This morning, i was cleaning out files yet again when i ran across a faded piece of typewriter paper containing a poem i wrote in 1970 at the end of my tour taking Republic of Korean troops to Vietnam and back on Military Sealift Command ships operated by merchant marines.. i was the executive officer of the Navy’s transport unit (MSTS Transport Unit One) for coordinating and managing the 1500 troops while embarked.

The poem was one of the few i wrote about Kosyko. It was back when i fell in love with women often. i didn’t just become infatuated with women. i loved them. None of that period really turned out too well. Kosyko saw me with an American young woman and that made me persona non grata. i might have married her had it not been for my gaffe. i married that young American and, as i said, that didn’t turn out too well either. i have mixed feelings about both of them. i’m sorry neither worked out, but i loved my time with them or rather, loved them while i was with them, but had i remained with either, i would not have met Maureen, and she is worth all sorts of hurt i endured before her.

So here is a glimpse of a bit of sorrow from forty-eight years ago:

Farewell to Kosyko, December 1970

slight figure
fiery anger
complete with flashing black eyes
with
the bewitching, pensive smile
diminutive, yet precious
in tearing my world apart
i shall never get to know you
enough to understand
and
i shall leave one day soon.
what shall happen
to our worlds?

There is this dear, caring, and very lovely lady who lives in Tallahassee. When i grew up, she was known as Judy Lewis. Today, she is Judy Gray. We have become close friends again, even more so than when we spent our youth in Lebanon, Tennessee. No, not “spent:” lived the hell out of our life in Lebanon. For reconnecting with her and others, i will remain on Facebook until they close it down because all of the younger folks are off chasing newer, even less literate things.

Well, this morning Judy posted a wonderful piece on Facebook. As it did with several of her other friends, it brought tears to my eyes. For those who are not connected to Judy on Facebook, i include her post here:

I wrote this to honor the fathers I know and respect who have taught me what it’s like to have a dad. It’s called Silent Witness. As they open this letter and wonder why I sent it to them on Father’s Day, let me explain.

I do not remember my father’s face or voice. I was one when he died in service to our country so I don’t have memories of him, I have questions. My lifelong habit has been to watch and learn, to examine and dissect clues of what life with a dad would have been like.

Judy is an incredible, loving human being. She is also very successful in her career which centered on helping people be better in their work (if i have that right, Judy). She deserved to have her father with her while she grew up. Her mother deserved to have her husband with her to raise Judy. On the other hand, not having her father may have Judy more of a success in her career and in her life. i doubt it. She deserved him.

i still ache every day because of circumstances beyond my control i was not an every day, live together father for my daughter Blythe. It hurts and it will always hurt. Judy’s father never even had that much of a chance because of a war. That makes Judy’s post even more poignant for me.

All of the things that Judy describes as a “voyeur” are things i still miss not being able to do with Blythe. i don’t blame anyone. i think her mother and i tried to do the best thing we could for our daughter when the dissolution became inevitable. But there is a vacancy in my heart the minute i realized i would not be a “full-time dad.” i was fortunate to most of those things Judy and Blythe missed with their fathers with Sarah.

i hope with all of my heart and soul that i have helped in some way to make both of my daughters to “feel special and safe.” i worry that i haven’t done as well as i desire. i hope my decisions now and in the future will allow them to live as securely, comfortably, and with peace with themselves. i would wish for happy as well, but happy is a relative thing.

As for my father, he gets an A-plus but with a caveat. He had this woman Estelle who gave him the freedom to be who he was. Estelle was as much a part of who Jimmy Jewell was as much as Jimmy Jewell was. She was his support, his alter ego, his reins, his love, and he was her complete supporter and the father standing behind the mother in the family. Period.

Judy, i don’t know if i can match up to being what you imagine your dad would have been. i’m sure he would have been much like my dad. i’m also sure he is incredibly proud of his daughter for being the good soul she is.

So here is my affection and appreciation for you and a salute to your father. He (and your mother) created one wonderful human being.

Sunday, yesterday. Unlike The Kinks, i ain’t got no mansion nor a yacht on this “Sunny Afternoon,” nor do i have “a big fat mama trying to break me.” My mama is beautifully thin still, and if anything, i might break her (financially) by mistake, but we’re cool: we understand, and it’s worked pretty damn well for thirty-six years and change. Like the Kinks, “I love to live so pleasantly, Live this life of luxury (sic), Lazing on a sunny afternoon.”

It wasn’t planned that way. We thought we were going to east county — going to east San Diego county from Bonita would be a similar distance to driving from Lebanon to Cookeville — to meet our gardener and discuss the front yard landscaping redo (her idea, not mine: i do know when to keep my mouth shut…oh, no i don’t, but she understands; you know, that thirty-six year thing), but the nursery out there in east county is closed on Sunday, and the home our gardener wanted us to see for an example of his drought resistant landscaping skills will be there later.

So i changed course. i would work in the yard on seven-hundred, sixty two uber-gazillion things to do in the morning and then go to the library in the afternoon to work on my book before coming home to watch the taped (okay, millennial techies: “recorded,” not taped) Vandy-Clemson and Padres-Reds baseball games.

Well, it didn’t quite work that way. Surprise.

We had a nice breakfast, as always when Maureen is the chef and she is always the chef, out in our sitting area next to the vast and now very bald back slope. The sun was out, but typical for the Southwest corner the seaport coolness made it comfortable. We ate, then read the newspaper while watching hummingbirds feed on the coral tree and in the middle of it all, a starling chasing a falcon directly above us before they dashed toward the other canyon. i scrambled classical music on my iPod and turned the bluetooth speaker down low.

i never sit outside enough, and this morning once again begged me to answer why. One of the unsung glories of the Southwest corner is the absence of bugs. Oh, we have some gnats but they seem to stay up on top of our hill. There are some nasty critters but they lie low and don’t disturb us hardly at all. Best, there are no flies. The flies have chosen to spend their time at the horse stables apparently.

Then as usual, i cleaned up the kitchen. It is the daily duty i assumed when Maureen retired and took over the cooking duties almost entirely. i find washing dishes and cleaning up peaceful, satisfying.

Next, i went to this infernal machine and caught up with more sports, more news, and Facebook. In other words, i dawdled. i am a good dawdler. All the way to noon. Lunch. Another amazing sandwich from the chef queen.

The ladies went to a movie. As usual, i declined.  They  are movie fans. i’m not. i’m glad they are big movie fans. i am glad my friends like movies too. It’s just not my thing.

So because of the magnificent dawdling, i had to decide whether to go to the library or work on decreasing my task load, which probably will actually increase the tasks because i would discover at least five more things to add to the list while reducing it one or two. Bad math. Murphy would be proud.

Initially, i decided for the library and the book, but on the way out, i realized i was too sleepy for an effective library stop. So of course, i took a “NORP.” After all, i had Vandy playing for the baseball regional championship and the Padres were playing the Reds. i had to get whatever i needed to get done completed before the games. They both started at three Southwest corner time.

So i relocated a pile of wood, took out a faux concrete slab, long beyond its use.

Then i said to myself, “Hell, it’s perfect for lazing on a sunny afternoon.”

i dropped all my pretenses and went to the garage where there is a refrigerator initially placed there for my beer. Now the beer is reduced to a couple in a very small area in the door, cramped by all of Maureen’s cooking supplies. i grabbed one of the few amidst the flour, eggs, four hundred different kinds of pasta, and all sorts of liquid containers of which i never use or even have a clue as to what their uses are. Except for the beer of course. i then settled into a chair on the patio, and sipped my beer in the quiet, sunny Sunday afternoon, lazing. i am a good lazer (my word, not a misspelling of “laser” or some Turkish chewing gum).

The last two days have been Southwest summer, a good time for lazing. The seaport gray of May has disappeared. June gloom has taken a break before the marine layer reenters our days. Seventy with a breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Summer without the heat, humidity or bugs. Lazing. As i sat there with my beer, i thought of lazing on a sunny afternoon…in the summertime…in a world and long, long ago away.

i remembered lazing underneath the Chinese maple in our front yard in our front lawn on Castle Heights Avenue. We’d throw down the blanket, and pull out some board game or perhaps canasta, the old card game. Sometimes, we would take an un-mandated nap (Now, that “NORP” for me). Man, we were good at lazing.

i thought of George and Virginia Harding taking their sons along with a goofy guy out on the lake in their ski boat. We’d put in at the boat dock near Laguardo on the way to Gallatin off of Tennessee 109. George would drive us out to an island. We would ski, picnic, and then prove Henry, Beetle, and i were superb at lazing.

i recalled picnics, barbecue cooked on site in a pit at my great uncle’s farm. i once fell into the ice bucket holding the cold drinks. But Papa’s farm was perfect for lazing. Rocking chairs on the porch in addition to the old fashion swing. A swing made from a board hanging from the huge hickory tree in the front yard. Sunny afternoons. Lazing at its finest.

i finished the beer, went to the family room and watched the Commodores put on an incredible hitting performance and the Padres using a grand slam to beat the Reds (Yes, Jim Leftwich, the homer came from Mississippi State’s Hunter Renfro).

It was a good day…no, a great day made even better by lazing.

…and no movie.

i just collected our mail.

There were ten pieces of mail. One was a flyer from our neighborhood grocery store. One was an ad for a local hospital. The rest were various political ads for candidates or propositions.

i’m not upset about these yahoos sending me political advertisements. i don’t like them, but that is their right. What pisses me off — i was trying to come up with a more polite term but this one is just perfect — is i still don’t have a clue as to what the candidates are really for or against, what sets them apart from their competition and what the risks and benefits really are for any of the propositions.

It’s all bullshit PR — there i go again. i guess there is some statistics somewhere that claim these damn things get more votes, but i’m thinking if someone decides to vote on what i get in the mail, then they are a lot dumber than me.

Maybe back a long time ago, i.e. my time, political campaigns stressed positions, issues, etc. Maybe not. But quite frankly, i don’t give a damn about sales pitches. i want to make an intelligent vote for people and issues i believe in. To quote Nick Canepa in a column the other day, quoting Vin Scully, “Statistics are like a lamp post being leaned on by a drunk: They are for support, not illumination.”

Dammit, stop filling up my mailbox with crap. And that ain’t even beginning a rant about television commercials and news (sic) programs.

In 2008 , i wrote this for my weekly column for The Lebanon Democrat. i don’t know if anyone will really understand my love/passion for a life at sea. My father after his day at sea with me came as close as anyone i know.

SAN DIEGO – As the new year ramps up, I am back in the Southwest corner considering why I made the Navy my career.

My father also has wondered why a boy from Middle Tennessee would choose the sea for his livelihood. Others have wondered the same thing.

The sea called me during my midshipman cruise on the U.S.S. Lloyd Thomas (DD 694) in 1963. We steamed from Newport, RI, to Sydney, Nova Scotia; to Bermuda; and back to Newport as part of the U.S.S. Intrepid (CVA 11) battle group.

My last four weeks were in engineering with two watches and normal work requiring 16-hour work days. Having no more sense than now, I went from my last watch to the crew’s movie in the Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH) hangar – “DASH” was a weapon which did not last long. Sailors called it “CRASH” instead of “DASH.” But its hanger on the 02 level just aft of amidships was perfect for showing movies.

This night, I watched “The Quiet Man” for the first time. As I left the theater and traversed the torpedo deck, I walked to the port side and gazed at the full moon.

The ship was making 15 knots. The moon’s reflection cut a wide, rippling, reflective path straight to me. The boilers roared through the forward stack. The bow wave was white, curling from the side and swishing its whisper as the ship cut through the water. “Darken ship” allowed no lights except those for navigation. At least a billion stars blanketed the black sky.

The sea grabbed me. She came down that path from the full moon, wafted across the bow wave, and reached deep inside. I felt her grab my heart and take it away.

I have loved her in her fury of the winter Atlantic, when she tossed a 500-foot ship around like a cork, ripping off protruding metal like dandelion bristles, and tossing sailors around the ship like matchsticks. Her intense fury blanketed the sea surface with froth.

I have loved her in the doldrums of the South China Sea where not a breath of wind existed, and the sea surface was glass for a week. I saw my first “green flash” then.

In the summer of 1973, steaming in the operating areas off of Newport, Rhode Island, my father saw why I went to sea. My ship, the U.S.S. Luce (DLG 7), was undergoing a major inspection. My Commanding Officer learned of my father visiting and invited him to ride during our underway day.

As a lieutenant, I was the sea detail officer of the deck. My father was by my side as I had the “conn” while the ship stood out of Narragansett Bay. As soon as we reached the operating area, we went to 25 knots for rudder tests, rapidly shifting the rudder to max angles both ways. The commanding officer and I went into a frantic dance, running in opposite directions across the bridge to hang over each wing checking for small craft in the dramatic turns.

After the rudder tests, I took my father into the bowels of the ship to our anti-submarine warfare spaces. My father stood behind me as I directed prosecution of a submarine contact. In the darkened spaces with sonar pings resounding, he watched as we tracked the sub on our fire control screen and simulated firing a torpedo.

After lunch, we set general quarters and ran through engineering drills. Finally, we transited back to Newport.

With mooring complete, the captain gave my father a ship’s plaque. My wife and mother were waiting on the pier when we debarked from the ship’s quarterdeck. As we walked the brow to the pier, my father said to me, “Son, I understand why you would want to make this a career.”

I did. Somewhere in the latter stages of that career, I met a woman, a native of San Diego, and we got married. After a brief taste of being a Navy officer’s wife, she and I returned to San Diego for my “twilight” tour, the last four years on shore duty.

So now when I walk up our hill to raise and lower the flag, I look out to sea and check to see how many ships are pierside at the Naval Station.

And that, my friends, is why I made the Navy career and live in the Southwest corner, far from my home in Tennessee.