At the end of this evening, we will have been hunkered down for three weeks, 21 days. Maureen beats me by a day because i attended a wonderful Saint Patrick’s day party two Saturdays ago. It was a fabulous evening at Rod and Joann Stark’s home with incredible Irish cuisine. i even backed up Rod in singing “My Wild Colonial Boy” in the sing along, something i ordinarily am loath to do.

i also discovered how short i really am, although Mark Shults is only a foot taller than me and in this photo it looks like he is at least two feet taller and Edie eclipses me by quite a bit as well. i think i was standing in a hole. Mark, by the way, is one of the nicer guys i know and Edie is an absolute marvel

But that was three weeks ago and i don’t have anyone to measure my height against tonight. It is approaching ten night time. i am alone. It ain’t late by old standards, but Maureen and Sarah have retired to their bedrooms. i will follow Maureen shortly. But right now, i’m reflecting.

i think old folks have a leg up on this sheltering stuff. We have a lot of memories to relive, even if our memory is faulty. We have a lot of things to organize, clean out, designate…you know, that sort of thing.

But there is a lot of time. Tonight, the three of us sort of agreed to watch a movie together. Sarah suggested “Galaxy Quest.” Maureen and i agreed that would be a good choice, but ole cantankerous me thought Sarah might enjoy a brillant movie from the past. i started searching and could not find it anywhere until i  ran across it on line.

i think Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie” is perhaps the most ingenious, craft perfect, sophisticated comedy he made among my many favorites like “Young Frankenstein,” “Blazing Saddles,” and “The Producers,” among others (i also think “The Twelve Chairs” is an extraordinary comment about us). But “Silent Movie” is not only funny. It’s brilliant in its salute and parody of the silent film era, and it captures so many human foibles in the context of this thing we call living with absolutely no, no concern for political correctness. In fact, it flaunts political correctness in your face.

So i did this magic “airtime” thing between my laptop and the television, Voila. “Silent Movie” appears. Maureen watches for a while and laughs. But she has agreed to participate in a “Zoom” meditation thing with her yoga instructor and leaves right after Brooks, Dom Deluise and Marty Feldman recruit Burt Reynolds for the silent movie. Sarah, although not admitting it, gets bored, washes  her half of the supper dishes and disappears. Maureen comes back from meditating and laughs again. Then, she too retires.

i was again mesmerized. And it seems i am a loner…again. Lord, i love the brilliance of Mel Brooks with “Silent Movie.”

So then, i finish up the dishes. But i find some nostalgic music for me while i become the dishwashing man. First, it was the Temptations’ “My Girl,” and man, i wandered around in melancholy with suds and the pots and pans. Then i conjured up Smokey Robinson and the Miracles with “Tracks of My Tears” and all of my lost loves appeared on the window above the sink. i explored again and produced Lenny Welch’s “Since I Fell for You,” and the young man angst of losing out on love flowed over me as i dried and stored the dishes. Finally, Sam Cooke and i sang “You Send Me,” and i was a young man in another world of the unknown ahead.

So i will sleep now. The world is locked in. i am actually okay because i have two of my most precious loves here with me and i know the others are safe.

Sleep well.

In this time of pestilence casting a shadow over our earth, i received an email this morning. It was expected but dreaded, not good news. Harvey Hathaway passed away last night. He fought a valiant fight against the other dreaded villain, cancer, pancreatic cancer to be more specific. When i learned of his condition in early November, i wrote a post about him after he approved my doing so. i wanted to post it again to honor him as a memorial service will not be held until we all can get together again. i have some comments to add to the post at the end: 

There’s This Nice Guy

This is one of the more difficult things i have had to write in some time. i sit at this  damnable electronic marvel, strum my fingers across the keyboard not hard enough to print a letter on the screen, and resort to my usual excuse to do absolutely nothing useful playing spider solitaire. It’s that time now. i need to get to it. It’s not easy.

You see, playing golf yesterday, he told me he wouldn’t be playing with us anymore, adding he had cancer. Being me, i thought he was joking after a pretty bad couple of holes. My cart buddy quietly admonished me. There was no joke. Our golfing partner really had cancer. And it didn’t look good.

It’s been a long time since i have been so shocked. As we played, i learned more. Then when we joined our other players in the clubhouse dining area, he told the group of seven the extent of the bad news. It was much worse than i thought.

Harvey Hathaway’s stage four pancreatic cancer has spread to his liver and his stomach. The only possible treatment is chemotherapy. With it, his prognostication for living is somewhere around eight months. Without chemo, the number shrinks to three months. Oh, there have been miracles of cancer patients surviving much longer than predicted, even beating it, and i am praying this will be another miracle story.

But it doesn’t look good.

Harvey is one of the nicest guys i know. He is a retired cop. One job he had was a security guy for Hugh Hefner and quite often his job was to escort and protect the Playboy Bunnies at Hef’s Los Angeles mansion. From Harvey’s account, he never strayed from his job for some dilly dallying and became friends with a number of the bunnies. Harvey is so nice i believe him totally.

Harvey and i have had a running joke for a couple of years. We often play partners with Marty Marion and Jim Hileman. That means two against two with each hole worth two possible points. Each six holes, we switch partners. Harvey began as a pretty high handicapper but kept improving. When we were partners, he would not play very well, and since playing well is not my usual profile, this never went well and we nearly always lost that six holes. Then Harvey and i would be have different partners. Harvey’s play would greatly improve and mine would go in the opposite direction. The result inevitably would be me losing all three partner matches and Harvey winning two.

i jokingly called it the “Harvey curse” until i about half-way believed it. i brought it up every time we played together. Harvey and i would share a laugh.

“Harvey” is a great name for Harvey. He reminds me of another Harvey, the title character in the movie. Actually, my Harvey seems to be a cross between the pooka, a six foot, three and half inches tall rabbit also named Harvey and the movie Harvey’s running mate, Elwood P. Dowd, the character played by Jimmy Stewart. If you can imagine that combination, you have a real good idea of what i think of Harvey Hathaway. He’s winsome.

He also is, from my perspective, going through this the right way. He is letting people know. He is from a time and has been in a profession where giving up and feeling sorry aren’t part of the agenda. He’s Harvey. He is approaching his situation with dignity. This is what i would expect from Harvey.

After our round and lunch of sliders, i began to drive home. My shock had worn off. i wanted to cry. i wanted to scream. i wanted it to rain so i could do what i did when one of the most wonderful women in the world passed away from breast cancer fifty-six years ago. i was a freshman in college when i learned my best friend’s mother, Virginia Harding had succumbed.

When i came home from Nashville for the funeral, i ran, an abnormal thing for me at the time, from my house to Henry’s where i had spent more time than anywhere else other than our house, about a half-mile. It was raining. i was sprinting at full speed, i screamed with tears running down my face. i hated the world for letting this terrible loss occur. It was fruitless. i knew it. But i needed to deal with it my way.

Well, Harvey isn’t gone yet, and god willing, he could beat this. But driving home, that’s how i felt. How could whatever powers of good that are let this happen to one of the nicest people i have ever met?

i have lived long enough to know that is not how the world works. But this one still stinks.

Oh yes, Harvey and i won our six holes. The curse is broken. Maybe that is a good omen for what is next.

Harv, if you need me, i will be there anytime, anywhere.

My thoughts today:

Harvey went out the right way. He was brave. He was gracious. He accepted his fate. He was a gentleman to the end.

Harvey was like his namesake in the movie. In fact, he was better to be around. He more than earned my highest compliment, which i gleaned from comments about my father from his friends in his last days, “He was a good man.”

The curse is broken, Harvey, but not the way i wanted.

And that comment above about “…if you need me, i will be there, anytime, anywhere,” still goes.

And right now, i wish like hell it would rain. i need to go on a run.

As with most folks, this pandemic is right up there in front of my mind.

Maureen and i are lucky. Sarah is living with us until she can afford a place of her own in the king’s ransom rent territory called San Diego. She has become indispensable to us, especially since she and her mother are adamant about the two old folks not getting out at all other than walks and working in the yard (thank goodness for that).

She is doing all the shopping. She is helping me on projects. She is keeping us technically competent in technology distant socializing and directed us to movies and tv series we would not have figured out how to watch. It is enjoyable to watch her keep busy with her own projects and reach out to keep others occupied, especially her working with grandson Sam in Austin on some art projects.

i know Blythe is taking care of her mother the same manner in Austin except for the in house contact.

i hope all of you, especially you older folks, have someone like Sarah to keep you safe. If you need someone to be like Sarah or Blythe, please reach out. This sheltering is tough enough as it is.

Thinking of all my friends and family. Stay safe. And thank you, Sarah.

Well, i am retired…except for writing that book…and posting Murphy’s Laws…and reorganizing…and although this might be a bit too crass for lots of nice folks, but getting ready to die — hell, with the way i have lived, it probably should have happened quite a bit ago yet even though i’m not through with all i want to do, i’m ready to go if called as i was when the old US of A yelled at me to become part of the conflict in sixty-seven, which ended up in an awesome love between the lady sea and me and there are still a lot of things i need to finish and to do, but going on is something to consider in this time of peril, unless you are too squeamish to consider such things)…and need to get all of that crap in the garage which Maureen won’t allow in the house, either gone or designated for someone else…and there are the projects in the yard in the house…and i need to get in a couple of rounds of golf…and i need to walk remembering the joy i had in running with no speed check and no place to go, just run and breathe and take in the world around me even in the rain and oh how i loved to run in the rain and that is now reduced to walking the shore in the rain which i don’t do enough…and Maureen and i need to dine at a bunch of places we love since that was the evolution was several times a week during a courtship bunches of years ago and yes, i remember that critical moment at the close of the evening after post-dinner desserts and armagnac (for me) on the divan on the second floor of the Hotel Del Coronado Boat House, which has given way to dining tables because folks need to make a bit more money, i guess but back then, ah yes, we reached an understanding and it brought about this relationship…and i need to have a couple of more beers with curmudgeons after a round of golf looking out over a course bordering the Pacific…and Henry Harding and i need to have a couple of more bullshit talks over George Dickel (mine) in the sitting room of his and Brenda’s house that has lived through four generations, at least…and there are a couple of more lunches i would like to have with a glass (or two) of the house chardonnay with Pete Toennies and Bob Ellis at Albie’s in Mission Valley with the silk paintings of nudes looking down on us but er, they’re already defunct, Albie’s not the nudes, and have not come back…and Alan Hicks and i need to go to Whale & Ale, the British pub in of all places San Pedro, which, San Pedro Navy housing that is, was my refuge from my CHENG days, the scariest but one of the most satisfying ship tours i had…and i’d like to load and unload a well deck from the wing wall one more time with Mike 8’s and LCU’s in the water with their ramps down and the loads going up their ramps in rough seas…and, oops, i’m at it again, wandering off, you know.

But i got time. i’m retired but now my wife and daughter are protecting me. That means i can’t go out anywhere. Home. Except walks. They’re good with walks. No where else.

So i think. Therefore, i’m not sure i am, Mister Descartes. And i’m not sure that’s bad or good, but i do it anyway.

Gotta tell you i was hopeful at first. i have wondered for a long time if our country nowadays could take on an enemy like Hitler and the Hirihito regime in Japan four score years ago. Didn’t know if we had enough to unify us; didn’t know if the different blocs of my-cause-first would not cause havoc to interrupt getting it done. Then this virus stuff hit us and even though it was impacting my lifestyle, i saw hope. The country was unifying, going to do the right thing to protect everyone, Concern for those afflicted, concern for those most threatened, concern for those risking themselves to help others. Hopeful, i was.

Then, the clowns in the bunch with no regard for the whole show their little minds in selfishness and disregard for everyone else, and those who think they know better than the experts, and those fabricating false anecdotes and preventatives, and those trying to take advantage and rip others off with crisis scares, and those who have decided it’s not their fault and point fingers at everybody else and try to get position to win another election so they will be better off (they think) and to hell with everyone else who aren’t with them, and…

And then, i think again. There are a lot of good people out there who aren’t playing games who mean what they say, who are reaching out without regard for politics or skin color or religion or borders, trying to help without compensation, believing, ah yes, believing we are going to get out of this eventually and perhaps, unfortunately, just perhaps, we are all going to be better for it.

Maybe.

So i have retreated to my garage work, sitting in the middle of the day at the desk my father made for my daughter, drinking a pint of Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ Ale, which has become my favorite thanks to Alan Hicks, recording old records, and today’s LP is Gordon Lightfoot’s “Summertime Dream,” which i chose so i could listen to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” something Alan and i have discussed being old sea dogs, and i discovered (again) how much i loved his, Lightfoot’s not Alan’s, stuff and marveled (again) at his, well maybe both of their wisdom like the first song (there are others) “Race Among the Ruins:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OsonnGnXQU

And if you don’t wish to listen, how ’bout these lyrics:

And, by jove, i think that boy got into my skull.

Stay safe.

Oh, how i would like to be in Vermont today.

My brother today is edging toward old…in years only. Seventy-one in fact. But like our father, Joe doesn’t look seventy-one; he looks much younger.

Growing up, we would tease him about being born on this day, April First. But to be honest, all three of the Jewell children at 127 Castle Heights Avenue were paying more attention to their annual April Fool’s prank on their uncle, Alvin (Snooks) Hall. When Aunt Bettye Kate and Snooks would come over for supper each year, we would set the table for Mother. The adults had coffee with the repast. My father drank his black. The other three added cream, aka whole (man, i don’t think they even had any kind of milk except from the milk churn, pasteurized, skimmed, and Pet’s or Carnation condensed milk back then) and sugar to their coffee. But at this supper every year, we made sure the sugar bowl was next to Uncle Snooks’ place setting and the special spoon was neatly stuck inside the sugar in the sugar bowl. The special spoon had a rim but a hole was in the middle.

And each April the First evening, Uncle Snooks would sit down, put the cream in his coffee, grab the spoon in the sugar bowl and start to put the sugar in his coffee. And when there was no sugar because of the hole, he would act totally surprised as if we had never pulled this on him before, and i’m guessing we did this for near ten years running. And, of course, the three children would scream “April’s Fool” and double over in fits of laughter. The adults, including Uncle Snooks would enjoy our little joke.

But Joe…Oh, i’ve praised him here before. But never enough. He was a preacher’s preacher until he retired several years ago, preaching to his people, reaching out, helping, trying to live in the word of the Lord, not necessarily paying homage to the bureaucracy that is inevitable in any large organization but being a good man for good people.

And smart. Man, is he smart. Well read? The boy had read the entire World Book Encyclopedia by the time he went to junior high. He introduced me to JRR Tolkein long before Lord of the Rings was a rite of passage for our youth. He gave me insight into William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren. Even now, when i want to read something to help me understand something, perhaps me, he recommends authors who do exactly that when i read them.

He loves jokes. Sometimes he scares me when he sets his head a certain way, tells a funny story and laughs at his telling. It’s like listening to his father or Aunt Naomi (pronounced “Noni” by her nieces and nephews).

i’ve got a lot of friends, because of my wayfaring life as a sailor, i’ve picked up a lot in various places in my time.  There are four that stick out as irreplaceable: my mother, my father, my sister, and Joe. Two of those irreplaceables are gone. Martha and Joe remain my closest friends. Joe and i have a male bonding thing. Our relationship is not better or worse than that with our sister, it’s just there’s just a bit of male stuff going on. Best friends, both.

So, i’m just glad i’ve been so fortunate to have known Joe for seventy-one years. i’m glad he has put up with me when i have been less than a good brother (i did like to taunt him, i’m afraid). i’m glad he had the opportunity to learn from watching my mistakes and following his own path. And man, am i glad he found the perfect match in Carla Neggers to marry.

i often joke Joe and i are so different. He became a preacher. i became a mariner. He ended up in the Northeast corner, and i ended up in the Southwest (hmm, his wife is from Massachusetts, and my wife is a San Diego native). But in truth, he is closer to me than anyone i have ever known.

Thanks, Joe…and Happy Birthday: