Yesterday, i asked Maureen if she would like to just go somewhere nice today.

We had been going in different directions for seemingly forever and spending a lot of time at home in different rooms doing different tasks and other pursuits.

She thought it was a good idea. We talked of going walking on the beach.

But as the morning wound down with my weight training and her yoga, we thought about going to Balboa Park instead. On the ride toward town, Maureen mentioned she would like to have seafood for lunch.

i suggested Blue Water. It’s a fish market and seafood grill where we seldom dine. We just forget about it. But not today. It was wonderful. Maureen had a halibut taco, and i had the special mussels with the surprise addition of clams in an incredible tomato, lime, and jalapeno sauce.

After lunch, we walked about half a block to Gelato Vero Caffe, one of Maureen’s frequent stops; me not so much. But today, they had maple walnut gelato, which makes a good run on my favorite ice cream, black walnut.

It was on our walk, i realized this is a wonderful little corner of the world. The corner is the intersection of India and Washington Streets just inland from I-5 just north of the city proper. Blue Water is the first restaurant up the one-way India Street. Then come the others:

El Indio is one of the best known Mexican restaurants in the city. They serve border-Mexican and many people go across the street to eat on picnic tables in the small park.

The next spot for gastronomy is Shakespeare Pub. It’s all British, and it gives off the feeling we just crossed the Atlantic when we go upstairs.

Next to Shakespeare’s is the Rubicon Deli. It is fantastic.

Next is the Wine Vault and Bistro. It is quite possibly our favorite restaurant of all time. The decor is simple, elegant, and white. They serve a three-course pre fixe on Thursday and five-course pre fixe on Saturdays, both with paired wines. It is very affordable. They also have numerous vintner dinners where the owner of a winery describes each wine while we dine on the different courses. Owners Chris and Mary are the best.

Then, there is Saffron Chicken. Maureen claims it’s the best Thai in the city. She often brings dishes home. i must agree.

The last stop actually on the corner is Gelato Vero. But that’s not all.

Across the street, there’s a taco shop, a basic bar. Up the hill a couple of lots is a really good sushi place. Turning the other way and going under the interstate, there are about three more places, the best being 57 Degrees,  a wine and boutique beer place with super appetizers and a mind boggling number of wines and craft beers.

That’s our corner. A great deal of the dining (except for Wine Vault) is outside. We were on the Blue Water’s patio today. Of course at midday, the temperature was hovering around 70 degrees, pretty much the same from October until June.

That makes that wonderful little corner even better.

i am not sure of the exact event that brought the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts together. But i do know both had a significant impact on me when growing up. The relationship did not last long enough…but that is another story.

It seems i may have posted this before, but i could not find it. That is not unusual. i lose a lot of stuff and can’t find it.

i believe this was taken in 1953, give or take a year or two.

The stamp on the back reads “Louis Perner, 218 Thomas Terrace, Lebanon, Tenn.” (zip codes had not yet become de riguer). From my mother’s documentation, also on the back: “Back Row – Vantrice, leader, 1- Harry Byars, 2 Unknown, 3-George Lowery, 4-Unknown, 5-Bobby Hesson / Front Row – 1-Gordon Bone, 2-Andy Berry, 3-Jim Jewell, 4-LeRoy Dowdy, 5-Frank Schlink”

My biggest question is where the hell is Henry Harding?

i debated on posting this one. It is a little personal, and i’m not sure just how much i want to put my very personal thoughts and feelings out there. But as i enter this month contemplating putting the website posts on a subscription basis, i have come to the conclusion i need to put more of me on the line. This is not because i think i’m something special, far from it. But i have long felt the older generation, my mother and father before me, and now me, have a great deal of thoughts generated by a ton of experience, others, especially younger others, might take to help them make better decisions along their road trip. So, with some trepidation, i decided to go ahead with this one.

My father dreamed a lot also, but he never discussed the dreams themselves. He would say he “dreamed a lot last night,” or “i had terrible dreams last night,” but he never told me what the dream was about.

i have horrible dreams too. Mine usually are about Maureen ignoring or rebuffing me for someone more handsome, more debonair, classier, and i am helpless to convince her otherwise. She is downright mean to me, and i wake up disconsolate, mad at her before i realize it was a dream.

i used to have dreams about some horrible threat chasing me, and i could only run in slow motion. i also used to dream about playing golf and not being able to tee the ball up while the other golfers played on without me or were disgusted with me for not being able to get to the point of swinging the club.

When i was facilitating the Navy seminar on leadership for senior officers, i would dream about some yahoo in the seminar, rejecting the principles of effective leadership and my being unable to articulate the real answer, feeling powerless.

And occasionally, i still will have some bad dreams about urinating, only to wake up and realize i have to go to the bathroom. i would prefer to just wake up.

Sometimes the really bad dreams will repeat themselves for a while.

I have good dreams. Rarely, i will dream of old girl friends and i talking, just talking, nothing unseemly.

When i was young, i occasionally dreamed of being able to fly and can distinctly remember one when i flew over our house and yard on Castle Heights Avenue. Except for that childhood dream, i never remember the particulars of the dream even immediately after i wake up.

But last night, i had a dream i remembered, at least the meat of it. It was a good dream. When i awoke from the dream in the middle of the night, i lay in the bed and tried to recall all i could about the dream in detail.

Unlike most of my dreams, this one was complex. It began with me out in a park with large beautiful buildings like Balboa Park. Balboa Park is the subject of my next Democrat column and a poem in progress. i can understand how that came into my subconscious mind.

i was writing a story and it turned into a newspaper story. Then, i became both myself and Clark Kent, the reporter for The Daily Planet, and i became aware of some tragic but unknown event beginning to occur. i was accompanied closely by some guy (Jimmy Olsen?) and had to run away from him through plazas and hallways in one of the buildings, finally cloistering myself in a closet, which turned out to be an empty tower. I changed (but never saw my outfit) and flew up inside the tower where a large vent covered the top. I broke the seal and pushed the vent out and over where it clanged to a stone floor far below, revealing my departure and possibly disclosing my identity to the guy following me.

Unperturbed, i flew and then floated into what appeared to be a political rally. In the bandstand with a number of people, Ronald Reagan was endorsing some candidate, and i disrupted the endorsement, although why or how i did that was vague.

Having accomplished my good deed (i think), i am not sure why, but my super powers were apparently drained, and suddenly, i was walking in a pretty land, although there was this sense of something evil after me.

i sought refuge in what turned out to be my castle where an elephant opened the gate to admit me and i was greeted by my old friend Cass, my Labrador whose ashes are under my flag at the top of our hill.

With Cass at my side, i went inside and found my way to the master bedroom suite. Maureen, in a beautiful gown, was there. We kissed and held each other. Then we went to bed for the night: she lying down on a massive and beautiful king bed and i lying in a single bed with a luxurious feather mattress. After i lay down, i began to worry about attackers entering the open door to the suite, but before i could close it. our daughter (the dream did not let me know if it was Blythe or Sarah) entered as a child of about three or four. She and Cass climbed into the bed with me. Both snuggled with me under a thick and comfortable cover, and we went to sleep.

And then, i woke up.

Who needs movies or television?

Tonight, we lit our first fire in the fireplace for this season. Folks in most of places in this country, will chuckle when they learn it has just passed sixty degrees on the way to tonights’ nadir of fifty.

But we have not turned on the heat. Our home is comfortably cool enough to have our first fire. We will have other fires but like our son-in-law Jason, the first fire is special.

Thanksgiving is one day past, but for lunch after golf, Maureen made us a wonderful turkey sandwich from the leftovers from the small turkey i smoked yesterday.

Golf itself was a pleasant affair. i had an unusually good round. Light and erratic rain fell on the first two holes, but the Southwest corner sun claimed the rest of the round with the wind holding temperatures to the mid-60’s.

My golfing buddies of near thirty years brought their sons and grandsons to make three foursomes. In our usual nineteenth hole braggadocio, the ole boys regaled the youngsters with tales that startled them (and would have shocked their mothers had they known) with our more famous misadventures.

i came home to the turkey sandwich and a nap. Afterwards, i turned toward perfunctory tasks. As i began, i started that first fire at Maureen’s request. This is unusual as it is usually me who chomps at the bit to start the first fire. i put on the Christmas music we had for background for our Thanksgiving meal. The music concluded with Bach’s “Brandenburg Concertos.” To me, they are so representative of the season.

About a bazillion years ago, Jim Herr, the owner of Parron-Hall Office Interiors invited Maureen, an account executive for the firm and her husband (me) to join him and his wife for a concert in mid-December. The venue was the University of San Diego chapel, a glorious building on a breath-taking impressive campus. The orchestra played the Brandenburg concertos. It was a particularly beautiful moment this ole deejay will never forget.

Tonight, as the orchestra on my  CD player played on, we supped on small steaks and a salad for dinner with a good pinot noir. After i washed the dishes, we watched the news and returned to music while we read with the fire blazing.

Eventually, Maureen left for her bath and reading in bed. i sat by the fading fire and thought:

i am a lucky man.

The season is a most wonderful time of the year.

Quiet and simple times are so much more enjoyable than i perceived them to be in my youth.

A fire in the fireplace restores peace in my heart.

i am a lucky man.

Tonight, i watched Vanderbilt lose a close game to Kansas in the Maui Invitational championship game.

i was disappointed but looking forward to the Commodores having a big year.

Vanderbilt basketball holds a special place for me in sports. I was a cub sports reporter for the Nashville Banner when the team won the SEC and should have made the final four except for a very bad call in the closing minutes of their Mid-East regional finals loss to Michigan. Having been a Vandy student for two years, i knew most of the players as good friends, and they asked me to hang around for several events. Admittedly, i am a irrational fan of the team, then and now. I think it’s the only team sport where i truly am an irrational fan. After all, i was a sports writer, and objectivity is a passion of mine.

Now, it is late.

Maureen went to bed to read and is now asleep. I have locked the garage and turned off the outside lights. The full moon was slithering its whiteness through the growing clouds as i locked the garage.

The smoker is set to go. The turkey is marinating. The hickory chips are soaking. The lump charcoal is at the ready.

And for a moment, reality has hit home.

i decided instead of immediately going to bed, i would have one of my discussions with Mr. George Dickel, a long time friend of mine. i poured a jigger into a small glass and sat down at this infernal computer trying to think of something to do that would take my mind off that reality.

Tomorrow will be good. Patsy, Maureen’s sister; and Bill and Laura Boase, Patsy’s son and daughter-in-law (and our nephew and niece-in-law (?)) will join us for the occasion. They are fun to be around.

But the reality is my family, except for Maureen, will not be with me. i should be fine with that. After all, my first Thanksgiving away from my family was in 1967. I was at Navy OCS in Newport, Rhode Island. There have been many more of what i call the family holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, where i have not been with my family, or they have not been with me. i should be inured to the absence. After all, i was in the Navy.

i’m not.

My daughters, grandson, and son-in-law will be giving thanks and eating turkey in Austin. It was rare for me to spend Thanksgiving with my parents in Lebanon after the 1967 departure to OCS. But i could have been with them up until Thanksgiving 2013. My father has missed the last two Thanksgivings here on earth. My mother was not with us last year.

So with the lone office light and the computer screen glaring in the dark of night, George and i talked about who i am where i am. We decided i’m fine. i’ve had my moment of drear. George told me to forget it and move on.

And tomorrow, i will give thanks for who i am, where i am, what i have, what my Blythe and Sarah have, and what Blythe’s husband and my grandson Sam have; for how many family and friends i have; and for being so damn fortunate to be spending Thanksgiving with my wife. We’ve only missed one together (our first one in 1983 when i was deployed on USS Yosemite for Thanksgiving and Christmas).

And folks, that makes things perfectly all right.

Happy Thanksgiving.