This post has been produced from my aunt’s photo albums. i was going to post them in a Facebook album as i have been doing for quite some time, so relatives and friends of my family past and present could enjoy them and download if they were so inclined. Yeh, i know, all of you whippersnappers, i could have put them in “dropbox” and made it accessible to those folks. But that’s a lot of work. Even worse, it is a lot of technical work, and as much as i see the benefits, i am too old to get into that stuff…at least for now.

But when i scanned these today for the purpose of the Facebook album entry, something struck me  to lead me to putting them here first with my comments. i will post them there later for my original intent.

Our world was back then was this thing call family. It was tangible. It was constant. It was even tribal, i guess. It was beautiful. Perhaps it was because when it was. After all, there was a war going on. Perhaps it was because it was in “Brigadoon.” After all, it was a small town smack dab in the middle of Tennessee, and like most of the small towns at the time, people grew up there, most stayed or didn’t wander far from home. i’m not smart enough to figure out why or even how. But it was family beautiful.

There was this wonderful woman, who came up from the little hamlet of Statesville where her forbears had found sustenance among the fertile patches of land between the creeks and the trees and the bramble of the woods where game was plenty. Her husband, a man of strength and labor by fate, brought her into town so he could work at the pencil mill…well, not really town yet because they first moved out on Coles Ferry Pike and only later to town but even then there was a garden and a root cellar and a wood-fired stove inside and the family grew up there, and she hung on through the first seven years of my life, long enough for me to remember her caring.

And Mama Jewell had family, eight children, and i lost count on grandchildren, among of whom were my cousins like big brothers to me living across the street on Castle Heights Avenue. Graham Williamson, the fiddler who babysat his cousin while his band practiced in his home and let the young boy sing “Kaw Liga.” The family Jewell saw after each other and my father went with Graham to the West Side Hotel to get the body of Graham’s father, and Aunt Naomi Martin, nee Jewell, the older sister had taken Graham in when her younger sister Virda died in her twenties, and Naomi and George Martin raised Graham like he was their son along with their natural son Maxwell Martin who followed in his father’s footsteps being like a brother  to my father and they all, including me fished on the Tennessee lakes with a passion.

Then there was the maternal grandmother, the one who held her family together like glue and bounced around from house to family house to help take care of her grandchildren or work tasks for her daughter and son-in-law and Katherine “Granny Prichard had a rough life but still managed to enjoy it, her family and her friends. Like Daisy Lawrence who wasn’t Lawrence at the time (Susan Rockett, help me out here), still carrying her maiden name, and they lived across Clearview Drive on West Main Street from each other and became close friends, more like family for the rest of their lives, and more like family for all of us, and became the resting spot for Florida travel amidst the citrus groves.

And the man who took her from Lebanon to the citrus groves was a strong and intelligent business man, but his love of family, even the extended family seemed to have no bounds. And when Katherine “Granny” Prichard was tending to her young husband who we now believe suffered from asthma, she gathered up her family and went to the citrus groves where Euless, forever known as “Uncle Euless,” by all of us, and Daisy, forever known as “Aunt Daisy” by all of us, Lawrence took Katherine and her ill husband in and let them stay in the log cabin next to the big house until Joe Blythe Prichard wanted to go home for his final resting place and the family of six gathered in the ambulance-like van and headed north, back home to Tennessee.

But the Lawrence’s kept coming back to Tennessee, and the Jewell’s and the Prichard’s, and the Hall’s kept going to Gotha, Florida, and Uncle Euless seemed to like me and liked me until he too left us. And in this photo is the new Dodge, which remained a running usable vehicle for long afterwards, and there is no name on the woman resting her arm on that Dodge and i wonder if she might be “Aunt Ella” who was another extended family member.  And the roads to and from Gotha, Florida to Lebanon, Tennessee should have had a rut from all that back and forth: US 231 to Murfreesboro, US 41 through Chattanooga through Georgia until deep into Florida, cut across on US 44 to US 27, around 700 miles, but of course there was family along the way where we stayed.

And the bonds were strong. Then in the spring of 1962, i did not have a girl to ask to my graduation dance at Castle Heights, i just didn’t think those Lebanon girls liked to have more than one date with me. But family came through. My mother and grandmother talked to Aunt Daisy and her son, Douglas, and her daughter Juanita (Susan, did i spell her name correctly?) Browning. You see, the family ties run deep and the Browning’s daughter Susan was a year younger than me. We’d never met, but all parties agreed she would attend my graduation weekend with me.

And she did and she was beautiful and wonderful. Still is. i think about my feelings during those wonderful change of life days and how i felt about her. Sometimes i wonder…but she has a wonderful family in Georgia, and i have mine in the Southwest corner, and we are still family, and that is the way it should be.

It was just one of those days just about perfect in my mind. You know, like Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Our House:” two cats in the yard (except ours are in the house; predators, you see). And it was even better as we returned to a long ago (well, by my standards; by my daughters, it is more like ancient) ways we worked in the evenings…and yes, i lit the fire while she put the flowers in the vase.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

It was cool and rainy, like the Southwest corner used to be in February. Not Tennessee rain, mind you, not at all. In fact, it really didn’t rain. It was more like heavy mist (but that is another story, a golfing story). Last night, we had about a quarter of an inch, more than we’ve had in about two months. More is predicted today. Our highs for this week proper are only touching 60, a veritable blizzard. But again, that is another story.

Yesterday for some reason, i was more productive than usual, on a bunch of fronts. i was proud of myself, and then came dinner. Maureen was at a meditating class. She says they are teaching her about history and the different kinds of meditateion. i declined to join her. Six Mondays of studying meditation just doesn’t quite strike me as fun. So going back to those old days, i once again cooked supper.

Once upon a time in the old west…well, at least in the old Southwest corner, i had some sort of control  of the kitchen. Or at least, i thought i did.

It was when Maureen’s and my marriage really began. My time on the Yosemite and our year in Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra Beach really, had been beyond magical.  We were married July 30, 1983 and then i was gone for nine months. You know, those deployments Navy folks just seem to get caught up in. So the really married stuff began in 1985.

We came back in late April. That’s when the real married stuff began and lasted for …well, i was going to say “a year,” but it really was for the rest of my life.

When we returned to the Southwest corner in 1985, i  cooked supper quite a bit when Maureen worked, but i then realized cooking was an escape for her, something she loved to do. She’s damn near a gourmet chef. When she cooks, which is nearly all the time now except for grilling, we have dinner. When i cook, we have supper.

Boy, did we have supper last night.

Here’s what we had:

Jim’s Stuff he makes with okra but zucchini substitutes for okra…or what is better known as “What the hell was that?”…and there is a story about that as well, but not for polite folks.

Ingredients:
Zucchini
Mushrooms
Diced tomatoes
Bacon/sausage
Yellow onions
Worcestershire sauce
Seasoning (critical but what strikes me at the moment)
Siracha sauce
Soy sauce
Bay Leaves
Mustard (doesn’t have to be the fancy kind, but it helps)
Molasses (sorghum, of course)

Cut it up,

Cook it slow in a cast-iron skillet

Serve with cornbread and rice or potatoes and red wine

It helps to have a martini while  you are doing it, makes you more creative. Bombay Sapphire up with olives in a chilled glass. But i gave that up a while ago. So i had a beer.

Maureen and Sarah loved it. Me too. i may get called on to cook supper more frequently, but not dinner.

Sarah retreated to her room. i lit the fire. Remember “Déjà Vu”? We never turned on the television. i did not write, i did not read. i sat in my chair next to the fire, propped my feet on the camel saddle Maureen had made into an ottoman, closed my eyes, and listened.

A rare moment.

i have a lot of music in my history. It’s sort of like my life. i like them all but i’m not an aficionado in any of the genres. But i do have my favorites. And last night it was my classical favorites: Handel’s “Water Music” — to this day, i remain thrilled my daughter Blythe chose that for her wedding music — and Dvořák’s “New World Symphony.” Cy Fraser introduced me to both back in 1963.

i listened quietly and thought:

The world ain’t all bad, and i am one very, very lucky man.

About two weeks ago, i began to post on Facebook daily “laws” from my now defunct “Murphy’s Law” desk calendars. My Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Pipey Orr sent me one of those calendars as a Christmas gift in 1979 while i was deployed to WESTPAC. They sent me one every year until my cousin, Nancy Schwarze, sent them while her mother still was alive. When my aunt passed, i began to get my own calendar and wrap it “from Santa” every Christmas until this past Christmas when they quit publishing the annual desk calendar. Fortunately, i cut and pasted the laws on my notebooks and scheduling paperwork for many years. i now share them on Facebook.

Then last week, one such post read:

From my “Murphy’s Law” desk calendar archives – “Pfeifer’s Principle: Never make a decision you can get someone else to make.”

i have an example of how this works out in practice.

Something happened a long, long time ago in a land far away, even farther away than my hometown from the Southwest corner. Watertown, New York, 1972. i had just taken over the sports editor job at Watertown Daily Times, living a dream i had since JB Leftwich taught me how to be a decent sports editor on The Cavalier, the Castle Heights Military Academy’s award-winning newspaper. A year before, i had concluded (i thought) my active duty obligation of serving three years as a Naval officer. My folks, Castle Heights, JB, a learning period (in many, many ways) of college and work, and the Navy, taught me well, especially my parents and the Navy about responsibility and accountability.

There are no guilty parties in this story. Every one of the characters were doing their job as best they knew how. They behaved in a manner they believed was best for their newspaper and protecting themselves. They were good people and good friends. Then there was me. The troublemaker.

One of the things really annoying to me then and just as much so now was the previous day’s results and scores of sports contests not being posted in the next day’s newspaper. This made me glad to have worked for afternoon papers. The Times did a good job posting national scores and any local scores covered by staff — at the time of this story, i was the sports staff; so only one sports event was covered live each day. So the results of a significant number of local events were reported a day late. The now ubiquitous answering machine did not become widely used until the mid-1980’s, and of course, voice mail, and mobile phones were the stuff of science fiction in 1972.

i wondered how we could get results in time to publish in the next day’s paper.

After some research, i discovered no one had charged local high schools to call in the results of their games and matches because there was no one at the newspaper to take the calls. Everyone went home when the afternoon paper had been put to bed. i myself, after getting to the office each morning between five and six, went home between two and three in the afternoon, took a nap, and covered a ball game about half of the evenings.

i puzzled over what to do. The local coaches seemed delighted, even anxious to designate someone to phone in their results. i went to my boss, the publisher-in-waiting, super friend, and college brother John B. Johnson, and asked if i could get some part time help, perhaps a high school student. John thought the idea was great and gave me permission. i think he suggested the young man whom i hired.

Before my help came to work, i laid out my plan. i would have him come to work around five, man the switchboard until around 11:00 so the designated person, even the coach, could call in results and statistics of their contests. My plan was to have calls forwarded to the sports desk, but the system could not automatically forward calls to an extension. So we would have to answer the calls at the switchboard. Obviously before this could work, he and i had to know how to operate the switchboard.

The morning before my assistant’s first evening, i went to the switchboard operator to learn how to operate the switchboard so i could train my man on his first night. It was a relatively simple thing, but when i asked the operator, she said, “I can’t do that without permission of the business manager.”

i thought she made a good point. And even if she had the authority to let me use the switchboard, the business manager should know the situation. i went to his office and explained.

He said, “I can’t make that decision. The general manager will have to give me the okay before we can do this.”

Good point. The general manager should know, i agreed. i went to the general manager.

He said, “That is not my decision to make. It’s the business manager’s area of responsibility.”

i left his office perplexed and stood in the hallway considering my options. i did not want to pull strings and go over their heads to my friend. That seemed a little awkward to me. Then i had an idea. i walked back into the general manager’s office and asked:

“If the business manager says it’s okay, then it’s okay with you, right?”

“Of course,” the general manager genially replied.

i trekked down the hall and entered the business manager’s office.

“The business manager said it was okay with him if it’s okay with you. Okay?” i suggested.

“Great,” the business manager genially, even enthusiastically replied. After all, the two managers were sports fans.

i went to the lobby and approached the switchboard operator.

“The general manager and the business manager both said it was okay for us to man the switchboard at night. So is it alright with you?”

“Absolutely,” she genially replied. She was a sports fan also. And with that i was trained and my man began his part-time job and scores of local high school sports event began to be printed in the next afternoon’s newspaper. It was a great success.

No one realized no one had actually given me the go-ahead, and no one was the wiser.