With all of the craziness going on, it’s easy to forget what is going to be here Thursday. Ours has been even crazier in that when Maureen felt ill last week, the three of us went and were tested for COVID. It took a couple of days before our results came back negative. i was dreading two weeks, which some time ago, i had heard was the length for getting the results. But even four days can change your idea about self-quarantining. Still, we stuck to it because we simply did not want to endanger anyone else even if there was only a slight chance we would be doing so. Crazy.

But we, especially moi, didn’t forget. i like Thanksgiving, the whole idea, regardless of which history to which you subscribe about its beginnings or how your celebration might differ from others. It is still about giving thanks. So i’m going back and posting some past thoughts about Thanksgiving. This one was written during the 2016 Thanksgiving week.

Have a wonderful turkey day…and give thanks.

Note: the photo below was taken that Thanksgiving.

Christmas is the big family deal. Several of mine have been away from family. Navy, you know.

But i’ve pretty much blown the roof off when it comes to missing Thanksgiving with the family. Actually, it’s not that much. i have spent six Thanksgivings with shipmates either at sea or in some foreign port where whatever Thanksgiving there is is celebrated is on-board.

They were okay. Bittersweet and oh so lonely amongst my Navy friends, but okay.

There also have been about four or five where the celebrating has been with just my wife. This duo celebration seems to have increased in the last decade. That happens when you live in the Southwest corner and are growing older. i have found these to be almost as nice as the ones with large groups of family and friends. After all, i can be happy anytime i am spending time with just Maureen.

i like Thanksgiving. It is not an absolutely silly requirement to honor someone when we should be honoring those people all of the time, like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, President’s Day, Neighbor Day, Sibling Day, Fifth Cousin Day, Trash Man Day, and Lord knows what other group day. Thanksgiving doesn’t have the somber celebratory tone of Easter. It is not one of those national things we have hyped up to give everyone free time to play instead of work on Fridays or Mondays. It is not celebrating the birth of our nation like the Fourth, or honoring those who served like Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

It is not like Halloween, which has become sort of weird party for the kids to get all of the things they shouldn’t eat and now get them at some school or church instead of hitting all of the homes gone gonzo decorative with tombstones and bones of body parts sticking out of the yard — has the number of kids stopping by your house for “trick or treat” dwindled to a handful like it has at ours? — Still Halloween is fun for the kids and the kids in us so i’m okay with it.

And it’s not like Christmas, the big daddy of them all. Celebrating the birth of a savior, having as many family together as possible, waiting for the gift openings, hoping for snow, singing carols, giving each other more than just presents. Yeh, that one is special.

Thanksgiving is one i really like as well. It has morphed into a thing of itself from those pilgrims and indigenous folks getting together to thank each other (what a concept, huh?) with a big meal. Thus far, it hasn’t reach the massive ad campaign of just about every other holiday. There’s this appreciation factor that may be in the other celebrations but seems to get lost.

My favorite Thanksgivings runs the gamut of different settings.

One away from home that sticks in my mind is the one in Seoul, Korean, 1970. i was with Blythe’s mother’s family in their comfortable senior officer housing on base. The Lynch’s were always great at throwing parties and this one sticks out. We got up at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night to watch the Texas, Texas A&M football game. Blythe’s mother and i weren’t even engaged yet. The Lynch’s were allowing me respite from my cycle of carrying Korean troops back and forth between Pusan and Vietnam.

Then there was the one in Naples, 1972. In August, i had returned to active duty and flown to meet my new ship, the USS Stephen B. Luce (DLG 7) a month after Blythe was born. i don’t even remember the onboard celebration, but i do remember the loneliness when i called from the Naples base phone exchange and talked to wife and family. There’s not many things more lonely that hanging up a phone late on Thanksgiving night after talking to the mother of your infant daughter.

Then, there was the one on Yosemite. Man, that was a some feast. We were anchored off of Masirah, Oman (a total of 55 days at sea). Our supply department did us up fine. We even had that Martinelli’s sparkling cider (white) and apple-grape (red) instead of wine. That wardroom of forty-four officers celebrated just like we were family…because we were.

Then there were the quiet ones with Maureen. We always picked one of our favorite restaurants. And we thanked each other for being each other and together. Doesn’t get much more thankful than that.

The Tennessee Thanksgivings will remain special in my memory. They were in all of the places of family. There were those at our house. The old folks and the older children were crammed around the dining room table. Before the family room had been added, the younger kids ate on a card table in the breakfast niche, then later at the oak table in the breakfast room. The womenfolk cooked like there was no tomorrow and it was all good.

Then there was the same going-ons when we held our celebration at the Hall’s home on Wildwood and later Waggoner. We would go to Red Bank in Chattanooga where the Orr’s hosted the feast of Prichard women, almost like the two in Lebanon, but quite a bit larger (we all sat at the dining room table) and a bit more elegant. Then on numerous Thanksgivings, we would travel to Rockwood to be with Mama Orr. It was an incredibly fascinating Victorian labyrinth of a home with a downhill across the street where we would find large pieces of cardboard and slide down (or without cardboard simply roll and roll and roll down that hill.

Ah, memories.

But far and away, there was one Thanksgiving i love the most. Here. The Southwest corner. 2007. Sam was seven months old. His first Thanksgiving. My family was together. Maureen’s sister and her family joined us. i smoked a turkey. It was a warm and dry day, not the full-blown beyond hot and dry today, but nice. Our family was together. That was enough.

Later today, we will drive over the bay bridge to Coronado. We will celebrate with Pete and Nancy Toennies and their family. After all, we are about as close to family with the Toennies as anyone can get.

It will be a nice way to give thanks.

i hope everyone i know has a wonderful Thanksgiving in their own way. i hope all of us will stop for just a minute. Not watching football. Not eating a ton of turkey. . Not pontificating about the state of the world and our country. Just pausing to give thanks for what we have had and what we have.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

For those of you who may have missed it, this post is a tradition, as much as honoring “Coach” JB Leftwich as it is something i cherish. The dog in this story is one of my best friends ever.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING…in trying times.

Last year’s post is below in it’s entirety. i should note i did try my “egg” grill knockoff last year and the results was one of the best smoked turkeys yet.

Wow! i have a tradition.

Actually, i have a bunch of traditions, some of them are closer to superstition, some are just to keep some folks happy, and a few, like this one, are mine, all mine.

The more i think about it, the more i like this tradition. It’s sort of in line with JB Leftwich, the Coach’s tradition. Every year about this time but just a tad later, Coach would write one of his weekly columns for The Lebanon Democrat about a fruit cake recipe. i think it was a fruit cake, and i’m pretty sure it was his mother’s, but i am too lazy to look it up this morning. But i like the idea of following in Coach’s footsteps. It’s hard to go wrong that way.

The below is from last year’s post. i should add i still cling to Mr. Dickel’s version of sour mash even though the Prichard brand with a distillery up in Kelso, Tennessee, must have some family connection. Both Jo Doris and Estelle carried the maiden name of Prichard, and it’s without the “t,” which makes them fairly unique. Someday, someday, i will find the Prichard family connection among the Leftwich’s, the Jewell’s, and  the distillery.

This, i think, is my new tradition.

i wrote this recipe (sic) in 1990. i now am the Turkey Smoking Go-To at the Jewell household whenever we have Thanksgiving here with more than two people (If it’s just Maureen and i we find a very nice restaurant usually without a turkey dinner).

i have published this a couple of times in The Democrat and posted it here several times. There is a more serious version with more exact directions, but i forget where it is every year and wing it. i was going to blow off putting it out in the newspaper or on the web this year, when Bill Goodner described how he smoked his turkey, i remembered turkey smoking being a JB Leftwich family Thanksgiving or Christmas tradition for Jim and Jack to smoke a turkey while tending to it with a Prichard whiskey in  hand (it used to be George Dickel, and i still stick to the Tullahoma brand). My brother-in-law Daniel Boggs and my nephew Bill Boase, pride themselves on technically correct smoking.

Well, i ain’t technical. i use an old Weber smoker, not as good as my smaller original like Jimmy Lynch used back when, but my smaller one rusted out about twenty years ago and you just can’t find them anymore. So now i add charcoal and chips throughout the process.

A couple of months ago, we got a new Komodo dragon grill…just kidding: it’s  a knock off of a “Big Green Egg” smoker Char-Griller dubbed the “King Griller Akorn Kamado Kooker” (“kamado” is the term used for a Japanese smoker, which looks like an egg). Therefore, i could become more technical. But i am a sentimentalist, and getting up in the wee hours of the morning to start the coals, top them with the soaked hickory chips (i tried mesquite chips once, but i’m from Tennessee: hickory chips are the only chips), put the turkey on the grill, pour the marinade from the bucket over the turkey and into the drip/water pan, and then tending to the fire and chips randomly and very carefully throughout the day gives me a sense of fulfillment.

i am learning the awesome powers of my Komodo dragon knockoff grill and have found grilling steaks, pork chops, etc. is great, and i plan to to expand to seafood, fish, and Cornish game hens in the near future, but i think i’ll stick to my old smoker for the turkey.

So Bill, i don’t think i can be of much help on electric smokers, but it i thought you might like this recipe. This year, there is no dog. When i put Lena, my last one down, i vowed not to have another dog until i was sure it would outlive me and put me down rather than vice versa. i still want to have a dog again, but not for helping me smoke a turkey.

Dec 10, 1990, 10:36 pm

SAN DIEGO—Holidays, except for the weather, are pretty much the same for me out here in the southwest corner or back in Tennessee. To start, no one will let me smoke the turkey.

When I was growing up in Lebanon, and every time I return there for a holiday, my mother cooks the turkey. When there are only a few of us there, she makes a chicken taste like a turkey. She roasts the turkey, or the chicken, in the oven, and it comes complete with dressing and gravy. When we have a holiday out here, my wife cooks the turkey the same way my mother cooks the turkey. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I volunteer to cook the turkey. Every year, whether in Tennessee or out here in the Southwest corner, whoever is in charge of turkeys says no. They profess to love the turkey the way I fix it, but they say another time would be better. They say they want a traditional turkey.

I picked up turkey cooking while I was spending some considerable time about two-thirds of the way between here in the southwest corner and Tennessee. The Colonel, grandfather of my oldest daughter, lived up in Paris, Texas, and he fed me my first smoked turkey. I loved it. Since then, I have modified his recipe somewhat and do cook one fine smoked turkey. Since I can’t have it out here or in Tennessee, I thought someone with fewer traditionalists in their immediate family might like to have the recipe to try for the holidays.

Smoking a Turkey

INGREDIENTS:

1. This is fairly important to the success of the whole affair. Pick a good one. The critical part is to make sure it will fit in the smoker
2. 1 container large enough to hold the turkey and cover it with the magic elixir. I’ve been known to use a plastic bucket, but sometimes the dog gets upset as we normally use it for his water dish. This is okay as long as we stay out of biting reach of the dog for two or three days.
3. 1 smoker, probably any kind that claims to be a smoker and any number of possible jury rigs would work; however, if I were using a “Weber” or like vessel, I would make sure that there was extra water in the smoker).
4. 1 bottle of beer. Beer in longnecks is preferable but one should not become too concerned about the type of beer as “Lone Star” is a bit too elegant for this type of cooking. Besides, we wouldn’t want to waste a beer worth drinking on some dumb turkey. If one is desperate and doesn’t mind subjecting oneself to abject humiliation, it is permissible to stoop to using a can of beer.
5. 1\2 cup of Madeira. Again, I wouldn’t be overly concerned about the quality of the wine, and in truth, any red wine is probably okay. However, I would stay away from “Night Train” wine as it has been known to eat through barbecue grills, smokers, and anything made of material weaker than that used in hulls of nuclear submarines.
6. Angostura bitters
7. Worcestershire sauce
8. Chili powder
9. Oregano
10. Sage
11. Honey
12. Molasses
13. Undoubtedly, there are numerous items that I have forgotten to list here, but that’s okay as it really depends on what your individual taste is — I don’t suggest substituting low fat milk for the beer, but most everything else is probably okay — and if it’s really important, I’ll realize I left it out when I get to the narrative of how to use all this stuff and include the forgotten ingredient there.

PREPARATION:

Thaw the turkey. Take all those weird things that they put in those plastic packages inside the turkey and cook them in a skillet without the plastic packages, turning them frequently. Then feed what you just cooked to the dog. It might placate him enough to keep him from biting you for taking away his water bucket. If there are traditionalists in the bunch, give the stuff to them rather than the dog and let them make gravy.

Put the turkey in large container. Pour beer and Madeira over turkey. If you have not allowed about 24 hours for the turkey to thaw or about 8-12 hours for marinating the turkey, call your invited guests and advise them that the celebration will be about two days later than indicated on the original invitation.

Sprinkle other ingredients over the turkey. Be plentiful. It’s almost impossible to get too much.

Crunch the garlic cloves I didn’t mention in the ingredients and add to the container. I normally use about four normal sized cloves for a normal sized turkey. Also add the previously omitted bay leaves, about 6-8 for that same normal sized bird.

Add enough water to cover the turkey although it probably wouldn’t be a disaster if a leg partially stuck out. Then put the container in a safe place, unless of course, you want the dog to be rapturously happy and not bite you until long after his teeth have fallen out.

Allow to sit undisturbed for 6-10 hours (longer is better and ten hours is not necessarily the upper limit but exceeding ten hours may have some impact on when you either eat or get tired of the turkey taking up all that safe space).

Put the turkey on smoker grill above water pan after lighting the charcoal (one or two coals burning well is the best condition for the charcoal) and placing soaked hickory chips, which I also forgot to mention, earlier on the charcoal — again, be plentiful — after soaking the chips for at least 30 minutes. Pour remaining magic elixir over the turkey into the water pan. Add as much water to the water pan as possible without overflowing and putting out the fire below. Cover. Do not touch. Do not look. Do not peek…unless it doesn’t start to smoke in about thirty minutes. Then peek. If it’s smoking, leave alone for at least six hours for a large normal sized turkey. It is almost impossible to overcook if you have added enough water at the outset. You should check and add water or charcoal throughout the process. I have found that mesquite charcoal is the best, as it burns hotter. Regular charcoal will do fine but will require more checking.

The secret to the whole process is to cook extremely slow, as slow as possible and still start the fire.

Serve turkey, preferably without the garlic cloves or bay leaves. Now is the time for “Night Train” wine or the good beer. Serve “Night Train” very cold as indicated on the label.

The turkey’s also good cold.

Shoot the dog.

It seems i’m always making excuses to you, and myself as well, about why i’m not posting more. i have five posts in the hopper, one of which is a summary of the others. Book writing, responding to comments on my website, home projects, paying attention to my wife, connecting and reconnecting with friends and family. And of course, there is a lot of golf in there.

For this, i can wait no longer.

The news came a couple of days ago. i’m still dealing with it. It hit me harder than some others. Frank Novick passed away.

It was unexpected, staph infection and sepsis. He suffered for about three weeks. From my perception, Frank was one of the healthier of our group of golfers, primarily old telephone guys. He was one of the nicest guys in the group. He would distribute grapefruits from his tree to the other golfers. Just a caring, nice guy.

Just over a month ago, he noticed the face of my putter was scraped. He gave me one he had just like mine. The last time i saw him, i showed him how i had switched shafts and was putting better. He told me to keep it until he asked for it back, and then he said it was mine. i offered to pay for it and he said if i wanted i should get the trade-in price from Golf Mart and that would be fine.

i still have the twenty bucks in my wallet (the store told me they would give me $14.00). i have committed to using that putter for the rest of my golf playing in honor of Frank.

Before Frank became ill, that golf group lost another. James Clark was fun. He was the treasurer and one of the folks that made San Diego Telco Golf work. James had battled kidney problems for a number of years. He certainly wasn’t a great golfer but he loved to talk about his game, and he was a loyal part of the group. And boy, did he enjoy a good laugh, even if the joke was on himself.

i thought he was doing okay with his illness until that bad news came.

Damn.

There are other friends and family who are gone and many who have serious illnesses and physical ailments. They are in my age group, although most are younger than me. It happens. I am old. My two golfing groups have been around for longer than thirty years and we weren’t spring chickens when i joined them.

As i mulled my sadness at my loss of these golf friends and others, i remembered a poem (sic) i wrote after observing my parents in their mid-90’s one evening:

Waiting Grace

the old folks sit in the too warm room,
television images blink randomly,
the mute button silences the room
although they do not know as the hearing aids
lie on their respective tables with other
paraphernalia required for the elderly;
they sit knowing the time will come soon:
waiting grace.
Noble,
Sad,
All is right with the world.
They and the remaining few of their generation
know how to demonstrate
waiting grace.
No threat, no fret, no fear
shows in their continence:
they do what they can and
what they can decreases perceptively daily,
faculties fade and with the fading,
the joys of their industry escaping slowly:
waiting grace.
They have endured the test of time when
times were harder and
simpler and
they hold to those codes of right and
simplicity and
goodness to the neighbor, friend and
to service:
waiting grace.

i just hope i have the strength, the hope, the patience, and the grace of my mother and father in these coming years.

oh brother, oh brother,

oh brother, oh brother,
what is to become of me?
i find myself a’drifting
on a ship in the black wild sea;
the night is dark,
the wind conflicted,
the seas confused,
like me.

oh brother, oh brother,
do you hear my plea far, far away
from where we used to be?
as the strange calm is brewing
what i suspect is the center of low,
i face the wind on the starboard wing
throwing my right arm back
to find where that center ought to be;
the nefarious wind keeps shifting;
in turn, i spin in fruitless pursuit
of finding the eye’s beginning
when i realize my ship and i
are amidst the eye a’spinning.

oh brother, oh brother,
this is not dire history
similar to Wordworth’s Leonard and James,
yet Time is intertwined with the sea,
beautiful in its calm,
beautiful in its fury,
with Time merged into the deep, dark waters.

oh brother, oh brother,
one of us did not wander
onto the waters of Time,
nor lose his soul in the spume of the waves:
that was me;
you remained on solid ground,
helping others find their souls,
not losing yours.

as Time slips by and never slips at all,
as age grows upon us,
i have returned from the sea,
my ships are scrapped or down,
down, down in the deep;
the winds on the main have calmed;
the seas are rolling gently;
i can see the stars:
they are Time as well;
the heavens sparkle away the dark;
Time is here,
oh brother, oh brother.

There are a lot of things not right with this world right now. It’s been that way pretty much throughout history: a sine wave of good and bad. Right now, it seems we are on the deep end of that curve. Our country keeps missing the fact we are pretty much evenly divided on how we should run this country and each side trying to bully their way into dominance rather than sitting down, conversing, and trying to do what’s right…for all of us.

Sad.

In the meantime, there is a college athletic program that is struggling. The minor sports are doing well but football and basketball are trying to compete in an environment not conducive to the true “student-athlete” concept of college sports.

Yet this school keeps trying. One sport is, according to moi, doing it the way it should be done in all of college athletics. The coach, Tim Corbin, is a model for doing it “the right way, the Vandy Way” as David Williams, a man who lived his own motto to perfection, described perfection.

This afternoon, Larry “Coach” Creekmore sent this link to me along with other brothers from our fraternity days at Vanderbilt . The bunch remains close, mostly through Vanderbilt sports, which more and more revolves around Vandy Boys baseball.

i am trying to put myself back at 13 with all my dreams and not anything near the athletic talent of Dylan Adams but sharing those dreams of being a college athlete. But i never reached that goal, not close. i certainly didn’t have the obstacles Dylan faced in his final days.

So Creekmore was right when he said i needed to pull out the Kleenex. This is a story of the way it should be, sad but positive.  Vandy’s baseball coach keeps proving an athletic program can be successful doing it “The Right Way, the Vandy Way.”

i don’t care what college team in any sport you root for, or even the professional sports teams you choose to follow.  Your team should be motivated to be what Vandy was for this young man and his team, and his community. All coaches, managers, directors, support staff, and the athletes themselves should strive to recognize their impact on so many fans.

Coaching icons were and are wrong when they promote “winning is the only thing.”  Grantland Rice was correct when he wrote “it’s how you play the game.”

i think this story and Vanderbilt baseball proves Grantland Rice and David Williams were right on.

Thank you, Dylan Adams; thank you, Coach Corbin; thank you, Adam Sparks of the Nashville Tennessean.

It was a good cry.

Let’s keep trying to do it the right way:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/college/vanderbilt/2020/11/05/vanderbilt-baseball-uniforms-dylan-adams-cancer-kumar-rocker/6073456002/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=keywee-retargeting&gps-source=adkwtnr&utm_content=dolookalikegeneral&kwp_0=1801974&kwp_4=5271536&kwp_1=2248219&fbclid=IwAR1IKDIA4jie3xKZvNuR2zUlCrbK0vhz7ZeSHXPc-DvLIPVl3XtWPOFsd1c