Easter.

The old curmudgeon finds it appropriate the most holiest of Christian holy days falls on a noteworthy day for some guy 2,053 miles away from me this morning.

When i woke up in my early mode, i decided to celebrate privately up on the hill. The guy i’m talking about who lives so far away from the Southwest corner is a bit special to me, and he and i spent about fifteen Easters together. If you can believe it, they were in church, the First Methodist Church South in Lebanon, Tennessee although they dropped the “South” sometime during our tenure there.

It’s all changed now: air conditioned white on white sanctuary in neat, geometrically straight rows in two sections running the length with a maroon carpet on the center aisle with a modern art, symbolic stained glass window behind the pulpit, with teleprompters hanging from the ceiling, all one level.

Our church sanctuary was wood and stained glass windows of biblical scenes on the side, which raised up and down for the weather conditions outside, and the rows were in arched across the sanctuary in three rows, no center aisle, and a balcony in the back where the Castle Heights cadets marched in for the 11:00 service.

That sanctuary is where we held the church services except on early Easter of course. We called it the “Sunrise Service,” although it wasn’t really sunrise. It was held at 7:00 a.m., Easter Sunday outside in front of the McFadden Auditorium on the Castle Heights campus. It was a community thing with a bunch of churches participating. i wrote a column about it in The Lebanon Democrat once and George Harding was quick in letting me know the Kiwanis had organized the event, being a most dedicated Kiwanian.

So when i woke up this morning, i arose with the thought of doing something akin to the sunrise service and, oh yes, akin to that guy celebrating a significant life event 2,053 miles away. So about a half hour past first light, i climbed my slope with my bible in hand. It is the bible my parents gave to me for an early birthday. Below the title “Holy Bible” on the black fine cloth cover my name is embossed in gold, “James Rye Jewell, Jr.”

As you should know if you read much of my stuff, i’m not a formal practicing Christian. i will not go into all of that stuff here except to say, i have my belief about God and much of the New Testament is a guide for my living. After about 400,000 hours of discussion about everything on earth with this guy who is 2,053 miles away, i suspect he is pretty much the same way.

So i climb to the top of my hill, turn on my phone flashlight and read the sections of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John concerning Christ rising from the grave.

It is quiet up here on the hill before the world of the Southwest corner begins to stir. i hear a dog bark in the distance, a crow flies over my head and caws, a dove coos, smaller birds chirp in bunches, but it is quiet to me. Peaceful: perfect for to the west of my hill, opposite in direction of where the sun will rise for my service, is the Pacific. You know, Pacific as in peaceful in nature. It looms below the clouds and beyond the bridge lights and the city proper.

i turn slowly counter-clockwise and view the mountains and mesas of Mexico:

Yes, it was cloudy this morning, a condition i love in my seaport towns, but not today. i turn toward the east. It is 6:10, sunrise. The sun will rise in a minute but still be below the mountains. It will rise from there in ten minutes or less, but it is also behind the clouds. i shall not see it today.

i stare out nevertheless. i know…no, i feel it rising below Pisces and the planet Mercury. The light, the hope is lighting the sky of clouds. It is risen.

i gather up the stuff i brought up the hill, the bible and the phone and the cup of coffee, and look at the Pacific one more time. Then i walk the ridge down toward the stairs i made out of railroad ties. i think of that guy back in Tennessee. George Henry Harding, IV, forever Henry to me. You see, Henry, who as close as anyone will ever get to me, becomes officially old today as i already am. i decided about three months ago, my 75 would be officially old for me. So now, Henry is also officially old.

Happy Birthday, old man. You look a whole lot older now than you did in 1961.

Wish we could fly fish a couple of creeks today.

And Happy Pacific Easter.

“Stiff.”

i had been trying to discover a word that would describe my feelings this morning after i woke up. It came quickly.

“Stiff.”

Yeh, yeh, i know: too old, me, to do things i probably should have never done to start with.

It all started Monday when i received the annual unexpected call from Pat Neal at Pacific Tugboat Service. Steve Frailey, one of the two principals at the company and a close friend of mine is an incredible athlete: a swimmer, a diver, a runner who is now moving into triathlons but doesn’t play golf except maybe once a year. i write “maybe” because that once a year is about when i get the annual unexpected call from Pat as i did Monday.

You see Steve is also a past president of the Propeller Club. Pat is the current president. Pacific Tugboat has a foursome entry every year. The Propeller Club holds a golf tournament every year in April. The annually unexpected phone call usually comes the week of the tournament. Steve, who has dutifully signed up, has a work obligation or another event pop up, preventing him from playing. He is a busy man, but i sometimes suspect he knows i’m willing to sub for him and reasons for him to have me stand in for the tournament just happen to find him.

The tournament is usually played on a Friday at noon. For a number of years, it has been held at Admiral Baker’s North Course in Mission Valley. This year was no exception…except my FMG (Friday Morning Golf) bunch was playing our usual early round at North Island, not in Mission Valley. Unwilling to miss our traditional FMG round, which has been going on for 29 years, i agreed to Pat’s request, but advised him my arrival for the start might be tight.

So yesterday, i woke up about forty-five minutes before my alarm set at 4:00 a.m., not enough time to go back to sleep. Don’t know why but it happens every Friday. i performed my morning ablutions that continue to lengthen as i age — oh how i long for those days when i could be out of the house in five minutes after awakening — and drove to North Island for our FMG tee time of 7:03. Fortunately, golfers in front only held us up a little bit. We finished in just under four hours. i paid off my bets, passed on the ritualistic pitcher of beer at the nineteenth hole, saddled up the hatchback, and made it to Mission Valley with time to spare.

It was slightly over a sixteen hour day between leaving and returning home, with way too many golf swings. Not the advised routine for an old man. Stiff is my punishment.

But i’ve gotta tell you, it is one of the most enjoyable rounds of golf every year. Why? i’m playing with guys from a place that allowed me to go down to the sea again. Pacific Tugboat’s pier is between the Coronado Bay bridge and the Port of San Diego’s Marine Terminal. The pier juts into San Diego Bay on the  working waterfront. i walked that pier for two years two, three, sometimes even four times a day. i rode tugs. My office was on a barge surrounded by boats and cranes. Heaven if one likes to live in memories as i do. It was a wonderful way to end my official working career.

There was also the people, men mostly, at Pacific Tug. They were the working kind. They all began, if not still involved with hands on labor. Getting things done. Living with the roar of diesels in their head and able to detect problems with minuscule frequency changes. Handling lines and block and tackle, heavy gear. Living in cramped quarters with mess of their own devices. And yes, it’s dangerous work, even when done safely.

They are good men with sea stories to share, laughs to make you feel good.

i like being around men of the earth. My father was one. My real down-to-earth labor has been limited to four summers of grave digging and things devised of my own need to put my hands to the plow, so to speak. But i appreciate the value, the goodness of these men. It is good for me to be around them. It puts my feet back on the ground, brings balance to my thoughts. i don’t get back to it enough.

So then there is the Propeller Club tournament every April when i get the annual unexpected phone call.

Thanks Pat, Steve, and all of the folks at Pacific Tugboat Service who always seem to make me feel a little bit better about life.

After i wrote my last post, i took my younger daughter out to lunch as Maureen had gone to an art exhibit in Balboa Park with a friend. i felt  good. Memories of things i loved always get me up, and time with either of my daughters are precious to me. So this, too, gave me it was two uppers for me.

When we got home, i went to a dark place. Don’t know why. Perhaps i subconsciously recognized my time at sea was gone and my times spent with either of my daughters were very precious to me, but the opportunities for such moments are dwindling. Perhaps it was a reaction to Notre Dame burning. Perhaps it was acknowledging i was never going to play golf like Tiger. Perhaps it was the weather: gray, seaport weather in the Southwest corner, a bit cool, rain likely. Like i said, i don’t know why.

So i went outside and collected our garbage and recycle cans and put them back behind our side yard gate. As is my practice, i put away the cans for three neighbors. Such a minor thing helping others always makes me feel better. Then i planted some onion seeds in my  garden box.

The gray storm clouds still lingered above. But the darkness was gone. Now i’m going to digitize a favorite LP onto my iPod, have some pizza and watch a baseball game.

i’m fine.

Cheerio.

One morning last week, i heard a radio program where a vegan activist was informing us how cruel farmers and ranchers and butchers and all those sorts were cruel feeding us animals and how noble the vegan cause was and how they could solve all the world’s problems and bring about world peace, all animals included.

Seems to me they might be a bit cruel themselves:

Yanking their fruit off poor tree’s limbs; denying many plants the spreading of their seeds; pulling them screaming out of the ground; chopping off their leaves; putting them out in the hot sun on acres and acres of land. Segregating…yes, that’s right: SEGREGATING them from nature’s weeds and pollen and bugs and other critters; cross-breeding to create new varieties, even if the peaches, apples, pears, corn, taters, and all things vegetable and fruit only want to be left alone with their own kind, and certainly don’t wish to have their skin flayed back and be grafted.

Oh, the cruelty.

And then, these concerned vegans want to kill all the cows and pigs…and chickens, i guess.  ‘Cause i’m pretty sure as my good friend Marty Linville once said, those farmers ain’t gonna keep ’em around for pets; it costs a ton to feed ’em and tend ’em and milk ’em, which has to be done or those milk cows become miserable, and the farmer ain’t gonna grow no hay to feed ’em; and the poor chickens will watch all of those eggs hatch by the thousands and be unable to take care of all of them and they will cry mournfully…or cluck mournfully watching all of those chicks, helpless to aid them; and the fields will lie fallow and the cows and the pigs and the chickens will die slow, painful, horrible deaths by the thousands and thousands when the vegans have their way…

And then think of the farmers and the ranchers. Their farms and ranches will be overcome with the stench of all of those dead animals they once cared for (before slaughtering many of course the vegans will point out); those farmers and ranchers will not make money and they will go broke and then bankrupt and get kicked off their lands and come to the city and be homeless and live on the streets and not know how to live in the cities.

Unless, of course, the vegans adopt all of the animals and take on the expense of providing them feed and hay  and milking the milk cows, and take all of the destitute, homeless once-farmers and once-ranchers and once butchers, and the vegans take care of the young’uns in sickness and health.

But i don’t think that the vegans will take that on. They are too busy telling everyone how those horrible everyone else folks but vegans in this world are cruel.

Sorta like those anti-abortionists leaping up to volunteer to adopt infants at child birth.

But then, they know, both of those sorts. They know they are better, more moral than everyone else.

Still, it seems a bit cruel to me.

The drafts are piling up.

In addition to book writing, i have been working on my golf game (it’s getting worse: could be from aging?), seriously attacking home projects, taking walks preparing for our June Scotland trip with siblings and spouses, and setting up, expanding and planting our (small) garden.

i may or not get those drafts completed and posted here, but most importantly i need to relate a story.

It was Friday morning. You know: Friday Morning Golf (FMG). Due to punching greens at North Island’s course, we changed our venue to Admiral Baker’s North course, one of the best layouts (and toughest) in San Diego county. It was drizzling when i arrived early as i normally do. So rather than hitting range balls, i saddled up my cart, checked in, and went to the restaurant where the bartender and the waiter was the same guy before six in the morning. i ordered my favorite pre-golf breakfast sandwich with sausage and a cup of coffee.

i sat down at one of the bar tables. As i started to eat, Pete Toennies, my close friend, golfing buddy, and retired SEAL captain who touches the measuring stick close to 6-7 came inside. He said something about how good my breakfast looked.

Pete went to the counter and said to the young man, “I want to have what he’s having,” adding, “I want to be like him.”

The young man nodded, and replied, “Well, you are going to have to cut your legs off at the knees if you want to be like him.”

We thought it was great and have been laughing ever since.

It’s almost as good as when we were nicknamed “Shrek and Donkey” by Zack Frailey.