i saw him in the dark last night
walking up the road;
he was wearing dark, dark green
i could tell by the sheen t’was cast
coming off the crescent  moon;
with his hat down on his forehead
i couldn’t see his eyes;
he walked with a slight limp,
yet he carried not a cane;

it was strange he walked here
on these roads with modest homes
of the small town not far but still
a good way from the city
from whence he obviously came;

he turned and cocked his head
toward me sitting on my porch;
i raised my left hand in greeting;
he nodded, saying not a word,
then turned his head straight away
continuing on his way;
i watched as he continued on
until he vanished from my sight;

now i often think about him
when i sit on my porch at night:
he just seemed so familiar
though i had seen him ne’er before;
i wish that we had spoken
so i could have learned a thing or two;
he’s gone; i fear he shan’t come back
around this way e’er again;
i wonder where he’s gone
as the crescent moon fades
behind a dark green cloud.

Except when i was deployed on Navy ships, i have been reading newspapers daily since 1950  (of course, the first “reads” were looking at the photos and the comics). Seventy years. There were times when i was getting morning and daily papers, conservative and liberal. On many Sunday mornings in Newport, Rhode Island, i would buy The New York Times and spend most of the day reading the whole thing, methodically  going through each section i had spread across the living room floor. Since Maureen retired, reading the morning San Diego Union-Tribune at breakfast has become part of a tradition for starting my day.

i worked in the newspaper business nearly thirty years from office boy to editor to correspondent to op-ed columnist.

i have spent untold hours communicating with others i have known in the newspaper business about the state of the art, why it was declining, what could be done.

On the first of August 2020, this will all end with a sad goodbye.

i have cancelled my subscription to the Union-Tribune. That’s it.

Why?

It ain’t worth it. And i can’t get a straight answer even if can understand the “customer service” (an oxymoron if i ever met one) agent.

You see, when we received our last bill, the subscription fee had risen to $164 for eight weeks, that’s over a $1,000 a year. Wow!

So i called. The language barrier was so bad, i couldn’t even understand the guy’s name. And yes, i had my hearing aid in my right ear. And yes, he might have had some difficulty understanding my Tennessee twang because, no, even after being all over the place in the Navy for 22 years, and having been in the Southwest corner for 31 years since my completion of active duty, i still sound like i am from Tennessee…and proud of it.

When i informed the young man why i was cancelling, he didn’t even wait for me to finish to tell me they would generously lower the fee to $124 for eight weeks.  Yep: just a bit over $800 annually. What a deal. When i protested even more, he reluctantly and not so generously dropped the fee to $94 for eight weeks.

So having learned some stuff from bartering in Tijuana years ago, i pushed my luck. No dice. This kid must not be from Tijuana. Didn’t sound like it anyway. And, i discovered, his supervisor must have been in another country than him. He couldn’t let me talk to him.

Now to be fair, this fee is for the electronic version and what they now call the “hard” copy daily delivery. We only use the electronic version…actually, only i use the electronic version and that’s when i’m traveling and i haven’t been traveling except for an occasional distance observing, mask wearing trip to Home Depot two or three times in the last four months and am not likely to be going anywhere else for the foreseeable future.

But guess what? You get a break if you just get the electronic version. You have to pay extra to get the hard copy, but it comes with the electronic version, you know, the one we don’t use.

They also have this deal where you can get the  Thursday through Sunday hard copy or Sunday edition only in paper.

i would give you the exact cost for all of the options but that, my friends, i have discovered is a moving target. If you go to their website, all you can get is the fees for “introductory” offers and i don’t think after 70 years of newspaper experience on both ends of creating and reading and 35 years of subscribing to this paper or one of its version before they killed the afternoon Tribune puts me in the need for anything “introductory.” And there is no way one can determine what the fee will be after the “introductory” period. Hmm, thinking about it, i guess it doesn’t make any difference since whatever the real fee is, it will go up as soon as the financial whizzes with their superb “customer service” figure they can sneak it pass the subscriber, aka me.

Now, this kind of marketing, gouging the customer nonsense amazes me. You see, newspapers, especially large city newspapers are dying. This particular one reduced the size (width and height) some years ago so they could charge more for less. Then they started reducing the newsprint, i.e. actual news, to cram in more advertisements. Now with COVID, it is, i estimate, about one quarter of the amount of news it used to be and the sports section is not a section but a couple of many-ads pages in the back of the business section.

Insulted when i realized the extent they were yanking me around, i cancelled. And this was after we had finally reached the point where the “agent” and i could have an intelligible conversation.

i had pretty much stopped reading anything but the sports and the comics anyway. Maureen would read the other sections, but i didn’t want to get depressed that early in the morning. In fairness, the Union-Tribune is a bit less biased than most large dailies in my opinion. However, news journalism of all kinds has taken a dive over the last few decades. News stories aren’t. Period. They don’t follow the basics i learned because the reporters wish to be spectacular, lure you in, push their opinion, and slew the facts to get you to buy into their great writing or political position or both.

You see, when i was in the business, i believed the first paragraph of a news story should never, NEVER, be more than 25 words, and should tell the reader what, when, where, and how of the news article’s substance. Doesn’t happen very much anymore. Check it out.

But, but, Maureen and i have loved our tradition of the tactile feeling as well as of the reading the newspaper over juice, coffee, eggs, toast, and fruit each morning. So i decided to try again this morning.

i walked through the interminable and magic telephone recorded voice tree for about five minutes, less than the norm these days and thankfully with no really bad elevator music to reach a young lady who was decidedly worse at  English as a Second Language than the previous agent. i asked her for the exact, non-introductory, special pricing on all the options available so i could determine to cancel my cancellation or not. Apparently, they had not trained her for such an inquiry. There was a long silence, the only thing i had understood in this call so far. Then she began to recite all of the “introductory” offers.

i gave up. i told her i was not upset with her. i hope she understood because now i was screaming into my phone. i asked her to forward my displeasure to her superiors, which i am almost sure she didn’t because of that different countries problem. i hoped as they had warned the conversation had been recorded because perhaps, perhaps one of the marketing geniuses might listen and actually have a brain to understand. Fat chance.

So it’s over. In just a bit more than three weeks, i will be out of the newspaper thing. Oh, if i were back home, i would still read one or both of the local newspapers there. But out here in the Southwest corner, the newspaper boys have killed it for me, and i believe are already ringing that death knell for the their business.

And oh, i wish i could sit down with “Coach” JB Leftwich and Fred Russell, and Bill Roberts, and J. Bill Frame, and John “Yanch” Johnson…and Yanch, you may be getting a call soon because you, Lee Dowdy, Andrew Nemethy, and David Hall, if i can figure out how to contact him, are about the only ones with whom i could talk about the demise of newspapers as we knew them.

It will be a very, very sad goodbye.

This was not easy. i decided i would stick to the photos i have in my computer’s “Pictures” file. You see, there are approximately 284,321 photos of her i have in various places. One reason i have that many is i never was with her enough. For the first six years, i was deployed to the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific and when i was home, i had jobs that were not nine-to-five, but more like an average of 0500 to 1800.

Then she was with her mother and i was in other parts of the world, even though i used all my available leave time to be with her, never quite 30 days a year due to operational requirements.

Now she is in Austin, Texas, and i am in the Southwest corner.

i have never been with her enough for me, but i have never stopped loving her.

Happy Birthday, Blythe Jewell Gander. i am so proud of you for what you have been and what a wonderful woman, mother, and daughter you are now. Wish we could be with you today.

This was taken July 3, 1972, the morning after she was born at 9:37 p.m. EDT in Watertown, New York. Her mother was a trooper. Back in those days, many hospitals, including this one did not allow the fathers to be in the delivery or labor rooms. i waited on a cold bench in a small dark area. i got to see her for oh, about ten minutes afterwards, kissed her mother, and immediately called both sets of grandparents to let them know they had a granddaughter. Also back in those days, we didn’t know if she was a girl or a boy. i’m glad i had a daughter. She captured my heart then and still has it.

With her Snookers in Pacific Beach Navy Officer Housing in 1975. She had a cat, BK named after her aunt as well. She was so much fun and loved to go to Disneyland and other fun places, especially with her grandparents when they visited from Paris, Texas or Lebanon, Tennessee.

This was the last year i was the live-at-home dad. Shortly after this was taken, i headed to the Western Pacific. Except for having to leave her there, my time at Texas A&M was wonderful, primarily because of her.

After that, i would travel to Texas or take her to where ever i could during my leave time. Her mother was very good about allowing her to fly alone to be with me. She loved the rides. After this trip to Disneyland, we went to Knotts Berry Farm. She loved Montezuma’s Revenge, but when we boarded the small cockpit of the Loop Trainer and began to rotate up, she was not a happy camper. She was screaming, i was holding on to her for dear life while trying to keep toys, candy, and my camera from flying out. Afterwards, we went on a carriage ride when she told me she wanted to go back to the Loop Trainer. We did. She loved it. i loved her even more.

Every once in a while our time would include my parents. i spent 10 1/2 months of 1981 deployed to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. In between those two deployments in August, my parents visited me in Coronado while Blythe and i were seeing the Southwest corner in my Rx7 she helped pick out.

She and my buddy, shipmate, and apartment mate, became good friends. Here, Blythe and i are at the helm of JD Waits’ sailboat on San Diego Bay.

Then she met this sailor when visiting Maureen and i and the two of them kept finding ways to be in the same place, and then in 1996, they got married. At the reception, my toast included the observation that her grandparents had an incredible marriage and i thought Blythe and Jason had the best chance of being just like Jimmy and Estelle Jewell. Her grandfather was very special to her.

Then in 2007, Samuel James Jewell Gander was born (the middle two names for her grandfather). My heart gushes when i see them together.

There are many more photos and many more tales i could tell, but i will close with letting you know she remains beautiful. She is a business success. She is creative, intelligent, and passionate about what she loves. One of the best parents who ever lived. She and Jason go so well together. And she also takes wonderful care of her mother.

i love you, Blythe Jewell Gander. Happy Birthday.

Once upon a time, sports fans had their heroes. Many were considered such because of their prodigious athletic feats while the sports journalists of their era overlooked all sorts of things these heroes did that would have raised eyebrows if not hostility.

Now, sports phenomenons are viewed with a spyglass for indiscretions or even politically incorrect statements or bad behavior. Those who are on “our” team are reprieved, forgiven; those on the opposition teams are lambasted, reviled.

There are others in this guy’s category: a tremendous athlete in his sport who loved the game because he played it right and was a good guy on and off the field.

Granted, i was privileged to watch him for most of his career and consequently find him a treasure. i will not argue about “greatest pure hitter” because there are so many who rival him in that category and the state of the game and the sophistication have changed, making such comparisons ridiculous.

But folks, Tony Gwynn was a treasure, not just for baseball fans in the Southwest corner, but for the game of baseball and for all of us to admire and learn from on how to go about our business, our passions, and our relationships with everyone else.

He also was loyal. He turned down numerous more lucrative offers to remain a San Diego Padre for his entire career. This by the way gained him the eternal ire of the MLB union more focused on their members making money than the spirit of the game. When he retired he went back to his alma mater to coach the San Diego State Aztec baseball team.

Man, i would like to see him at  bat one more time. i recall a moment in the NL playoffs and actually found the moment on Youtube when Joe Morgan, a great hitter himself for the Big Red Machine of the 60’s, the color commentator caught the brilliance of Gwynn when he hit a double off the Big Unit Randy Johnson, the 6-10 lefthander with a wicked fastball and an even nastier slider which Gwynn promptly deposited down the left field line to propel the Padres over the Astros in an NL division playoff game in 1998.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrssDCnnm8I

So if you have a minute or two and want to watch not only greatness but a good man do his thing, here’s something i tripped upon today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBM5g9BiDrc

Almost every year when i resumed writing on a regular basis, every year tomorrow received a lot of my attention.

Gotta tell you, i’m not too much into it this year. i’m chastened. No, i feel handcuffed. Writing is hard in these times as i feel whatever i write some friend will take offense. Pious posturing? Perhaps. i don’t know and i will not question anyone’s motive or stance. But trying to write the right thing nowadays is one hell of a lot harder than it used to be.

Although my golf is still restricted, i did chip and putt at the Miramar Memorial Golf Course this morning. You remember Miramar, don’t  you? They filmed “Top Gun” there. The base is all Marine now. Top Gun is, or was, in Fallon, Nevada. i don’t know if they still have it.

My golfing buddies joined me for a beer after they finished their round, my retired military buddies, curmudgeons in the truest sense, a group of folks we’ve assembled over the years who call each other “asshole” and mean it as a complement. i don’t worry what i say to them. We will remain close friends.

When i got home, i sat down to write and found it just wasn’t there. i sort of struggled through the rest of the day, tried to read something pleasant and did read a bit before just giving it up. As Maureen headed for bed, i went out to this backyard with the intention of reading a bit more, or writing something just for me. That always seems to help. i put the crusty old iPod onto Dvořák and the Handel’s “Water Music.” Hoping for solace, i guess. It sorta worked.

Then, i heard the muffled fireworks from a distant celebration. Wrong day, of course, but that seems to be the norm today. After all, we have added days to the celebration, not for honoring independence but giving everyone more time to party.

Tomorrow, we will visit neighbors for a while in the appropriate safe mode. But the day will be mostly quiet. i might even do some chores. i will hear more fireworks i’m sure.

Mostly,  i hope some folks will actually read our Declaration of Independence and not attack the writers for their sins or hold them up as superheroes, but read it for the ideas they expressed. Their views were limited by time and space and a culture that discriminated as it did in all cultures back then. But read it for the idea of independence and equality they put on parchment and signed, and…well, they said it better than i:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

In closing, i will quote Major Kenneth Morgan, professor of Latin 101 and 102 at Castle Heights Military Academy who told my class his definition of “Freedom:”

Freedom is the ability to do anything you want to do as long it does not take away someone else’s freedom.

May you have a wonderful and thoughtful Independence Day.