i’m pretty sure i first read The Unvanquished in high school. Most likely it was during my senior year at Castle Heights (1961-62). i’m guessing i started reading it in the library’s second floor stacks, sitting on the floor resting my back against the shelves. i experienced several wonderful, escaping-from-the-world reads up there like that, looking down on the lobby with study desks and the large one just beneath me where Major Hurd sat and ruled over the Rutherford Parks Library.

i think James Street’s The Biscuit Eater (1941) was the first one i read up there. The second was The Etruscan by Mika Waltari (1956). i believe i read both in one sitting each. The Etruscan may have taken two sittings. i was enthralled and thrilled with both.

Then, i picked out William Faulkner’s The Unvanquished. i began reading it up in those wonderful stacks, but had to check it out. i finished late that next early morning under my bedcovers with a flashlight and the small desk radio playing WCLA’s blues for the night.

It was my first experience with Faulkner. i was blown away. i don’t think my Heights’ English professors pointed me to it. Major Lindsey Donnell, freshman; Captain Robert Morgan, sophomore; Major Paul Wooten, junior; or the famed Major Tom Harris, senior all were capable of such a thing. i was always amazed at their ability not only to teach me English and literature, but making me think. Still, i don’t think they were responsible for my becoming an avid Faulkner fan.

It doesn’t matter. The Unvanquished gave me a depth of understanding as a great grandson of a Confederate soldier. The understanding and revelation of all aspects of the Civil War in the South took me into a place i had not grasped yet.

There are those who with no real understanding of humanity who will reject The Unvanquished as racist with hatred, not comprehending the complexity of many levels of the relationships between caucasians and negroes, poor freemen, and aristocracy of the South. Faulkner explores their humanity, their faults and their evil and their goodness.

In December 1967, i staying briefly with my friend John B. Johnson in New York City. Yanch was pursuing his joint masters in journalism and business. i was on Christmas leave from Navy OCS in Newport headed for two weeks back home in Lebanon. We were invited to a Christmas party by the parents of our good friends, Alan and Jim Hicks. Dr. Hicks and his wife were fixtures in NYC. The party was at their home on 95th and Park Avenue.

It was a gala affair. i enjoyed myself immensely, and as often, had a wee too much Tennessee whiskey. i found myself in a conversation with an erudite and nice gentleman in the middle of the living room. When he heard my accent, we wandered into a discussion of Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren. He asked me why i thought Southern writers wrote so well with deep feeling. i pondered for a few seconds and then replied.

i think writers in the South have a deep conflict within themselves about a wonderful society of pride and even goodness and the aberration of the inherent wrong of slavery. Dealing with the inhumanity of an institutional wrong and the humanity of each human within it, creates a culture inducing an environment of introspection. Or something like that. i’m sure nowhere near as in depth as my recall here.

He responded, “I always wonder about that. My best writers are from the South. We parted. Someone informed me that he was editor in chief of Newsweek. i still wish i had asked him for a job.

i think William Faulkner captured that anguish, that conflict of all thoughtful folks in the South in The Unvanquished. My reread had more of an impact, i think, on me, than the previous times i read it a long, long time ago.

i recommend it.

Thursday, May 22, Maureen and i watched Samuel James Jewell Gander receive his high school diploma.

His mother and father, Blythe Jewell Gander and Jason were there. His other grandparents, Carol and Bob Shea from Clearwater Florida, and his special Aunt Sassy, our other daughter Sarah Jewell Withers were also there. The family of Leigh and Wally Cook were represented by Leigh and their son and daughter, a close family relationship since i can remember, including Spencer and Gracie, their son and daughter. Wally stayed at home to cook the barbecue for the post graduation party. We sat proudly, and a little unruly, in Austin’s HEB center along with about 4,000 other relatives and friends (a guess on the number) of the 500 or so graduates. It was grand, nostalgic, hopeful, encouraging for the graduates…and long.

But time didn’t matter. My grandson Sam was graduating along with 600 other seniors. The new showcase for sports and events

When i sat down, the first thing i did was look for Sam’s name in the program. When i found it, i became quiet and felt tears of pride: “Samuel James Jewell Gander.” His two middle names are for my father, Jimmy Jewell. i sat there trying to channel Daddy because i wanted so much for him to be sitting in the empty seat beside me.

That feeling lasted throughout the ceremony and into the following celebration.

As the highest achievers in the class made their speeches to us, i recognized being my age is a good thing in many ways. i sat there and remembered my graduation at Castle Heights and compared. It was a different world back then.

i thought of the feeling of completion and accomplishment my fellow cadets and i experienced. as we received our diplomas. Time changes things and this group who were tossing their tassels from the right side to the left surely had the same sense of accomplishment and completion.

The Heightsmen of 1962 had hopes, goals, and dreams for what was ahead. These young men and women have theirs. Their journey will have more uncertainty, more knowledge about so many things, more assistance to get there, more choices, and many more obstacles than that 100 or so young men in uniforms in Lebanon, Tennessee so, oh so long ago.

i also had this strong desire to let Sam’s grandmother Kathie he called “Nene” know i was there with her precious grandson and how much she had contributed to Sam’s journey.

Sam will be a camp counselor again this summer. Then, he will head for Savannah, Georgia, to pursue a degree in interior design at the prestigious Savannah College for Art and Design (SCAD). Needless to say, i am very proud to be his grandfather. i know he will succeed in life and that is most important: living well.

Congratulations, Sam. You go, man.

papa.

i have not posted a great deal lately. Up until Tuesday, that was primarily due to compiling my poems written since i published A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems in 2014. That project was completed last week. Tuesday was the beginning of a superb version of up time that has produced another down time for writing.

Maureen and i flew to Austin and will fly home Saturday. There is not going to be very much writing going on. Grandson Samuel James Jewell Gander graduates from high school tomorrow. His two sets of grandparents, his aunt and our daughter Sarah, and, of course, his parents will attend the ceremony and celebrate Sam and the rest of us being together until we depart.

We have a wonderful young man who is growing up well on our hands. This fall, Sam will be attending the prestigious Savannah College for Art and Design with the goal of becoming an interior designer. It is a joy for me to see him focused on a career.

So, i am simply enjoying the moments experiencing Sam moving on the next phase of his life. Now, that’s up time big time.

You go for it, Sam.