Before i finish this post, it will be 8:30 a.m. Lebanon, Tennessee time.

It hit me that is the time my parents would call every year on this day when i was accessible by phone. After i would say the perfunctory “hello,” they would burst into “Happy Birthday.” As they aged, the voices were a little more scratchy, a little more off key, but i could feel the love pouring out over the phone like they were in my room hugging me.

It did not occur to me until this morning, they would wake me up at 6:30 a.m. PST, because that was the time i was born. They loved to tell the tale of how Daddy finagled a week of liberty, by cobbling together several liberty passes from his Seabee friends. He took the train from Gulfport, Mississippi where his 75th Seabees were waiting to be shipped to parts unknown. I was late, so after the instruction of Dr. Charles Lowe, he walked Mother around the neighborhood, “not until she was tired, but until he was tired.” It appeared not to be working. i was stubborn even then. But finally on Tuesday, they went to the hospital. My grandmother, Katherine “Granny” Prichard was the attending nurse. i was anxious to get out i guess as Dr. Lowe did not have time to get in his gown and delivered me in his shirt sleeves.

i think of Daddy waiting in the lobby. i wondered what he thought as he waited. He had a new house, his future was more uncertain than we can comprehend now, his wife was going to have to take care of a newborn while he was away, there was this war going on.

After he saw me, he caught the train back to Gulfport and was not UA (Unauthorized Absence).

And for sixty-nine years, they sang to me as close to 8:30 a.m. Lebanon time on this day.

i do miss that rendition of “Happy Birthday” and them.

Seventy-Three. 73. Birthdate year 1944.

Seventy-Three is not a magic number. i mean it’s not like 75. If it were my 75th, i could steal from the anniversary connections and say this was my “diamond” birthday. i can’t. They don’t have a connection like that even for anniversaries for 73, let alone birthdays. i figure this birthday should be connected to lead.

Seventy-Three is not even significant in most categorizations. Seventy-Two seemed, not magical, but certainly mathematically clean and associated.

So why am i so obsessed about turning seventy-three tomorrow. i don’t know.

But i have an excuse: i’m old.

Now if i live as long as either one of my parents with a sharp mind to the end as they did, i could have at least twenty-four more productive years left, maybe twenty-five. But i won’t: i lived one hell of a lot harder and wilder life than they did.

So i figure i will be damn lucky if get another twenty years out of this thing called living.

That’s okay. Either way.

Now, it’s time for me, as i have written, to reinvent. It won’t be hard. There are things to remind me of how to do it. Two Tuesdays ago, i played golf with one of my all-time best friends, Pete Toennies at the Bonita Golf Club. For a number of years, we have watched two red-tail hawks soar the heavens looking for game and survey their prospects from a dead eucalyptus, a sentinel  near the sixteenth green. In that recent round, they perched on their outpost, almost like telling me to do it right. They did.

But that is just a recall of a wonderful moment.

With the seventy-third inevitably upon me. So is the rain. So we prepared for the rain, five days of it, an unheard of event in the world of the Southwest corner since the rains of the late seventies. So Maureen prepared, with my help. Her orchids were pulled out from underneath the overhangs in our courtyard so they could bask in the downpours headed our way for the next five days.

Then, i made my last martini…ever…i think. My age does not handle booze well. It is time for me to back off or quit entirely. The trial, hopefully successfully segueing into my lifetime habits, excludes hard liquors and limits all of the others. Appropriately, i had used the last olive already, so i had to forego garnish. Not a big deal but symbolic. So i wandered into the front room, sat down at the piano, arraigned a jury-rigged coaster out of my ever present bandana, placed the martini there for occasional sips. i played a simple piece i made up a hundred years ago and makes me feel like i can do this sort of thing. Then i began “Stardust,” which i learned out the Hoagy Carmichael songbook years ago, but now it requires relearning after layoffs like this long one. i got almost two-thirds of the way through, slowly, haltingly, but always expressively, when the number of my inabilities made my playing un-fun and i stopped. After all, Maureen is making shrimp with risotto, a new dish, so it is time to get on with it.

And then it’s on to night time. i bring in some firewood  and light the fire. Fire in the hearth has become a standard part of our routine from late November through February. It is one of my connections to the past. We never had one fire in our living room fireplace on Castle Heights Avenue. My parents were practical people and they converted from goal to gas with no thought of  connecting to their past with a fire in the fireplace. But my fire tonight is a beautiful fire. i think of my Uncle Pipey Orr, who in his living room fireplace in Red Bank outside of Chattanooga seemed to always have a fire. i think of Uncle Remus. For some reason, i always imagine him telling me his stories of Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear, Brer Fox, and all of the other wonderful creatures in those tales while we sit by a fire in a slave cabin made of logs. Tonight, i thought of Uncle Remus.

And Uncle Remus is a good place to start. He has become some kind of “Uncle Tom” symbol to some folks, who apparently didn’t understand he was the hero, making good when it was hard to make it, living like a piece of furniture, owned. Yet he was the one who did things right. The “white” folks in the that film, which had no real connection to Joel Chandler Harris, except for Uncle Remus and his stories, are really the bad guys, not understanding, bigoted, blind. And Uncle Remus survived.

And he is old, like me.

That’s what i hope to do at seventy-three and beyond: be like Uncle Remus.

One of the folks i have reconnected with on Facebook is Norm O’Neal. Norm was a radarman (right, Norm?) on the USS Hawkins in 1968-69 when she was my first ship. i do remember him but must confess not as clearly as i would like, a difficulty i have with many parts of my life over fifty years ago…okay, over 50 minutes ago.

Norm sends out some wonderful emails and occasionally posts something on Facebook. Many are beautiful photographs of animals (so i can forward them to family members who are crazy about animals) or historic events. My favorite emails of his are humorous.

This morning, he posted quotes from Steven Wright, a comedian and award-winning film producer. Being challenged to know any performer who did not perform before 1985, i did not know Steven Wright, i looked him up on Wikepedia (God bless you, Wikipedia. If it wasn’t for you and my confessing you are my frequent source, people might think i know a lot). From Wikipedia:

Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and an Oscar-winning film producer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical, and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations.

i mean i have to like anyone who comes up with a lot of paraprosdokians and non-sequiturs. It’s my kind of humor.

But i digress. Wright’s quotes are below. p.s. i think he stole a couple. Thanks, Norm.

The Quotes of Steven Wright:
1 – I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2 – Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.
3 – Half the people you know are below average.
4 – 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5 – 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6 – A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7 – A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8 – If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
9 – All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
10 – The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11 – I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ….. But she left me before we met.
12 – OK, so what’s the speed of dark?
13 – How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?
14 – If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15 – Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16 – When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
17 – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18 – Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
19 – I intend to live forever … So far, so good.
20 – If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21 – Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
22 – What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
23 – My mechanic told me, “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”
24 – Why do psychics have to ask you for your name
25 – If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26 – A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27 – Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
28 – The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29 – To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30 – The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31 – The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
32 – The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33 – Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have film.
34 – If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
35 – If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

i’m back on Facebook.

Actually, i never went away. i monitored, but not as intensely or frequently. i shared links to the posts on my website and my Democrat columns, and i posted albums of pictures i’ve scanned for posterity because i’m too damn old and ornery to learn how to share those old photos with my family any other way.

The truth is i like sharing stuff back and forth with friends and family. Those reconnections and new ones give me a lot of pleasure. i decided i just couldn’t give up those connections.

But i’ve made some rules. i’m only going to “like” posts i truly enjoy or find especially interesting. i am no longer going to “like” a post because i want you to know i’ve actually read it.

i’m going to skip all those pass-along jokes, feel-good videos, prayer requests, political comments, copy and paste demands, etc. That doesn’t mean i don’t respect you. It just means i’m not on the social media for such stuff. i like the social aspect.

You see, i set myself some goals, not resolutions, before the  end of the year to reinvent myself. i want to live the rest of my life in a better, healthier, more productive, and more giving back mode of operation. i also don’t want to sweat things anymore. i want to truly retire except for that giving back thing, which i plan to do through writing.

Well, i backslid on those goals, not resolutions, pretty soon after the turn of year. Not completely, mind you, not even too badly, but i did backslide in my opinion. But you see, i have an automatic reprieve. My birthday is January 19, which i share with Robert E. Lee, Edgar Allen Poe, Paul Cezanne, Jean Stapleton, Tippi Hedren, Phil of the Everly Brothers, Janis Joplin, and Dolly Parton, among others.

And of course there is James Winston Watts, who developed the frontal lobotomy.

It all seems to fit.

So i’m renewing my efforts to reinvent myself. Whatever is left in this life for me, i intend to enjoy it.

This morning, i completed a project, the first one among many. It’s not that impressive. i made an herb table which we will put out in the old dog prison (no dog, no prison) where Maureen can work on raising her herbs and potting flowers.

It’s really not impressive. i made it out of scrap lumber and some sheet metal. It is not square, but i did it with no plans, just sort of began puttering.

Still it’s a change. i have somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand projects in my garage and office, and that’s not counting the four billion and growing list Maureen has for me. This herb table is the first step in completing those tasks and the beginning of the reinvention of my reinvention.

And as i drug the table from the garage work area to the old dog prison, i passed the rose bush Maureen has in a planter.

i didn’t see this at first what with rousting about the table. i experienced the aroma first, one of the sweetest smells i’ve come across in a while.

Then i saw the rose. ‘Bout damn near perfect. Not a bad way to kick off a reinvention.

The story is dated and a bit overwritten. The writer, Laurence Zwisohn, was obviously a fan of the King of the Cowboys.

i have justifiably been accused of overwriting and being “sappy.” i also was a huge fan of Roy Rogers, shown below with Trigger (i purloined this photo off of a Mexican website, http://undiacomohoyhuaraz.blogspot.com/2015_03_01_archive.html).

Roy Rogers could not exist today, nor will anyone come along like Roy, nor will anyone come close to emulating Roy’s life.

My father in his later years and i would watch Roy’s movies together. Now, on rare occasions, only my daughter Sarah would deign to watch them with me.

i don’t think there are many folks in the generations following mine could understand, let alone enjoy Roy’s “B Oaters.” Many would complain they were not realistic. Many would complain about Roy’s lack of faults or the villains, you know, the ones in the black hats. Many would complain of the violence. After all, the villains did shoot people (Roy just shot the guns out of their hands), and there were lots of fights where Roy fought fair and his adversaries would cheat, throw dirt in his eyes, and use chairs and such to try and whack Roy unsuccessfully. As expected, or even known beforehand, Roy would ward off the yellow-belly cheater’s attack and knock him out (often after catching him in a horse race — no horse was faster than Trigger — diving and taking him and the culprit rolling down a hill) and win the fight. But yes, it was a fist fight earning an R rating by the supercilious.

There would likely be others who would complain about animal cruelty. They would likely want Trigger to be put out to pasture, and the cows not be herded and branded.

Even though, as Zwisohn points out, “Indians” were always friends with Roy and never fought against him, or him against them, there would be some “Native Americans” who would object to the portrayal of these indigenous people as degrading.

Atheists would decry Roy and Dale’s fervent religious beliefs. Rocks would be thrown at the couple from all angles. The left would deride him. The right would demean him. Journalists would haunt Dale and him, looking under every rock, trying to find dirt to print. Some would probably just print something on a hunch. Attorneys would be looking for a kid who missed getting an autograph so they could sue.

It was a different age, a different mindset. Sure there were folks who were no better, perhaps worse than many today. Certainly, there were backdoor deals by the bigwigs in every facet of American life. Prejudice raged in every direction. There were actresses who were abused, but some using the director’s couch to climb the ladder of stardom. Hollywood was a nasty business with a dark underside and shaky morals.

But Roy and Dale were above that. They lived a rather incredible life of religious belief, unblemished behavior, and success.

The museum made way for a highway in Apple Valley. They moved it to Branson, Missouri. It lasted for a while and then closed for lack of interest. Sad. It was a good place to go and feel good.

But if you want to feel good about at least one couple getting it right for them, then read Zwisohn’s article. It’s almost like magic, like pretending. But Roy and Dale did exist. The piece is a bit long, but for me well worth the read:

http://www.royrogers.com/roy_rogers_bio.html

And every once in a while, the Western channel during daytime programming, not prime time, will vary from their usual inundation of Gene Autry movies to show one of Roy’s. Watching it for me is like getting healed. The bad guys lose, the good guys win, and Roy and Gabby ride off into the sunset, obviously after Roy has sung one last love song to the heroine.