i started a post about winter back home and in the Southwest corner. Of course, it had a lot of other ideas interrupting the chain of thought. Goofy guy stuff.

i wanted to add some photos that showed how it is so weirdly green out here. In the winter.

And how you can play golf twelve months out of the year including winter, like at the Bonita Golf Club.

i wanted to explain how our slope, the one we cleared last summer has been totally bare but went crazy with the rain we’ve had this year. i mean it was flat bare.

But it exploded with all sorts of green stuff, like wild mustard. i wanted to explain though the mustard is pretty, how it dries out and then is prickly and a real fire hazard and how we will clear it in the next couple of weeks.

i wanted to include all of that in a post.

But things kept getting in the way. After all, it really is turning spring. The rain is all but gone, a piddling amount for back home and most of the country, but if Noah had lived in the Southwest corner, he would have been building an ark. So i had lots of things to do i had put off. And there is this thing about writing a book. And of course, there is golf.

And then doing all of those spring things are wearing on an old man. So i did what comes naturally:

More later…

After my nap.

For those who were not around in 1958 or didn’t have access to Nashville’s 50,000 watt, clear channel WLAC at night from around 9:00 p.m. until the wee hours of the morning, 4:00 a.m., i think, it is sad you were not mesmerized by Hoss Allen, Gene Nobles, and Big John R playing Lonesome Sundown’s two sided 45 rpm hit when it was released on Excello Records, a label i probably had at one time on  about 100 blues records — they were good deals from Randy’s Record Shop in Gallatin and beat the hell of  the baby chicks Wolfman Jack sold on the Mexican 250,000 watt station after being mentored by Hoss Allen.

Lonesome Sundown’s 45 is still in my record collection. “I’m a Mojo Man” and “Lonely, Lonely Me” have been at the top of my play list since the late nights in the upstairs bedroom i shared with my brother Joe when i hid the radio under my covers with me at 14 testosterone charged days of a 14-year old and listened to the blues.

“I’m  a Mojo Man” was what i longed to be.

“Lonely, Lonely Me” was what i believed i was and what would be my fate.

Recently, i have felt i might have returned to my prediction of lonely, lonely me. But then, i discovered friends, Tom Bradley and Frank Kerrigan have, in their own way, expressed their idea of the way our politicians (and their supporters) should interact.

i recently shared the link Tom sent me, a column from David Brooks. Then he doubled down and shared a column by Albert Brooks: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html?fbclid=IwAR10uHJtYNJIfcph51KdxBk3oaFWGKXGV9tfYFSNeRyAm5xbmgQIEpSt9rQ

Both articles are thoughtful, insightful and to me comforting. There are some folks out there who can articulate how i feel about this mess we have gotten ourselves into and there are even more who apparently agree with the two Brooks and me.

Then Frank posted a bunch of photos he took in Washington, D.C. and his sentiments expressed in his captions echoed the articles of the two Brooks. i was encouraged again. i’m not a lonely, lonely me.

While Tom and Frank (and the Brooks, not brothers) were revealing my relevance to me, i am in the midst of reading Gordon S. Wood’s Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. i have always been intrigued with the two statesmen and contributors to the founding of our country. When i saw it on the shelf at my favorite bookstore (yes, they still have a few privately owned bookstores in San Diego), the Book Catapult in North Park, i grabbed it. After finishing a couple of other books on my side table, including Slavish Shore: The Odyssey of Richard Henry Dana Jr. by Jeffrey Amestoy, i picked up Wood’s tome and began. i am about half way through.

It is very thorough, not something i normally get into. It’s lengthy. Unexpectedly, i am entranced. Wood uses quotes from both Adams, Jefferson and their peers to delve into how our government, specifically our constitution was created. The way their world worked compared to ours today was different, even the cultures of Virginia and Massachusetts were different as well as the other states to be.

What is most impressive is these two men and the other statesmen from the thirteen commonwealths wanted to create a government that worked, recognized such a government needed checks and balances, and even though there were significant differences in their opinions about what their future should be, created what i believe is the best solution for a working, effective government ever. Ever. And Amestoy’s book on Dana demonstrates the desire to do what was right continued to be woven into the fabric of our country even though one-sided ambitions were also prevalent.

Being people, we have skewed the workings into something that doesn’t seem to be working now. Our politics, our culture has created “my way or the highway” operation. Lines are not drawn in the sand. They are drawn what scarily look like battle lines. Denigration of those with differences of opinion, denial of the obvious, passion for causes with no consideration of the ramifications, yes, and even lying are all aimed to get what one segment or another wants. What i learned in McClain Elementary School about the communists believed the ends justified the means seems to have been adopted by all of our current political positions. i was taught just the opposite, and still believe we must do what’s right, not what’s wrong to achieve our goals. There are good (and bad) folks on all sides. Deal with the issues in the right way.

i am hoping there are enough sane folks out there who, along with David Brooks, Albert Brooks, Tom Bradley, and Frank Kerrigan who will not allow this…this…i struggled to find the right noun here but finally agreed with myself my first inclination was correct…insanity to rule our lives.

Thank you, guys, and of course, Lonesome Sundown.

On a roll i am.

Daylight Silly Time could have done it. i don’t know. i do know i did the taxes today. i filed away a whole bunch of stuff. i entered a few posts, including a chapter of my book. i organized. i filed. i threw away stuff, lots of stuff, paper mostly. i watched a little golf. Then toward the end of the day, i pulled out a folder labeled “False Starts.” Damn, i wrote a lot of crap. But amongst the throwaways, i found a couple worth saving. 

One was to Maureen i wrote in 1988. On my last Navy port visit to Hong Kong in 1981, i went  to a market area on the Kowloon side close to the Star Ferry pier. i stumbled around and ended up in an art studio. i saw this painting and was entranced. i bought it. i don’t remember what it cost, but it was likely a good deal. It wasn’t Stanley Market good, but it wasn’t outrageous. i had it framed cheaply and it was in my home office of our first home.

When we moved it went into hiding. But i pulled it out a year or so ago, and Maureen agreed it would look good in our living room. She had it reframed. The photo here doesn’t do it justice, but it did prompt me to write this poem one night years ago

you sleep in the next room;
i, tired from weekend tasks
start to bed but stop
to look at Lisi Tang’s painting
striking me as a “lonely” painting;
a beautiful tribute
to the loneliness of
the vast and omnipotent sea
yet
there are two gulls,
beautiful in their flight together,
graceful, in syncopation,
juxtaposed against the vastness of the sea;
i see us, the gulls,
flying into the mist of the morning sea
aware of its vastness, its cruelty
flying toward infinity together:
a significant moment:
the two of us
on the sea of time.

First off, thank you, Tom Bradley.

i read David Brooks with regularity, but somehow had not read this one yet. i found his book, Bobos in Paradise, as engaging and insightful as Frederick Lewis Allen’s Only Yesterday,  a wonderful commentary on the 1920’s, which captivated me during my college years. Maureen and i watch “PBS News Hour” every Friday because Brooks seems to always be a voice of reason, at least one that resonates with me.

And in this article Tom posted on Facebook, Brooks nailed it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/opinion/moderate-politics.html?fbclid=IwAR2hfl0x5qZQbls-dUkNSZ88KgUgegqAVl4icuwAP26TAlU42t4eo_HxAZM

i have been trying to express the thoughts Brooks writes about in this column in my writing and in my discussions with others. i am not close to being as articulate as David Brooks, but folks, this column is exactly how i feel about where we are, where we are going, and how we might change it. i didn’t realize i am a moderate, but if Brooks says his comments are for the moderates, well, i is one.

i am not too optimistic about how we might change it. The elephants on the right and left are thumping big time and their lemming followers are thumping with their elephant. Anyone who raises a difference of opinion is most likely to get stomped to death. The tribes  are not interested in considering another opinion. They have drawn their lines in the sand. Their desire to wipe out the other side has all the potential for destroying the real greatness of America the Beautiful. No, not “MAGA,”that is only for one of the tribes.

i am coming more and more to believe, as i watch, read, and listen, it is too late.

Thank you, Mister Brooks, and again, thank you, Tom Bradley, for putting out what i believe is our only hope.

It seems the more i try to clean out and organize, the more clutter i create. The workshop in my garage is almost to the point i can’t walk through it. But then, there are some gems. Like i found this poem i wrote in October 1982. It was the time when Maureen’s and my relationship had grown into something serious. In four months, we would be engaged. In nine months, we would be married. And come to think of it, maybe it really wasn’t a fantasy.

a fantasy; it really didn’t happen that way

lie close, lie still;
do not touch; do not touch;
the full moon whispers
whiteness to the clouds:
it is cold; it is hot;
sweat beads on my brow
matting the thinning fringes of hair;
do not touch; do not touch;
the bed and us are detached,
hanging suspended from the mirrored windowed room;
dog walkers pass below the bay window
talking prattle;
cars ease away from and close to the curbs;
we steal the conversations, the dog yapping
at the cars curbing
from the still night air
strange the wind lies dormant
in this sailboat community, mercedes encrusted beachfront
where it should always have
wind for sailing with properly tanned people
drinking martinis cocked at the proper angle;
where’s the wind? where’s the wind?
do not decide to bring your breeze now;
lie still; lie still;
do not touch; do not touch:
for if we touch, the mood will shift to another rapture;
for now, let’s lie
silhouetted against the ghostly white sheet
below the whispering moon, white clouds,
above prattling walkers, yapping dogs, curbing cars;
lie close; lie still;
touching.

In the same shoe box, i found a wedding card from Ray Boggs. Maureen’s father was famous for his gift wrappings and his card. i can seem him poring over a bin of cards to find the right one…and he did.

And in another box, i found this  telegram:

My Aunt Naomi sent this to my father (it was in the box my father gave to me of his keepsakes from the war). When he received it, his buddies gave him their liberty passes so he could cobble enough liberty passes together to catch a train to Lebanon, be there for my birth (more stories), and return to Gulfport before being declared “UA” (an unauthorized absence). i still marvel at that time of uncertainty and personal sacrifice and how they all did what was necessary to make it work.

i may not be getting closer to organized.

But damn, it’s fun.