This is one of the more difficult things i have had to write in some time. i sit at this  damnable electronic marvel, strum my fingers across the keyboard not hard enough to print a letter on the screen, and resort to my usual excuse to do absolutely nothing useful playing spider solitaire. It’s that time now. i need to get to it. It’s not easy.

You see, playing golf yesterday, he told me he wouldn’t be playing with us anymore, adding he had cancer. Being me, i thought he was joking after a pretty bad couple of holes. My cart buddy quietly admonished me. There was no joke. Our golfing partner really had cancer. And it didn’t look good.

It’s been a long time since i have been so shocked. As we played, i learned more. Then when we joined our other players in the clubhouse dining area, he told the group of seven the extent of the bad news. It was much worse than i thought.

Harvey Hathaway’s stage four pancreatic cancer has spread to his liver and his stomach. The only possible treatment is chemotherapy. With it, his prognostication for living is somewhere around eight months. Without chemo, the number shrinks to three months. Oh, there have been miracles of cancer patients surviving much longer than predicted, even beating it, and i am praying this will be another miracle story.

But it doesn’t look good.

Harvey is one of the nicest guys i know. He is a retired cop. One job he had was a security guy for Hugh Hefner and quite often his job was to escort and protect the Playboy Bunnies at Hef’s Los Angeles mansion. From Harvey’s account, he never strayed from his job for some dilly dallying and became friends with a number of the bunnies. Harvey is so nice i believe him totally.

Harvey and i have had a running joke for a couple of years. We often play partners with Marty Marion and Jim Hileman. That means two against two with each hole worth two possible points. Each six holes, we switch partners. Harvey began as a pretty high handicapper but kept improving. When we were partners, he would not play very well, and since playing well is not my usual profile, this never went well and we nearly always lost that six holes. Then Harvey and i would be have different partners. Harvey’s play would greatly improve and mine would go in the opposite direction. The result inevitably would be me losing all three partner matches and Harvey winning two.

i jokingly called it the “Harvey curse” until i about half-way believed it. i brought it up every time we played together. Harvey and i would share a laugh.

“Harvey” is a great name for Harvey. He reminds me of another Harvey, the title character in the movie. Actually, my Harvey seems to be a cross between the pooka, a six foot, three and half inches tall rabbit also named Harvey and the movie Harvey’s running mate, Elwood P. Dowd, the character played by Jimmy Stewart. If you can imagine that combination, you have a real good idea of what i think of Harvey Hathaway. He’s winsome.

He also is, from my perspective, going through this the right way. He is letting people know. He is from a time and has been in a profession where giving up and feeling sorry aren’t part of the agenda. He’s Harvey. He is approaching his situation with dignity. This is what i would expect from Harvey.

After our round and lunch of sliders, i began to drive home. My shock had worn off. i wanted to cry. i wanted to scream. i wanted it to rain so i could do what i did when one of the most wonderful women in the world passed away from breast cancer fifty-six years ago. i was a freshman in college when i learned my best friend’s mother, Virginia Harding had succumbed.

When i came home from Nashville for the funeral, i ran, an abnormal thing for me at the time, from my house to Henry’s where i had spent more time than anywhere else other than our house, about a half-mile. It was raining. i was sprinting at full speed, i screamed with tears running down my face. i hated the world for letting this terrible loss occur. It was fruitless. i knew it. But i needed to deal with it my way.

Well, Harvey isn’t gone yet, and god willing, he could beat this. But driving home, that’s how i felt. How could whatever powers of good that are let this happen to one of the nicest people i have ever met?

i have lived long enough to know that is not how the world works. But this one still stinks.

Oh yes, Harvey and i won our six holes. The curse is broken. Maybe that is a good omen for what is next.

Harv, if you need me, i will be there anytime, anywhere.

Yesterday “Writer’s Almanac” began with this poem. In my case, the directions are a little catawampus, and there are a couple of other statements a bit off their mark for my situation, but it made me think of my two daughters and me, and how i love them even though they are in different stages of leaving me, or perhaps my leaving them. So in my usual fashion, i teared up a bit because i believe — oh how i believe and hope while trying to believe — this  is best for them and that we are easing “into a rhythm where the plains of her life (their lives), of mine, drift buoyant, open, rising without words, hours, or habits—new country.” And the tears before reaching culmination turn into a smile of love.

The Way West
by Raphael Kosek

My daughter is driving
across the continent, eating cheddar
in Wisconsin, waking to a cougar’s yellow
rasp, sleeping tentless
in a corn field where a mysterious

insect leaves a sore story of welts
over her face, her neck—
she is off my radar, and it feels like
part of me is floating off the map,
past the flannel of sleep, the safety

of novels—I hear the wind over her phone,
constant. The wind, her voice
informs me, never stops blowing in South Dakota
where the Black Hills are not really black
but green and grey like Cezanne’s mountains.

Her hair glistens with a mid-American
sweat I have never felt, her car
runs into the different hours
of a different night. We have
lost the clock between us, the familiar

gone strange. Prairie, so flat, she says,
you can see the sun for a long time.
I feel something flatten out between us—
and ease into a rhythm where the plains
of her life, of mine, drift

buoyant, open, rising without words,
hours, or habits—
new country.

This morning, i received the below in an email from Marty Marion, one of my golfing buddies. i thought all of you friends and family who might still wonder why we stay in the Southwest corner might better understand by reading this. i add Tennessee to where friends or family have moved (#27).

i also add because of the Navy, i saw a pretty good chunk of the world. Based on a score of one to ten, as Bo Derek was once a “10” in beautiful women, most places have more “10” days in terms of weather than San Diego because of a relative comparison to the other days they have. But there is no place in the world has more 7’s, 8’s, and 9’s than San Diego.

Example: It is November 2. Last night our low slightly dipped in the 40’s. When we arose, we had to wear a long sleeve garment around the house but didn’t need to turn on the heat. This afternoon, it will be in the mid-70’s. And it is cool enough at night for a fire in the fireplace. Give or take five degrees, this daily pattern will continue for the next four months.

Thanks, Marty.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM SAN DIEGO WHEN…

You can correctly pronounce Tierrasanta, La Jolla, Rancho Penesquitos, San Ysidro, Otay Mesa, Jamul, and El Cajon, and know where they are.
2. There are four distinct seasons: Summer, Not Quite Summer, Almost Summer, and “Oh, Hey look its summer again”.
3. Your house is worth more than some small countries.
4. You know what MB, OB, and PB stand for.
5. Every street name is either in Spanish or Spanish related, and
you’re surprised when other areas don’t have this.
6. You see weather forecasts for four different climate zones in the
same county and aren’t remotely surprised.
7. You remember going to “The Cross” on Mt. Helix for Easter services.
8. You’ve tailgated at Qualcomm Stadium, and for bonus points, also tailgated when it was Jack Murphy Stadium.
9. You know that “charge!” doesn’t refer to a credit card.
10. You remember going downtown via Federal Blvd. before Hwy 94 was built.
11. You remember when Hwy 94 was 2 lanes in each direction.
12. You still call it the Del Mar Fair.
13. You say “I’m going to the track” and people know what you’re talking about.
14. You remember when Lemon Grove, La Mesa, and Spring Valley were “in the sticks.”
15. You understand what May-gray and June-gloom means.
16. There’s a North County, South County, and an East County but no Central County.
17. You know what “the merge” is and will plan your entire day around not being on it during rush hour.
18. You know the difference between Clairmont Mesa, Kearny Mesa, and Mira Mesa.
19. You’ve gone to Sea World on a warm day and sat in the first few rows at the Shamu Show to get cooled off.
20. You’ve been delayed at the Border Checkpoints on the 5, the 8 and the 15.
21. Your house doesn’t have or need air conditioning unless you live in the East County.
22. No matter what the weather is, there is always someone walking around in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops.
23. You’ve been to the desert, the mountains, and the beach all in one day.
24. You know that Santee and Lakeside is where the “cowboys” live.
25. You hate tourists and their bad driving. (But you don’t know how to drive in the rain.)
26. You’ve gone to the Zoo just to hang out.
27. You have family or friends that have moved to Arizona, Nevada, Utah Texas, or Colorado.
28. You know what the “Santa Anas” are and that they have nothing to do with the city of Santa Ana.
29. You know what “real Mexican food” tastes like.
30. You remember when “Mission Valley” was cow pastures (Oh…to have bought land then!)
31. You remember when Lemon Grove had “the cows.”
32. 60 degrees is ice cold.

Have a beautiful, sunny San Diego Day!

It was a long time ago. i remembered when i ran across these photos in a golf ball box. They came from my two aunts and my mother during a significant phase of my life. i am posting them here primarily for my grandson Sam Gander. It was a long time ago.

The above was when i departed for my third class midshipman NROTC cruise in the summer of ’63. It was a life changer in many ways although i did not realize it at the time. The uniform, in my opinion, service dress khaki’s, remains the sharpest looking military uniform ever. The Marine’s uniforms are impressive but this one was so classic, so not overstated. It’s gone but it remains my favorite.

Granny, aka Katherine Webster Prichard, was an incredible woman, a survivor, one of the hardest workers on the planet who never gave up. She loved and cared for her family, her friends, and her charges as a “house mother” at Castle Heights. This was taken at my Aunt Bettye Kate and Uncle Snooks Hall’s house in1964.

It was 1969, August. i was a big fan of docksiders with no socks. Thought it was cool, but man those high-water pants with those shoes were not a good look.

Once again in my aunt and uncle’s house. This time it was August 1969. i was a one-year wonder LTJG on my first ship, USS Hawkins.

This was labeled by my Aunt Evelyn as 1969, but i didn’t make lieutenant until 1971. Summer whites were great uniforms but those white shoes were tough to keep white.

Paris, Texas. May 1971. a pre-wedding photo.It didn’t turn out well, but i loved her and my brother and sister always supported me. Blythe remains a beautiful daughter and my grandson Sam makes it worthwhile.