In the last couple of days, i wavered on my intended mission in the sequestered sojourn to somewhere (Thank  you, Maren Hicks: i like the added adjective). But i’m back on task. And exactly somewhere has begun to reveal itself. Today, i will not blaming myself for taking breaks from writing my book. You see, the timing of this sojourn had some difficulties, some built in interruptions.

i suspect i will write more on this but my last column, number 500, appeared in The Lebanon Democrat today. i wrote and submitted it last week, an interruption to the sojourn i didn’t mind at all. After reading it this morning, i’m taking some time to digest something being part of my life being no longer a deadline to meet, no longer a topic to determine, no longer memories to fill out and clarify.

i thought the College World Series might require me to go off-line to watch Vanderbilt chase a dream of mine again. But Vandy quickly lost to Oregon State in the Super Regionals and the CWS no longer required my attention.

Then there was Father’s Day. And it really should be called “Father’s Days.” Recognition of dads began mid-week last week. Mine took up parts of three days.i had to, had to stop for that.

i also discovered even though i can write fairly solid for two weeks with walking/running breaks included, it’s damn near impossible for me to write on one thing for more than a work week. i can’t explain that except for it being in my nature. So i’m back to considering where i’m at while i’m going to somewhere.

But here is a continuation about where i am really:

i introduced Leopard in the last post. Yesterday, i found out he’s a neighbor’s cat who has taken up part time residence here.

i thought there was another solo act attracted by the birds and the feeders. A squirrel i called Orion.

Brave little fellow. While i was sitting less than four feet away, he would ignore me to chow down on what the birds had spilled from the feeder above. But it turns out Orion isn’t a solo act. Juliana, a friend of the owners of this Air B&B studio, came by to water the plants and fill the bird feeders. She pointed out some of the magnificent pines. They are dead and dying. Why? Squirrels. They are eating the new growth. As we talked, about a half-dozen of these brazen guys start running around pell-mell on patio rails, jumping from tree to tree. So Orion is really a bunch of these guys. Juliana talked about a service to catch them and remove them to another location. That doesn’t make sense to me.

i was happier thinking there was just one Orion living off of dropped bird seed.

So after i unpacked, and settled in, and met Leopard and Orion, i went on a suggested walk. An “Urban Trail,” Arrowhead Trail to be precise, winds up, and i mean up, for slightly less than two miles, probably an average incline of about eight degrees, and in one spot, a twelve degree grade. The path is about the size of a wide one lane road back home in Tennessee or a two-lane road with a turn lane in Ireland. Some views:

At the top is the tableland and “Buffalo Park.” There’s a bronze sculpture of a bison at the entrance with a plaque explaining the park. It says the park began as land dedicated to a game refuge populated with bison and antelope. Since i’ve been here i’ve only seen deer. i think they decided it should be more of a people trail place and the bison would be a danger to the new interlopers so they had them removed to somewhere else (sort of like the squirrels killing the pines). It hasn’t been crowded but there always at least fifteen, sometimes as many as thirty cars parked at the entrance. The trail system is expansive.

Did i mention this place is up high. This photo is of the higher mountain. It’s mid-June. That’s snow. It’s high up.

Below is a doe on the trail up, and below that is her fawn in the woods. i’ve seen about a dozen deer on my walks, nothing rare these days unless you live in a city like San Diego. i don’t understand why they are prevalent elsewhere like where i grew up when there were none there when i grew up and not any deer at our house in Bonita where coyotes, bobcats, foxes, and snakes abound. Perhaps they used a deer removal service.

It’s time to get back on that sojourn to somewhere. This has been a nice break.

My plan was to take today off. i ended up taking a chunk of that last night. Today, i fooled with a number of things but wrote most productively today compared to the others. It’s time to provide some thoughts about this sojourn to somewhere:

My first awareness of Flagstaff, Arizona occurred in 1950 when i was six years old. My parents returned from what i remember as a month or more trip with my Aunt Naomi Martin. i don’t think Uncle George accompanied them, but stayed home and worked and kept my cousin Maxwell.

My Aunt Bettye Kate Hall picked up Martha, 4; and Joe, 1; and me after her workday at the Lebanon Woolen Mills and we spent the evenings and nights with them in their home at the foot of Wildwood Avenue. In the morning she would take us to Graham and Mary Helen Williamson’s apartment on the first floor of an apartment on the corner of West Main and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Graham was our older cousin, and he took me under his wing up during my early youth. i vividly remember being in their next home. Graham was working on a band featuring his fiddle playing (he later was a back up fiddler for Roy Acuff). He would let me sing “Kaw Liga” when they practiced it.

During that summer we stayed with the Williamson’s, i most remember how kind Mary Ellen was and her serving us peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch. When we had sandwiches with peanut butter at home, it was always with jelly. i preferred grape. But peanut butter and banana sandwiches became my favorite.

Mother, Daddy, and Aunt Naomi concocted the trip to go see Uncle Wesley and Aunt Barbara Jewell somewhere in middle to northern California. i do not recall their route and other stops in-between, but i do know they stopped in Flagstaff because they brought back some souvenir glasses from wherever they ate there. So, at least part of their journey was on Route US 66.

The souvenir glasses could have been a set, several, or just one. But i remember it vividly. Why? Because a cowboy on a bucking horse was etched in black ink on the glass. i don’t remember any of the wording, but i remember that cowboy and that somewhere “Flagstaff” also was etched on the glass.

i was a cowboy nut. We had an 8mm movie of Hopalong Cassidy Daddy would show occasionally after some home made movies if my incessant demands wore him out. i listened to “Straight Arrow,” “Tom Mix,””Red Ryder,” and “The Lone Ranger” on the radio every chance i got. The backyard at 127 Castle Heights became the old west for the majority of time i played there, even though my wanna-be cowboy hat, and my double-holstered belt with my six guns must have looked a little strange when i only wore shorts in the summer. That glass etching inspired me even more. i imagined riding a bucking bronco in that cowboy heaven of Flagstaff.

In 1985, Flagstaff was in our plans coming back from Mayport, Florida to my final duty station in the Navy. We had pretty well stuck to our plan of not driving more than 300 miles a day, Okay, okay,  it’s almost 400 miles between Austin and Lubbock, and it’s a pretty miserable drive, and there’s not a lot in between. After a wonderful three days in Santa Fe, our plan was to stop in Flagstaff. But we changed when we realized, even though it was 374 miles, we had been on the road for twelve days and were anxious to get back to San Diego. We passed through Flagstaff. It was the worst decision we made on that trip, perhaps our worst travel decision ever. The ensuing drive was long and miserable when all the lodging in Phoenix was full and we continued to Gila Bend. Anybody who has stopped or even passed by Gila Bend will understand that.

My third exposure to Flagstaff was in 1989, thirty-nine years after my fascination with the cowboy glass. As a retiring commander, i agreed to be a chaperone for a tour of the west by a group of senior international officers taking an amphibious landing course at the Naval Amphibious School, Coronado where i was the director of leadership training for the West Coast and Pacific Rim as well as the lead facilitator for the Senior Officer “Command Excellence” two-day seminar. We had taken the Coaster up from San Diego and then transferred to an AMTRAK overnight to Gallup, where a bus took us for the rest of the trip. It was eventful: Canyon de Chelly, deep into Navajo land, my dinner with Tom Gorman, then we had a day and night in Flagstaff, mixing with foreign students at Northern Arizona U. before going on to other adventures and  back to San Diego. i was intrigued by Flagstaff, enough to look at real estate. Didn’t do it.

But i did make it to Flagstaff on Monday.

My studio apartment through Air B&B is just right for my purposes, my writing sojourn to somewhere. Alex and Celestina ensured all of my needs were met, and the studio with two outer rooms is perfect for three or four people (and a baby makes five) who need a overnight place to stay while catching all of the sites, like the Grand Canyon, of the surrounding area. And it’s just right for an old man on a writing sojourn.

Here is my patio, simple but pleasant.

The view out my front door. We’re talking cowboy rustic here:

There are new friends here. This black cat came by almost immediately. i think he has a home but i don’t know whose. He likes it here because there are tempting birds and this squirrel he has his eye on. i call him Leopard.

This is becoming much more of a project than i intended so i’m going to try and make it in installments so it’s manageable and not interfering too much in the sojourn to somewhere.

It was time. i just kept refusing to admit it.

Tomorrow will be the half-way point of my writer’s sojourn to somewhere. My plan was to gut it out for the duration. But the plan was not completely realistic. It’s pretty tough for a hard-living old fart to change his ways overnight.

But i kept at it for half of the journey to somewhere, and i actually feel like i just might be halfway to somewhere. i just don’t know yet where somewhere actually is.

Then i had a message exchange with Blythe. That’s enough to make me rethink just about anything. From my request, she forwarded me a photo and several more.

And i had promised myself to take enough of a break to honor my father on Father’s Day. i don’t really need any acknowledgement, but i did want to honor him and respond favorably when others honored their fathers.

Finally after another five mile power walk up the mountain and back — okay, okay, it ain’t really a mountain, just a fairly steep grade up to a tableland at about 7500 feet of elevation; but that’s another story — i realized i was fine with my routine of rigor but i needed a break. So i drove down to the closest grocery and got an off the shelf pizza and a bottle of decent red wine. i got the pizza because i was damn tired of preparing my own meals. They meet the basic needs but they are so miserable compared to Maureen’s fare. i got the wine, not because it was alcoholic but because my taste for liquids is narrow and i also have gotten damn tired of coffee, water, Pelligrino (even with lime), and the Jewell version of an Arnold Palmer.

So tomorrow is Father’s Day. Big Deal. i don’t need a tie. But i do need to talk about, as i once called him in a tribute, an incredible man. He was.

Those photos Blythe sent me? They were of my father with Sam (and one with my mother and Blythe) from a 2010 — see Blythe, i really do know what year it was even though i was originally a decade off — visit she and Sam made to my parent’s home in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Most of these are like many photos family members took with Grandpa. His children, his grandchildren, his great grandchildren, and even children who, just because they are children, have similar poses in photographs. But these are mine and special:

Then there is the coup de gras:

This is an 96-year old man taking his four-year old great grandson for a walk. They are mine. i am the missing link here. But it speaks volumes, i think, about a man and his relationship with all children.  i must confess i cannot look at this photo with crying a bit. In joy, happiness that it happened. That Sam James Jewell Gander had some precious moments with one of the most magnificent fathers, grandfathers, and lover of children the world has ever known.

Happy Father’s Day.

i have unpacked and settled in for this ride to somewhere. i have even gone a three-mile hike in the hills.

i promised myself not to work on my writing project tonight, but get organized and close some loose ends.

So far it’s been good but i haven’t been tested yet.

One of the loose ends is making comments about my friend’s retirement this past weekend.

At Frank Kerrigan’s retirement party Saturday night in La Quinta, i had planned to read a piece Noreen Leahy sent to me via email and make a few comments of my own. But it became evident, the party was not structured for me jumping into the speaking segment. There would have been enough of others wanting to say something, the party would have never ended. So i am using this post to write what i wanted to say and record Noreen’s thoughts.

In August 1983 in Mayport, Florida, Lieutenant Frank Kerrigan reported aboard the U.S.S. Yosemite (AD 19) to become the medical officer. I reported almost the same time to become the executive officer, a position the Brits call “Number Two.” One month later, we deployed for eight months to the Indian Ocean.

There are enough stories about Frank and i during that deployment, and the year plus back home afterwards, and through today to fill a book. In fact, i may write one someday.

But just about everybody at that party has an abundance of stories about Frank, so i’ll just put mine on the back burner for now.

But i do need to point out Frank and i forged a friendship on that deployment which remains one of my best friendships. i suspect that almost all of those party attendees feel the same. Frank is that kind of guy.

i would like to relate one story, which i think captures the essence of Frank Kerrigan.

We were on liberty in Mombassa, Kenya. Frank and i were returning to the ship by cab one afternoon. i believe we were returning from one of the German resort hotels on the beach. The driver came upon a crowd of locals filling the two-lane road. A local had been hit by a car and was lying in the road. The crowd of around a thousand were angry and upset.

Frank wanted to get out of the cab to see if he could help the downed man. Having some experience in such things as liberty incidents in foreign countries, i recommended caution and urged Frank to stay in the car.

Being Frank, he did not listen to my urging. He got out of the car only to find out the man was dead. But before he left the car, he told me, “But i might be able to help him.”

Frank Kerrigan cares about other people more than anyone i know. He remains a much needed confidant for me. He is the godfather of Sarah.

So i guess it’s manly enough to say i love him.

And i want to share Noreen’s thoughts. Noreen was one of the first women to receive a Navy commission from the United States Naval Academy. Lieutenant Leahy was the operations for most of that cruise. In actuality, she also was the ship’s navigator although i held the official title. Noreen was one of the best Naval officers with whom i served. After she left the service, she received her doctorate in education and is currently the vice-superintendent for a Long Island school district.

This is what she sent Frank:

I wish I could have beamed myself to California to celebrate your retirement Frank and spend an evening with you and Jim; two dear shipmates who made such an indelible mark on my life.  My words and best wishes will have to do, but will serve as poor substitutes for the bear hug I would have preferred to deliver and the glass I would have liked to raise to celebrate with you!

I also wish I could beam myself back to the early eighties to relive just a day aboard the Busy Lady!  Now, with so much of life lived, I know I would better appreciate the greatest job I ever had, working shoulder to shoulder with the best people I have ever known. 

I remember with much affection the sailors who helped me cut my leadership teeth,  And I remember the senior officers who patiently mentored junior officers such as myself.  These were wonderful patriots.  I suppose we were working hard, but mostly I remember the camaraderie, the laughs, the warmth and the fun.  

And you were in the thick of that camaraderie Frank.  You were  the third ship’s Doctor  to serve aboard  Yosemite while I was assigned to her. But the one I could not and will never forget.   I had no idea when I met you that you would one day save my life, in more ways than one. 

You made quite an impression when you showed up on Yosemite.  Smart, fit, good looking and a killer smile just began to describe our new Doc.  But it was your heart of gold and kind disposition, which became evident almost immediately, that defined you. Of course, you knew next to nothing about the Navy.  Lord knows.  We could convince you that the strangest combination of uniform parts were required for inspections. The supply officer, Linda, and I thought it was hilarious. Placing it in context we were thousands of miles away form home, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  We were desperate for entertainment and Frank Kerrigan seemed to be fair game. Frank, you  took it all in stride and with good humor. And despite our shenanigans still allowed us to read your medical school textbooks.  I say again…we were desperate for entertainment. 

I remember how you would often wander up to the bridge.  You were interested in the operation of the ship and what we did as watch standers.  Often you would find me monitoring the navigational charts and always asked about our location and how I figured that out.  In doing so, you demonstrated your respect for us and our work.  You had no obligation to spend time with SWOs.  You could just have easily watched movies when medical shut down for the day or banked precious sleep, which we as watch standers all craved.  But instead, you became part of the operational team. Thinking back it was an incredible show of support.  As a holistic healer, perhaps it was your way of ensuring our social emotional well being during those long, lonely nights. 

Your dedication as a Medical Officer was clear.  You were then as I am sure you are now, an incredible doctor. Jim and I could never repay the care you gave me when we lost our first child.  We were stupid young newlyweds scared out of our wits.  You calmly and expertly took over that wild scene, allaying our fears and restoring my physical and emotional health.   Nothing was lost on us, including your decision not to give me a blood transfusion in the months just prior to the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic.  I remember you standing there telling me I could probably use a pint, but I was strong enough to allow my body to replace what I needed.  A year later I found myself wondering if you had an inkling about what was to come.  You probably don’t even remember these details, but we sure do.  You set the bar very high for any doctor I have seen since. 

I was so happy to reconnect via Facebook (and Jim Jewell) a short time ago.  I wish we had stayed in better touch, but life happens.  With any luck our paths will cross again one day.  But if they don’t please know that you remain a bright spot among my happiest memories.  I wish you the very best in your well deserved retirement.  I understand you are heading home.  Enjoy every second! 

Fair winds and following seas old friend.  God Speed.

Love,

Noreen

And Frank, as Noreen said so well, Fair Winds and Following Seas.

Later this morning, i will drive just under two hours to a studio apartment by the mountains outside Flagstaff, Arizona.

i will not go via Interstate 17, which the map directions say is the fastest route. But Sybil Kuny, one of the greatest cooks and nicest people the world has ever known, advised me US 89 to I-40 would be easier and faster. She and Lance Cook, Maureen’s cousin, hosted us in their beautiful home in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona last night (Maureen will stay here for a couple of days before returning home.

i will be driving on to somewhere in my life.

Getting to somewhere has been a great trip. i opted to play my usual Friday golf round, planning to leave immediately, get a quick nap, and leaving home just after midday to miss the commute traffic. But Al Pavich was waiting at the nineteenth hole. Al is on the rebound from from some health problems. He, Pete Toennies, and i go way back to the staff of Commander, Amphibious Squadron Five and one of the craziest “WESTPAC” deployments ever. On the next deployment, Al and shared a stateroom on the USS Belleau Wood. We have remained friends ever since. He is a hero.

So i stayed longer than intended, and Maureen and i hit the road almost two hours later than planned and into the teeth of the commuter traffic on I-15. It was brutal. From Escondido to Temecula, a half-hour trip normally, took way more than two hours. My little Mazda 3 rarely got out of first or second gear. When we arrived in La Quinta, it was almost seven.

It was worth it. Dr. Frank Kerrigan’s retirement party was Saturday night. Frank was the doctor on my last ship, the USS Yosemite. We were mutual support partners on our eight month deployment to the Indian Ocean and pursued our mutual love of golf together. We’ve been close friends ever since. Saturday, we played a round at The Hideaway course. That evening we attended the retirement party. It was a blast. (i will have another post about Frank later).

But now, i’m headed to somewhere. When i get back home from Flagstaff in two weeks, i will not only know where i’ve been, i will know where i’m going, which is the intent of this trip. To know where i am going.

From tomorrow until Sunday, June 25, this site and Facebook will be shut down. i have some things to do somewhere. My phone calls will be limited. i do not plan to turn on the television, dine out, or do much of anything except write, read, walk or run in the woods, and meditate. You see, i plan to be doing a lot of something somewhere, just not the usual stuff i do.

This morning, i read an item in “The Writer’s Almanac” about Leo Tolstoy. On this date, Tolstoy began his pilgrimage to a monastery. He had found God when he took a walk in the woods. Well, i think god and i are good and i don’t expect to find him, but i am hoping to find me.

It will be nice to get to somewhere.