i began this last Sunday. But we changed our schedule and drove north for the Independence Day parade in Sonoma with our good friends, Alan and Maren Hicks. The driving was a mix of bad (Los Angeles and San Jose) and good (the rest of it). The stop in Paso Robles was enchanting and the Hick’s remodeled home is even better than the original i loved. 

The Fourth of July is always very poignant for me because it is symbolic of our freedom and quest for equality, no matter how many times we stumble backward in that quest. Hopefully, i will post some more comments on  the travel, our wonderful time here, and Independence Day. For now, i wish to express joy and sadness about families close.

i’ve been intending to write something about a significant family loss last week. But i found it difficult and kept putting it off. Couldn’t find the words. Perhaps it was because i wanted so much to travel to North Carolina to honor her with my presence.

She was my cousin, one of the three daughters of Jesse and Alice Jewell. They took care of me when needed from my birth until i was six or seven. Myrtle and Joann got me into high school plays as the little kid. Shirley was the anointed “baby sitter.” But they all, including Aunt Alice made sure i was okay, which was sometimes tough like when i locked myself in their bathroom on what i remember as Wilson Street, a block or two northeast of the old Lebanon High School football stadium. Shirley had to crawl through the high window above the tub to rescue me. It remains a family legend of Shirley’s rescue and my…er, not so smart move.

As things happen, especially with Jewell men, the close knit family of five brothers and two sisters wandered apart as they married women who were close to their own families. One, Aunt Virda, died in her twenties. Wesley and his wife Barbara moved west seeking better living. Uncle Jesse, Aunt Naomi (known as “Aunt Noni” in the family) and her husband Uncle George stayed close. Uncle Jesse, the plumber, and Uncle George, the electrician, teamed with my father Jimmy to fish and boat on the river together. But they too went their own ways with employment and family.

They remained close. Their families though remote remained close as well with the center of that closeness being my parents and Uncle Huffman, the youngest of the siblings, and his wife Aunt Louise who remained in Lebanon, the family home.

The two older sisters of Uncle Jesse, Myrtle and Joann each married members of the Lumbee tribe, a Carolina tribe with origins from the Tuscarora, Siouan, and Algonquian Native Americans. Then the Jimmy Jewell children got itchy feet. Sister Martha moved to Colorado, then New Mexico, and then back to Chattanooga. Brother Joe went to New England and stayed there. The oldest, some goofy guy, smelled newsprint and the sea and ended up in the Southwest corner.  The next generations splattered across the country: California, Florida, Vermont, Boston, Arkansas, and North Carolina. i’m sure there are some of those next generations in other states as well.

i sometimes wonder what Mama and Grandpa Jewell would have thought of this had it been possible to project the future when they moved from the hamlet of Statesville to Lebanon in 1898.

The closeness remained.

Joann Jewell Jacobs passed away in Charlotte, North Carolina almost two weeks ago after a long battle with dementia. She was one of the most beautiful women i have ever known inside and out. She remained close. Joann and her daughter Jamie were one of the last Jewell family members to be with my father, visiting him and my mother the day before he passed away five years ago. From that moment, i kept planning to go see her, but failed. i regret that.

Virda left us in the 1920’s. Grandfather Hiram Culley departed in the late 1930’s. Mama Jewell passed away in the early 1950’s. Of the next generation only Aunt Louis remains with us. Jesse, Alice, Wesley, Barbara, Naomi, George, Huffman, Jimmy, and Estelle are gone. Uncle Jesse and Aunt Alice’s daughters have joined them. The daughters’ generation, including me, is slowly moving on, slimming down the numbers.

But there are others like Jamie and Jewell and Lori and Kelley who still hold that Jewell family closeness in their souls. i can feel it.

i don’t think i can express it better than this photo with Joann, Jamie, Jimmy, and Estelle a couple of years before their last visit.

i’m missing you, Joann.

i have tried to stay low key. Not get excited. Not get nervous. Ignore my superstitious gremlin attempting to overtake me.

None of this actually happened, of course: i was higher than a kite, sometimes too excited to talk (and we know that is really, really excited). And nervous. Lord, was i nervous through the Super Regionals and the entire College World Series. i watched nearly all of the nine games my team played live, a rare occurrence for me. i usually record sports and watch to fast forward through the talking heads and commercials, but this, this was too important.

Along the way, old friends from college and high school kept growing in my correspondence about the CWS. It was fun to reconnect with so many but a little scary. That former sports writer stuff on my work list seemed to make me an expert of some sorts. i doubt it, but the title, even though it was long ago, apparently bears some weight. So that seemed to add a bit more responsibility. And then one of those friends has been spreading rumors that my previous optimism brought on a curse for our team, so i adopted a cynic’s pessimistic stance. After our team’s first win, i became concerned that such a stance might create a double-cross and have the opposite curse of its own.

But tonight, the Vandy Boys won it all. i sat in my chair and soaked it in, feeling a glow. A glow of what?

Yeh, my team, Vanderbilt won their second national championship in baseball. Their reputation as a power house in the sport is established. And winners beget winners. More championships are possible, difficult to obtain, but possible. And they deserved it. They outplayed the best teams in the country. The story lines and yes, the ironies are many.

For a little while i was giddy just like the fans in the stands in Omaha, just like the fans on Hawkins Field, Vanderbilt’s home stadium sporting the Fred Russell press box, and inside Memorial Gymnasium, and two dozen homes literally in every part of this country where my friends reside, and many more.

For me, there was something even better. Vanderbilt did it the right way, or as David Williams, who passed away within a week of retiring from his post as Vanderbilt’s Vice-Chancellor of Athletics would say, “The Vanderbilt Way.”

Coach Tim Corbin, whom his freshman phenom and outstanding player of the CWS, Kumar Rocker, called the “Sabin of college baseball,” epitomizes Williams’ idea of doing it right. They were a great fit together, and i believe Corbin has influenced other Vanderbilt coaches to approach their sports with the goal of doing it the right way, the Vandy way.

What is the Vandy way? Williams preached college athletics should be about developing an athlete to be a complete person, giving him or her the opportunity to succeed in the sport in which they competed while also giving them an education to maximize their success in their sports or in another area of their interest if athletic success failed to materialize. The Vandy way is to help the student-athlete develop into a mature, adjusted, responsible adult capable of success and capable of dealing with failure.

Many college athletic programs use such ideas as a hood ornament while recruiting athletes to win. Period. The athletes from those programs may move on to succeed in their sport, but the lack of emphasis on education (such as the many “one and done” basketball schools) leaves those athletes short in development as a human being.

Yeh, it’s not perfect at Vanderbilt. Never is. But they keep working hard to meet Williams’ idea of the Vandy way. And what i’ve seen so far, William’s replacement, Malcolm Turner is focused on getting more success done the Vandy way.

Tim Corbin and the Vandy Boys showed how it works. i’m proud of them.

And it is now late, well past midnight on the East Coast, past my bed time. i sit here in this glow, absorbing what i just saw.

i’m pretty sure somewhere up there David Williams is smiling.

And tomorrow morning, i will shave. It’s been a while.

i knew about Waylon a good while before i went to Texas A&M NROTC (1975) in part so my wife could get her college degree from where her father and uncle attended. We were separated within a year, divorced in three. Going through that for nearly four years was a good time to get into Western Swing and the Outlaws. And being essentially single in College Station, Texas fit well with all things country and line dancing. So i knew about Waylon, and of course Willie before, but there, i almost felt like Waylon and i knew each other.

Good music. Good times for a single lieutenant commander…well, it was ole Charlie Dickens again: “The best of times and the worst of times.”

But i listened to Waylon’s lyrics and connected.

*     *     *

It sometimes amazes me  what i can think about. In fact, it sometimes amazes me i can think at all with all of the wild stuff going around me (since i created most of it). But in between the book (yeh, i’m going to hit it again with a vengeance tomorrow, took almost a month off, but it’s time to get it done), the trellis, the other home projects, the garage organization, the paper cleaning out, the computer files, and remembering or forgetting passwords, i think a lot. i think a lot of it is not what normal people think about.

i mean like thinking about what happens when i’m gone. This thought can take many different directions, but i keep coming back to how to handle my passing. You know, like gone, dead.

Now when i’ve told people my parents lived to just shy of 99 and just shy of 97,  folks have pointed out i have good genes and am likely to live a long time. My response is i’ve lived thus far a lot harder and wilder than they did so i don’t expect to live that long. i’ll take what i can get, but hey, i could be gone tomorrow.

At my age, that would be fine. i often think about what two men i admired and respected told me. My father-in-law, as he was dealing with the cancer that would eventually take him down told me he wanted to live as long as he could think straight. My father told me something i tried to capture in a poem when he said he had lived a good life, had a great wife, good kids, and great grandkids and the only thing he hoped for was to “go quick.” He did.

i agree with both of them.

*     *     *

One of my goals is to leave little for those who have to deal with my passing as little as possible in decision making. i’ve already worked out what will happen to what will be left of me. i’ll be going home. My ashes will be buried next to my parents. That’s where i belong. Home is the sailor from the sea.

Maureen and i have a living trust to take care of the finances. i am working on a list of my things and who should get them if they want. i’m identifying stuff that should be tossed. i have a draft of my obituary.

i don’t hanker for a service or a memorial. i’ll be gone and whatever impact i’ve had on other people good or bad is with them. i won’t be around for any plaudits so whatever happens happens.

But if someone decides they need to have some kind of memorial or whatever, i am making a playlist of songs i would like to be included. Some of them are just my favorites. Others are not only my favorites but also resound with me in describing me, my relationships with some people for whom i care, or reflect the way i think. Mose Allison has several songs in this latter bunch.

And there is one i think is a perfect description of me and my life. i first heard it when i bought one of Waylon Jennings’ albums because i liked the name of the title song.

i decided i would like to give you a preview of the first song on my playlist for an event that may or may not ever happen:

https://youtu.be/5VO6bI-xrj8

This one is a bit off color but it remains one of my favorite moments with Maureen.

Someone had told me this joke. It was a great joke:

There’s this guy who walks into a bar and sits down, putting his large satchel on the bar. He orders a martini, and begins a discussion with the bartender.

“Say, pal,” asked the bartender, “What have you got in that satchel?”

Silently, the guy reaches into the satchel and pulls out a tiny piano and equally small piano bench and sets them on the bar. Then, he reaches in the satchel again, and pulls out this very small, very alive man about a foot high. The man sits down at the piano and begins to play exquisite music, so beautiful the bartender was incredulous.

“Wow,” exclaims the amazed bartender, “How did you find this guy? This is incredible!”

The guy says, “Well, I was walking on the beach, and i found this old brass lamp sticking out of the sand. Having heard of such stories, I rubbed the lamp and made a wish. Voila, this is what i got.”

“That’s absolutely amazing,” the bartender exclaimed, and then asked, “Do you still have the lamp?’

“Yeh, sure,” the guy replied, “It’s right here,” reaching into the satchel again and pulling out the lamp.”

The bartender takes the lamp, goes into the corner, and rubs the lamp. The guy knows he’s making a wish. When he finishes, the bartender gives the lamp back to the guy, and then goes outside. In a few minutes, he returns, shaking his head.

“What’s wrong?” asked the guy.

“i just don’t understand,” the bartender exclaims dejectedly, “i walked outside and the sky is full of ducks, millions of ducks.

“When i rubbed the lamp, i wished for a million bucks. Then i go outside. There’s no money but all of these ducks.”

The guy shakes his head knowingly and explains, “Do you think i wished for a twelve-inch pianist?”

Good joke, right? Well, Maureen loved it. Now, i don’t know if you have heard Maureen laugh uncontrollably, but that laugh is so good i have friends who plot to tell Maureen jokes to elicit her laugh. When i told her this joke, she hit that laugh for about five minutes. It was delightful, fun, and made me laugh as well.

She liked the joke so well when we were going out to dinner with our friends Sharon and Jim Hileman, Maureen had me repeat it so she could tell the Hileman’s. i complied.

After ordering our meals, Maureen began telling the joke. She was laughing, thinking of the ending. Jim and Sharon were leaning forward. They knew this was going to be good.

Then Maureen got to the punch line. She was excited. The Hileman’s were waiting in anticipation. i was already chuckling. So instead of saying, “Do you think i wished for a twelve-inch pianist?” Maureen blurts out:

“Do you think i wished for a twelve-inch piano player?”

The Hileman’s were beyond perplexed. They looked a Maureen completely puzzled. i was already on the floor laughing. Maureen is confused as to why the Hileman’s weren’t into hysterics.

i explained, “Twelve-inch pianist.”

Maureen realized her mistake and began her laugh. The four of us laughed through the entire meal, and even now, about ten years later, we still laugh at the mention of THE JOKE.