All posts by Jim

Storm Clouds

A Pocket of Resistance

i have seen the storm clouds gathering,
to grind eastward, further eastward
from the dark, unknown, western seas,
cumulonimbus towering clouds, they be
dark and threatening hammers Poseidon
hurls from the depths of the Pacific
so ironic in its meaning
for clouds foreboding such as these.
they come with winds of fury,
stampeding stallions of the sky
breathing fiery winds of peril.

the sea, blacker than its previous blue,
began to flicker with whitecaps,
the gentle rolls grew to choppy
waves with no discernible direction:
frightening omen of the coming storm.

when i saw the storm a’coming,
i did not fear while others on deck
cowed and shrank in fear and
loathing for the gods of the sea.
back then, i was a swashbuckler,
a mariner with no fear,
now, i might shudder,
no, not back then, not back then.
now, i’m just glad
i was then and now is now
for i got to see
the cumulonimbus storming clouds,
the stampeding winds,
the frothing sea
while not afraid,
but awed by her fearsome beauty.

Notes from the Southwest Corner -7: Barber Shops – The Beginning of a Hairy Tale

Notes from the Southwest Corner

Before you begin reading this post, a column from quite a while ago, i have ceased going to barbershops. The reason is not so much the cost having risen astronomically, although it is a contributing factor, but it would end up costing about $2.50 cent per hair. About 10 years ago, maybe 20, i went and bought an electric razor. i cut my hair almost down to the nubs and ask ask Maureen to check and tidy the mess up. But of course, i have some stories about that as well.

SAN DIEGO, CA – When I started writing for The Democrat, I planned to write from ideas saved over the years with a focus on connecting and comparing my Southwest corner to Middle Tennessee.

Then events seem to keep popping up, demanding I write about them. This week, nothing has interrupted my original intentions.

Barber shops are an interesting study of human nature. I am not referring to the franchise stores but the locally owned shops which have been existence since the barber gave up doing dental work out here when the West was young and dentists were in short supply.

For about a dozen years after I moved to this neck of the woods south of San Diego, I got my hair cut at Alberto’s, located in a strip mall across from Southwest College on a mesa, about four miles from the Mexican border as the crow flies.

In many ways, Alberto’s reminds me of the Modern Barber Shop where I received my first haircut just off the square on West Main Street in Lebanon. Growing up, my haircuts were mostly administered by “Pop” at the Modern Barber Shop and later his own place in the Dick’s Food Mart mall.

As I moved into my teenage years, my father and I went to Edwards Barbershop, located across from the end of University Avenue on South Maple. It was a one-chair shop.

Alberto’s looks very similar to both and even smells the same, a pleasant, somewhat musty aroma. There is a clock running backwards so it will read correctly if you are looking at it through the mirrors back of the chairs. It would have fit in the Modern Barber Shop, Pop’s, or Edward’s.

I first started going to Alberto’s in the mid-1980’s after spotting John Sweatt in a chair. John was commissioned as a Navy officer about three or four years before me. He had been a strong supporter for me on the Castle Heights football team when he was a senior and I was a sophomore. Later, he gave me some hope I might actually complete Navy Officer Candidate School when he visited me in my barracks, resplendent and fearful (to my senior officer candidate tormentors) in his lieutenant junior grade (LTJG) dress blues.

I decided Alberto’s would be good for me as well.

Alberto is a small man with salt and pepper hair and a thin, neatly trimmed mustache. Although his five children are spread from Alaska to San Diego, he still lives in Tijuana and remains a Mexican citizen. His English and my Southern don’t always mix well, but we communicate adequately. He always cuts my hair the way I ask and trims my mustache at no charge.

Alberto reminds me of Pop, although I probably would have been banned from the city limits had I tried to grow a mustache in Lebanon in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The strongest tie is not their barber skills. Alberto’s ethics growing up in a middle class Mexican neighborhood are very much akin to Pop’s. Giving a great service for a reasonable price; they were proud of their work, enjoyed their customers; and in turn, their customers enjoyed them.

Bob is the second in command at Alberto’s. He knows everyone by name. Curiously, Bob always looked like he needs a haircut with a long, untamed mane.

Still he gave me one of my favorite barber shop stories:

A couple of years ago, a recently retired man came into the shop while I was waiting.

Bob stated, rather than asked, “Been retired about six months, haven’t you, George?”

George affirmed and Bob followed, “How’s it going at home with you and the little lady?”

George replied “It’s going great.”

“You and your missus don’t get in each other’s way?” Bob prodded.

George, pleased with himself, turned eloquent, “Nah, she’s very precise and keeps a weekly calendar on the refrigerator.

“So on Sunday, I check her calendar. When she is scheduled to be out, I stay at home and work on my projects.

“Then when she is scheduled to be at home, I go play golf.

“It’s working just fine.”

When this occurred, I thought, “At the core, there is not much difference between barber shops in the Southwest corner and in Middle Tennessee.”

And there is an unlimited supply of barbershop stories in both places.

A Regretful Change

A Pocket of Resistance

Since i began this website — with the help, and i mean help, of Walker Hicks for without him, there would be no jim jewell website — i have made the effort to respond to each comment on my posts with an email directly to the commenter, not with a response on the website.

My reasoning was i wanted to personally thank each individual for reading my posts, not simply reply in the comments section of my site, which, to me, is more like a broadcast thanks, not ensuring the responder would ever see it.

It has been pointed out to me i should respond on the site. It i likely to abet the responder to continue reading and commenting, which helps with my cloudy statistics for the site, which in turn, increasing my readership, according to the rules of the cloud. Well, since i’m still trying to break even (admittedly not trying too hard) on selling my book, Steel Decks and Glass Ceilings, those statistics may help.

It is obvious to me replying in both manners will eat into my time, and the older i get, the less time i have and the more time i need to get things done.

So if you make a comment on my posts, please check out my response to your comment, which is included after the posts. In my heart, it will still be a personal thanks to you, but not as direct. For that, i apologize.

Expectations, Dejection: San Diego Tradition, and Other Thoughts On Basketball

A Pocket of Resistance, Jewell in the Rough

i believe it was the Charles Barkley curse.

San Diego State University lost to the University of Connecticut, 76-59, in the NCAA basketball tournament finals.

Barkley had been negative about the Aztecs and did not pick them to win any game, or at least the ones when i caught him in the pre-game folderol, UNTIL the championship game. Not only, did he pick the Aztecs to beat the Huskies, he went all in, praising them for their defense, and wearing a goofy looking red foam cowboy hat, looking as one of his talking head colleagues noted, like “Yosemite Sam.”

The tradition of San Diego not winning a major championship in any major sport at any level continues. Such a crown has not occurred here since the now gone to LA LA Land Chargers winning the AFL Championship in 1964. The streak is alive due to the Barkley curse. i am convinced.

As i watched the championship basketball game, i was entranced while thinking thoughts about a game i love.

UConn beat SDSU because they were better at the game they play.

Sports media has a love affair with the word “physicality.” i heard it a sickening number of times last night, enough to make my head burst into tiny pieces because not once was it properly used. i think they think its cool because it’s longer than “physical” or “athletic” and it makes them sound sophisticated. NOT. i know, i know, it’s a rant of mine, but dammit, speak correctly or it will lead to misunderstanding.

The game i watched last night was far from the game of basketball i knew growing up. Sometime in the ’70s, i was listening to sports talk show on the powerful Chicago radio station WLS. i don’t remember exactly when or exactly why i was listening. i expect it was because it was the rock and roll station for me in the weekday evenings up until WLAC began its blues programming. Regardless, the caller-in was expressing his idea about pro basketball.

“i think these NBA teams are messed up in their recruiting,” he opined, “They are recruiting the best college basketball players.” He continued, “They should be scouting the street games in Chicago. That’s where there are great athletes playing the game like the pros.”

Not anymore. i watched a street fight game of basketball all of the college season. The most physical, tough, team won. In fact, that was the what happened in all of the 32 teams in the tournament, as well as the 16 games in the National Invitational Tournament. The game is about physical toughness as well as basketball skills, tactics, and strategy (not “physicality”).

Grantland Rice, the king of sports writers in the “Golden Age of Sports” (the 1920s) and the mentor for my Fred Russell, once wrote the golden rule for sports: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game.”

When i was a Navy lieutenant junior grade and the executive officer of MSTS Transport Unit One, i rode USNS ships carrying Republic of Korea troops to and from Vietnam. i quickly learned that in the Korean culture at that time, it was okay to get ahead by any means: abuse, payoffs, back stabbing, almost anything we consider heinous…until you got caught. When you got caught, you were cast into the lowest level of society and punished beyond belief.

Apparently, the Great Scorer’s thoughts on playing in an athletic CONTEST have been abandoned for cheating and the old Korean idea that anything is okay as long as you don’t get caught. A football coach has even been quoted, saying “…if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” And it seems everyone has adopted another common quote among college and professional coaches: “Winning is everything.” i should add this appears the new way of living lives in our country, perhaps the world.

Fouling is not only forgiven but encouraged, as long as one doesn’t get caught. The aforementioned Barkley was adamant in his defense of the FAU player in the semis who, when the Aztec guard had gone up for the winning shot, reached up with his hand and grabbed Trammel’s side and pushed the guard as he was shooting, affecting the missed shot. Chuck’s reasoning, they shouldn’t call such fouls at the end of the game. This logic, or lack thereof, still stuns me: it’s okay to foul sometimes but not always?

Today’s players continually take more than two steps without being called for “walking” or “traveling.” Players continually dribble by putting their hand on top of the ball without being whistled, which was previously called “palming,” or “carrying.” And you weren’t supposed to touch the other player except when incidental going for the ball. None of these are called today, and touching an opponent is completely subjective by the referees or the interminable conference of the refs while watching video replays from every angle for…oh, about several days.

In spite of all of that, today’s game is fun to watch, exciting. The subjective nature of fouling and not fouling by refs, coaches, and players brings drama, if not honesty and sportsmanship. i had to laugh when in the FAU/SDSU game, the end was decided by the refs pulling out…a stopwatch because the technical timing had not been started correctly.

i, and many friends, have been concerned about the the “Name, Image, and Likeness” (NIL) rule changes for college athletes getting paid for folks using their image, was going to make the playing field for recruiting even less level than it already was, that the big name programs were going to cut off the little names from the big stars. We were also upset with the lack of loyalty and again giving the big boys an advantage with the “transfer portal.”

If that is true, it’s in the future, not now. To watch the underdogs win again and again in the conferences and in the tournaments was refreshing. The playing field was more level.

And most encouraging was, even with the big name programs and their alumni and fans throwing money at the stars like tinsel after a championship, there are programs who approach this in the right way.

i offer San Diego State as an example. The San Diego State Athletic Foundation determined their program shouldn’t chase athletes with money, but provide them with enough income allowed by the NIL ruling to live decently while playing a sport for the school. All athletes in a program on the mesa gets $2,000 a month. The school and the athletic department wants their athletes to play because they love the sport and want to win as a team. Apparently, that works real well, and the basketball program serves as a great model.

So the college basketball season is over. i am not shaking my head in dismay as i have in many previous seasons. Yes, part of that is because my two teams, San Diego State and Vanderbilt did very well, very well indeed. But more so, i am looking forward to next season for college basketball as a whole. Go Aztecs. Go Commodores.

But man, the rare drear of the Southwest corner seemed to return to its normal best weather in the world. Golf will be a bit more comfortable now.

And folks, it is time for baseball.