i have been juggling a whole bunch of balls for a while and haven’t been putting a lot of stuff out here.

Some of that reduction is because spring is here…or was here. i wrote about that. Like the first part of May is Southwest corner wonderful. The week started off that way. i now am required to check the garden each day. i have added a composter, and there are cats and bobcats who have found the garden box looks very much like a litter box. Now why a bobcat would consider a litter box for deposits is beyond me, but apparently at least one thinks that way.

i am not the gardener my father was. i don’t hold a candle to Andrew Nemethy, Martha Tate or Susan Felts when it comes to gardens. i don’t even come close to my neighbors, Spud and Vonda Mumby and Ralph and Debbie Lavage even though two of Debbie’s five chickens have fallen into the claws of the bobcat or kin who created an account in my little 4×8 box garden. It’s just i wanted to have home grown tomatoes and strawberries.

So the first part of last week, i walked outside to tend my garden and experienced the glory of May spring. Out the kitchen door lies another project. i will be expanding and rearranging this flagstone to lead to a sitting/reflecting area, perhaps with a fountain next to the bougainvillea outside my office window. As i walk across the patio, the tree in the planting area is in its regal splendor. i love the colors in this tree. Since our gardener, Paul Shipley is on a hiking trip along the Pacific Crest trail, he can’t tell us the name. For a long time we thought it was a plum tree. The Phoenix Robellini in the planter box is in its last days. Between Paul and i, we will be replacing with plumeria, a smaller, prettier plant with leaves throughout the year, at least in the Southwest corner. i get  to the work area. Right before the gate to the back slope, is one of our two coral trees. This one is of the Mexican variety. The Chinese version is bigger, but i’m into these. The blooms last for about two months, sometime in the spring. Like now.

i reach the fence my neighbors and i built about a quarter of a century ago. No, i have to admit i was just unpaid labor. Pablo, who is long gone back to Spain or Mexico, did the bulk of the work. The fence here is where Billie the alligator-hunting Louisiana Swamp Dog scales to go get the neighbor’s dog’s toys. It also is one of better spring spots. And that’s before the agapanthus begin blooming. It’s a pleasant place to do my minimal garden tasks and roll the composter. The garden itself is the beginning an experiment. Perhaps it is a connection to my father. Or perhaps this trial is my way of admiring nature and how oh so much better homegrown vegetables, fruits, and even chicken eggs are compared to the store bought kind, no matter how “fresh,” “range free,” or “organic” they claim on the shelves in the markets. As you can see, it’s not much but i’ll get tomatoes and strawberries pretty much all year long, and since i have my night visitors, i’ll be planting more onions throughout the year as well. It brings comfort to me.

But as i said, May Gray moved in early. It’s doleful to live in gray, especially in the Southwest corner, but i can handle it knowing it won’t halt golf, i can wear a sweater in the early morning and late afternoon. And  just after first light, i walk out to retrieve the newspaper. No, i haven’t trained the dog or cat to get the paper, nor do i intend to train them. i mean i can be greeted by Mount Miguel with her diaphanous silk shawl of misty clouds peeking over our neighbor’s roof (Later, i will repost a poem about this particular mountain again). And feel like i really am home.

Then, just to prove me wrong, May Gray after just under a week of chilly damp weather breaks. We are having our rather sizable slope cleared. i began to nibble at it about two years ago and never really got traction. It’s a lot of work and old men have thin skin, so i would come away looking something like a bloody pin cushion. i was a bit sad to see the workers clearing the acacia with their chain saws. It would be a lovely day to work hard on the slope: not too hot, not too cool, low humidity. You know, Southwest corner weather at its finest. Well, since my bride decided not to wait 350 years for me to clear the slope, i must do something else to be outside. i worked the garden and composter a bit, then i took the young alligator hunting Billie for a walk. My walk is a truncated version of the long one i used to take with the lab Cass where he chased and played with coyotes who, it turned out, were fearful of such a maniac. He also rolled over o’possums, damn near caught up with a road runner while taking my arm out of socket, and would take off to be on his own for a while at his whim.

Perhaps someday, i will do that with Billie. It would certainly get me back in shape because there is are two stretches about seventy-five yards in length on a ten percent upward grade. That’s in the future. Now, i must be satisfied with the trail behind our neighbor’s house. Billie is fine with that. No alligators, of course. But there are ground squirrels, lizards, and all sorts of other fauna, including the aforementioned bobcat, and although the coyote population seemingly has diminished, i’m sure there are plenty of them out there, not to mention the snakes, foxes, and tree rats.  However, as pleasant as it is (and somewhat remarkable when we consider we are smack dab in the middle of suburbia), there are high desert dangers which appear innocent enough. i don’t think i’ve seen this type of cactus anywhere else. It’s local nomenclature is “cholla.” i learned shortly after moving off of the island of Coronado and out here in the truly high desert to be wary. The cholla cacti are innocent enough looking, even pretty this time of year. Yet you can’t get too close. i know and was reminded again today. After we returned from our walk, i went outside to check how things were going. As i made a move, it felt like i had been cut on my knee. It stung. i thought i was bleeding although no blood was coming through my trousers. i raised the pant leg above the knee. There were two spines stuck into the side of my knee. Tiny things. But man, they sting and they somehow planted themselves through my trousers apparently when i unknowingly barely brushed one on the walk.

The walk’s over. i’m listening to the last throbs of the chainsaws as the young men flail away at the acacia. i’m thinking this is a good place. It’s in a big, big city but not too close, just accessible. i can see the Pacific from the top of my slope. The weather is good as it can get. Then i think of all of the places i have lived in my seventy-four years. About fifteen depending on how you count. i liked them all. Enjoyed the weather. i am in a good place now.

But i would like to go home for a bit. Lebanon, Middle Tennessee, Nashville, the lakes, they are still in my bones.

i am not particularly fond of most mandated days or weeks or months. i don’t like someone or some organization telling me i should be giving something to someone, honoring a group of people by sending them a gift or even a card and then celebrating by going somewhere to have a good time (providing income for a bunch of folks selling stuff with the theme for the day of celebration.

Except for one.

Mother’s Day.

i am surprised some group hasn’t protested honoring mothers is an insult to their way of thinking. i guess mothers are considered pretty necessary for this whole thing called living for just about every group, although several groups nowadays are likely to disparage fathers for being a part of it.

Mother’s Day. Here’s some of mine:

Katherine Ferrell Webster. One of the matriarchs of my family. The maternal, Prichard side. My great grandmother.

Estelle Prichard Jewell, my mother. She was multi-tasking, working full-time for most of her life while running the Jewell household and dealing with three children for seventy years, one of whom had to have been one terrible something to deal with. But she never flinched, never complained about all she had to do. Her love for her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren was palpable.

And there were these others. Granny, Katherine Prichard Jewell, my maternal grandmother who was always there for anyone who needed her. The grit in her craw (i’ll repost my poem about that) keeping her darting to and fro Lebanon, Chattanooga, and Florida for her children and her grandchildren, not to mention the Heights’ goobers under her watch as “barracks mom.” Aunt Bettye Kate Hall, who was my second mother along with every child of any of her or Uncle Snook’s kin. and Aunt Evelyn. Kindness, grit, and love pound in all of their veins.

Above on the left, Granny Prichard with her flock: goofy kid, Johnny Orr, Martha Jewell, Bill (Butch) Prichard, Nancy Orr, 1947.

Then there was Kathie. She wanted to be a mother, and she has always been the best there could be for Blythe.  i grudgingly gave up being a live-in father for Blythe for numerous reasons no one, certainly not i,  could understand, but the clear overriding decision i made was because i knew in all my heart, Kathie would love her daughter without limitations, just as i had, and she needed her more than me. i also knew Blythe’s mother was the best mother for her daughter and mothers are critical to a child being brought up in the best way possible.

i was on spot. Kathie continues to be the best mother ever for Blythe.

Mama, Carrie Myrtle Orrand, Jewell, my paternal grandmother. She passed away in 1951. What i remember is sweetness coupled with Southern practicality of a mom. When i walked home from school in the first grade, Ronnie Collingsworth started a fight with me in our front yard. i apparently won rather handily — as i recall with a right jab to the jaw. Mama Jewell was watching through the living room window of my Aunt Naomi’s house across the street. She called Granny, my maternal grandmother who was keeping me and my brother and sister that day and told her i should not be punished because Ronnie started the fight. My father told me his snack after school was when he got home, Mama Jewell would have a sweet potato boiling in the kitchen’s wood-fired stove. He would pick the potato out and cover it with butter. That was his snack.

And of course, Maureen. Her love for Blythe, Sarah, Jason, and Sam never ceases to amaze me. Even when she had the intense high-pressure job (which she did so well), she never slighted any of them. Her ability to discuss and understand them is an amazing thing. She brings joy to me in many ways, but being a mother to my children and grandson is a blessing for me.

The last in this post holds my heart in her hands. It is with a satisfied joy i follow Blythe (and Jason) in the way they are raising my grandson Sam. She is really remarkable in her role.

Of course, there are others. Many others. Martha, my sister; Carla, my sister-in-law; Kate, my niece. I could go on and on.

Mothers are special, no critical. They should be honored. There should be a day set aside to honor them. And those included here were essential in my becoming who i am. i honor all of them for what they have done for my family.

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day tomorrow.

i am not sure folks not from the Southwest corner can grasp the severity of “May Gray,” made even worse by extending into “June Gloom.” Perhaps Aussies around Perth have the same period of similar weather. Let’s see, that would be “November Gray” and “December Gloom” (Just doesn’t have quite the same impact without the alliteration, does it?).

Regardless, it ain’t fun. In fact, it’s my least favorite time of the year out here. To make matters worse, it came about a week too early this year.

Sometime in April until the middle of May is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s spring. The cool of winter gives way to sunshine, not too hot, not too cool, but just right. The colors change and alternate throughout the period: Japanese pear trees, then the coral trees, then the jackaranda. Bougainvillea takes off, gardens stretch their wings, and spring green abounds before turning to desert summer brown. Joyous comes to mind as the way it affects me.

It’s gone. Left too soon. Thursday, i played golf with Maureen at the Coronado Golf Club, a terrific public course and still affordable. We teed off just afternoon. Gray. May Gray. Ugh. Worse, it was cool enough i wore my wind shirt the entire round.

Approaching the second green, my eye caught some aerodynamics in full action. An osprey had caught a large fish and apparently was carrying it back to his nest for the ospreyettes (my word). A seagull was not pleased with the osprey out performing him in the bay fishing competition. The gull was pissed and swooping to and fro at the osprey before veering high or low or left or right, climbing up to swoop once again at the course diverting, annoyed osprey. The two continued on with their air show until they were out of sight.

It was beautiful. It was nature framed by what used to be my work home, Naval Amphibious Base, Glorietta Bay (over which the show was on display), and the gray, gray sky. The only good thing about May Gray that afternoon.

As usual, my golfing friends and i teed off early at Sea ‘n Air on Friday. In case, you don’t remember, the Naval Air Station, North Island course borders on the south facing beaches of the Pacific.

It was not hot. It was not cool. My friends back home in Lebanon, Tennessee would scoff (in fact, nearly all of my friends not in the Southwest corner would scoff) when i describe it as cold. Don’t care. It was cold.

Sure it was in the high fifties and low sixties throughout the three-hour, twenty-minute round (we play fast when there’s no one in front of us). But the Japanese current was whacking us in the face. It may not have been cold by most standards, but we were cold. i wore a heavier wind shirt than i had the day before, but i was wishing i had worn a parka.

You see, about this time of year, the deserts east of here start heating up. The Japanese current runs counter-clockwise from the Western Pacific up to the Arctic Circle and swooshes down upon us, carrying all of that north pole cold with it. When the two, the desert heat and the current cold collide, the marine layer hangs over the coast (aka us) and the wind blows the fog, the haze, the cloud cover, and the cold into our bones.

And this lasts for about six to seven weeks.

It should be spring turning into summer. i’m ready for Tennessee spring. i’m ready to feel the sun against my skin. i remember how i could not wait for mid-May sometime when i was back home because it was like the signal to go swimming at Hazelwood or Horn Springs. i remember it was when the bat didn’t sting your hands because of the cold. The baseball uniforms were sweaty by the second inning. You could wear tee shirts out at night to catch the fireflies, “lightning bugs” to some of us. It was warm.

Not here. i have learned not to go swimming in the ocean until two days in August when the water temperature is around seventy degrees. Summer won’t hit us until July, or at least something like Tennessee summer except the humidity here hovers around forty to fifty percent.

Of course, it ain’t bad for playing golf, pretty much like the rest of the year. So i guess i will just have to endure May Gray and June Gloom. And the middle of the day is usually pretty nice.

The title of this includes my word. It refers to my overabundant use of commas. i mean, it ain’t just the “Oxford Comma,” which i believe in because i grew up having that comma before the last item in a list and preceding “and” pounded into my head by damn near every adult i ever knew.

i put commas at every juncture of everything and sometimes just out of my inclination when there is no juncture, just no need.

Why oh why do i like commas?

Don’t know. Don’t care…well, i do care because i do not wish my overabundance of commas to confuse. After all, isn’t the purpose of all of these rules: to make writing understandable?

It is the bane of my writing: these commas. More than that, there are a lot of words, and i mean A LOT of words i should eliminate to avoid confusion. Some of them i keep in because it is my intent to write something that way, even if it is incorrect (hmm, another comma there). Some of those words are just poor editing on my part, the real culprit of my commatoast, used to reflect “comatose,” out of it, asleep, lazy. You know. So i apologize for making you guess which is which.

But that’s not the reason i have not been writing lately (“but” and “that” are also words i include a lot even when they are superfluous; fortunately most of you don’t have to listen to me talk — but that may change soon). i haven’t been writing much here lately because i am finally intently diligently (Look, ma: not commas…well except for the one inside the parentheses) working on my book about Yosemite  and our deployment to the IO with women as part of ship’s complement — an aside: i love my working title: Steel Decks and Glass Ceilings.

i’ve also resumed activity in getting things done around the house. i’m old, hopefully just like my daddy was old, and even though i’m retired (sic), i want to do things besides sitting and staring at this addictive screen with all of its magic. Like painting the exterior door to the master bath; doing another flagstone project before tackling the giant one, the courtyard (i’m pretty bad about overuse of semicolons also); replanting root bound stuff all over the yard; remounting my flagpole at the top of the hill; cleaning out the garage (again: and parentheses and dashes are another overabundance of mine); repainting and reorganizing my home office; and on and on and on. Those things make me happy, although i cuss a lot (old Navy kind of high level cussing) when i’m in the midst of them.

Which brings me to my Facebook dilemma. i am glad Facebook is around. Facebook has allowed me to connect and reconnect with folks i like. i can keep up with them, make my writing available to them if they choose to read it with all of those commas and stuff but mostly just exchanging pleasantries with old friends in a much more effective way.

Still there are problems.

Now i don’t worry too much about those FB folks making my data available to bad people. Yeh, it may be a big deal but i’ll guarantee you no Ruski or Republican or Democrat is going to change my choice in political votes by sending me shit or subtly suggesting stuff. Even good friends will not impact my philosophy or voting choices with their rather incessant one-sided blasts at the other side, usually copied from some media source that reflects their position.

As for finance fraud, scams, taking my money under false pretenses, i think i’ve got enough safeguards to handle most of them, don’t do anything stupid like responding to suspicious stuff on the internet, so i don’t worry about this kind of stuff very much. Maybe i should. i don’t and believe i am happier that way. i also have some confidence in myself to be able to handle any problems if they do arrive on my doorstep.

There are other problems. i don’t like people hitting me up to spend money on their particular charities, causes, research for cures, even helping out the less fortunate. i’m tight. i give what money i feel i can afford to things important to me. Don’t need others telling me where i need to get poorer.

You see, Facebook has a massive glut of stuff i just don’t even consider, but they still show up on my timeline. i also have a rather large amount of friends. Everyone of my “friends” are people i actually consider friends. i feel guilty when i don’t go through all of my timeline because it’s enormous and would take up all of my time to do so. And a lot of friends use Facebook apparently in the belief they can influence my decision making. Perhaps on extremely rare occasions. But not really. Those kind of posts are just noise to me. When i know i’ve missed posts by my friends, i feel badly. i want to see all those posts when they are dealing with relationships, especially ours.

My only solution right now is to do the best i can. I will not stop Facebooking (i think i made that up) simply because i enjoy my relationships with my friends. i apologize to not responding to your posts.

So Mister Zuckerburg, if you can stand my commas, thank you for creating this thing that has made you disturbingly rich. You have allowed me to reach out and maintain new and old relationships, and it has made my life richer, not in money wealth, but in happiness, and that is worth a whole lot more.

For all of my Prichard/Webster relatives:

When i find myself flailing over which of the two gazillion things i need to do, i often decide to rumble through old stuff. This is a result of today’s rumbling.

i found myself staring at the photo, wondering what she was like. Knowing Granny, her daughter and my grandmother, i think i have a pretty good idea. Still, i didn’t know her.

She married a minister, a Methodist circuit rider who rose to bishop in the church. So she must have been rather devout in her religion. She was beautiful. i never really thought of her daughter as beautiful until i saw a photo of Granny (Katherine Webster Prichard) at eighteen. It took my breath away, and i see evidence of that beauty in this one.

The back has handwritten notes.

The first one is in her hand. The photo was a gift sent to her brother, Ammon Ferrell, who was in Platter, Oklahoma at the time. The story as i remember it is he went west to…well, i guess what any young man who sought adventure did in those days: to be a cowboy, perhaps. Again as i remember it, it didn’t turn out quite that way; he apparently was a cook, ran the chuck wagon for some outfit. It didn’t do him well. He came or was brought back home in not too good of shape. His brother-in-law and sister put him up in a cabin on their property off of Hunter’s Point Pike until he passed in the summer of 1930. Ammon was seventy-six when he passed. His grave is off of Webster’s Lane on what was the bishop’s rather large farm just northeast of where Walter J. Baird Middle School now educates children who probably not aware of Ammon, his sister, or the bishop. The second note is in all probability in the hand of my aunt. My cousin sent some memorabilia to me from my Aunt Evelyn Prichard Orr, this photo lady’s granddaughter. The photo was included. So it seems to reason, Aunt Evelyn wrote: “Grandmother of Evelyn P. Orr, Estelle P. Jewell, Bettye Kate P. Hall, Billy Prichard.”

After the photo lady passed in 1933 at eighty-five,  Aunt Evelyn, Mother (Estelle), Aunt Bettye, and Uncle Bill helped the bishop through his final years. The Prichard family had returned from Gotha, Florida where they lived for about three years in hopes of the climate positively impacting their father’s failing health (my grandfather, Joe Blythe Prichard). The climate did no good, and Grandfather wished to come home to die. When he passed, Granny, his wife, took up 24/7 care giving to support the family.

My mother told me of Aunt Evelyn, fresh from graduating from Gotha High School, would arise in the morning, cook, with the help of her siblings, a fried chicken and biscuit breakfast for the bishop. Then she would walk from the farm (still on the outskirts of Lebanon proper just south of where Castle Heights Avenue North now connects with North Cumberland, which before the spread of city development was once Hunter’s Point Pike) across the square on up West Spring Street to Cumberland, where she excelled in academics and basketball. But she walked home in the midday, prepared lunch for the bishop, and return uto campus for the afternoon. When classes and practice were completed, she would make her walking trip again back to the farm to perform supper chores. Aunt Evelyn is a heroine in my mind.

Part of that obviously came from the lady in the photograph.

Katherine Ferrell Webster, my great grandmother, is our link to the Ferrell family. Joe Ferrell and i knew of the connection and were going to investigate the links more thoroughly, but Joe, my good Lebanon friend, passed away last year.

So i sit and look at Katherine. Times long ago, different, gone. Sometimes i wish they knew quite a bit of what we know now but hadn’t been invented or discovered yet. Sometimes i wish i didn’t know what they didn’t know. Simpler days.

But i always wish i could have known her. i’m pretty sure i would have loved her.