i have been frequently accepting i am not of now.

i will not beat up today as it has evolved because of us. There are good new things, and there are new bad things, sort of like it’s always been.

i am old, not part of today, a relic. i am okay with that.

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My last political thought of this year, perhaps forever: It appears to be that everyone, regardless of their political persuasion are in favor of age and term limits, except of course for politicians themselves of every political persuation who profit mightily financially and being in power.

But, like the weather, no one does a thing about it — Lord, what song did that come from? If i were 30-40 years younger, i might become politically active to fight for 2-term limits on all elected officials, forbidding anyone over 70 from holding an elected postion, and requiring our elected officials to be subject to the same regulations as all of the other citizens of the country.

But i am old and have found no one takes anyone my age seriously…and no no one should who are within 10-12 years of my age, especially elected officials .

i just don’t understand how our citizens don’t take action to amend the current state of political destruction.

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Other than that last political comment, i have recognized i am not of this world and time. i am an old salty sea dog and no longer fit. i try, try hard to fit in this world of computers, financial maneuverings, new fangled products, commercialism, etc., etc. But i truly am from another world. There are many wonderful things from our advances. i am glad, even profit from many, especially in the medical field. i use this thing called artificial intelligence as it has provided me answers to many questions. i am glad for those younger than me who are enjoying the advantages in the world today.

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i’m just thankful for things i have enjoyed, even loved in a world long ago, but miss. Such as:

At somewhere around three or four, being allowed to play in our front and back yards with no supervision. Having no restrictions wandering around our neighborhood to play with what seems to have been an infinite number of boys and girls my age, only required to be home at lunch or dinner time.

Having an open field next to our house, owned by our neighbors on the other side where all sports were played, snowmen were built.

Walking to and from school alone after the first day of first grade and stopping at Little Eskew’s for bubble gum with baseball cards and candy.

Walking to the old house on Main Street. which for a good while was the city library and checking out books, biographies of American heroes of every varity without revealing those heroes faults.

Spending weeks at my great uncle’s farm at the intersection of Blair Lane and Hickory Ridge Road, rising at 4:00am with “Papa” to call the cows, walk them to the barn and milk them by hand, feeding the hogs in the sty, and walking back over the fields to the tin-roofed farmhouse to eat home-made bacon, eggs from the chicken coop, homemade buttermilk, grits, biscuits with home produced butter and plum preserves.

Eating watermelon in the back yard and spitting out the abundant seeds. Making homemade peach ice cream in that same back yard, grinding the ice cream maker covered with dry ice and then covered with towels and blankets: best ice cream ever.

Watching the boarding cadets from Castle Heights Military Academy, from first grade up, marching to church on Sunday morning down Main Street, dropping them off at various churches.

Listening to reveille, taps, colors, the sounds from the Sunday marches and the Saturday football games at Heights from our home down the hill from the school.

Never locking our car and only locking our house when we went to sleep.

Oh, there are so many more things i miss, but i will close with the Christmas tree: From a very young age, my younger brother and sister with myself would accompany our father out to Papa’s farm and cut a Christmas tree from the cedars, which were prolific on the farm. Invariably, they were too big and had to be shortened to fit in our living room. As we grew older, Daddy allowed us to fetch the cedar tree. At least one year, we traveled to the farm in my sister’s 1959 Vauxhall, cut the tree, tied it to the top of the car and brought it home.

It felt like Christmas.

May all of you have a wonderful Christmas that will give you memories of things that you will miss.

Merry Christmas.

There are some things that never change, For me, one of those “things” is the relationship i have with George Henry Harding, IV. We have been friends since we first met at our christening in May 1945 at the Lebanon First Methodist Church in Lebanon. i was a year and four months old. Henry was a year and one month old.

We are not alike. Henry is tall, dark, handsome, and still has hair. Me…well, let’s not go there.

i probably spent as much, if not more time at Henry’s home as i did at mine after the age of seven or so, until i left for parts known and unknown when we turned 24.

Henry went to Lebanon High School. i went to Castle Heights Military Academy. We remained close and spent our weekends when not playing football, basketball, baseball together, as well as nights listening to his father’s “party” records of Moms Mabely and Redd Foxx in the front room of his home.

Henry went to the University of Tennessee. I went to Vanderbilt and graduated from Middle Tennessee.

Henry was enlisted Army and an ordance instructor in Maryland. i went to Navy OCS and eventually made the Navy my career.

Henry stilll lives in that house where we played. i have lived in a dozen places, most while being aboard 10 ships that traveled to many places, except Northern Europe and around South America.

We still talk to each other, but now, it is nearly allways by long distance phone calls. Each time, no matter how long in between, it’s like we pick up the conversation where we left off the previous time. 

Henry remains a die-hard Tennessee football fan. i continue to be a dyed–in-the-wool Vanderbilt fan. We cheer for our respective teams and enjoy the successes of the other.

Remarkably, we seem to think alike on most subjects, especially politics.

We rag at each other in the most jovial manner.

He is like another brother.

This weekend i initiated a string of emails about the Vanderbilt-Tennessee football game. i expressed my thrill at Vandy’s win but also expressed some sadness that the Vols had to lose.

This exchange went on for several emails. When i closed out, i made the comment that like Waylon Jennings sang, “I’ve always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane.”

Henry’s reply:

“Too late.”

Not only is he like a brother, he knows me well.

i, in my old age frenzy, have replaced a great deal of writing with reading, which in my youth was my frenzy in addition to sports.

Strangely, i have selected several different types of reading: old ones off the shelf i’ve read several times from back when. New ones others have suggested, even loaned me. i read old-man-late after that beautiful woman has gone to bed until i too am tired, and the eyelids flutter and the head nods.

i read out of several books at a time, wishing i could stay awake all night and pore over the pages in a fever like i did back a long time ago under the sheets with a flashlight to prevent my folks from knowing i was violating the sleep rules.

Something from which i would have spurned until now i find…intriguing, i think is the word: Literary History of the United States by erudite scholars Spiller, Thorpe, Canby, and Ludwig. i’m sure it was one of my college course books. i never read it. Now, i learn when learning is not required. Yet loquacious, a term for talkative, prevails in the writing, almost pompous, and i marvel at myself reading with pleasure such an academic tome.

i also have returned to favorites: Faulkner, Warren, Greene, Doctorow. i currently am re-reading David Maraniss book on Vietnam, They Marched to Sunlight.

i read several at a time. In addition to the history tome, and Maraniss, i’m near the conclusions of Robert Penn Warren’s Or Else: Poem/Poems 1968-1971, and Ibrahim Al Nashashibi’s Gratefulness: Messages from the Heart to the Mind (I have written before of Ibrahim’s books and his restaurant Farouz in San Diego. He was born in Jerusalem, has a Jewish and Muslim background, and is an amazing gentleman).

Saturday night after all the football games had gone to bed, i read a poem of Ibrahim’s, “The Vessel and the Traveler.” Ibrahim discussed the relationship between the soul and the body. As usual, it was thoughful and produced some deep considerations for me.

Then i picked up Warren’s book and read “Interjection #7: Remarks of Soul to Body.” As usual, Warren captures me with power of his images.

The poems were different. But they expressed a relationship about ourselves i have often wondered. And here were these two men from amazingly different times, locales, and backgrounds addressing the same themes. i was struck by reading them randomly on the same night.

Oh, i wish they could have met and talked about those two poems.

Of course, i and my brother Joe, would have to be sitting in the back of the room listening.

Reading this, don’t be concerned about my health, i have some issues, pretty much the same as anyone a couple of months from 82 will have. There are some procedures i will be experiencing in the next couple of months to address the most serious difficulties, but i plan on being around for quite a while. i am hoping to make it to almost 99 like my daddy did, but i’ve live a much harder, wilder life, so am not likely to do that. i do think about what’s next more than i should. i’m still having fun. i hope you are also if you are in my generation.

i feel aging embracing me
while sharpening the blades
i cannot see
that will eventually
do me in.

i shall not worry about 
what will take me away
for i know it will be earned
for what i’ve lived,
good things and bad things
regardless of intention.

the question is not
how nor when
but what remains
in my living
for i am blest.

one must step carefully
in this forest of diabilities piling up;
yet, at four score plus
a new vision of the world opens
for i have been there and remember.

i have seen the good and bad
over those years,
now, observing them
in the growing crowds 
of people, planes, automobiles,
concrete and steel,

i think i understand.
i know i cannot tell them
what they should be doing
based on what i’ve learned:
they are young, impetuous, headstrong,
knowing i do not know what it’s like nowadays,

which i do, of course:
i’ve walked down that road.

it matters not.
there is a warmth in knowing
i’m not in their squabbles;
knowing living, doing the right thing,
or making the attempt
is the key to feeling good in the long run.

So, i read the headlines, 
watch what they erroneously call news,
shake my head at their goofy plans
to make the world better,
which they can’t unless they
realize the depth of what i wrote above.

it is a pleasant world embracing me,
even with the discomfort of being
embraced too hard,
for, as my father said that i repeat:

i’ve had a good life,
have a good wife,
have great children, grandchild, and friends.
i just hope 
when i go,

i go quick.