My world is a little off its bearings right now. i don’t feel it is appropriate to expand on that first statement, at least not now. But as my orbit was being knocked off its course a bit in the last several days, for a couple of months actually, i wrote this:

Hmm…

i am not who i was then;
i am not who i am now;
I am not who i am
whenever I think about
who i might be when.
whoa.
i do not understand how
it all got so turned around, upside down
then, now, beyond
because
i am beyond concern
about who i was,
who i might have been,
who i am,
who i will or won’t be,
and
the same i could say
about any of you:
you see,
i only know
i care,
and
if all is to be right with the world,
you also care.

i had difficulty making out my aunt’s cursive written word on the back of the photo.

It was a single photo amidst many in the envelope my cousin, Nancy Orr Winkler Schwarze, had sent me a couple of years ago. As the pile collected on my desk, this one intrigued me.

i had heard about my aunt Evelyn Prichard at Cumberland. She was a star student, a basketball player, a campus leader, and attractive enough to win the affection of a wonderful man, James “Pipey” Orr whom she married after they graduated. She also cooked fried chicken for her grandfather’s breakfast, walked two miles to Cumberland from his home on Hunter’s Point Pike, attended her morning classes, returned to her grandfather’s where she cooked his lunch, returned to Cumberland for afternoon classes and basketball practices, and at the end, walked back to her grandfather’s where she cooked supper with the help of her younger sister (my mother), her youngest sister, and probably not a great deal of help from my eight-year old uncle.

So i was intrigued with this photo and the one word and the year written on the back. i thought maybe it was “Debutantes, 1931.” The cursive writing became smaller and difficult to make out at the end. The lettering was small and neat, not as neat and orderly as her two sisters wrote, but it contained the same characteristics. The letters looked like the perfectly formed letters, large, above the blackboards in every classroom of every grade in elementary school that i remembered. That’s what their cursive looked like. My sister’s writing had that too. My brother’s also, but he formed his with a backward slant, something i had always intended to ask him about. Toward the end of this exhibit of cursive reminded me of mine, hurried, different, some suggestion of an older style or at least a cruder style. This has been amplified in my later years, this recklessness with the cursive lettering. Perhaps it was college that did that to me. i wondered if it had done that with my aunt.

i asked Maureen to decipher the lettering. She immediately decided it indeed was “Debutants .” i should have dropped it there, but i kept looking. i think the old news reporter kicked in with Coach, JB Leftwich, looking over my shoulder.

i got out my desk magnifying glass i had claimed from my father-in-law’s estate. Under the glass, the writing looked like “debutees.” It seemed like a good word to me, but it was unfamiliar. i looked it up. Google, where else?

It was French as i had guessed. The plural was also feminine, meaning “to start,” “to debut,” to make one’s debut.”

And there it was.

She and her friends. i think i recognize one or two, but i will not hazard a guess as to whohe fr these 1991 Cumberland University students were. i’ll let my Lebanon friends determine if they can put names to the frosh faces.

It seems like a simpler, magical time to me. But as with all periods of history, including the current times, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Hmm…i think i’ve read that somewhere else before. That’s my Aunt Evelyn Prichard Orr on the left.

About a thousand years ago…oh, okay, it was 1952, Mad Magazine debuted. Two years later, this crazy wonderful magazine adopted this rather bizarre character who had been used in FDR’s campaigns for president in the thirties as their icon. i did not realize, perhaps because i would not have even thought about such things until i grew up about a year ago — okay, okay, i haven’t really grown up really — how prescient Alfred E. Neumann was in my case.

i have done my thing. Hopefully, i will continue to do my thing. i don’t have a prejudice bone in my body, at least i don’t think i do, although i do have a bias against stupid, illogic, fear, and hatred.

But a couple of months ago, i swore off caring about political positions and not judging those who get so worked up about such things.

i want to enjoy the rest of my life. i don’t think i have done too much wrong, and i have certainly earned what i have…okay, okay i was blessed with, not earned an incredible wife, two wonderful daughters, and a grandson i am so proud of my buttons might burst.

So Alfred, tonight at seventy degrees at five in the afternoon, no clouds, an ocean breeze in the Southwest corner, i’m in, man.

What, me worry?

Well, the site wouldn’t let me upload the photos. “Too large,” it read in its rejection. So my daughter Sarah made me smart enough temporarily to downsize the photos i posted on Facebook yesterday.

A couple of thoughts about the affair.

The Rose. i like everything about it.

We arrived a bit early. The door to the inside was blocked: the pandemic, you know. They had set up extra small tables outside on Thirtieth Street in North Park, a San Diego neighborhood that is being “gentrified” but i hope not too much. So all of the dining was “al fresco.”

i told the young lady at the door we had reservations but were early. She smiled and pointed down the side of the building to an empty table next to their window. She escorted us to the table and we sat, admiring the fact they had taped the menu to the window, not noticing anything else on the window.

As the two young women in the table nearby got up to leave, they walked by and asked if were the two celebrating our anniversary. When i nodded yes, they both happily said, “Happy Anniversary.” We marveled at how they knew, and they pointed to the window. We looked up and for the first time, we realized the sign on the window was just for us.

We ordered the shishito  peppers and cherry tomatoes to start with a tempranillo-based rosé for Maureen, and i even liked it, a rarity for a rosé. i began with a sauvignon blanc. At our waiter’s recommendation, we next add the chicken wings. Now, unless it’s my mother’s fried chicken or one of Maureen’s inventions where she disguises it, i’m not a big fan of chicken. The Rose’s wings were delicious. We also had The Rose Salad, one of Maureen’s favorite salads for a reason, and i added the half dozen kumiai oysters. Alan Hicks introduced me to these wonderful treats. i changed to a red wine, an Austrian wine if i remember correctly but cannot pronounce or spell, and it was great to the point i wish i had ordered a bottle to go. We finished with a  caramelized rice pudding ball, yet something else i can’t spell or pronounce, and it was just right for ending our night out.

The Rose is a special place.

Thanks, Rae and company.