Several days ago, i stumbled upon a link to a “Dawg Sports” article entitled “Why I Hate Vanderbilt” written by “DawgOutWest,” an obvious alias (or whatever they call them nowadays) to keep the author from revealing who he really is. i think…no, i hope he was trying to be funny. He wasn’t. His article was ignorant, and mean. i guess that is required to be a fan of a particular college football team. i mean who would want anyone to know their name if what they were writing reads like they are an idiot.

i kept thinking i should respond but also kept putting it off.

i root for all SEC football teams because that is where i’m from and i grew up on that football. i root for Tennessee every game except when they play Vanderbilt because i grew up idolizing triple threat tailback Johnny “The Drum”Major and fullback Tom Bronson, and later the Canale brothers, George, Frank, and Whit in the early 60’s. Of course, Vanderbilt is my hope, not only because i went there, but because i think they are trying to be competitive and win the right way, or as the late and very special Vanderbilt Vice Chancellor for Athletics said, “The Vandy Way.”

i don’t demean other schools or their fans except, of course, when i run into someone going over the top in stupid.

i’m just sad that such yahoos as DawgOutWest feel it’s a good thing to be irresponsibly negative about other schools, apparently believing this makes him a good fan of his (or her) college football team.

Then this morning as usual i read Sean Dietrich’s post. i share it here primarily because it is funny . His anecdote about the Georgia and Auburn football fans sparked me to finally make my response to DawgOutWest’s article.

i have included the link to Sean’s post”

https://seandietrich.com/imperfect/

Thank  you, Sean.

For those of you who are over the top Georgia Bulldog fans or wish to read something mean and stupid, i have included the DawgSports article as well:

https://www.dawgsports.com/2019/8/26/20832858/georgia-vanderbilt-vandy-sucks-uga-football-uga-versus-vandy-why-i-hate-vanderbilt-dawgs-on-top

Evelyn Drummond is one of my favorite people. She worked with Maureen as “account executives” at Parron Hall Office Interiors.

Evelyn is a blonde. A natural blonde. She loves blonde jokes.

Carl works at the pro shop at North Island’s Sea ‘n Air golf course. He is a great guy.

After our round on Friday while, per tradition, the curmudgeons sat on the patio with our traditional pitcher of beer, Carl approached us and told us a joke.

It was a great blonde joke…unless of course, you are one of those people who are super sensitive to words, phrases, and jokes you consider offensive and politically incorrect.

i read in the newspaper this morning, a new semi-pro baseball team in the Adirondacks is changing its nickname from “River Pigs” because some local folks, who are apparently super sensitive and politically correct to the point of stupid objected: “River Pigs” was the term used for loggers who were expert at breaking up logjams on the rivers, a very impressive and dangerous kind or work, and they took pride in their work and liked the moniker of “River Pigs.” But not those over sensitive folks in the Adirondacks. Oh no.

But when i heard Carl’s joke, i knew i had to retell it to Evelyn. i imagined her laughing that great laugh:

There is the blonde who walks into a library and comes up to the receptionist’s counter.

The blonde loudly explains, “I WANT A BIG MAC, AN ORDER OF FRIES, AND A LARGE COKE.”

The astounded and alarmed librarian quietly asks, “Can’t you see this is a library?”

The blonde looks around to see the shelves of books, pauses, and whispers, “i want a big mac, an order of fries, and a large coke.”

Enjoy, Evelyn.

It is still not finished.

There are the lights to hang. The hardscape needs a new finish. The teak table needs to have all of the aircraft soot cleaned off and should be lightly sanded before adding a sealant. i need to figure out a better place to hang the hammock. Extra shades need to be constructed to hang on the south and west corners to keep the sun out of the eyes for folks sitting there in the late afternoon.

i figure these finishing touches, based on the primary project, will take about six months. i’m planning to get it done in two weeks. Optimism versus experience.

But the major renovation is done. It was not easy. It ain’t Tennessee August hot. It ain’t Texas four or five months out of the year hot, but seventy-five to eighty for a seventy-five year old man is hot. And it was really sort of silly. Really.

The original idea was mine. i wanted a trellis not connected to the house. i had a very stupid run-in with the city’s “construction development” department at our previous home. We envisioned the Carolina jasmine vine growing over the top. My father, looking for a project during my parent’s annual pilgrimage to the Southwest corner to escape Tennessee winters, took it on.

What he created was unique, simple but really a piece of art. i did not want to ruin the effect by adding slats to encourage vine growth. Consequently, the vines didn’t grow. We were okay with that. It looked nice the way it was.

That was about twenty-six years ago. Wood outside in the Southwest corner can take some hits over twenty-six years, like termites and wood rot. It was time to fix it or tear it down for something else.

i am a sentimental old fool. It was mine and my father’s project, although he did the largest part of the work. So i replaced two cross beams, sanded and gouged out significant chunks of other beams, became a believer in “Plastic Wood,” and figured we could get at least fifteen, maybe even twenty more years out of it, and by that time, i wouldn’t care.

And so it began. i shall not go into the twists and the turns, but a week-long project adhered to my modus operandi: unforeseen problems, forgetfulness, wrong tools, interruptions, and on and on and on. And then, it dawned on me it would be a much nicer area to sit with sun shade screens on the top. Voila! An addition to the original project. It would have been funny if it had not been me. But i stuck to my guns. i did not take short cuts. i did not go buy fancy or even un-fancy tools i would use only once or twice. i did, except for the electric sander, our gardener, Paul Shipley, loaned me and used only sparingly, not use power tools. My father would have chided me for that: he was a practical man.

As i was finishing nailing the last sections of battens onto the shade with sweat darkening my tee shirt, i stopped.

It was almost as if he were talking to me. Jimmy Jewell seemed to be there. He did not speak. But i could feel him. From the top rung of my ladder, i looked up at the cloudless sky. Out loud, i said, “Thank you, Daddy (i don’t think i ever called him “Dad”).

i stared upwards. i could feel her too. i added, “Thank you, Mother (and i never called her “Mom”).”

i didn’t cry, but it was close.

And i thought of the world as it is today and how the things they taught me aren’t the ways of today’s world.

And i am glad i am stuck in their world (and mine) where a good job, hard work, taking care of things without malice on your own is really the reward.

So again, Thank you, Mother and Daddy.

i was a month away from my first and short marriage. i was not smart enough to realize what a stressful situation i would be putting my bride-to-be through, taking her out of Atlanta debutant equine loving environment to a place she would be alone while i traveled from our apartment in Newport to my ship in overhaul in Boston. Dumb. But i didn’t know it. i was in love (she understandably gave it up after just over four months).

So on that New England late summer morning driving to my ship, the USS Hawkins (DD-873), this poem came into my mind. 

Tonight i walked out to give Billie Holiday, Sarah’s Catahoula mix, a relief break after her evening meal. It was another of those glorious sunsets in San Diego. Being sensitive to giving someone too many sunset photos ever since my father jokingly admonished me for sending them one thousand or so sunset phots in Vietnam, i did not include a photo.

But the scene took me back to that August morning fifty years ago.

Late in Summer

palsied pink fingers: looming autumn clouds
gently tap
the horizon awake;
an infinite gray ribbon of highway
slashes through
green phosphorescent hills

non-think
embraces the drive;
his mind wanders
to pines and someone
far away.

cool solitude,
impervious to the immediate objective
excite brute loneliness:
thoughts of someone
gather as a gray storm
tumbles like a cascading stream
in his mind.

palsied pink fingers
curl to a fist;
enlightening rain
spits on the windshield
while far away
sweltering rays silhouette the pines.

Boston, Massachusetts
August 1968