Oh, it was a long time ago. Several lives ago by my time. It was a lovely time usually forgotten amongst the myriad of good and bad of what followed.

Summer, 1969. John and Susan Johnson will have to give you the exact date of their wedding. i was there. Watertown, New York. About as far north as you can get and still be in the U. S. of A. After all, Yanch was not just a fraternity brother but a real friend for whom i had gained the utmost respect. i had come up from Norfolk on leave to attend their wedding but pretty much in a cloud: a one-year wonder Lieutenant Junior Grade who had just found out i was going to another world, unsure of exactly what that world would be. One afternoon, the three of us were riding around and Susan asked me what my plans were.

i did not hesitate. My goal was be a sports writer, a sports editor, and a columnist like my hero, Fred Russell of The Nashville Banner.  Yanch glanced back at me in the backseat and said the sports editor of the paper his father owned and at which he, Yanch, had begun work, The Watertown Daily Times’ sports editor would be retiring about the time i would be completing my three years of active duty. He suggested i might come up there and become their sports editor. i nodded my approval of the idea, thanked him for the suggestion, and could not think beyond the next tour, unknown except i was headed for the Pacific Ocean.

About half-way through being the executive officer of MSTS Transport Unit One aboard a USNS ship carrying Republic of Korea troops to and from Vietnam, i started thinking about what was next. i wrote Yanch if the offer was still a possibility, i was very interested.

Voila! About thirty months later, there i was. But i was making decisions about life, my family’s security. It would not end as i envisioned. None of it. But those are other stories, some too oft told.

At that time, i was on a roll. We were the first section of the paper to go “cold type” on a newspaper that was on the cutting edge of the new technology. Or rather, my national sports news, which came over by wire, i put on the first page of the sports section in cold type with the second page local news with “hot type,” then whatever space was available back with the national wire news in cold type — the sports pages had averaged a little less than a full page of copy for each addition before the change; after the change, i was averaging three to four pages of copy each day: that was a lot of work, but fun.

Even more fun was the hot type and oh so much more personally involved. i would either write or create the copy (and at the beginning of my being the sports editor, nearly all my copy), layout the page on a miniature mock-up, write the headlines, send the copy, the layout plan, and the headlines back to the linotype machines, which would click-clack spit out the little lines of lead. Then i would go back to the makeup tables where the experts stood by the metal frames for the molds, and we would place the galleys of type in their place from my layout model. When they didn’t fit, we would begin to throw out lines of linotype from the bottom, a good reason to write the copy from the most important at the beginning and the least important at the end.

And there was a sense of closeness, of identification with creating the copy. i used (gasp!) a typewriter. i did not take typewriting class at Castle Heights or anywhere else. You see, i had a magnificent typist of the 80-word per minute, no error variety at my house. She taught me the correct method, not the finger hunt and peck method of most sports writers. i called her “Mother.” So i would sit at my desk at 5:30 in the morning, my cup of black coffee, my cigarette smoldering the ashtray to the right on my desktop, and with my notes on my left and clack away. It was not gentle and when i hit the return bar, it was almost violent, wham, followed again by the click, click, click. Then i would pull the copy out of the roller with a flourish, label the top with my editing, number one or two soft lead editing pencil and commence to correct the errors in my copy. For you see although i had become a pretty fast typist, i never acquired the errorless mystique of my mother.

It was a process i loved. It’s gone. But to be honest a great deal of frustration went with it and a lot more efficiency came with this damnable machine in front of me now.

Yesterday while looking for some notes to include in my book, a faded three-column width piece of  newspaper fell out of a folder. Checking it out, i liked how i had turned three normal columns into a three-column box for my article. You see, when i became the sports editor, i announced i would not write a daily column as had my predecessor, Jack Case, the guy who gave Raymond Robinson his nickname of “Sugar Ray,” had done for uncountable years and had just about every other sports editor in the world up until then. i didn’t want to write just to write but wanted to write opinion columns or articles of special note when they happened.

This column was one of them. It appeared in The Watertown Daily Times Friday, May 26, 1972 in the upper left hand corner of the second page in the sports section, the hot-type page. Re-reading it, i realized one reason i saved it separately from the many other pages of newspapers i have saved over the years. i thought it was one of my  best. Still do.

an

And i’m thinking Jack Case, JB Leftwich, Fred Russell, and Bill Roberts are smiling.

As Yogi Berra once sagely said, i just had “Déjà vu” all over again.”

A lovely lady from my hometown, Sara Yahola, had made me feel great me by telling she was enjoying reading the poems in my book of poetry, A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems. She added a friend of hers had especially enjoyed “Git,” and “The Rain.”

Being vain when it comes to my writing, i took down my copy and read those two poems and a couple of more when i ran upon “Feelings.” There was some strange rumblings in my soul as it sounded recently familiar. i realized it had some similar feelings to “a curse upon me,” which i posted yesterday (i think it was yesterday: old age got me again).

i wrote this one in 1969, when i was confused even more so than now.  Divorced after a short marriage, half-way through my three-year Navy commitment, and looking for love, not yet in all the wrong places which i would get to later in life, and generally out to have a good time.

But i was writing. i can’t remember when i wasn’t writing. i probably understood why more then than now. Then, i was going to finish my obligation, become a sports writer, become famous, and write the great American novel, or something. But i was recording my emotions, my thoughts, not really thinking about any of it getting published. Now, i write and hope folks will read what i write, and as Dave Carey once noted about his motivational speeches, take from my writing what works for them.

i would like to remember i wrote this on a day in May when i had spent the night at Hite McLean’s apartment just outside Newport, Rhode Island. Hite was in JAG school. i was the ASW officer on the USS Hawkins (DD-873). His apartment was on the coast above a cliff to the sea actually. That night, Hite and i had gone out to Mac’s Clam Shack on Thames and indulged in quahogs and a pitcher of beer. We came back to his place, talked over some Jack Daniels until late, and i, unusually wise for that stage of my life, decided to sleep on his couch. The next morning, it was New England spring raw when i walked out to the edge of the cliff, sat down with my legs hanging over the side and watched the foam of white waves crash against the craggy coast line while a light cold rain driven by the Atlantic wind drenched my face.

i remember thinking it was beautiful, perfect. A seacoast the way a seacoast should be. Thomas Hardy stuff.

i know that event happened. But as i wrote that memory i realized that wasn’t when i wrote the poem. It was while i was at OCS, 1968, right before i was commissioned. It was at Hurley’s, the rather off the beaten path, rhythm and blues and jazz club in the alley across from the tennis hall of fame where this wonderful jazz group played while an incredible voiced lady would sing “My Satin Doll” during a Sunday afternoon jam and i would ask again and again but this was not Sunday afternoon but Saturday night when the Fall River girls would arrive in large numbers to catch an officer candidate, which i later learned was called “hog call,” and later, was the inspiration for the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman” (alright, you aviators, it might have been a combination of Newport and Pensacola, and i avoided them most of the time by sitting at the bar asking again if they could play “My Satin Doll” while i nursed a Manhattan and wrote things on a scratch piece of paper. And i saved this one (Oh yeh, i smoked then. Chesterfield Kings. Unfiltered). As Bob Hope and Shirley Ross famously sang: “Thanks for the Memories.”

Feelings

Snow is falling.
A quiet has fallen on the world.
Everyone wants to sit by the fire,

Feel its warmth.
But what it’s like to stand out in the cold,
feel the wind biting,
biting into the cheeks?

It hurts.

But the hurt is satisfying.

The room is big and empty;

There is nothing here
but
me and my emptiness;
There are people dancing to the loud music.
There are people laughing at the jokes that are not funny;
but
I can’t laugh because I know something.
Something?
The something is
I don’t know;
No one knows.

I can appreciate
A warm person,
The beauty of a snowfall,
The warmth of a fire,
A sky full of stars after a snow fall,
A good cigarette.
Let’s cry.

My “Writer’s Almanac” email today, noted Charles Dickens published his first part of the serialized A Tale of Two Cities on this date in 1859 in Dickens’ weekly journal, All the Year Round.

The article detailed the history of the journal’s publication, added some interesting information and ended with the first paragraph of that novel, one i believe to be, an incredible work:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …”

i have used this quote several times but confess i stole it from Dave Carey. Dave, a rather incredible person himself, used the quote in the leadership seminar he and i facilitated together in 1985 when he was discussing our choices on how to view our world and our situation.

i would bet money…no, i need to ask Dave if that was behind the title of his inspirational book, The Ways We Choose: Lessons For LIfe From a POW’s Experience.

Then, i considered this is a perfect quote for what we are experiencing with this pandemic (Have you ever thought “pandemic” could mean a bad skillet? No? Just wondering).

It certainly is the worst of what many, if not most of us have experienced. It could also be a time for restructuring our personal goals, behaviors, and attitudes about what really is important in our lives.

Best of times. Worst of times. 1859. 2020. And all points in between, behind, or beyond.

Our choice. It’s what we make of it.

And that is one thing that will never change.

Thanks, Charles and Dave.

Created from extensive research of late:

Goofy guy’s Curse of the Road: If traffic is reduced to almost nothing, the number of wrecks will be increased.

Goofy guy’s explanation of his Curse of the Road: Since hunkering down began, i have been on the interstate/freeway system exactly five times: drove Sarah to pick up our wonderful meal s from Wine Vault and Bistro three times, drove there myself  to pick up the first one when this all began, and drove to golf at Temecula Creek Inn yesterday for golf. During three of those five times, i was in the middle of extensive traffic jams that extended the drive over a half-hour to more than an hour. Sarah has declared it my curse.

Goofy guy’s small delight in his Curse of the Road: Maureen decided to drive home yesterday.