This old irascible curmudgeon was rolling into his “Bah, humbug” phase of Christmas. It happens about this time of year every year.

For reasons beyond his control, he has had this phase for about oh, say for about a half a century. It occurs when he realizes he yet again won’t be spending Christmas with someone whom he holds very dear.

Up until he left his hometown to wander (and wander he has, although nearly all of it was not planned; it just turned out that way), he spent Christmas with his family: his parents, his brother and sister, family in Lebanon and Chattanooga (Joe, Martha, Nancy, all of the Prichard’s, did they ever go to Florida for Christmas? He can’t recall although their is some vague memory of a warm Christmas in Daytona, perhaps another one of his illusions).

Then life and the world outside of our hamlet smack dab in the middle of Tennessee began to take him away. Several Christmases were spent away, far away completely out of his control: Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam; Hong Kong; Diego Garcia to name a few. The military can do that to you. Then there was this marriage thing and Christmases inevitably was divided between families. Then there were three families geographically separated (divorces and remarrying can do that, you know).

And that’s where it really started. When the world and life takes one away from the perfect Christmas. That was 1979. It was the first Christmas of not being with his daughter Blythe. Christmas has never been the same since then. That old humbug phase has been there ever since.

The closest he has ever gotten to that perfect Christmas began in 1992 when Maureen, three-year old Sarah and he went back to Tennessee, Signal Mountain most of the time, to be with his parents and his sister’s family. The Duffs have become his Christmas, and even though he is missing a daughter, a grandson, his brother and his family, and his wife’s family, it has been a beautiful Christmas every year.

Still that sadness is there as he has had to make choices about with whom he  spent Christmas, or rather who he misses at Christmas.

When they first started going to Tennessee again in 1992, he had family and friends housekeep for him and there was an abbreviated version of Christmas with Maureen’s family before they left. Even though the Southwest corner family still gets together for an early, abbreviated Christmas, the housesitting has evolved into someone looking after the pets on a daily basis. In those early years, they continued to decorate to the fullest although the tree was dry and crumbly by the time they returned. When the housekeeping stopped, they stopped the decorating. This was about when he created the legendary “NOEL” sign.

About four Christmases ago after Sarah moved to Texas, Maureen and he missed their house being Christmasy and bought a fake tree, something he vowed he would never do. So they decorated the tree, put up a minimal number of other decorations and of course, the “NOEL” sign.

But this year, Sarah is back home for a brief period. You get two sentimental and caring women together and you are going to have Christmas decorations, full-blown.

This year, they do.

No, he still won’t have that perfect Christmas. He will not be with his other daughter Blythe and his grandson Sam (and yeh, you too, Jason). It’s been a decision he has made every Christmas except one, trying to do what was best for everyone of his family he loves. Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and do the right thing. He has bitten quite a few bullets in his day.

But this year, it’s a bit different, this curmudgeon humbug thing. The women decorated.He put Christmas music on the iPod and plays it frequently. It not only is beginning to look a lot Christmas, it’s beginning to sound that way as well.

The old curmudgeon humbug sort of got into the spirit. You know, the reason for Christmas, for joy to the world, for hope, for caring and giving., for children, and birth, and that star.

Yep, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas:

It is the season and the menorah is something Sarah made in elementary school. A Jewish family came to our Christmas party. The girl was a friend of Sarah’s. The wife was very thankful for us having that menorah card in our decoration. The reindeer was also made by Sarah a long time ago.

Then there are the music boxes Sarah has received from her aunt almost every Christmas. These are on the table in the alcove between the family room and the dining room.

These music boxes and the nutcracker are on the living room mantel.

These poinsettias in the entry are ones Maureen couldn’t resist. She had made me throw away the fake ones i got from Home Depot several years ago for five dollars. Oh okay, mine were quite a bit worn and they did look fake, but other than that they were fine.

That’s Santa and a bit undersized reindeer with a sled for Santa who won’t fit, but it holds Christmas cards nicely on our “daughter” table.

Then we have our stockings, acquired as a gift several years ago.

This has removed my stocking, which my mother made me about seventy years ago, from the in-house decorations. So i moved it to my work (hah, hah) space in my garage. i actually really like it here. i know Martha’s is in her home on Signal Mountain, and i wonder where Joe’s is in Vermont.

A cross-stitch is in the guest bath so we can relate the legendary Jewell-Hall story about why it is so…well, legendary.

Almost finally, there is the tree. With the fake one, we have options. i turn on the colored lights in the morning to welcome the wakers with a good feeling. In the evening, we turn on the white lights to add to the family room’s Christmasy atmosphere, also abetted by the fire…which is not fake.

The coup de gras is the “NOEL” sign, which after countless hours of wire cutting, splicing, soldering, and hair pulling (if i had hair). After completing then hanging of the sign, i hung it up and turned it on. The two light strings illuminating the letters are, we discovered two different whites. The “warm” whites are whiter than the clear whites. But i ain’t changing it out again this year. Maybe next. Meanwhile, the legend grows.

And all of this is really to say very few people have a “perfect” Christmas. Sadly, some people have dark ones because they are alone. But everyone, if they try, can get into the spirit, the real meaning of Christmas, and rejoice. Even this old curmudgeon humbug can have a merry Christmas.

May yours be especially wonderful this year.

My younger daughter turns twenty-eight today.

As with many twenty-eight year olds, she is struggling with finding herself, trying to determine if she needs to continue the way she’s been going or change course. i think…no, actually, i hope it will turn out alright for her. I know i have little control over what happens next.

When i was twenty-eight, i was making monumental decisions about my course for life. i was a sports editor in a great mid-size daily in upstate New York, The Watertown Daily Times, on my way up. But it was tough financially. As with most careers, there wasn’t a lot of money in the beginning, and my life, our lives were going to be changed drastically in six months when Blythe was due. i wanted to remain the sports editor as i discovered it really was a passion of mine, but to make the income for a family of three, i was either going to have to go to a big city daily and work the night desk, etc. for a while, take the national news or state news editor jobs at The Times or do something else entirely.

My wife, feeling the economic crunch as well i was, wisely asked what about going back to the Navy. i had thought about it but not mentioned that possibility because she was an “Army brat,” and i believed she had enough of being a military dependent. To provide the needed security for my wife and child-to-be, i decided i would apply for reinstatement to active duty. i did and was selected by the skin of someone’s teeth. i was one of six returned that year.

My course was set, at least temporarily (as it is in all things called life). And having Blythe as my daughter and going back to sea were two of the best things that have ever happened to me. The sea was my passion. i think i was a pretty good officer, a leader, but i thrilled deep inside every time i took the watch on the  bridge and taking the “con,” driving a steam ship through the seas in most conceivable situations and damn near every kind of weather. i retired as quickly as i could when i knew my ship driving time in the Navy was over.

My new course was set, as Sarah was born the day i retired, actually just over six hours after my retirement ceremony concluded. My course, as it is in all lives, keeps changing.

The course for life will keep changing for Sarah as well. i hope she has as wonderful of an adventure as i have since changing my course at twenty-eight.

She has had a good start:

Happy Twenty-Eighth Birthday, Sarah. May your course in life be through calm waters except when you need a thrill.

This would be better if i had taken a night photo of this year’s traditional Christmas decoration folly. But i was involved in many things (as usual), nearly all not really necessary (except golf…as usual) and was rushing around (as usual) and didn’t think of a taking a picture until i had dismantled the offending lights. Last year, it looked like this:

Without any skills at “photoshopping” a photo, i have cropped this one to give you an idea of what my sign this year looked like when i hung it with a light string out:

The annual disaster is now on my workbench in the garage. i hope to have all the lights working and, of course, i’m piddling with a new innovation (of the goofy guy kind, not new technology) and hope to make it even better than ever. By my count, that is about a dozen modifications in about twenty years, not counting the original Colonel Jimmy Lynch had me help hang on his roof in Paris, Texas many, many Christmas moons ago.

My wife has pointed out that my modifications have made little difference and somehow brings up Chevy Chase’s “Christmas Vacation.” This disparagement of my Christmas decoration efforts all began when i hung the sign for the first time sometime in the 1990’s and immortalized it with a Lebanon Democrat column. i also made the mistake of telling my tale of woe to my close friend Pete Toennies who thought it was so funny he asks me to repeat it every year.

So in keeping with the tradition, i offer the tale as it appeared in The Democrat and has appeared here on several occasions:

Notes from the Southwest Corner: An Embarrassing Christmas Moment

As I have noted previously, I am in Tennessee for Christmas, not in the Southwest corner. The below events, however, did occur near San Diego.

Have you ever had one of those days when everything turned into an embarrassment? I had a champion day like that several years ago.

It started innocently while I hung our outdoor decoration, a home-made “NOEL” sign from the eave of our garage, hoping to get it up before my wife’s friends arrived for their Christmas dinner.

Maureen and her six friends have been meeting monthly for dinners 15-plus years. They had this December dinner catered, did it up right. It was Maureen’s turn to be hostess.

It was dark when I began. I was at the top of my step ladder attaching the second of two wires from the sign to a hook secured to the eave when the ladder lurched and toppled. I grabbed a metal ornamental grating above the garage door.

There I hung, my arm intertwined with the “O” of the sign. If I tried to drop, the sign could catch my arm and do some pretty bad stuff.

I yelled, but Maureen had Christmas carols at top volume and didn’t hear. I tried to think of what to do while simultaneously wondering how long I could hold on. The dog wandered underneath, occasionally looking up as if I was a very strange person hanging there.

After several minutes, a neighbor’s son and friend pulled into the driveway several houses away. As they emerged, I swallowed my pride and yelled “Help.”

At first, they could not discern who was calling. Then they spotted me and came to help. The dog decided to protect me and began barking threateningly. The boys hesitated. I assured them the only danger was being licked to death. They finally righted the ladder and helped me down.

I thanked them profusely and then studied whether I should tell Maureen or not. Now that I was back on solid ground, I decided it was too funny not to tell her. She was incredulous and not particularly amused.

I did not realize my embarrassment for the night was just beginning.

While Maureen made final arrangements for her dinner, our daughter, Sarah, and I went to a local spot for supper. The little place was an oasis of sorts in Bonita, where there were only Mexican, Italian, and fast food restaurants. The attraction was being different and having a wide-range of ales and beers for golfers finishing a round across the street.

When we arrived, two couples were at tables and three guys sat at the bar. As we neared the end of our meal, the largest of the guys at the bar walked to the door and then turned back. I noticed his eyes seemed glazed. Then he walked back to the bar.

Suddenly, this guy and the one on the other side grabbed the guy in the middle off his stool, slammed him into the wall and started pummeling him with their fists. The three male diners, me (instinctively) included, approached from one side and two cooks approached from the back. Sarah had retreated to the door with the two lady diners. I grabbed the big guy. He spun and fell backward, slamming us into our table, knocking it over with shattering glass. It gave me some leverage, and we spun to the floor with me on top and knocking the wind out of the big guy. The other two diners helped me hold him until he calmed down. The cooks had quelled the other assailant. The two left quietly.

Even though the waitress wanted us to not pay our bill, we paid and left for home. On the way, I talked to my daughter about what I should have done (directed her outside before joining the fray) and what she should do the next time if she were ever in a place where a fight broke out (get out and away and not come back until she was sure it was over).

I was feeling pretty good as we arrived home. Then Sarah dashed out of the car, ran into the house and yelled to her mother in front of the caterer and her six friends dressed to the nines amidst fine china, Christmas decorations, and haut cuisine, “Mom, Dad got in a fight in a bar.”

Some days, I just can’t get a break.

May your holiday season be embarrassment free.

And may all of you have a most wonderful and amazing Christmas Season, and please, please, please (as James Brown would implore) remember the reason this all occurs every year.

Yesterday. Maureen was off to a luncheon and then took Sarah to see her Aunt Patsy, who is recovering (well, thank goodness) from surgery. The afternoon, actually pretty much the whole day was mine.

i did a few productive things, but generally screwed off as i am wont to do. Old man privilege, you know.

Then, i sat down in front of the television. Yes, i have knocked all sorts of sports, professional and even college. But after all, this was Tennessee and Vanderbilt playing for all of the marbles…oh, excuse me that was about 100 years ago when they played each other for all of the marbles. This time, they were playing to escape embarrassment and dump that embarrassment all over the other team.

i should have been happy, Vandy escaped embarrassment by a score of 42-24. i am a huge Vanderbilt fan in case you weren’t aware. i should have been overjoyed.

i wasn’t.

Happy for Vandy. Yes. But there was an emptiness there.

Growing up, i was fascinated with both teams. i loved…no, i worshipped football, and these two teams along with the Lebanon High School Blue Devils and Castle Heights Military Academy Tigers were my idols. They were front and center in my life from August to New Year’s Day every year from my first recognizable thoughts until i joined the Navy.

The Bob Neyland and Bowden Wyatt Volunteers were far and away the Tennessee superstars in those days. But i rooted for both the Commodores and the Vols as well as my high school teams. i spent copious hours learning about the stars of all college and pro teams.

The Vols and the Commodores remained almost equal in my adoration until November 29, 1969. UT was my favorite because of their success and their idiosyncrasies. When they quit wearing high top black football shoes, stopped donning only only orange jerseys and white pants, gave up the single wing, and i became a student at Vanderbilt, my favorite switched  to the ‘Dores, but i still rooted for both teams except when they played each other.

But on that fateful day 48 years ago, i flew into Knoxville from my ship in Norfolk and attended the game in Knoxville with Vandy friends. We sat in the closed end zone. Because of the timing, i wore my Navy service dress blue ensign uniform to the game. Throughout the game, the Vol fans surrounding us, cursed us, denigrated us, and threw coke and whiskey on us.

i remain not enamored with many Vol fans but i root for the team, again except when they play Vandy.

So i should have been just fine Saturday. But i wasn’t. i felt an emptiness. It’s not fun to watch a team get beat when they are down. i wanted both teams to win. To see a proud tradition with my memories of games in Neyland Stadium, sitting in the end zone or on the northwest corner hill when that end was still open, on a crisp, cloudless day was magic. It was college. It was Tennessee. It is no more. There is this dearth of loyalty. When they built that behemoth stadium for capacity bragging rights (and money of course), and then dumped Johnny Majors followed by doing the same to Phillip Fulmer because they didn’t win enough to satisfy the blood thirsty, it changed.

Now the Vols’ culture is an athletic administration searching for an answer and a conglomeration of fans, many, if  not the majority of which are sore losers. Some even denigrated Vanderbilt after Friday because their team got beat, badly. Go figure.

That is sad.

It is also sad UCLA after several good seasons, but not quite the pinnacles they reached three or four decades ago, fired a good coach, and hired a bounty hunter. Chip Kelly had a good record at Oregon and a bad one with the Philadelphia Eagles. He will be paid $23 Million over 5 years. That makes Kelly the highest paid state employee in California. Hmm, that makes some statement about priorities.

It wasn’t sad to learn the results of “rivalry week.” Top rated teams fell like dominoes, including the top two, Alabama and Miami, getting whacked by Auburn (Earl Major is smiling) and Pittsburgh. This of course, throws the whole bowl and playoff system into an uproar. And that’s bad for these folks. They are going to lose money. Oh, okay, they aren’t going to make as much money.

The results also point out the absurdity of a playoff system and the ranking systems. A good football team can beat a great football team in any one game. That doesn’t mean one team is better than the other. It means one team won and one team lost, and no one ties because the frothing at the mouth fans and administrations AND the coaches didn’t like ties.

Brain injuries may kill the sport. It is already becoming more and more of a freak show. i confess i have mixed emotions because playing the game (a defensive linebacker, not the running back star for which i dreamed), even practicing, was some of the finest, most rewarding moments of my life. Yet, i am very glad my grandson is not interested.

It is sad the college game has morphed into something making no sense. It wasn’t perfect, but growing up, a nine-game season and five bowl games seemed like its own heaven for this fan. Conference championships were determined by the season record against the other conference teams. The rankings were subjective and created all sorts of dialogue. Today, those rankings, just as subjective in spite of all the stat gurus, strength of schedule, computer input and famous committee members are just as subjective but creates venom at perceived injustices.

Back in…lord a mercy, i find myself writing “back in my day,” but it was back in my day, there was a symmetry to the season. Nine games, not a ridiculous twelve, no real patsies for warming up,  conferences maxing out at ten schools in a region, not some giant and rich organizations running a conglomerate of teams across the country. Back then, there were traditional rivalries, regional for most of the games. A conference champion was declared and the winners of the major conferences with some nod to independents (yes, i liked Notre Dame and Penn State being independent) went to five, FIVE bowl games, played on New Year’s Eve, one: the Gator Bowl, and the other four, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, and the Rose Bowl (from east to west on your radio dial), the  on New Year’s Day.

Over. The season was over. January Second. Every year.

i think Grantland Rice, Knute Rockne, and Fred Russell would agree with me. It’s sad.