Sean Dietrich’s “Sean of the South” post today stirred up memories. i read it right before breakfast. Usually it’s a bit earlier when i read Sean’s emailed post. Had i read it then, i probably would have just nodded my head with understanding and deleted it. i made a vow i wouldn’t repost Sean’s posts unless they struck a major, major chord. This one struck a chord as i read the Sunday paper during Maureen’s superb eggs, toast, and fruit (it’s been a while since i made it to the commissary down at the 32nd Street Naval Station and we’re out of Tennessee Pride country sausage).  As i finished up with coffee and the comics, i thought about Sean’s post some more.

He hit that chord because i wrote of a good man once, about four and one-half years ago. i consider “a good man” one of the highest praises a man could get. Acting, behaving, and even thinking in a manner to warrant being called a good man is one of my two major goals left in life. Doing the right thing (thank you, Peter Thomas for articulating this one) is the other.

i explained why my primary reason for pursuing being a “good man”  in my Lebanon Democrat “Notes from the Southwest Corner” that four and a half years ago. For those who might have missed it, i have pasted it below.

The link to Sean’s column is http://seandietrich.com/respects/

Respects

Good man gone

By now, most of you know my father, Jimmy Jewell, passed away last Tuesday (August 14, 2014), 46 days shy of his 99^th birthday.

This newspaper and its competition carried articles about him and as well as his obligatory obituary. He would have been embarrassed by all of this fuss over him. He shied away from publicity.

Jimmy Jewell’s near century of living is interwoven with the history of this city and this county. His history has been fairly well documented in many of my previous columns.

But I do not wish to discuss his history or how it has been interwoven with the city. I wish to honor him for what I think he treasured most: being a good man.

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In the early 1960s, I first heard of Jimmy Jewell being described as a “good man” when a Seabee buddy of his, Elmer Hauser, from World War II traveled from Arizona to see Daddy. Elmer and his wife Minnie went to dinner with us at Dr. Lowe’s second Plaza Motel on North Cumberland. There Elmer leaned over to me and said, “You know your father was the best liked man in our battalion (the Navy’s 75^th Construction Battalion). He didn’t drink so he would give his beer and liquor rations to his friends. Everybody wanted to be his friend.”

Elmer chuckled and then explained to me confidentially, “But the reason he was so well liked was not the rations. He was liked because he was a good man.”

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In July as we prepared to move Jimmy Jewell from UMC to his new but short-termed home of Elmcroft Senior Living in early July, I went to see my mother in their new digs. A man on a motorized wheel chair met me half way down the long hall.

“Are you Jimmy Jewell’s boy?” he asked, ignoring the fact I resemble my 69 years.

“Yes, I’m Jim, his older son.”

“I thought so. “I’m Basel Tyree. Can’t wait to see him,” he continued, “I’ve known him since the late 40s. He worked on my cars. He is a good man.”

We talked some more and in one humorous exchange, I laughed. “When you laugh, you sounded just like him,” Basel observed said.

“Best compliment I’ve ever received,” I replied.

Archie King, also on a motorized wheelchair had met me earlier with eagerness to see my father. When we met the next time, he told a story of when his car had been rear-ended in the early 1950s.

“The insurance company was only going to pay for the bumper and the dents to the trunk, but the frame was bent. I didn’t know what to do,” Archie related.

“I told Jimmy about it,” he continued, “Jimmy took the phone, called the insurance agent and said ‘I’m Mr. King’s attorney, and we are going to sue your company if you don’t pay for fixing that frame.’

“They paid. There’s no telling how much money Jimmy saved me,” Archie concluded and then added:

“He’s a good man.”

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After my father passed away, several folks like Tilford Elkins and John Cook also used “a good man” to describe Jimmy Jewell. I decided to cite them and others in this column. But before the Sellars Funeral Home visitation was over Saturday, I could not keep up with the names of those who used the term, I had also lost count.

That pretty well describes how Jimmy Jewell has been perceived in this town. I think it was his greatest trait.

It occurred to me there are other Lebanon men who have earned or are earning the “good man” description. Perhaps my perception is somewhat flawed, but I recall thinking of many Lebanon men of my father’s generation being “good men.” I believe it was not a false perception. The men of that generation valued the trust and caring of others over physical possessions or power. They did not draw lines in the sand unless it really mattered. They tried to make things work for everyone.

It seems our culture now leans toward self-protection, greed, and self-aggrandizement more so than in those times. There were a lot of good men back then, but they are dwindling quickly.

Jimmy Jewell was one of the best of those good men.

They came yesterday afternoon. Two of them. They call them wand tilters.

We have replaced about one quarter of our blinds over twenty-seven years. The wand tilters on the old ones are nearly all broken. The mechanism still works, sort of, but the wand connector thingie (notice my expert technical jargon) has broken and wands, a critical part, can’t be attached.

So we decided to try out two new wand tilters before ordering more.

This morning, right after breakfast, i  took to the replacement task. With my penchant for screwing tasks up initially, i figured it would take somewhere between ten minutes to four hours. As usual, i planned ten minutes. i figured i would tackle the two of the smallest blinds, the four small windows in our living room/dining room for ease of handling. While Maureen was getting ready to go to yoga — i know, i know, what do you do to get ready for yoga? — i took down the smallest blind, replaced the part, rehung the blind and the valence.

The first mistake. i showed it to Maureen. She was thrilled. As i was going to take down the next small blind, she stopped me.

“Why don’t we do one of the larger ones in the family room? They are the ones i have the most trouble with and they’ve got a pull-down problem too,” she said.

Having been married to her going on thirty-five years, i correctly did not take this comment as a question and explanation. i took it as a direct, nonnegotiable order. Of course, in spite of my whining and making fun, i was right.

She left for yoga. i took on the big blind in the family room. Since i now had some realistic expectations on the time of repair, i figured 15 minutes. Max.

But you see, i forgot about the valence. The valence is among eleven my folks made. From 1985 until 2001 (my father was 87, my mother 84 on their last cross country trip in their RV), Jimmy and Estelle Jewell would drive out to miss the kind of weather the east is having now. They stayed in a nearby RV park and come over every day. They would work on projects, enjoy their granddaughter (as they enjoyed all children, grand, great grand, or simply children), Mother would cook meals, and we would play bridge after supper until they went back to their RV park, sometimes taking Sarah for the night.

And the projects? Well, Daddy constructed the framework for the back yard patio, laid the the tile in the courtyard, erected the trellis outside our bedroom, built a desk out of scrap lumber for Sarah, made and hung the shelves in Sarah’s bedroom. Mother cut and sewed the fabric which he installed on the dining room chairs. And then she cut and sewed the fabric for the eleven valences in the kitchen, the family room, and the hallway windows.

These valences are a piece of art. They are also constructed to remain intact through Armageddon.

That’s not a problem. Taking them down is a problem. Because i have to undo all of the securing mechanisms my father put in place. This is not a small thing.

It did not help that the stapler gun and the ratchet wrench broke during breakdown and re-installation, that a support frame had to be relocated, and somewhere around 489 tools had to be checked to see if they would work best.

So the quarter hour project was crammed into about four. Working out, writing on my book, going to the driving range, and reading all went away this morning. Blind mechanism replacement, you see.

But this afternoon, we have working blind wand tilters with wands installed in two blinds. The valence for one is back in place.

The bad news i have just ordered 15 more wand tilters. They will arrive tomorrow or Saturday. i now know what i will be doing all weekend.

i took a NORP..

i am an old cantankerous curmudgeon. Sort of been that way my entire life except for that “old” part.

i have traveled down many roads, a lot more if you consider sea routes.

i don’t particularly handle self-importance very well.

So when someone tells me, “It’s my way or the highway,” i’m back on the road again.

i’m looking forward to 2018.

i say this every year about this time. And as usual, it will be a mixture of good and bad, just like last year and just like the year before that and the year before that and ad infinitum.

i have absolutely bought into it is what we make it — thank you, Dave Carey and your reflections on Charlie Dickens (no kin to Little Jimmy Dickens) and his opening lines in A Tale of Two Cities) — and i choose to make it on the positive side. Happy…well, maybe not happy…successful…hmm, don’t think that quite captures it either…good year (how come “good” covers such great territory?).

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Biggest loss? Charlie Hon. After Vanderbilt, i never got to spend enough time with him. That boy and i could get into more trouble (innocent, of course) than any two humans on earth, and it was pure, unadulterated fun. Of course, we both did pretty well with that fun trouble stuff on our solo rides. i feel him looking over my shoulder, laughing as almost always. “Come on, Jimmy,” he would say, “This will work out fine.” It did. Rest in peace, Charlie. You’ve earned it.

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Disappointments: Garrison Keillor. i was never a big fan of Garrison, too stuffily folksy. Always seemed a bit too made up to me. Don’t get me wrong. He was okay as a companion, the prairie kind, and lots of folks, including many good friends loved his schtick. i have nothing against him. Just not my deal.

Then he started “The Writer’s Almanac,” the website with daily entry of items pertaining to the date, mostly about writers (not me). i read it every morning. Liked starting the day off with a poem, although i would wonder, every day, why people liked these poems but editors were not thrilled with the few i had submitted to them. The daily entries became a part of my morning startup.

Then Garrison went down in flames, another of those men in positions of perceived power who thought, apparently, they were superior to women and made those women feel that way. Bad voodoo. And i don’t care what these guys claim. To one degree or another, they took advantage of another human. Wrong. Flat wrong.

Then, PBS got all pissed and dismissed him and his deals forever. And “The Writer’s Almanac” went away. Not fun. Guess i will have to actually study a bit to learn a little each day and go back ton reading on my own Robert Penn Warren, William Wordsworth, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and others on my own. That’s okay. i need to do that anyway.

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The greatest disappointment was the passing of another tradition of mine. i have written about it here: Murphy’s Law Desk Calendar. Gone. After thirty-two years. Gone. i guess they ran out of laws. Seems we’ve got so much screwed up there should be a lot more of the spinoffs, not less.

In case you missed it, my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Pipey Orr sent me my first “Murphy’s Law” desk calendar for Christmas when i was on deployment to WESTPAC in 1979. Rather than have to make some comment about some status at the commodore’s morning message meetings. i would sit next to the chief of staff, the last staff member clock-wise from the commodore and therefore the last to  be queried. Some staffie had already covered anything that needed to update the commodore and a whole lot more of gibberish to make the staffie feel important and believe he had impressed the commodore.

But i didn’t have anything at all to say. It was expected. So i began reading the daily entry from the calendar my aunt and uncle had sent me. Pete Toennies, Mike Peck,  Al Pavich and i marveled at how spot on the daily entries were about organizations and life (OW Wright would have too, but i didn’t start reading them until OW had been relieved by Al).

Examples?

December 27, 2017: “Murphy’s First Law of Technology — Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.”

December 28, 2017: “La Rochefoucauld’s Rule — We all have the strength to endure the misfortune of others.”

December 29, 2018: “Osburn’s Axiom — Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.”

December 30,31: “Lichtenberg’s Law — To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.”

Gone. Oh, they’ve got a wall calendar, but i have looked at that daily law every day for 13,878 days, even taking them on my trips.

The good (or bad) news is i plan to keep them running. You see, i would cut out the law from the daily entry and scotch tape it to the front and back of my 9×11 calendar i used throughout my Navy career (before computers obviously). i saved them all because i planned on writing about my career sooner or later — they have proven extremely useful while writing the book about my XO tour on USS Yosemite.

So i am going to post each one, probably as a Facebook entry, until i run out. i figure that will be around 2050.

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i was mulling over this while i performed our traditional cleaning of all of our pots and pans with some magic stuff one of Maureen’s friends recommended…Oh, okay, it was two pots and it became a tradition today, but i was working at it. Regardless, i was mulling as all good mullers do about such things as above but more concerned about the other tradition: Black-eyed peas and cornbread on New Year’s Day.

i’m not sure when it became a tradition at 127 Castle Heights Avenue. i don’t remember it growing up, but then there are a whole bunch of things i don’t remember about growing up. i do remember my mother’s black-eyed peas.

Estelle Prichard Jewell didn’t fancy hers up. Black-eyed peas. Hog jowl. “Salt and pepper to taste” (and i still don’t have a clue as to what that really means). Cook until done. That’s it.

i (for me) got fancy when my mother wasn’t around. My recipe is a bit more complicated: Black-eyed peas; onion, chopped; garlic, minced (unless Maren will join us); Worcestershire sauce; sorghum molasses, whatever the hell is in that cabinet where Maureen stores her spices and anything else not toxic that sounds good at the time. Cook slowly for a long time. Taste repeatedly, preferably with a beer.

We’ll have that with cornbread tomorrow with the Toennies at our house after golf with beer or wine.

’bout perfect except there are so many people i would like to share this with who will be celebrating elsewhere.

May your 2018 be all it can be for you.

Happy New Year.

Dorothy said it at the end of “The Wizard of Oz:”

… and it’s that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.

And, of course, she said,:

Oh, but anyway, Toto, we’re home. Home! And this is my room, and you’re all here. And I’m not gonna leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all, and – oh, Auntie Em – there’s no place like home!

i think i know how Dorothy felt. But it’s a little more complicated than that. Of course, Dorothy didn’t know. After all, she was just ten years old when the tornado whisked her away to Oz.

My problem is figuring out exactly where home really is.

i left Lebanon for good in 1967. i was 23. i knew about as much as Dorothy did about this “home” stuff. Since sometime around Dorothy’s age, i wanted to go elsewhere, the big city, the big football stage, Hollywood to star in oaters, far away, big big big, mix with the glitterati. Home was restrictive, strait-laced, lot of church stuff. Going, going, gone as Dick Shively would scream into the microphone at Sulphur Dell when a Nashville Vol would homer.

But not gone, and certainly not forgotten. Sulphur Dell. The Nashville Vols. Home.

And there were others, but none quite captured the original. Then through consequences of making choices, hoping they were the right thing to do, there were a few years when home became something just out of reach. But then, reconnections with folks back at the original home and friends in many homes across the length and breadth of the country brought back serenity. Through classmates at various stages of my life and my kin i was taken back to home of my heart, yes the heart of Tennessee. And in this season of peace, i went back, not to the original, but a place that feels like the family home used to be. Peace on earth, good will toward men.

This all occurred to me when i was back on Signal Mountain. My parents weren’t there, but i remembered their joy and love, just like home.

But you know what? l came back home. Home for 27 years, more actually since home is with Maureen, and we are working on thirty-five years of home, twenty-seven in this one. The flight schedule was brutal, up around 3:30 eastern, flight at 6:30 to that small chunk of concrete in the middle of Texas they call DFW, an hour wait, then another three-hour flight home, ten hours of day brutalized to arrive at 10:30 A of insanity M.

As i unpacked trying to expedite a long nap, it struck me. Yep. There is no place like home.

Warm enough for roses, cool enough for an evening fire. There’s no place like home.

But i still miss my other homes.