Yesterday, Maureen went to lunch with several of her close friends who once were known as the “Seven Sisters.” The numbers have diminished slightly but the feeling is still the same. It was a long lunch.

i had a number of errands to run and items to get done at home. i was glad to have the time. But as i went out on my first errand, i got a whim. i decided it was justified as it satisfied one item on my check list: a walk. Several of my phalanx of doctors have noted one of the reasons my old man’s back problems are mollified is walking a lot. They encouraged me to do more.

i normally walk over three miles on a route i began as a run. Then, it was a poor replacement for my runs during my last Navy tour when, at lunch, i would run across the street from the Naval Amphibious School, cut through some ugly condo towers and hit the beach for just over a six mile run. i did that run nearly every week day for three and a half years. But my run at home had some steep hills and my age was beginning to show. Then the docs told me i should stop running and walk: brittle old running bones. So now i walk, and walking on surface streets can be a bit boring.

So, this morning, i decided to get away from it all. i drove to Balboa Park, walked through the Prado down to the Organ Pavilion and entered the Japanese Friendship Garden.

i showed my park pass and entered into another land. The Garden, originally the Japanese Tea House, was established in 1915 for the San Diego’s Panama-Pacific Exposition. It was reborn in the 1990’s as is a tribute to San Diego and its relationship with her sister city Yokohama. There are roughly two miles of walking paths through the twelve acres of the garden.

What a garden. It is like walking into a temple honoring nature and contemplation. In the middle of a weekday morning, the visitors are sparse, like having it to myself. The garden reflects Japanese tradition of gardens going back hundreds of years. There are out loops that take me to a place to just sit and relax, perhaps to ponder, perhaps to not think at all but just be a peace for a moment.

There’s an exhibit hall that makes me feel like i just walked into a Japanese home with a wall to wall window looking out on a manicured sculpted gravel garden. A bench inside allows one to sit and contemplate. The path winds gently down to the bottom of the canyon folded around a stream that gurgles calmness as it flows.

Of course, there are koi ponds. In the spring, the 200 cherry trees will be blooming in their grove. We will go there then.

When Maureen returned from her lunch and i from my whim, we vowed to make it a regular thing. Peace and contemplation are not a bad habit to pursue, even on a whim.

Caleb Lucas watched the group quietly but with interest sitting in the back corner of the room.

Earlier while they dined, he had told stories and laughed with them. Then, several of the guys, his sons and sons-in-law told their stories, and the women, his daughters and daughters-in-law joined the story telling.

He realized his stories were dated and held little interest for the rest of the group. He didn’t want to detract from the gathering.

It was an annual celebration for which he looked forward every year. Both of his wives had died young. This was a get together to celebrate the mothers’ lives. They held the dinner each year at the first of summer in the home where they all grew up. Caleb still lived in the five-bedroom sprawling farmhouse on the outskirts of New Palestine.

As he became silent, he studied the group. He loved them all.

But he noticed how things had changed. He had dressed for the occasion. He was in his dress shirt and trousers with nice leather dress shoes. In place of the tie he had worn on many of these occasions, he wore a sports jacket. As he had realized with the conversation, he found dressing up for such occasions was no longer a requirement.

The women wore pants and nice blouses except for one, his daughter, who wore a tee shirt. There were no dresses or skirts.

The men wore jeans and sneakers with no socks. If they weren’t in colored tee-shirts with logos, they wore casual shirts that were not tucked in. Two had on baseball caps worn with the bill backwards and the adjustment straps across their foreheads.

He did not fault them. This type of dress had become the style of the day. Men, even old folks (except him) never wore ties to church. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a woman in a skirt.

The conversation was filled with laughter. The group talked of recently watched movies and their favorite actors and actresses. Caleb did not recognize any of the names. He had not been to a movie theater in years and had quit watching them on the television except for some his old favorites.

The discussion turned to music. Again, Caleb did not recognize the songs, singers, or groups. He had been a disc jockey on a local station while going to college and been known as an expert for naming songs, artists, and even labels but that had been a long time ago. It was still the music to which he listened.

Someone brought up a new book and the conversation took a new turn with the same result: Caleb did not recognize any of the titles or authors. He was reading and rereading his library of older classics.

Caleb realized he was pleased that the cell phones stayed out of use during the dinner. He had one and used it but wished he could just toss it.

As his family continued to celebrate, Caleb sat in the corner contemplating how he was pretty out of the picture, outdated, a dinosaur. As the lively conversation continued, Caleb turned his view to the photos of his two wives in photos on the mantle. They had been wonderful to him. He still hurt from losing both of them.

He nodded silently as if he had reached a decision.

The party went on for about another hour. The family individually hugged Caleb as they departed. Joshua, Caleb’ oldest son remarked as the siblings walked to their cars, “You know, I don’t think I can remember him being that emotional since his wives passed away,”

Around ten the next morning, Caleb’s youngest son Jared stopped by to help clean up after the party. The door was unlocked.

He entered and called for Caleb. There was no answer. Jared went to the master bedroom. Caleb was not there. The bed was made. The dining room and kitchen was spotless after Caleb cleaned up from the evening. Everything was in order, the way Caleb always left it in the mornings after breakfast. Jared went through the rest of the house. No one was anywhere to be found, even in outbuildings. The entire house was spotless.

Jared walked outside to the garage. Caleb’s pickup was there.

Jared called his wife, then his brothers and sisters. No one had heard anything from Caleb. Nothing. They called the authorities and reported a missing person.

Caleb’s children and in-laws returned to the family home and searched throughout and wandered all over the 120 acres with no luck. His youngest daughter, Helen, noticed the frame that held the photo of her mother and Caleb’s other wife were lying flat on the mantle. The pictures were gone.

The police looked for signs of him at the bus station, the taxi companies, Uber, and Lyft.

The family went to the one room cabin on the lake. No one had been there and Caleb’s fishing boat was in the dock. The authorities searched the lake and the brush around it but found nothing.

The sons, daughters, and in-laws gathered at his house again and went through the evening events to see if they might find some clue as to what happened. Joshua remarked that when he got home that previous evening, he had noted a cool, heavy wind blowing off the lake, but didn’t think there was a connection, just an odd event.

No one ever heard from Caleb again.

the fire lies gently on the embers
twilight has yielded to the softness of the dark
he sits with the light of the fire
in his father’s rocking chair
he will rise before sunrise
there will be a sharpness in the cold snap
that comes with daybreak
the hay fields laid low
will shine with the light frost
as he puts each foot forward
heading for the barn
he looks at the steel blue sky
it will be a harsh winter.

My Thanksgiving tradition: this post repeated. The new Komodo knock-off worked well last year, but i still miss the little Weber smoker they no longer make for larger more expensive versions. It not only was the best, but it reminded me of Blythe’s grandfather, Col. Jimmie “Alligator” Lynch. That little weber disintegrated about 15 or more years ago after being used since 1972. This Thanksgiving post has been running since 1990 in one fashion or another. It is a salute to JB Leftwich.

SAN DIEGO, Original published in 1990 —Holidays, except for the weather, are pretty much the same for me out here in the southwest corner or back in Tennessee. To start, no one will let me smoke the turkey.

When I was growing up in Lebanon, and every time I return there for a holiday, my mother cooks the turkey. When there are only a few of us there, she makes a chicken taste like a turkey. She roasts the turkey, or the chicken, in the oven, and it comes complete with dressing and gravy. When we have a holiday out here, my wife cooks the turkey the same way my mother cooks the turkey. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I volunteer to cook the turkey. Every year, whether in Tennessee or out here in the Southwest corner, whoever is in charge of turkeys says no. They profess to love the turkey the way I fix it, but they say another time would be better. They say they want a traditional turkey.

I picked up turkey cooking while I was spending some considerable time about two-thirds of the way between here in the southwest corner and Tennessee. The Colonel, father of my oldest daughter, lived up in Paris, Texas, and he fed me my first smoked turkey. I loved it. Since then, I have modified his recipe somewhat and cook one fine smoked turkey. Since I can’t have it out here or in Tennessee, I thought someone with fewer traditionalists in their immediate family might like to have the recipe to try for the holidays.

Smoking a Turkey

INGREDIENTS:

1. This is fairly important to the success of the whole affair. Pick a good one. The critical part is to make sure it will fit in the smoker
2. 1 container large enough to hold the turkey and cover it with the magic elixir. I’ve been known to use a plastic bucket, but sometimes the dog gets upset as we normally use it for his water dish. This is okay as long as we stay out of biting reach of the dog for two or three days.
3. 1 smoker, probably any kind that claims to be a smoker and any number of possible jury rigs would work; however, if I were using a “Weber” or like vessel, I would make sure that there was extra water in the smoker).
4. 1 bottle of beer. Beer in longnecks is preferable but one should not become too concerned about the type of beer as “Lone Star” is a bit too elegant for this type of cooking. Besides, we wouldn’t want to waste a beer worth drinking on some dumb turkey. If one is desperate and doesn’t mind subjecting oneself to abject humiliation, it is permissible to stoop to using a can of beer.
5. 1\2 cup of Madeira. Again, I wouldn’t be overly concerned about the quality of the wine, and in truth, any red wine is probably okay. However, I would stay away from “Night Train” wine as it has been known to eat through barbecue grills, smokers, and anything made of material weaker than that used in hulls of nuclear submarines.
6. Angostura bitters
7. Worcestershire sauce
8. Chili powder
9. Oregano
10. Sage
11. Honey
12. Molasses
13. Undoubtedly, there are numerous items that I have forgotten to list here, but that’s okay as it really depends on what your individual taste is — I don’t suggest substituting low fat milk for the beer, but most everything else is probably okay — and if it’s really important, I’ll realize I left it out when I get to the narrative of how to use all this stuff and include the forgotten ingredient there.

PREPARATION:

Thaw the turkey. Take all those weird things that they put in those plastic packages inside the turkey and cook them in a skillet without the plastic packages, turning them frequently. Then feed what you just cooked to the dog. It might placate him enough to keep him from biting you for taking away his water bucket. If there are traditionalists in the bunch, give the stuff to them rather than the dog and let them make gravy.

Put the turkey in large container. Pour beer and Madeira over turkey. If you have not allowed about 24 hours for the turkey to thaw or about 8-12 hours for marinating the turkey, call your invited guests and advise them that the celebration will be about two days later than indicated on the original invitation.

Sprinkle other ingredients over the turkey. Be plentiful. It’s almost impossible to get too much.

Crunch the garlic cloves I didn’t mention in the ingredients and add to the container. I normally use about four normal sized cloves for a normal sized turkey. Also add the previously omitted bay leaves, about 6-8 for that same normal sized bird.

Add enough water to cover the turkey although it probably wouldn’t be a disaster if a leg partially stuck out. Then put the container in a safe place, unless of course, you want the dog to be rapturously happy and not bite you until long after his teeth have fallen out.

Allow to sit undisturbed for 6-10 hours (longer is better and ten hours is not necessarily the upper limit but exceeding ten hours may have some impact on when you either eat or get tired of the turkey taking up all that safe space).

Put the turkey on smoker grill above water pan after lighting the charcoal (one or two coals burning well is the best condition for the charcoal) and placing soaked hickory chips, which I also forgot to mention, earlier on the charcoal — again, be plentiful — after soaking the chips for at least 30 minutes. Pour remaining magic elixir over the turkey into the water pan. Add as much water to the water pan as possible without overflowing and putting out the fire below. Cover. Do not touch. Do not look. Do not peek…unless it doesn’t start to smoke in about thirty minutes. Then peek. If it’s smoking, leave alone for at least six hours for a large normal sized turkey. It is almost impossible to overcook if you have added enough water at the outset. You should check and add water or charcoal throughout the process. I have found that mesquite charcoal is the best, as it burns hotter. Regular charcoal will do fine but will require more checking.

The secret to the whole process is to cook extremely slow, as slow as possible and still start the fire.

Serve turkey, preferably without the garlic cloves or bay leaves. Now is the time for “Night Train” wine or the good beer. Serve “Night Train” very cold as indicated on the label.

The turkey’s also good cold.

Shoot the dog.

Happy Thanksgiving.

ruminating while rustling through
old things in a drawer,
i came across an old pocket watch
it’s in the clock shop now;
the bespectacled balding man
said
he might put it in working order
in short order:
the watch holds memories.

i went to an old haunt tonight
after finding the watch;
people sitting around the piano bar:
no bellowing laughs,
all demure titters
appropriate for a piano bar,
titters for titillation:
sad, lonely.

walking home, taking a detour
along the beach;
deserted at night, the breakers
froth and roar;
removing my shoes, 
tossing them over my shoulder,
i walk through the shallows;
the briny sea seems warm
on my bare feet in the swirling sand.
my thoughts boil down to happiness;

you are the breakers on the sand
the watch ticking quietly,
no titters for titillation:
pure unleashed laughter.

with sand on my feet
walking away from the froth, the roar,
respecting the immensity of the sea;
walking home, i glanced at my wrist
to check the time
only to find the old watch is ticking
in the old man’s shop.

perhaps next week,
i will be able to tell the time.