It’s that time, that day before the day. i spent the morning wrapping presents for those who will spend Christmas day with me, glad it will be four instead of three. Maureen’s sister has decided it’s safe to join us. That will make it better. After all, Christmas is about…oh, it’s about many things depending on who you are, where you are from, and what you believe. Still, there is this joy about sharing it with family.

It struck me as i was wrapping the last presents. Poorly, i might add as i didn’t use a video like son-in-law Jason did, and my usual wrapping paper of old newspapers have been donated to Spud and Vonda Mumby across the street who need the paper to catch the droppings of the quail they are tending in their garage. Even got some pickled quail eggs for a Christmas present…along with Spud’s homemade port, which has become my favorite port to have with desserts and a nightcap.

What struck me was i keep griping about not being home for Christmas. Sorta got stuck on Bing’s Christmas song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL71eMc1blw

But the truth is with that kind of attitude i won’t ever find peace and joy for Christmas. The truth is i have a number of places i would like to be each Christmas.

Christmas to me will always be what it was at 127 Castle Heights Avenue. Santa came in glorious beneficence. The three children and sometimes two more of the Orrs came over from Chattanooga would wait at the top of the stairs in their pajamas, probably emerging from their bedrooms before dawn to perch there in anticipation. But they had to wait. The parents has to set up the lights for making home movies when the big moment arrived. We would crash over each other when the signal was go, down the stairs, through the hall into the living room where Santa had spread the big gimmes over the floor under our stockings, stuffed full of small gifts, fruit and candy and hung by the chimney with care. Oh, the joy of discovering a Roy Rogers’ Ranch set, or a two-gun cap pistol set with holster and hat and caps to complete the outfit.

There were several, with the same procedure over in Red Bank, outside of Chattanooga proper with our cousins.

There were some wonderful ones in Paris, Texas where the Colonel Jimmy Lynch and Nannie Bettie would somehow magically cajole Santa to actually show up at their home and have Blythe sit on his lap, regaling her with stories and taking notes about what she was expecting the next morning.

There were the Christmases at the Boggs family home in Lemon Grove where incredibly wrapped gifts were presented by my father-in-law Ray Boggs.

Then in ’92. we began our annual trek to Tennessee Christmases. They were/are magic, even more so now with my sister’s grandchildren taking in Christmas at the magic age.

There is the place i’ve never been for Christmas that has always been a dream of mine: Christmas with my brother and his family in Vermont. i mean, man, what a place for having a White Christmas. They are wonderful folks and after all, that is where Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney has their “White Christmas.”

i was always torn in our decision about going to Tennessee or being with our grandson (and daughter, son-in-law, and former wife). We decided my parents didn’t have many Christmases left and it would bring them joy to spend to spend Christmas with two-thirds of their family. And so it was. Today, as much as i regret not having those Christmases with grandson and daughter, i think our decision was the right thing to do.

There was one Christmas, 2014, after Mother and Daddy passed that we did spend Christmas in Austin. It was magical. i mean, who wouldn’t be pretty close to heaven to spend a Christmas with his daughters and grandson.

There were others: Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam, 1970 with Korean Military Advisor Group Captain Ollie White in the Officer’s Club with an admiral’s daughter whose name i forgot who managed the club (We drank a lot and cried a lot in our mulled wine).

And if i get my act together, there will be a following post about a bizarrely wonderful Christmas and New Year’s not home for Christmas.

So i could spend all of my time moping about where i ain’t. i am here. i have two of the five most important people in my life with me. My sister-in-law, Patsy Boggs will join us tomorrow. There is a fire in the hearth. We set up one of my stereos (sort of, whatever you call those things now) and have had almost continual Christmas music, my Christmas music. The presents are wrapped. The tree is decorated, the stockings are hung. NOEL is broadcast to the world outside.

And the birth of Jesus two thousand and twenty years ago brought hope to some for peace on earth, good will toward men, and joy to the world. Now folks, i don’t know all of your leanings toward beliefs, but if you ain’t into peace on earth, good will toward men, and joy to the world, i don’t think your Christmas (Holiday season for those who wish to quibble) will be all it could be.

For me, i have my peace, i have my joy. And i have good will toward men. It ain’t perfect, but i will celebrate.

Some time during Christmas day tomorrow, i will walk to the top of my hill and look toward the Western horizon. i will think of a birth long ago, and i will hope this year is behind us and we all may have peace on earth, good will toward men, and joy to the world.

Noel.

i have a Christmas present.

This is pretty much a photo essay. It is the follow-on to a post a week or so ago when i reinvented a walk in the woods…okay, okay, they ain’t woods in the sense of Tennessee or Vermont woods, but it’s open space, which once was open space…

Oh, this could go on and on (and probably will), but i just found a route from the top of my hill that allows me to take a hike (and many, many people have told me to take a hike). My access to the hiking-riding trail was closed for a while,  a good while, so i can do a real, no-kidding (and i cleaned that up) hike for almost as long as i choose.

Today’s was an hour’s two-plus miles up and down. It was glorious to me. It can replace the running, my doc told me to stop (and i might now). So Merry Christmas to me; Merry Christmas to me:

i found a new path from our house. The old one had grown over and not been maintained. Two days ago, some off road bikers came up to the top of our hill so i knew there had to be a way down. i found it.

This is down into a ravine and back up. The ridge is the trail that i posted in a photo last week.

Down that hill is community training corral (i think that’s what it’s called). It’s not very seldom used, but i saw these horses and had to visit.

It had been a while, so i forgot to look out for the nasty cholla cacti, their splines break from the main cacti and stick to the enemy, aka moi. They sting and getting them out is tricky. i have taken them off of our cats and dogs and can tell you this is one of the most un-fun things you can do. Fortunately, only three splines stuck me and only one stayed in my leg. i removed it and am fine and will be a bit more cautious on my next hike.

These things can grow in bunches, so if you see some on your sidewalk, walk around.

This is my new friend. i think i might have made friends with the white one, but she/he wasn’t interested. Besides this old guy and i had a great conversation. He’s getting a little white around the edges like me, so he’s a bit older, but from our conversation, he is very wise and very gentle. We promised to meet again. They reminded me of two horses in a pasture between my small home in College Station and Judy McConnell’s parent’s home there. i took Blythe for a walk one day and had an apple. One of the horses (i think his name was Lightning) came to the fence while i held Blythe with one arm. We petted him and i offered him the apple. He took it along with my entire hand. i stood there with my hand around the apple trapped by his teeth; i was afraid to be aggressive for fear of scaring or even hurting Blythe. i kept talking quietly to Lightning and pulling gently away from his mouth. Finally, he let go. Of course, he kept the apple. But this ole boy, seemed to gentle, too wise.

This is one of the better views of Mount Miguel. Without fog, it is one of the first things i see almost every morning, and it always connects me to our original settlers in this country and this region, the Kumeyaay and to the east, the Navajo. i continually try to envision this land when others came, before this rather incredible chunk of the Southeast corner, probably habitable for about five or six hundred people due to it being a high desert, began to add folks and houses and businesses and the money men who did not care for preservation or even quality of life but just making money and wishing i could walk across it in its and my innocence.

Coming back around before my climb back up to my hill, there is a glen. i always think of what a nice place it would be to lay out a blanket and have a picnic there. Peace.

And i made it up the hill, no mean feat for an old man, surveyed my view of the San Diego, Point Loma, the Coronado Bridge, ships of the fleet, and the Pacific horizon. i gingerly walked down our slope, and retreated to my lair with an appropriate energizer. i am a long, long way from home, many years have passed. Tomorrow is a different Christmas Eve, but all is well.

Peace on Earth. Good Will to Men.

This is not a Christmas post. But both incidents, 42 years apart, occurred as Christmas approached. i should have learned 42 years ago:

1978, Bryan, Texas, the sister city of College Station, Texas, home of TAMU and entwined much like Chula Vista and Bonita are entwined in the Southwest corner today. Christmas break at Texas A&M. December 22 with Bill McFall, the executive officer of the NROTC Unit at Texas A&M suggested (or perhaps it was me) that the two of us play golf at the Bryan city course.

It was cold.

We dressed warm. Surprisingly when we got to the clubhouse, the parking lot was empty. The starter was the only one in the clubhouse. Perhaps, because it was several degrees below freezing, the only  person besides Bill and me was the starter. We had no problem teeing off on time.

It was about 7:30 when we teed off.  My drive was okay but to the left, unusual for those days — i was a major slicer then and for most of my golfing exploits. Bill hit a nice drive down the middle. Figures. Aviators are always good golfers. i  took out a six iron. The shot went significantly right and landed on the water hazard next to the green. Except the water hazard was not water. It was iced over. My ball hit the ice and rolled to the middle of the hazard,.

Since there were not a lot of golfers before or after us, like none, we approached the green and decided to retrieve my ball. We found stray limbs around the hazard and  slid them across the frozen pond attempting to hit the ball and impel it to the other edge. It took a while, but we did get the ball back. We laughed. We were dressed warmly and the layers made throwing accuracy not, sort of like our golf shots.

It was cold.

It was the coldest round of golf i’ve ever played. i vowed to not to play in really cold weather again. Of course, i have violated that vow many times but it was a relative thing.

This past Wednesday, i remembered my vow. Unfortunately, i remembered on the second tee. There were few tee times available, but i managed a 6:38 for two at Bonita Golf Club, one of my favorite of comfortable places to play in the world.

(Dealing with the pestilence upon us in the Southwest corner is a curious thing. The restrictions keep changing based on reaction, not proaction. This has led to some very strange curiosities. For example, restaurants were shut down, then opened to take out, then open to outdoor dining, then open to social distancing  — damn, i still dislike that rather oxymoronic phrase — then restricted to outdoor dining, then takeout only, and the bounce from the last two phases has occurred three times in the last five days. Parks and play areas for children have been closed along with the restaurants,  but, get this, strip bars were allowed to operate until last week and then won a lawsuit to remain open, in which the judge included restaurants and that, my friends, lasted one day, Now there is an injunction putting the re-openings on hold.)

Golf courses have remained open since the first two months of the entire Southwest corner going homebound (March and April). Then, somebody figured out, golf was pretty safe with some precautions, which every course deciding what was “pretty safe” without any consistency whatsoever. Long live 2020, not only in crazy, but kicking it up a notch pretty damn close to idiocy.

Yet that has allowed us to have some relief. It just turned out last Tuesday was one of the coldest days in Bonita for quite a while. Somewhere around 5:50 when i left our house on the hill above the valley where the golf course abides, the thermometers read 42. i’m thinking “this is okay, it will warm up quickly. Wrong. As i drove through the entrance to the course, the outdoor temperature reading on my gauge read 38.

It didn’t feel like 38. It felt like it was Antartica. Before my second shot on the first hole, my hands like they were hanging in a meat freezer. For about five holes when i hit my shot, it felt like i was hitting a five-pound rock. It was not pretty. i was cursing myself for not buying some hand warmers or golf gloves. By the sixth hole, i began to feel like my hands were actually attached to my wrists. Before we finished the first nine, i was out of three layers of clothing and playing in my short sleeve shirt and trousers (i mean you folks have to live in the Southwest corner for a while to understand this weather). i think i got up a bit of a sweat by 13. But when i finished, there remained a tingling in my fingers.

Pete and i made an oath to not play before 8:00 a.m. between November and March. i’m guessing this vow may last a couple of weeks. But a couple of weeks is a chunk shorter than 42 years between my round with Bill McFall and this one.

But i’m old and now bragging is sometimes more important than my golf score or frozen slabs for hands.

Merry Christmas…and in memory of Jeff Caplenor, if you have a chance, play a round of golf.

Cold is relative.

Well, it ain’t as good as i would like it to be, and it took about two weeks longer than i planned. When i hung it up this afternoon, i’m a’ thinkin’ folks passing by would laugh at the amateurish attempt.

In spite of my great adventure of the Christmas event i wrote about earlier, NOEL has deep roots for me. Colonel James “Jimmy” “Alligator” Lynch and i put his up on his front porch roof in the mid-70’s. i almost got electrocuted and almost slid off the roof of 911 South Main in Paris, Texas. But the idea stuck.

i like the simple message. This year, i went with a lighter model and green lettering rather than white. i will continue to tinker. Fooling with Christmas tree lights is a lot more complicated than it should be.

Still, it’s mine and says what i want to say about this Christmas season:

Merry Christmas and NOEL!

This year, Christmas seems excessively not so merry. If you have been reading any posts here, you will understand, i’m not particularly happy with this pandemic thing halting my travels. We cancelled our October trip to Austin to see daughter Blythe, grandson Sam, and son-in-law Jason in Austin. We won’t see them at Christmas. Nor will we get to go back to my hometown or Nashville. And the tradition of Christmas on top of Signal Mountain is down the tubes. Even worse, there is a slight possibility of a white Christmas up that mountain outside of Chattanooga, making the non-travel even worse.

Then, my iPhone started dying. Obsolescence is built into these products so obsolescent folks can curse and wish for the good ole days when the phones were on the wall with a live operator and a party line.

My supposedly wonderful brand new, gadget rigged for Star Wars Mac Air laptop does not like me, and apparently doesn’t care for “Apple Care” reps or the folks at their stores. It refuses to do what they keep trying to fix and is annoying as hell. Not to mention, the fixes those folks have induced, has wiped out my system and passwords  and re-implementing programs has been one giant continuing headache. Worse, i can’t get to the next level and have to go through the same routine with no solution each time i contact those Apple folks.

My “NOEL” sign had some problems and i have tried to improve with a new sign. It sucks, in my opinion, and i will explain that in a later post.

Now, there is thing about presents. i’m never very good at it. Seems like everyone else is generous, inventive, and giving me things i really appreciate. i just don’t seem to have that knack, so even if i am going overboard in some respects, i just don’t seem to measure up to people i care about and their gifts.

And my golf game suggests i should just give it up. It’s that bad.

So this afternoon, i said screw it (after hanging and looking at the disastrous “NOEL” sign), sat down to this infernal machine, and put on some music while trying to get some other million things intended done. i put on some music.

Thank you, Ike. And thank you, Blythe. You see, more years than i can count ago, Blythe sent me this CD as a gift. It was a studio album, “Here and Now” created by Ike Turner (no, not Eisenhower, but i still like Ike). If you like Blues or old style Rhythm and Blues (and i’m sure there are other genres associated, which are beyond my ken), this is an incredible album. It is the blues, Ike Turner style. And it’s real.

i started listening as i began to fool with this machine. Then, the third cut, “You Can’t Winnum All” came on. i stopped and just listened. In all of his and our dark times, we just get caught up in the negative. Bad happens. It’s life. We need to accept that and move on.

i feel much better now. My feet have been tapping. i have a smile. Perhaps if you listen, you will feel better also.

Thank you, Ike, and thank you, Blythe.

And to all, a Merry Christmas: