The game is over. Our game. Mother’s game. Vanderbilt honored her pretty much the way they do everything else. They did it the right way, The Vandy way.

There were a couple of moments i wasn’t sure i was going to make it through without tears. i did, but not now. No, not now.

Runt aka Estelle Prichard aka Estelle Jewell aka Mother aka Grandma was honored as well as a basketball star of the 1930’s could be.

i will write more later about what happened and include some photos provided by Vanderbilt and Andrew Maraniss.

There are lots of folks i will thank later (in addition to Andrew), but as i sit here thinking about what has happened and my throat getting a lump and feeling like that lady who had an amazing jump/push shot even in her 70’s who just happened to be my mother, there is one special person who i am thinking about in addition to my parents.

Candice Lee thanked my mother through me for being a pioneer and allowing her and others to follow. Candice, a basketball star who became a superb deputy chancellor of athletics, made this happen. i cannot express any where near enough about what a gracious, beautiful woman she is. Dammit, Candice, you and Estelle finally made me cry a bit.

Thanks.

For everyone else, more later.

i was going to send emails and FB messages to all of the family about a grave situation, but i am lazy and decided to do this. Actually, i was concerned i might miss someone with the other two methods and will try to cover that after putting this out there.

Saturday, Joe and i went to Wilson County Memorial Gardens to complete a mission i began over Christmas. We went to all of the family graves we could think of and asked the cemetery manager to raise the following so they would not be obscured by dirt, leaves, and grass:

Wynne and Corrine Prichard (Papa and Aunt Corrine)
Jessie Mai Jewell, the infant daughter who died during birth to my grandparents
George and Naomi Martin
H. Culley and Myrtle (Mama) Jewell (my grandparents)
Virda Jewell Williamson
Jessie and Alice Jewell

All of these should also be cleaned, some need it more than others. This has to be done by one of the two monument companies in Lebanon and i have been working with the Johnson Monument folks, whose parents were good  friends with Mother and Daddy. They charge by the size and composition. From what they charge for a stone or marble monument gravestone (the ones listed are flat headstones), i’m guessing somewhere around $50 each.

If my family members of Jewell’s, Williamson’s, Prichard’s, Martin’s, and where ever those connections lead would like to contribute to the cleaning, please let me know. With that, i will review the necessity for cleaning and calculate what it would cost each of us who wish to donate to the cause and proceed. Also, if you would contact your family members who are not subscribers to my posts to see if they are interested, i would appreciate it.

For the Prichard family, the area of Prichard graves in Cedar Grove across the street seem to be okay in this regard as well as Aunt Daisy who has a monument next to Papa and Aunt Corrine Prichard in Memorial Gardens.

The cemetery managers noted the raising of the headstones should not be done until spring has fully set in, and then the cleaning should be done.

For other friends, i apologize for using this site for a personal family message, but it was the quickest and easiest way i could figure out how to reach family members, and i am not only lazy, i am technically challenged.

i’m sure there is something i should be doing. Some task. Some followup. Some phone call.

Don’t care. i’m sitting here in my hotel room, enjoying the view on a striped gray sky day:

i don’t see the parking lot. i really don’t. i thought about cropping it out, but i’m lazy. i’m just enjoying the environs where i spent a great deal of learning time.

No, i didn’t graduate. Just learned a lot. Dumb, or perhaps just naive, real, no kidding naive. Engineering instead of English. 18, 19, 21, 20 hours for the four regular semesters. Oh, did i mention not studying, hardly at all, partying, drinking? Proved it by doing well in ’67 summer school and almost made the grades to remain. Drama, Philosophy, Modern British and American Fiction. Engineering Statics re-do: oops on the last one. Missed it by that much. Couldn’t have remained anyway. Lost the scholarship. Back then you had to stay out for a year before going anywhere else, at least in Tennessee. Ended up having one of the best years of my life working for Fred Russell and the Nashville Banner sports department as office boy, assistant to the sports managing editor, cub reporter, bowling editor, figure-8 racing editor. Before going back to school. MTSU. Couldn’t have gotten a better education in literature anywhere else. Anywhere.

But my learning at Vandy was more than academic. i learned about friendship. i learned about not being a star. i learned about heartbreak. i think i learned to grow up, although i’m still working on that.

And it was right here, outside this hotel window like in that photo above. Dudley Field. Memorial Gym (the sweeping roof behind the stadium). On the other side of the stadium is Hawkins Field with its Fred Russell Press Box. The soccer and lacrosse stadium, the practice football field. Somewhere amongst all that stuff i see was the intramural six-man touch (ha, ha) football field where jaws were broken, concussions abounded, no quarter touch, you might say.

Like the intramural field, most of my haunts are gone. They are even tearing down my Kappa Sigma fraternity house which was a year old when i matriculated in ’62. New age stuff. i think that’s good. Probably. The Hippodrome is gone. King’s Inn is gone. Rotier’s is still here, a landmark, but i can’t get my own beer and keep my own tab anymore.

And i’m going to be with family. Honoring my mother. Can’t get much better than that.

Before it starts and i get all teary, thanks should be given:

First, there is Elmcroft of Lebanon, Tennessee. My father spent his last month of life there. My mother was with him and stayed around another nine months before joining him in that other place. It was there the seeds of Sunday’s events were planted. Elmcroft has a program called Second Wind Dreams. It is much like Make a Wish but for seniors and the resident doesn’t have to be terminal to be selected. Amy Barringer-Boggess was the social director when my mother was there.

The two talked about basketball. Mother told her about being in the LHS Blue Devil Hall of Fame and her basketball record. She also told Amy about how she and Daddy went to LHS girls basketball games forever and how she loved to watch Vanderbilt’s women’s team.

So Amy kicked the Second Wind Dreams into high gear. She and the Vandy women’s PR guy (sorry, guy, i don’t remember your name) set it up for Mother to meet the team during a summer practice session and then come to a game to be honored. In secrecy from my mother, Amy told me of the plans. i was elated.

Mother passed away two days later.

So about two years ago, i floated the idea of honoring my mother in abstentia via email to a bunch of Vandy folks. The Vice-Chancellor of Athletics, David Williams (who retired officially yesterday to go back to teaching law) said it should happen. Candice Lee, Associate Vice-Chancellor/Deputy Athletic Director, took the ball and dunked it. Andrew Maraniss, author of one of the most impactful books i’ve ever read, Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South, was constantly helping at every opportunity. Matt Anderson, the Assistant Director of Marketing for Vanderbilt Athletics coordinated the event and our participation.

And Sunday, Estelle Prichard Jewell will be honored for her high school basketball performance. Just for the record, she scored 33 points in one game when most games total scores did not total that amount, and she scored 287 points in the 1934-35 season. Both were records remaining intact until Ann Lucas broke both of them at LHS a quarter of a century later (Ann also beat the heck out of me in a one-on-one in the Heights gym when i was on the Hilltop and she was playing for the Blue Devils).

i don’t expect a big crowd. The Commodores have not been drawing well. Tennessee should bring out some fans, but the game conflicts with the Super Bowl. It doesn’t matter. i’m sure Mother is up there smiling her wry smile and my father is beaming with pride and love but also laughing his head off.

Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

As i have said to some, i am in training to hold back the tears.

And this view with its memories ain’t helping me a whole lot in my training sessions.

For those of you who might have missed it, i’m headed back to Tennessee. Home. A short trip.

Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball is honoring my mother for her achievements as a Lebanon High School Blue Devilette during the 1934-35 season. The event will take place at halftime of the Volunteer-Commodore game on Sunday in Vandy’s Memorial Gymnasium.

i get in tonight, my sister Martha Duff, brother Joe and his wife Carla Neggers, and Maureen begin to assemble on Saturday. With luck, Tommy Duff’s entire family will be there for the game.

i have some errands to do tomorrow and perhaps Saturday. The other siblings will be gone by Monday and Maureen and i head back to the Southwest corner early Tuesday. Like i said a short trip.

Of course, short trips do not exist anymore if you are flying. Might as well count off the whole day. It ain’t fun like it used to be. Of course, my “used to be” was when there were no TSA lines, no jetways. Like i could walk to the aircraft on the tarmac. For a long time, i even used an American Airline huge umbrella they loaned you to walk to your plane. No,  i didn’t steal it, but i don’t remember how i got it. But it sure was useful, bigger than even golf umbrellas. Where did it go?

Today, Sarah drove me to Lindbergh Field, aka San Diego International Airport because they play down any association with a man who accomplished an amazing feat but had politically incorrect leanings long before they knew what politically correct meant and it’s easy to excoriate or rather damn dead people because they can’t explain — that doesn’t mean i agree with Lindbergh’s  political stance as i understand it. In fact, i abhor his position, but not his achievement.

i arrived almost as early as Maureen would have had she been with me. Maureen is extremely careful when it comes to air travel. Like if we have a noon flight, she would prefer us arriving by 9:00. That’s 9:00 p.m. the night before. i wasn’t that careful but with all the weather and coming off of the shutdown, i decided to actually get there two hours early. Attempting to get something done on the way, we left home early. I-5 traffic, unusual for that time of morning, dictated ditching the stop. So i get to the airport about twenty minutes before the cautionary two-hours. That was longer than the first leg of my flight to Houston.

Fun.

i zipped through the Southwest check-in. Good job. Then i went to the TSA Security (sic) check. Now these folks went to a lot of trouble to make sure i wasn’t a terrorist. Because of my age i think, i usually get the “PRE” designation, which makes the process a slight bit less onerous, but this time, no “PRE.” Of course, they need to be sure a retired Naval commander who held a Top Secret Atomal clearance now 75 years old is not on some kind of terrorist mission to blow up the aircraft he is riding. And then there were folks older than me who could barely walk, and the woman with her six-year old daughter, and families of three, four, five, sure candidates for terrorism. But what the hey? It doesn’t matter a thirty-second walk has turned into a quarter-hour or longer process from hell for all of the gazillions of innocent travelers. Of course, we need to be safe. But of course, anyone who really wants to blow up an in-flight commercial aircraft can get around such silliness. It’s the nuts who are easily recognized as someone to check they might want to ensure is safe. But oh no.

And then, there’s the Navy. The Navy decided they needed a whole line of security experts rather than relying on regular sailors and marines for security. So they created the MA rating and a designator for security officers. They, of course, no longer are concerned with the Navy’s mission. They are concerned with security, which is, quite frankly a sham. They create frustration and hassle for anyone entering a base while creating one of the softest targets for a terrorist imaginable: just attacking the never ending line of cars filled with active duty, retired and dependents waiting to get on to a base. Not to mention, any terrorist with a brain (thankfully, there are too many) could figure out a way to get through the harassment.

You might have noticed this is a pet peeve of mine. i just don’t like stupid.

But now, i’m on a flight to Houston, seated with a delightful, young Christina, who turns thirty Sunday and an equally enjoyable Walter. They are gainfully employed and apparently love their jobs. They talk of marketing and the things they say are the things i taught and coached about leadership and business management. i do not tell them of my past (except for my going back to attend my mother being honored and how my wife is big into yoga and i play golf…poorly). Their conversation pleases me.

And i am going home. i wish to apologize to my friends, dear friends in Lebanon and Nashville who i will miss. As usual, there is not enough time. Never enough time. Sometimes i think i live in at least three worlds. Home remains Lebanon, Tennessee, the home of my ancestors, a practical, religious, place with some shadow of an evil still hanging in its fabric. But i was never exposed to the shadow and still relish the beauty, the kindness, the kinship of all those folk who live there. Then there is Texas. It is my daughter and grandson’s home. i would like to spend the rest of my with at least part of my day with them. That will never happen for many reasons, but it does not keep Austin from being another world of mine. Then, there is the Southwest corner. People love to deride, joke about, detest California, especially if they are on one side of the political spectrum. i ignore all of that. i live in…sunshine. No air conditioning. Beaches. Mountains, year-round golf and fishing and all sorts of other things, not to mention my wife is a native.

i’ll continue to live there with her. Done deal.

But home is home. Vanderbilt is honoring my mother. This photo was taken a couple of years before she passed in 2014, just shy of 97 and nine months after her life mate had gone. She lived in  a Lebanon that was a wonderful place to live for her oldest son. Her being honored and her and her husband’s life were, in many ways a miracle for me.

i plan to write of the halftime ceremony honoring her and revisit thoughts about her and Jimmy Jewell’s life again, hopefully from a different angle.

And air travel, despite Christina and Walter, and good flight attendants, still sucks. i want to walk on the tarmac in the rain with a huge umbrella to my flight.