i have, by my count, about a dozen posts begun but put on the back burner for various reasons. i’ve flitted from one to another, adding paragraphs, deleting whole passages, adding more, never quite finishing. Here is one i actually finished today.

i went to the San Diego State campus Tuesday morning. i have the microfiche copy of the USS Yosemite’s ship logs for the almost two years i was fortunate to serve as her XO. The logs will verify dates and significant events for the book i am trying to write about that tour.

Why i am going there to read the microfiche is a long, other story, but the SDSU library appears to the best answer.

There is this undefined thrill, feeling of being surrounded by academia, that pulses in me when i walk across any college campus. Don’t understand it considering my history, but it’s there, undeniably there and it feels good.

Every time i visit Vanderbilt, i feel it in spades. Perhaps it is because that is the spot of my academic plummet and i’ve always wanted to go back and get a degree of some time. But i’ve finally admitted it’s too late now. My daughter Blythe feels it. Only a small percentage of us has shown the grit necessary to pursue a degree after several years in the business world. It was tough. She did it. i remain proud of her for this difficult achievement. When she was showing us her campus, University of Texas, Austin several years ago, she talked about how she would love to spend her life going to school there. She said there was some special feeling about the campus, the pursuit of knowledge.

i know how she feels.

College campuses, even Vanderbilt’s, are greatly different than they were when i was in college fifty-plus years ago, than they were when i was an NROTC “associate professor” (sic) at Texas A&M.

They didn’t have skateboards back then. At state, there are students flying all over the campus, ignoring signs for safe zones where they are forbidden. Then there are the students. Diversity is much greater, which warms my heart. And of course, the attire. Oh, there are still some male students who wear sports coats and ties, but either they are headed for a job interview or it’s sort of a low humor mockery — a few SDSU boys (is it okay to call them that? i don’t want to hurt someone’s politically correct sensitivity) wore black sport coats and red ties, the school colors, while sliding past me on those skateboards.

What women wear now would have caused expulsion, not to mention one whole hell of a lot of male students flocking behind them, when i was a student.

Back then, men wore grey or blue slacks, madras shirts, sweaters, dark socks, and cordovan weejuns.  London Fog jackets were okay if it was cool. Women wore dresses, or blouses and skirts, usually flats, and even saddle oxfords with knee socks. Sweaters were the cover for cool weather.

Now, damn near everything goes. Tee shirts with profanity inscribed abound. Some women, many who shouldn’t, wear leggings. period, often with a sweatshirt. Shorts of every kind and every length has proliferated with no regard to sexual preference. Gym gear on students who don’t look they’ve ever set foot inside a gym, including watching a sport, is everywhere.

And hair. There is short hair, long hair, twisted hair, colored hair, no hair, and hats of all sorts hide hair. The one i’ve never understood is baseball caps worn backwards for…what? to keep their necks from getting sunburned? To wear because one is always facing away from the sun? The only thing i can figure out is one day, this really ugly guy trying to get some women wore his backward one day to see if he get some woman interested in him and the lemming boys decided since it was different it was cool and could attract women. Not. Stupid.

i stopped and sat on a bench in the main plaza to make a phone call. i try not to do something like that while walking. i just watched as the campus began to come alive at 8:30. And you know what? All of the differences just seemed to fade away because that feeling of the pursuit of knowledge was still there, perhaps even more so.

These young adults were after knowledge. Not all of them, of course, but most. Seeking to know, seeking to learn the way they should, could succeed in this crazy world. A bastion of knowledge, academics. Oh yeh, there are a bunch who actually believe their side of the media circus and protest instead of studying, who think they know more about how to make the world better than all of the generations before them, even when, like all of the generations before them at that age, don’t know snot.

But they are looking for a better way. They are trying just like all of those earlier college students.

And with that feeling of knowledge and academia, it’s quite all right. Quite all right.

The front page of our newspaper this morning screamed of the idiot terrorist attack in New York City killing eight yesterday.

That doesn’t make for good breakfast reading.

Seeing the headline, i reinforced one of my wishes/hopes:

i hope every terrorist, every mass killer, every wrong doer just before they are about to die or, like sexual predators, think in that last instance, “i was really, really stupid to do this. Wish i hadn’t.”

i am afraid they won’t, but i still hope.

Occasionally, i will stumble upon something i filed out of place…no, not occasionally; actually quite often. Sometimes i remember this thing of mine i find. That happens frequently when it’s something i wrote. Sometimes i don’t remember. This one i remember what i wrote, but the date seems out of whack, earlier or later than when i thought i would have written such a thing. The situation for that time best remains personal, private. Still the idea of the poem and my lost time seem appropriate together.

Ruminating, a Love Poem from a Long Time Ago

ruminating while rustling through
old things in a drawer,
i came across an old watch
worn until time began to run past it:
tick tock;
it’s in the clock shop now;
the bespectacled balding man
said
he might put it in working order
in short order:
the watch holds memories.

went to an old haunt last night
after finding the watch:
people sitting around the piano bar:
no bellowing laughs,
all demure titters
appropriate for a piano bar,
titters for titillation:
sad, lonely.

walking home, taking a detour
along the beach;
deserted at night, the breakers
froth and roar;
removing my shoes,
tossing them over my shoulder,
i walk through the shallows;
the briny sea seems warmer
on my bare feet in the swirling sand.

my thoughts boil down to happiness;
you are the breakers on the sand,
the watch ticking quietly;
no titters for titillation,
pure unleashed laughter.

sand on my feet,
walking away from the froth, the roar,
respecting the immensity of the sea;
walking home, i glance at my wrist
to check the time
only to find the old watch is ticking
in the old man’s shop;
perhaps next week,
i will be able to tell the time.

As usual at the time, i thought it was a good idea when she told me she had bought tickets.

Then when later she told me we would have a late brunch at one of my favorite restaurants of all time before we went, i was even more okay with the idea.

But this morning, i looked at all of the projects lagging way behind, i was not thrilled at the prospect of spending my afternoon in frivolous pursuits. After all, i needed to go to the driving range and hit golf balls.

But, of course, we went as scheduled. i grumbled, hoping no one would notice.

After parking was damn near non-existent and after dropping Maureen off at the door, i drove around for about fifteen minutes before settling on the lone spot available about four blocks away. Walking to the restaurant, i grumbled some more, but the moment i walked into Et Voilá, the day turned to gold.

Sarah joined us for the brunch. It was her first time there. Et Voilá is obviously a French restaurant, but it stands above most. Their bread is imported, freeze-dried from Paris. It’s no so much it’s from France, but it is good and it does represent the attention to detail the owners/chefs pay to their food and service. The atmosphere and service is enough…well, enough to make a goofy old guy quit grumbling.

The meal was enjoyable but the next phase was even better. My grumbling gave way to concern. The reason Maureen and i were going to the symphony was she had seen the program in the arts section of the newspaper several months ago. The program featured a symphony, of all things, written by Wynton Marsalis. Wynton collaborated with the featured violinist ,to revise his piece which was a salute to the diversity of the fabric of our country.

i’m old enough to comment on this, knowing it will not change anyone’s mind. Don’t care. Just wanted to put it out there.

Belief is just that. Even the atheists believe. None of us really know, we just have to believe.

i believe goodness, doing the right thing, caring, and forgiving may lose in the short term, but will always, always win.

That belief keeps me sane…most of the time.