Thursday night, i fried my computer’s brains. i hope to have a new computer and back in full operation tomorrow sometime. However, i am computer challenged and it may take longer.

i am currently working from my phone and have fat fingers or using Maureen’s laptop.

So things are going to be a bit slow on this site for a while.

have you ever walked in a garden
before the dew fell on the roses,
after the lights in the house were out
and
the world was quiet
and
the stars were dancing with the planets?
have you ever stopped to listen
to the sounds of silence in the garden and beyond
when there are no lights in the house
and
there are whispers from the stars dancing with the planets
and
the moon is the smiling chaperone in the heavens?
and
if you have walked in the garden at night
and
listened to the sounds and the whispers from the sky,
have you forgotten?

i almost wrote a lecture here about being locked into your role
because if you are old and locked into to your role,
you have forgot about walking in the night garden
or
you are a youth
on a quest that does not bear consideration
of anyone who disagrees,
which demands you could never walk in the night garden
but
that is for you to decide, not me.
because

i still walk in that garden at night
before the dew falls on the roses,
after the lights in the house are out
and
the world is quiet
and
i still stop to listen
to the sounds of silence in the garden and beyond
and
i still hear the whispers from the stars dancing with the planets
and
i see the moon smiling as the chaperone of the heavens?
and
i still refuse to lock myself into a role
or
pursue a quest that forbids
my walking in the garden at night
and
hearing the sounds of silence and beyond
and
the whispers of the stars dancing with the planets
and
see the chaperone moon a’smiling
and
it is night
and
the garden, the sounds of silence, the stars, the planets, the moon
beckon.

i am trying to collect my thoughts. Old days of an old salt  are resurfacing, and i am trying to tame my feelings running amok with the fire on the USS Bon Homme Richard (LHD-6)  and watching “Greyhound” tonight with Maureen. i wrote this in what was both one of the darkest hours of my life and when i realized there was so much more, so much more. It was in 1978 at Texas A&M when i wrote the below: The ships are no longer “a thousand miles away,” but visible from my hill at the Naval Station, San Diego, three miles as the crow flies. One is still burning. i leaped to fault the current Navy two days ago, and i am ashamed of being such a hypocrite. And those ships, although much closer are even further away from me right now.

Boota on

no longer do i have a ship to steam;
the oceans upon which i sailed are
more than a thousand miles away;
my life is no longer entwined
with courses, currents, tides
and
coarse men of the sea;
academia flourishes here:
alive and well.
professors stalk truth
behind their horn rims in cow country,
walk the pebbled paths,
loiter in the shade of trees
where birds are killed at night
by good ole boys
to prevent droppings on the pebbled paths;
i sit in my fluorescent lit office
laughing at the moon through the window,
which forgot to go down
this morning;

i wonder
how many cowboys
died
with their boots on
in the streets
where the defeated general
grew into a legend?

if it rains,
i can watch
academia expound
and
let the world slide by
without getting my boots
muddy
on the bird dropping free paths;

the seas, though far away,
sometimes beckon
with simple fury;
i remember
walking the decks
in the eye of a storm
with my boots on.

Amidst all the craziness in this world right now, we found some comic relief…if i don’t get killed for writing this. Perhaps i should explain.

My wife is one of the most wonderful humans in this world. i have maintained for a long time there are a number of incredible women i have loved, still do, but i sincerely don’t believe any of them could put up with my peculiarities as Maureen does. i mean by the end of this month she will have been putting up with me. ME. for thirty-seven years, damn near a lifetime in purgatory. She is an angel of mercy.

She bends over backwards to be involved with things i like. She became an ardent baseball fan, went to several hundred Padre games with me and now will often comment on why the pitcher should have thrown a changeup rather than a fastball on the low outside corner or a slider. And now, we play golf together. She, although unwilling to practice and will pick up her ball at any time she is frustrated, is getting better and better and better. Her knowledge of the game continues to improve.

Well, except for tonight. i had watched the first segment of today’s PGA tournament  at lunch and recorded the remainder. i like to do that so i can skip through the interminable bullshit (excuse me) with which the talking heads can bore me and just watch the play. Maureen loves to watch it as well and often asks me questions about strategy, club choice, etc. (which is rather scary because anyone who has seen me play knows i have no clue).

She watched with me before departing for another trip to the grocery store. i turned it off.

After supper, a superb steak dinner, steak provided by her grocery trips and my amazing and secret but simple seasoning and grilling on the egg knock-off along with another of her and Sarah’s collusion on a salad beyond what i’ve ever experienced in a restaurant, and Maureen’s potatoes and her seasoning on tomatoes from our small garden plot.

After the scrumptious meal with an after dinner glass of wine, i actually quit working on or worrying about my seven thousand, four hundred, and sixty-eight home projects  and my two hundred and thirty-seven writing projects to watch the rest of the “Workday Charity Tournament” where Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, and Viktor Hovland were the final threesome.

It was exciting. Great golf. Maureen and i were both intrigued. i kept making my asinine curmudgeon comments which Maureen ignored while she kept asking valid and honest questions. Until she had to take her bath. But she kept hanging on because Thomas and Morikawa had tied at the end of regulation and were in a playoff.

i was glued in. The first and second playoff holes were spectacular golf. i was so glad i had recorded it so i could end my evening with the conclusion of great drama. Maureen’s bath was calling and she began preparing for that, apparently because her bath takes precedence over great golf, which i will never understand. She washed her face with special soap before the bath, something else i will never understand, and went in to check her email on her computer.  i was locked into the epic battle on the course.

As she headed for her bath, she stopped and revealed she had looked at the final scores on her computer. i was bellicose in my admonition for her not to tell me the final result.

She said she would never do that, but she had a question. i, being a complete idiot, asked her what was her question. My recorded version was entering the third playoff hole.

And then, she asked,

“The computer said Morikawa won but their scores were the same; how could that be?

Aghast, i explained as cordially as i could, their scores were the same because they tied with those scores at the end of regulation play, and the playoff was separate. i’m not sure she yet  understands the concept.

i turned off the television. The drama was over.

And i gotta a lot of stuff to do tomorrow…while i’m still sadly laughing.

i do love her, you know.

I.
long before the game became
what it is today,
which, by the way,
is not a game,
but
an entertainment industry,
boys played it in backyard dirt and scrub grass
with no grownups around,
wearing shirts or skins,
blue jeans and sneakers
after they all stood around
while the team captains
appointed by some mystifying process,
picked them one by one
and
the last one picked felt a little unwanted
yet thrilled to be selected:
touch,
although occasionally
someone would get slapped in the head,
or scratched on the back,
or skinned on the arms,
or poked in the eye,
or bruised pretty much anywhere and everywhere
but
it did not matter,
what mattered was
making the run
or making the tackle
or throwing the pass
or catching the pass,
or intercepting the pass,
and
crossing the goal,
and
what mattered more
was not getting spanked
for being late for supper,
afer showing up grimy, sweating like a hog,
but
oh man, it felt so good, so good;

II.
then, the boys thought they were big, grown up
when they went to junior high
(nope, they weren’t middling; they were junior-ing)
early practice,
tossed their uniforms with
shoes too big and stiff with cleats they could feel on their soles,
helmets large enough to rotate on their heads,
padded pants too long, knee pads hanging down to the shin,
and
shoulder pads,
those magic instruments designed for invincibility
and
they went out to the recess playground,
another place for dirt and scrub grass
in the heat and humidity of August
to whack and push blocking sleds,
learning gee 36 and haw 37, 6-2, 7-1, 5-3,
until they were completely spent
before the showers,
leaving the uniforms in their lockers
in the open bay
where they would stink and stiffen
overnight from the sweat and dirt,
even a little splotch of blood
before their mamas picked them up
to take them home to supper,
and
then a game with spiffy uniforms,
gridiron field with stands,
sprinkled with parents,
while cheerleaders yelled,
outside the
painted lines,
between the goal posts,
and
oh man, it felt so good, so good;

III.
a couple of years later,
they advanced to the big time in a small town
high school freshman pre-season practice
after being tossed
shoes too large, helmets that could rotate,
pants too long,
and
those magic shoulder pads of invincibility
to run out to a practice field
with dirt and scrub grass,
and
the day after the first unforgiving coach’s shouts,
they thought they would die
from muscle pains and stiffness
to lay on the floor
in the morning before
grimacing, rising to hit
the practice field once more
to get in shape
and
then playing real games
on that gridiron
with no one in the stands
except mamas and papas;
yet it didn’t matter because
oh man, it felt so good, so good;

IV.
the next August, it was time for the real thing
when the trainers tossed
shoes, helmets, pants and invincibility,
which were no longer so ill-fitting
but
the practice field was still dirt and scrub grass,
the blocking sleds seemed heavier,
the other players bigger, hitting harder
with warm-ups more demanding,
practices where you were a sissy if you drank water
after you had gulped down salt pills
perhaps suffering from injuries
serious enough to warrant hours in the hot whirlpool bath
until
the big day
with packed grandstands on the gridiron
with immaculate green grass and painted lines
while they donned the uniforms that felt like silk,
the invincibility spreading from the shoulder pads
to produce a hero in their minds
for the game, the game
and
for nine or ten autumn weeks,
the highs, the lows, the wins, the losses
took their souls almost to heaven,
repeated for two more years
and
oh man, it felt so good, so good;

V.
then, it was gone;
the superb players went on to college,
only a few, of course,
to perhaps become part of the entertainment industry
while the others turned in
cleated shoes, helmets, padded pants, shoulder pads
that once made them invincible;
hung ‘em up;
went home to supper;
went to college or work
and
for a while, they played touch again
in vacant lots with dirt and scrub grass
but
it was never the same again
because they had touched the grail
and
oh man, it felt so good, so good.