About a year ago, Rod Stark and i were on the Sea ‘n Air Golf Course on the Naval Air Station North Island swinging away as we usually do every week on Friday and then Thursday since 1991 (with Marty Linville whom we lost in 2024).

On the fourth fairway, we spotted three migrating Canadian geese. Rod and i both knew one of the geese had lost its mate. We discussed how geese would never seek another mate if they lost to theirs mate.

Today, my brother-in-law, Danny Boggs, sent me a video of various water fowl landing in the water. There were two geese that landed, elegantly of course.

The video took me back to Rod and i watching the three geese with their gaggle on the golf course.

This all took me back to a wonderful book i read about forty years or more and have re-read numerous times. It’s T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. Merlyn turns Arthur (Wart as a young boy) into various animals for the future king to learn about different types of governments and leaders. When he becomes a goose, Wart learns about a society that ​is a peaceful, cooperative, non-territorial that does not wage war or draw arbitrary borders.

i have many friends who are on the right, even “trumpian.” i wish to remain friends.

But i do wonder if they have ever read White’s wonderful book. Quite frankly, i am afraid they haven’t.

Last Thursday at zero dark thirty, the Uber arrived and took me to the airport. My flight to Nashville was to depart at 6:40 a.m. Uber and my wife declared i should leave my house at 4:15. They were correct. It was a non-stop to Nashville. For the first time i can remember, i had no bags to check, only a backpack and a small carry-on suitcase.,

It was the beginning of yet another adventure. I’m not ready to say it’s my last, but at 82, i’m wondering how many more are left in me. My parents made their last winter cross country trip from Lebanon to the Southwest Corner when she was 84 and he was 87 (2001). Shortly after, i went fishing with him — he hooked the boat trailer to his SUV, drove to Center Hill, and did many other things — when he was 93. He stopped going fishing by himself a few months later.

i should point out he didn’t stop going fishing alone because he felt it was undsafe but because he didn’t want to leave my mother alone who had some health problems, .

i am aware i am not the amazing physical specimen my father was, mostly because i have spent a much wilder life than he did. So, even though i would love to be 93 when i finally have to hang my adventures on a trophy case, i have begun to wonder when i should stop the adventures. My wife seems to think it should be now. Maybe, just maybe, she’s right. But i feel i have several more in me. We’ll see.

But this one was a dandy.

I originally envisioned it to be a ten-day affair. The plan was to leave on Thursday, October 8, going back home for the Castle Heights Miiitary Academy’s “Homecoming.” The school closed in 1987. Every year since then, former students gather for the first weekend in October at buildings that were part of the campus to celebrate being part of a wonderful institution. Since i completed my active duty service in 1989, i have had a desire to attend. Other obligations kept getting in the way. This year was no different. This year, the problem was medical appointments, the annoying requirement for old men.

My plan was to see friends and family in my home town until mid-week and then drive to Signal Mountain for my sister Martha’s 80th birthday, but then i found out she and Todd would be keeping their three grandchildren to allow her son Tommy and his wife Abby to get away without their children, something they had been unable to do for 14 years, a magnamimous gesture on my sister’s part, but making my presence most likely an annoyance.

So, the adventure was reduced to four days. i will describe the great time i had on the abbreviated adventure in my next post. But i do think there will more,

It was…? well, weird.

The last time i was a real sportswriter was in 1972 when i walked away from a wonderful job in a wonderful place, sports editor for The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York. It was purely a financial decision in order to provide an adequate income for my wife and infant daughter.

i rejoined the Navy as a surface warfare lieutenant. It was the right decision, and i don’t regret it. However, i do often wonder what it would have been like to continue my career in sports journalism.

Regardless, i haven’t had the feeling like being a sports writer since July 31, 1972…until last night.

i have become a critic of sports at all levels because i think even at the youngest age level, sports are no longer “sports” but are focused on making them careers, very lucrative careers but still careers. Very few youngsters play multiple sports. Seasons overlap. Parents and hired athletic tutors teach youngsters all of the techniques and proper styles of sports. Playing football or baseball on an open field with bases and foul lines established by sweatshirts or old rags no longer exist. Some adult is supervising and safety is more important than fun.

This, of course, comes from an old curmudgeon whose last direct offspring quit playing organized sports or sports of any kind before high school. So, i really don’t know if some kids are sneaking around and playing some sport with just others their age and not spending that time on some electronic game device. Hey, the world is changing, but i think we’ve lost something.

i have morphed from watching every baseball, football, and basketball game, as well as tennis, soccer, and volleyball games i could find into watching only my teams, Vanderbilt sports and Padre baseball. Even with the sideshows of commercials, coaches, referrees and umpires, and rules intended to make the “games” more enjoyable to watch interrupting the pace of play and breaking the momentum of impressive runs of success (or dismal failure), there are some amazing athletes out there. They may have had more coaching, more training, more personal fitness, more psychological stress coaching than i ever had, they are still better than i could ever have achieved.

The old curmudgeon had pretty much forgotten about his time as a “sports journalist.” Until last night.

It was strange. i was watching the San Diego Padres playing the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League playoffs. i fully expected it to be the last game i would watch this season. The Brewers were likely to win their third straight, eliminating my Padres.

Maureen and i watch nearly every Padre game during the season. It’s a great way to spend an evening when one is retired and not into movies anymore (that’s me, not her). i’ve been a Padres fan since the first time i saw them in Jack Murphy Stadium in 1975. My buddy, Jim Hileman and i shared full season tickets for several years in the late ’80s, early ’90s, then went down to two 40-game season tickets, which i maintained until 2014.

Therefore, i am a bona fide Padre fan. Maureen is more excited about them than i am. She has to leave the television and go to bed and read when the final two or three innings are tight — then, if the Padres won, she wants me to find the replay so she can watch it when she already knows the outcome.

Consequently, she went to our bedroom at the end of the sixth inning. i sat alone with most of the lights out watching by myself. i found myself twitching in my chair, mumbling good and bad things depending on the play and sometimes at the risk of disturbing Maureen, bringing a Navy cuss word down upon the perpetrator’s head.

The Padres won 4-3 in a thriller. How they did it has been all over the sports media. I won’t describe it, but i will say the thrill of victory pulsated in our house this morning and undoubtedly in households where the Padres are the favorite.

Yet, there was this strange thing happening to me. As the game progressed, i began to feel the objectivity of a sports writer returning.

Objectively, that was one of the best baseball games played the way i think it should be that i’ve seen in the past 30 years or more. Both teams pitched exceptionally well. They both played small ball with bunts, steals, and hit-and-run plays. The defense of both was incredible.

Had the Brewers pulled it out and won, i would have been a bit disappointed, but i was elated i was allowed to see such a wonderful game played the way baseball should be played (in my mind).

Holding true to my curmudgeon image, i must say at the end of the 5th inning i turned down the volume to where i could hear the crowd noise and could hear the announcers but it was too low to hear what the announcers were saying. In the bottom of the 5th, the Brewers shortstop Pratt was on third, their hitting hero Chourio hit a short fly ball to left field. The Padre’s left fielder, Dustin Harris, caught the fly, and the center fielder Jackson Merrill backed him up. Harris took two steps and fired to home plate too late. Had he taken just one step, he might have gotten Pratt out. But he took too.

One of the announcers proclaimed Harris shouldn’t have caught the ball, that he should have stepped aside to allow Merrill to catch the ball because he was the better outfielder. I not only found the comment stupid but insulting.

The trio had been spouting drivel all night, usually denigrating a player (either side) because they knew better than the players on the field. The stupid comment about Harris finally drove me to shut them down. Fox Sports should be ashame for having such BS on the air. Sadly, it’s the other networks also, especially ESPN. i will have the volume where i had it last night for tonight’s contest.

i’m also thinking about installing a seat belt on my chair just in case tonight’s game is a good as last night.