscomb joined me the next summer. His father was the preacher at the College Street Church of Christ when it was actually located on the corner of College Street and Gay Street. Ironically, the original city cemetery was located there and until the interred were relocated to Cedar Grove when it opened in 1846.

In 1962, our last summer, Sonny and I became efficient in cemetery work and learned about graves “sinking.” Some sunk immediately after the burial due to the dirt compacting. Others sunk later when the natural decay set in, especially in the older graves, some suddenly when an air pocket collapsed. We tread over the grounds without temerity.

One June day, Mr. Bill sent us to clear out an area in the northwest corner. As normal, we had gathered for the day’s work at the small stone building in the opposite corner..

With “lively lads” on our shoulders, we trekked across the cemetery on the shortest route: pretty much a straight line, walking over graves with no concern. I was in the lead. Just after I walked over a grave (we later determined the grave was created in 1923), I turned to say something to Sonny. As he stepped on the middle of the grave, one of those air pockets took the opportune moment to collapse. Sonny went down into the depression about two feet and turned ashen through a Tennessee summer tan. He cleared what seemed to be about six feet straight up. Before he hit the ground, we realized what had happened. But for a split second, graveyard ghost stories came rushing back to both of us.

Sonny left work early that summer to go back to the seminary. I am sure it had nothing to do with the sinking grave incident. I worked through the rest of the summer.

Now when I have to submit a resume or biographical summary, I include “gravedigger” as part of my experience. It has proven to separate me from the pack, and I always know when someone has read my input in its entirety.