Yesterday morning, the newspaper was tossed into the driveway by the nice old delivery man out of his late model car.

For a change, there was no plastic bag. Holding the paper together was a rubber band. The plastic is used in the Southwest corner to keep the paper dry from morning dew and ocean mist mostly. Sometimes it is used to keep out the rain and double bagged. But it’s been dry a couple of days. i guess they decided to save some plastic — a rare nod to conservation — this morning.

It reminded me of a long time ago in a land far away. For a brief time, about six months as i recall, i was a paperboy back home. Some boys made some pretty good money plying that trade through high school. As with nearly all things, other things, usually sports or girls distracted me, and i moved on from any real money making deal.

But for six months, i would rise early, probably around 4:30 and ride my bike east across the square and up East Main to a shack, literally, on the east side with no glass in the windows and a bunch of tables in the one or two rooms. The truck from Nashville would arrive, dump its load of The Tennessean’s off and return to Nashville for its afternoon run with The Banner.

The paperboys would get the allotted shares of the paper for their routes, stand at the tables and fold the newspapers into triangles, tucking one side into the fold to hold it together . We would put the papers in a canvas bag and most of us would put the bag in our bicycle baskets hanging in front of the handlebars.

A couple of the newsboys had mopeds or the equivalent. i think they had larger routes but no longer recall for sure. Regardless, they always finished early. For the non-motorized variety, and we were the large majority, we would pedal away to our routes.

My route was North Tarver, perhaps Braden and North Tarver, including West Main and Hill Street in between. i would pedal as fast as i could on my Schwinn, reach into the bag in the basket, grab a triangle by the corner and spin it in the air with the goal of making it to the porch, the front steps, or the sidewalk immediately below the steps. That was a success to me, and i would pedal on. More frequently than i care to admit, my twirling deliverable would land in bushes or yard. i would stop, retrieve it and put it in its proper place.

There were some old coots who demanded their papers were in front of the door on the porch. This required stopping and hurrying up to the porch, depositing the news in front of the door before continuing the route. This and the missed targets were time consuming and frustrating.

Now i’m an old coot, but i’ll never ask the paper man to get out of his car and put the newspaper at my door.

Yep, Nice old man. Late model car, not a moped or a bike. His route is probably gigantic, not two or three blocks. And it’s probably his job to supplement his social security so he can get by. And he not only gets tips at Christmas time; he asks for them with an envelope enclosed.

It made me a little lonely to think paperboys are no longer around, at least not here in the Southwest corner. So i decided to play paperboy, if only just for a moment.

i did this with bridge watches once quite a while ago. It was in the middle of the night when i was going through a divorce. i wanted to get away, go to sea. So i got up and grabbed two bricks and tied them to a cord (someone else told a joke about this and i thought it might make my effort feel more real). i made some coffee. i moved a bit of furniture so i could stand right at the front window. Then i put a cup of coffee on the window ledge, put the bricks around my neck as if they were a set of binoculars, called the sheep dog. Then old Snooker sat and i stood at the window for about fifteen minutes gazing out into the dark as if we were looking for contacts. i really did this.

It didn’t work, of course, but it did make me tired enough to get some sleep. i have never tried it again.

But yesterday morning, i wanted to be a paperboy again. i took the paper into the breakfast room. i removed the rubber band. Then, i tried to fold it into that triangle. Couldn’t do it. i tried every angle. Just couldn’t remember. Being this day and age, i did a google search. All i got was some kind of origami instructions.

This morning, the old man delivered the newspaper in the usual plastic bag. i didn’t try to figure out the triangle fold this morning. But i will. Yes, i will.

Some folks think i’m crazy.

The old paper man probably thinks so, too.

i think they are half-right.

Today was a good day.

Sarah and i actually got all of the big decorations put away. This is not a small task in the fake Christmas tree weighs a ton in its box and it is stored in the garage attic.

i took care of a lot of things i usually pass over for a lot more important things to do…i think.

Tonight, Maureen went to a memorial service for a friend who worked with her at Parron Hall. After a simple dinner, Sarah left for an evening with her friends.

i poured a glass of wine, started a fire in the hearth, put my old iPod with my music on “shuffle” and sat down to read. Jimmy Reed, Duke Ellington, Harry Connick, Jimmy Smith, Jessie Colin Young, Rachmaninov, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, The Ink Spots, Bob Seger, Paul Desmond, Nina Simone, Flatt and Scruggs, Johnny Cash, and Roy Rogers, among others, entertained me.

Seems about right…except i didn’t read. i played some games on my laptop, just listened to the music, and didn’t think. i just didn’t think.

And then i thought about a nice part of the day. Elmer is the basset hound who lives next door. Elmer has perplexed Regina, our neighbor since he arrived. He is capable of escaping the back yard in spite of Regina’s best efforts. So, of course, Elmer has become the darling of the neighborhood. When their grandchildren are visiting, grandparents take those grandkids out with the hope of seeing Elmer and giggling with delight.

Elmer and i have become good friends. Since i am next door, he visits often on his escapades. i take him back, open the gate to his backyard. His buddy, the old, black Labrador, and the two outdoor cats greet him like a long lost friend.

This has become a routine. When i hear Elmer bark and it sounds as if Houdini has made it out again, i go out front. When Elmer sees me, regardless of where he is, including in the middle of the street, he lays down and waits for me to come up to him. When i reach down to him, i rub those wonderful gigantic ears, and then Elmer rolls over for me to scratch his stomach. Once the ritual has been completed, i walk toward the gate while Elmer barks, rubs against me until i open the gate and he bounds inside without a care.

Elmer may be a bit goofy, but he often makes my day by reminding me of what is really important.

By the time we became freshman “goobers’ at Castle Heights, Mike Gannaway, Jim Gamble, and i had become close friends as well as teammates and classmates.

One day in early autumn 1958, we cloistered ourselves in Mike’s bedroom on the south side of the modest single story house about midway on the east side of Hammond Avenue. Mike had purloined a 33 1/3 LP album from his brother. It was the Kingston Trio’s “Live from the Hungry I” album. We spent the afternoon just listening.

As usual, we were goofing off, laughing, talking about girls and sports. When the second track on the second side began to play, we fell silent. We listened quietly to “They Call the Wind Maria.”

Peace.

Go with the wind, Maria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1eQo_ygSCw

In the summer of 1956, two boys moved to my hometown of Lebanon, Tennessee.

The father of one became a school principal. The father of the other owned or managed a shoe store.

i met Mike Gannaway and Jim Gamble just before school began at the one-year old Lebanon Junior High, formed when the high school moved to its brand new location on Harding Drive across town.

I actually had met Gannaway earlier that summer when he shut down our second-year all-star team in the first round in the Little League playoffs. He could pitch even then.

The three of us initially got together in the locker room underneath the old basketball gym between the new junior high and Highland Heights Elementary School when Coach Jimmy Allen issued us our ill-fitting football uniforms for early football practice before we went out and knocked heads and pushed blocking dummies around on the northeast side of the “recess playground” bordering East High Street and Lake Avenue.

The three of us played football, basketball, and baseball through six years of junior high and high school. Unlike most of our fellow students after completing the seventh and eighth grades, nine of us went to Castle Heights Military Academy rather than Lebanon High School

There are many stories in this trio’s escapades together. Many will be told here.

But not now. No, not now.

You see, i received word from Jimmy’s youngest son Greg, Jimmy Gamble passed away yesterday (January 6, 2020). Greg sent his text last night. As old men are wont to do, i woke shortly after midnight to the requirements of old men. For some reason, i read my text messages before going back to bed. It is in the dark of the night now because i can’t stop thinking about Jim and me and my friends. i think if i write about it, i may be able to go back to sleep.

i talked to Mike Gannaway just before he died in Atlanta at the turn of the century.

I talked to Jim Gamble the day after this Christmas when i made a two-hour drive and back from our Christmas tradition on Signal Mountain, Tennessee to Huntsville, Alabama, eleven days ago.

Right now, my heart is heavy.

In December when i learned Jim was near the end, suffering from bone cancer, i sent him a message through our mutual friend and teammate Bill Goodner, who also resides in Huntsville and informed me of Jim’s situation.

I think it captures my feelings well:

There have been a passel of Facebook messages, texts, and phone calls flying back and forth across the country for the past several days concerning you, Jimbo.

They were not of the good news variety.

You are someone so many of us consider a lifetime friend.

Eight (modified to nine when Lee Dowdy pointed out i had left out Ted Ezell) guys from Lebanon, a.k.a. town boys, or less complementary “Goobers,” went to Castle Heights Military Academy in 1958 as freshmen. I have lost track of two. I know Ted Ezell is an optometrist in the Nashville area but haven’t had contact with Ted in more than a half century. Of the ones with whom i have kept track, there are three: Lee Dowdy and i are two. You are the other.

This is not encouraging to consider from my perspective.

In 1956, you and Mike Gannaway came to Lebanon and enrolled in the year-old Lebanon Junior High School with me. In addition to attending the same school, the three of us played football, basketball, and baseball together for six years. Lee, although not deeply involved in athletics, was with us through those years.

And then we graduated to take on the world. We spread. Dowdy went to Duke, Gannaway went to Georgia Tech on a baseball scholarship, You went to Tennessee, and i went to Vanderbilt.

We were the bunch in limbo for those four years at Castle Heights, not quite boarding students, not quite a member of the Blue Devil community. We were town boys.

So it gets down to the three of us with that background remaining. Somehow that seems appropriate. Ahh, what to do? Does it mean we need to be more…what? All the rest of this growing old and losing close ones has impacted me only with a weariness of the inevitability of where we are, who we were, how we will go out, and the desire to go with dignity, when it used to be a desire to go without pain, but pain, ahh, all sorts of pain physical, mental, spiritual, real and imagined, are inevitable. Dealing with it brings the dignity part to the foreground.

But you, this guy who had the small, old, tan car (was it a Renault? i ask myself) with you and i riding around in the rain while i stuck my body out the window to use the broken wiper which you had stored in the glove compartment, to wipe you driver’s side of the windshield while we laughed uproariously; this guy who, as a running back, had the prettiest cross-over step on a full run i’ve ever seen; this man who played shortstop between Tommy Vassar at second and me at third to be labeled the pigmy infield (Mac Brown, the first baseman wasn’t included in the grouping) on the Heights team that won the mythical “Mid-South Conference” championship with Gannaway pitching; this guy who had so much enthusiasm for life and the people in your life; this one who made a compact with me to matriculate to Michigan and play Wolverine football in the beginnings of high school, long before reality hit. This one, who had become a mountain of faith and leader of his congregation.

You are more than part of my life: you are part of my being.

i read Warren’s “Holy Writ” before going to sleep last night. i was afraid i might lie awake and think. Robert Penn Warren usually gives me peace. i opened his book, Selected Poems, New and Old, 1923-1966, to no particular spot and landed on “Holy Writ.” Perhaps it was my mood, but it seemed almost prophetic my fingers found that page to open. The reading gave me peace.

Perhaps that is what we should strive for as we move into this realm of eventuality. Peace.

No. Peace is a significant part of it. The other part is love.

But now, we, you and i, deal with the difficulties of life.

Oh these are the times i wish i had moved back home from the Southwest corner to be able to get in the car and drive about half a morning and sit with you for as long as you could stand me, be by your side if needed.

But i am a long way from home. My choice. But i must consider where we are, who we were and how we are going out, and hope you and i and the others will be remembered well.

With you, Jim Gamble, being remembered well will be no problem. One of the nicest guys ever, and, as someone gave the highest compliment to my father, you are a good man. i remain hopeful you will beat this in spite of the odds and know that you have given and received hope and love.

Sleep well, my friend. i will be with you.

Knowing Jim would be leaving us soon, i considered my own mortality. After all, as Gail Marks Byrne pointed out to Judy Lewis Gray and me at the LHS ’62 Class 50^th reunion, “We are now survivors.”

My short time with Jim two weeks ago was a good thing. As i told his son Greg, “My visit with him was good for me in that i knew for sure, as two old men reminisce, that underlying our small talk we both recognized he (and me too) was at peace. He deserved peace.”

My overriding thoughts at this moment is Jim Gamble left us in peace and dignity. He was a good man.

I hope i leave half as well. Peace and dignity are good things for a departure.

And Jimbo, i will be with you.

Note: Jimbo pointed out to me his car was a Simca, not a Renault, and was white, not tan.

It was the Red Bank-Lebanon (Tennessee)-Prichard connection, occurring monthly, sometimes less, sometimes more, gathering. This particular photo was Easter 1952 from my Aunt Bettye Kate Hall’s album. Johnnie Orr, on the right, has left us. Three of the others, Martha Duff, Nancy Orr, and Joe Jewell were sane then and remain so. Then there was this goofy kid, so obvious here, who has remained goofy, perhaps even adding some goofiness over the years.

Today is a time to remember, Auld Lang Syne and all that. It was a wonderful time and a wonderful place for us to grow up. i wish everyone had the opportunity to have what we had then…except there probably could be a little less goofiness from one of us.