This tale of turnip greens started out with one intention, but it somehow morphed into a legend, much too long to put in one post. It reminded me of my father’s talent of telling wonderful stories of Lebanon  and our family past. But more so, it produced a picture in my head of his sister, Aunt Naomi (pronounced “Aunt Noni” by the Jewell children) standing regally in the middle of the room, tall and lithe with elegant white hair, regaling me with stories on end, one leading to an idea about another, and wonderfully on, and delightfully on.

So when i realized after writing all that is enclosed here didn’t even mention the original idea this should be a serial, two posts, unless another thought takes me in a yet another different direction.

i just couldn’t stand it.

i had gone to the Navy Commissary for one item. ONE.

Maureen is not big on sausage, at least the breakfast kind. She prefers bacon, burnt to  a crisp. After all, she is a native of Southern California. But i like my sausage. In fact, i’m damn particular about it. i have been in  culinary heaven for over thirty years since i found the commissary at the San Diego Naval Station, adoringly called “Thirty-Second Street” by the old guys, carried Tennessee Country Pride sausage, mild and hot varieties.

i don’t go there very much anymore. Since Maureen retired, our groceries come from her shopping at Trader Joe’s; Valley Farms Market, a family owned store in Casa de Oro with great meats and sea food; a few particular items at Henry’s ( a place that has gone corporate and has been rebranded as Sprouts, but i don’t care and still call it Henry’s) and Costco (That used to be Price Club, but Sol Price sold out to Costco and made a gazillion dollars); but she shuns the commissary.

Perhaps her shunning was produced by her first visit to the commissary in 1983. We had married in July. i left  my bride in San Diego after a ten-day honeymoon for about six-weeks in Mayport (Jacksonville), Florida, the homeport of my last ship, the U.S.S. Yosemite, which then deployed to the Indian Ocean for eight months.

Maureen had become a military dependent and decided one day at lunch, she would check out the commissary for a couple of items. Now Maureen worked for Parron Hall Office Interiors and was polished and always dressed to the nines at work.

So she took off for the Thirty-Second Street commissary, which was a great deal different then than it is now. To begin, it has upgraded buildings twice in the last thirty-three years. Back then, it was a very large quonset hut tucked back into a corner on the “dry side” of the base. It was also in the age when credit cards were not fully entrenched and Navy personnel, especially the lower ratings, lived from paycheck to paycheck. This meant the commissaries and the Navy Exchanges were packed on paydays (the 15th and the 30th each month).

Unwittingly, Maureen went on a payday. She picked up her two small items and went to the checkout line. That is when she discovered the line wound around three aisles and every dependent wife (even though i was with some of the first women Navy personnel on ships, women in the Navy were still sparse) had shopping carts piled to the top — no, there were no “express lines” back then. She reluctantly got in the back of the line. Then she noticed the very large woman in front of her was pushing one cart and pulling another. They were both piled up to the absolute limit (i’m guessing one of the carts was all Twinkies). Maureen calculated it would take her at least an hour to get to the cashier.

She put her two small items on the shelf and left. Since then, she only goes back under duress.

Before Maureen retired, i did  a great deal, if not most of the grocery shopping. i nearly always came home with Tennessee Pride Country Sausage and a couple of items for Southern fare, which the commissary did well in stocking.

But Maureen retired and loves to cook really good and really healthy food.

Occasionally, she admits she would like me to cook some of my limited dishes: mostly my mother’s meat loaf, black-eyed peas, and biscuits as well as my own concoction of okra, tomatoes, and onions, grilling steaks, and my smoked turkey  for special occasions.

But for the most part, my quick runs into the commissary are snuck into my being on base for other reasons, and nearly always just for Tennessee Pride. But Monday as i walked by the produce department, i spotted turnip greens. i couldn’t pass them up. i just couldn’t stand to pass them up.

So late this afternoon, while sipping on a blueberry and rosemary modification of a gin and tonic, the instructions courtesy of John Moriarty, the whisky expert and bartender supreme at the Park Hotel in Kenmare, Ireland, i tried to remember Mother’s way of cooking turnip greens. And that leads to the second part of this legend.

But i must end this part by saying the blueberry and rosemary gin and tonic was beautiful.

i vowed not only to refrain from  making any comments about politics but to ignore all posts with political comments.

So this is not really political. It is more of a reflection. When i was growing up and in elementary school, the cold war was raging between the United States and the U.S.S.R. One thing i remember most clearly was something told to me by everyone, especially teachers at McClain Elementary School, and always after we had climbed out from under our desks when the atomic bomb drill had concluded.

“The communists believe the end justify the means,” they told me over and over. “We don’t.” they emphasized.

It seems to me now we do. In almost every endeavor, a large number of Americans justify using chicanery, lying, knifing someone in the back, cheating, and defaming whom they believe is their competition to get what they want.

Even in sports, which i always thought was to be played on a level playing field and honorably with no cheating, the end is more important than how you or your team gets there.  And then some coach (and i’m pretty sure it was a football coach) said, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” It’s gotten worse.

Business is run by folks who cut corners, violate laws, abuse their employees, and make false claims about their service or products because someone taught them that was the way to do business.

And politics…well, i think we all know about that, and still good folks pass around lies about the opposition because “they do it.”

My school teachers and my parents would be aghast. i am too and very, very sad.

i don’t think about dying a lot: got too many other things to think about. But i suspect anyone within a couple of years of my age has thought about dying. So yesterday, i decided to write something about how i think about it in the hope folks i know might think a little bit more constructive about what they would want when it happens.

obituary and stuff

getting ‘bout that time
to contemplate what
my obituary should read,

written them before :
some technique for setting goals,
getting in tune with myself,
or
something like that

or
maybe i just have faced the fact
i’m gonna die
sooner than later
compared to the rest of my living time
and
quite frankly, i don’t know what to say
and
it doesn’t matter
because
someone is gonna take my ashes in an urn
back to Lebanon, Tennessee,
back to Wilson County Memorial Gardens
put me in the ground
in the plot next to my mother and daddy
where they only allow headstones to read
name, birthdate, death,
which i guess is just fine,
but
someone is gonna go newsworthy on me
and
the funeral home will want an obit
and
the newspapers will want one
and
quite frankly, i don’t want one
but
it is part of the world in which we live
and
then die nobly, or at least that’s what the obit will say
yet
i have written before about what my father said at eighty-seven,
and
it’s now true for me:

 son, i’ve had a good life;
(i would add “with a few hiccups, of course”)
i’ve got a good wife;
all my children are good children;
my grandkids are great;
now, all i really want
is to go quick.

he was a wise man
and
now i know what he meant
even if it’s about fifteen years earlier
than when he spoke this wisdom
and
another ten before he went quick.

so what should this obituary say:

James Rye (jim) Jewell, Jr. died the other day, (age tbd) at (someplace) where he wanted to be with his wife, daughters, and grandson by his side. He went quick. He had a full life, loved a lot, hated very little, had a good time, and always tried to do the right thing, sometimes failing in that, and was proud to have all of the family and friends he had. He did a lot of things and never got to the top of any of them because he went off and started doing something else before he got to the top. He loved to write and he loved being at sea. He was too trusting with a belief in the good nature of folks to really ever fit in this world of distrust. Still he loved to watch people live and never held a grudge although some people made him sad. Now, he is coming back home. And this time, he will stay.

Yeh, that’s what i would like the obit to say;
it won’t, of course;
but
it will be too late for me to care:
the grave marker next to my mother and daddy’s
will be enough,
quite enough.

Pete and Nancy Toennies could not join us for our golf round celebrating our thirty-third anniversary yesterday.

They have a dog named Cody who is in the last round of living. Pete and Nancy are in the process of making the “when?” decision, one of the most difficult decisions i have had to make twice and is a driving reason for us not having a dog until i am confident the dog will outlive me: i don’t ever, ever want to make that decision and live through the consequences again. We did go out for dinner with the Toennies last night, eating at a tony Coronado restaurant on the outside patio. I feel deeply for Pete and Nancy in their dilemma .

In their golfing absence, we were joined by Mark and Andy, two young Navy Surface Warfare Officers. Mark is the “OE” division officer and the Network Security Officer aboard the USS Milwaukee (LCS 5) (i think that is right: i apologize Mark, for my bad memory; i will correct this when we run into each other again if i got it wrong). Neither of Mark’s billets nor his class of ship was around when i was on ships.

Mark played baseball for Penn State. His golf game reminded me of mine years ago except his game is much, much longer. i told him of this driver i had in the late 1980’s. It had a graphite head and a graphite shaft. My friends named it “The Scud Driver,” Like the missile the Iranians had around that time, my tee balls hit with that driver would go a long way, but no one knew where they would land.

Andrew is the weapons officer aboard the USS Germantown (LSD 42), home ported in Sasebo, Japan. Her class of Landing Ship Dock ships is the successor to the Anchorage class. i was First Lieutenant aboard the Anchorage (LSD 36). My favorite Navy tour was that job on that ship. She is where i grew into being a mariner. The weapons officer aboard Anchorage worked for me.

Andrew played baseball for Concordia University, a small university in Nebraska. Andrew is from near Galveston, Texas, and is a big Texas A&M fan. Of course, i was the senior Navy officer at the NROTC Unit at Texas A&M from 1976 to 1979, one of my two Navy shore tours. Like Mark, Andrew has a lot of potential as a golfer. We might get in nine holes before he finishes his two-weeks of training here and heads back to Sasebo Saturday. Sasebo is one of my favorite liberty ports of all time.

Mark’s girl friend, Andrea, moved to San Diego from Croatia about six months ago. She rode with Mark for our round.

It was good to connect with two young officers who were me almost fifty years ago. i told them a bunch of sea stories, and they seemed to enjoy connecting to the past Navy.

It is a different Navy, but it has good folks, and there is always hope when there are good folks involved.

The afternoon made me nostalgic.

This morning, i opened an email Pete had sent me yesterday.

The photo was a reminder of the way the Navy used to be. It also reminded me of my third class midshipman cruise.

In 1963, the other ships in the Intrepid (CVS 11) anti-submarine carrier group went to Halifax but the Lloyd Thomas (DD 764) was sent to Sydney, Nova Scotia for Canada’s Independence Day (July 1). In the parade, six midshipmen, including me, escorted the six parade “princesses” through the streets. For a week, we wandered the town, drank a significant amount of Carling Black Label beer (“Hey Mabel, Black Label”), and met some nice young ladies.

On the last night of liberty, we worked out a plan with the first class midshipman who had the duty. Liberty for seamen, firemen, and third class petty officers expired at 2200. First and Second Class Petty Officers (Acey-Ducey Clubs, remember?) had to be back to the ship by 2300. Liberty for chiefs and the third class midshipmen  expired at midnight. Officers could stay out until the next morning. Knowing the first class middie would be the quarterdeck officer of the deck for the midwatch, we worked a deal where he would cover for us and a half-dozen of us could get back as late as 0400 without getting caught.

We arranged a party with six of the girls we met at one of their homes on the outskirts of Sidney. It all went well and everyone was having a good time. Then the six midshipmen returned to the ship around 0200 where all hell was breaking loose.

Most of the sailors on liberty had gathered at the dance hall in the middle of town. They were dancing with the local girls, and some of the local boys took offense. Around 2030, a fight broke out between a local and a third class petty officer. The fight grew until it became a huge brawl in the middle of downtown.

Liberty was cancelled. Shore patrol was beefed up with crew from the duty section, and all hands were ordered back to the ship . The quarterdeck watched was doubled and the executive officer was on the quarterdeck from when news of the fight reached the ship until the captain returned.

Wide-eyed from watching the bloody sailors with soiled and torn uniforms (much like in the photograph) straggle back to the ship, we were stunned when we found our first class midshipman was not on the quarterdeck, replaced by a more experienced OOD and the XO. When we reported aboard, we were immediately put on report.

We hovered around the quarterdeck watching the sailors return in small groups or one by one.  One third class petty officer passed us by after crossing the gangway. His head and arms were splattered with blood, along with his service dress white uniform which was in tatters. He was obviously very drunk and without his dixie shop (sailor’s cap).

When we asked him what happened, he said some guy hit him with a chair, and they had a donnybrook. We then asked him if he was okay. He smiled. A front tooth was missing, and then he answered, “I came back, didn’t I?”

We were further surprised when we learned the captain had not returned. He had been a submarine commanding officer before becoming the captain of the Lloyd Thomas and preferred going on liberty with the chiefs rather than the officers. Finally around 0315, his sedan pulled onto the pier. As the executive officer walked to meet him, the captain, being held up and helped aboard by the chiefs, reeled across the brow, obviously four sheets to the wind. He and his chiefs had been to a hole in the wall and been tossing them down since early evening unaware of the brawl or liberty being cancelled.

When the XO informed him of the events, the captain rolled his eyes and yelled, “Well hell then, liberty call for all hands.”

Of course, the XO immediately nixed that and helped the captain, with the aid of the chiefs, to his cabin.

At 0800 the next morning, the Lloyd Thomas got underway. The foggy harbor area was thick with small vessels at anchor including several Japanese fishing ships. The captain took the conn and was giving orders to the helm and lee helm, obviously a little woozy from the previous evening’s activity. He sped up to standard speed too early and turned to starboard a little late, scraping the side of one of the Japanese fishing ships. Looking down from the signal bridge, my watch station for sea detail, i watched a half-dozen or so Japanese fisherman jumping, diving, or falling into the water.

We continued out of the channel to rendezvous with the Intrepid and her other escorts.

The midshipmen, including me, received ten hours of extra duty for missing liberty expiration. My ten hours of extra duty was spent mostly cleaning and painting hot, dank, and out of the way spaces. i was told the State department had sent a letter of apology to Nova Scotia and Japan, but all concern apparently ended there. The captain, then a commander, made captain. The incident, including the collision at sea, did not hamper his career. He did not give himself or his chiefs any extra duty.

Yep, it ain’t the same Navy. Perhaps, perhaps, the new Navy is better. It is certainly less boisterous.

i’m glad i was in the old Navy.

Thirty-three years ago on a day like today though much less humid, a sea breeze reached the house on the corner lot where Taft Street intersects with Hughes Street. The temperature in the afternoon reached 95.

The backyard of the house was spotted with one white pavilion tent and about a half-dozen serving stations. The wedding took place in the northwest section of the backyard, Reverend Joe Jewell presiding.

He read the vows written by his brother, the groom, and edited by the bride:

We are here today to celebrate a union.

Maureen and Jim have traveled different paths to meet at the opportune place to become a perfect union. Their love began as a friendship and has grown far beyond what either had dreamed possible.

Their wish today to be a celebration, a joyous day of laughter and warmth; they wish to share their elation of finding each other with those here today. They hope the emotion of gladness they feel will overflow and others can feel the wonderment and peace of togetherness they share.

The light of love lit by Jim and Maureen has allowed them insight into previously  unseen corners of their lives and to see down corridors of their future.  This light also has revealed a depth of emotion that defies explanation. It has cast the light of clarity on relations with other people important in their lives, redefining and deepening those relationships. In their relationship with each other, this light of love has allowed them to experience a depth of feeling coexisting with an openness and sharing they have not attained before.

This union does not create walls but invites freedom to Maureen and Jim to be who they are with each other and with others with whom they have shared. This wedding is a symbol, an announcement, a consecration of a relationship that has been blessed as a union by the spirit and power that transcends us all.

Jim and Maureen, do you promised to share your joy, your insights, and moments of beauty with each other? Do you promise to support each other without inhibitions or reservation in all of your endeavors and moments of reflection, both high and low? Will you continue to hold each other close in body and spirit? And do you promise your friendship with each other, from which this love has grown, will continue with the same openness, depth, and fervor as it began?

This ring is a permanent symbol of this union. It signifies the love, adoration, and friendship between these two people. Its never ending circle is a symbol of the extent of Jim and Maureen’s love.

It should be remembered the ring is a symbol and cannot completely capture or represent the love and commitment these two share with each other.

The lord bless you and keep you; the lord let his face shine upon you and give you peace.

When i reread and copied those vows today, i kept thinking about how gracious my brother was in reading them without at least chuckling. But he delivered the words with feeling.

It is a bit smarmy in parts and a bit overblown. The writer and editor were in love and wanted to share that with all of their relatives and friends. So i think that is perfectly fine.

The above photo is sort of perfect. We are cutting the cake covered with chocolate covered strawberries with my Navy sword. My mother is in the background to the left of Maureen.

We have now been married for more than half of Maureen’s life. That is amazing to me. i often think it was good to have married each other later in life than most. i think it makes us more tolerant of each other and with the other people we hold dear.

We have settled (somewhat) into our routines of an aged relationship. The length pales into comparison to my parents’ seventy-five years of marriage. Still i think our length of marriage shows our staying power and it’s just fine, just fine.

And i, as i have pointed out a grunch of times, am a lucky man, a very lucky man and have been so for thirty-three years.