My last post was at 9:30. That’s “p.m. PDT, or 2100 local, or 1400 GMT, or three bells, Navy ship time. i was tired and excused myself because i’m seventy-three.

It is now, without all that quibbling over what to call it, 2:42 in the morning in the Southwest corner. i’m awake.

Why?

i used to sleep like a rock, anywhere, anytime, and slept through the night without fail. My father slept through the night until he was well into his eighties as far as i can tell. i started getting up once in the night in my late thirties for trips to the bathroom (sic). i attribute my early start on this male habit due to ship watch standing and perhaps a little bit wilder lifestyle than my father. But i would always fall right back to sleep.

Then in the last several years,  going back to sleep became more difficult. i got where i started worrying about something, or thinking about something i should have done the day before or several decades before, or feeling guilty for some slight i might have accidentally conveyed to someone, or worrying how i was going to get anything done the next day with little or no sleep.

Then i went to a counselor. She’s terrific, and got me into meditation. The techniques take my mind off of all those things, and i usually go back to sleep.

But not tonight. No, not tonight. i started thinking about weird things, or at least most people i know would think them weird. i just think about them, not as weird, just different.

Like tonight when i returned from my bathroom trek. i started thinking about the uproar about from where i trekked: the bathroom. i have a solution. But it won’t take. Why don’t we just make all bathrooms available to everyone, regardless of sexual preference? What’s wrong with it?

Well, to start with, they ain’t exactly bathrooms. In fact, we can get confused as to what we call them. Bathroom? Restroom? Outhouse? Loo? Water Closet or it’s abbreviation W.C.? Toilet?

In Spain, Mexico and other places across the world, they are called  baños. Of course, that’s a masculine noun, so i don’t know where the females go. Bañas? i don’t think so.

i’m not sure what they really call them in Japanese, but i know i can’t read the Japanese characters for the term. i realized that because of the twitters in the summer of 1970, long before twitters as we know them. Or is it tweeters?

Regardless, i was on a date with one of the most exquisite women i ever dated. Her name was Kosyko. She was just short of five feet tall weighing in around eighty pounds, about my age. Her parents were in Nagasaki when Fat Man the bomb visited. Her aunt was keeping her outside of Sasebo. Her parents didn’t return.

Kosyko was the most delicate woman i have ever met. Striking. i met her in a “stand bar,” a legitimate, straight place downtown far away from sailor town in Sasebo, Kyushu, Japan. We began dating. i would pick her up when she got off work around 2:00 to 4:00 a.m. Normally, we would go out to eat in small, lovely Japanese restaurants in the countryside — yes, many dining places stayed open all hours. But this evening, there was a movie, she wanted to see. So she and a couple of her girl friends (oops, friends of like gender) and i went to the nearby theater around 3:00 in the morning.

In the middle of the movie, nature called me. Since it was all in Japanese, i wasn’t going to miss much in the dialogue anyway, so i carefully made my way in the dark to the lobby. Seeing what was obviously the place for relief, i entered and did my business. When i emerged from the stall, there were a bunch of Japanese women in front of the mirrors. When they spotted me leaving, they all started to twitter, if not downright guffawing.

Once outside, i looked at the Japanese characters on the wall, puzzling as to how i could have been mistaken. That’s when i noticed the international sign on the wall on the other side of the entry meaning for women.

Didn’t hurt anyone. In fact, they got a good laugh out of it.

i was in love with Kosyko as much as i’ve ever been in love. i was going to ask her to marry me, but i wrote to my parents first, informing them of my intention. i got one of the very few letters from my father i ever received. Daddy strongly but lovingly advised me against the marriage, not, to his credit, because of her lineage, but because he felt a mixed marriage would make it tough for both of us. Back then in Lebanon, Tennessee,  he was absolutely correct.

It didn’t matter as about the same time of this correspondence, i did something to upset Kosyko. She refused to see me anymore.

i must add if my father did have some racial bias in the back of his mind, i could understand. After all, he witnessed kamikazes in the Philippines, and had Japanese forces shooting at him with machine guns before the Seabee defenses took care them.

But i think Kosyko had much more reason to view us negatively, which she didn’t. i hope my father was the same way. It was over.

But back to this every loo for all idea. First, why don’t we give up on the term “bathroom” or “restroom?” i surely don’t rest when i go in there, and unless i’m at home i don’t take a bath there. They are just sharing the space, the bath and the toilet. Why don’t we call them “P and C rooms” for “pee and crap,” or for the more genteel “UD rooms” for “urination and defecation.” i mean that’s more to the point.

Of course, we could always just go back to the way we used to do it. My daughter Sarah was amazed when we visited the Hermitage years ago. After visiting the house and the slave quarters, we strolled over to the garden. Adjacent to this lovely setting was the family outhouse, a three-holer. Sarah was astounded. i’m pretty sure they didn’t have any gender rules on that bathroom.

There were some problems with that solution. The Dillards, a bluegrass band from Missouri famous for their recurring role on “The Andy Griffith Show,” explained the problem when defining an outhouse to the city folks at Los Angeles’ Hungry I. “It’s a little shack about one hundred yards from the back of the house. In the winter, that’s about a hundred yards too far, but in the summer, that’s about a hundred yards too near.”

And then, we all could just go outside like my golfing buddies do.

Of course, the EPA might get a bit upset even though i don’t understand why.

i think i will try to go back to sleep.

It is late…well, not late of years gone by, but late now at seventy-three. i have just finished my column, almost a day (but not quite) ahead of deadline, a most unusual occurrence for this procrastinator.

But Jared Felkins, the managing editor of The Lebanon Democrat  and a blessing for this newspaper, which has been a part of my life since the beginning, mine, not the newspaper’s, has a busy and difficult week ahead. He and his wife are closing on their new house and his uncle, a close relative passed away with services this week. Jared needs all the time he can squeeze out of an editor’s rather ridiculous schedule and demands.

So i made the effort.

This was on top of a long day of home tasks and working and working on a writing project. Maureen has already gone to bed. i’m heading there. It’s late. 9:30. Sleep habits are another story another time.

But as i sit here, i can feel my eyes burning. It feels like grit, you know, grains of sand are inside the lids, not totally unpleasant, but demanding i pay service to the rack monster (the term i used in the Navy when sleep, not beckoned, but demanded).

And i remember special moments. So special moments. For as long as i was with Blythe, i would put her to bed. i did the same with Sarah until she was well into high school and even then, i might sneak in late to kiss her good night.

i would put them under the covers, tuck them in if you will. Early on, i would read stories to them. i tried making up some but it seemed awkward, stilted, especially compared to Dr. Seuss or Phil Silverstein. Eventually, i chucked the stories altogether.  i would lay down on the bedding and put my arms around them over the covers. i would nestle my head close to theirs. Then i would hum or sing softly with as low a timbre as i could muster.

There are only two songs i remember singing/humming. They are emblazoned in my brain. “Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Dream,” and “Summertime.”

i am already humming them in my mind as i write, thinking about those two special people in my life.

i think i will sleep well.

Good night.

i’ve written a lot about him.

But not enough. No, not enough.

i will not talk to him today. He’s in Ireland. Kenmare, Ireland to be exact.

In case you didn’t know. He’s my brother.

i count my blessings when considering the family i come from. My mother was unique. My sister is my other best friend. All three siblings remain close.

My brother Joe and my father are the two men i look up to the most. My father-in-law was another.

But today’s Joe’s birthday and i will think of him a lot today.

Happy Birthday, Joe. i can’t think of anyone who deserves a happy one more than you.

It is official…or as official as it can be at this juncture.

i have just made reservations for a studio apartment in mid-June for twelve days in Flagstaff, Arizona in mid-June. For me. Just me. It will be my moment of silence.

The purpose is to find out if i am really serious about this writing stuff. The plan is stay in this studio and write with breaks only for workouts/walks, meditation, and reading. i have a project to work on, and if all goes as i hope, i will continue to work on it after i return home.

i picked Flagstaff because i really don’t know anyone there, and because it’s a one-day drive from San Diego. I have been through there twice, stopping for a day once a long time ago. i liked it. But the principal reason for choosing this place is i felt it would be conducive to my writing.

It’s rather timely in that my last regular weekly column for The Democrat, Tuesday, June 13 will be by 500th, sayonara time (if i counted correctly: Jared, the Democrat editor and i have a different count; i suspect he is a better counter than me). It is time for me to finally, finally decide for real, i mean for real, if i am ever going to write something more permanent than “posts,” poems, or columns, something longer than a poem, something more meaningful to me. i’m still not sure if i will publish the result or anything else for that matter. i am now old enough to be writing for me. i don’t know why. Sure, i would like to be acknowledged as a decent writer. Sure, i would like to make a little more money, to give us a bit more breathing room financially, to help out our  young’uns just a bit more when they need it. But this is for me to determine if i really have what i have always thought i had in me, deep within me, committed.

If i don’t, i won’t worry about it anymore. Oh, i may write another poem (or whatever it is you should call my stuff approximating poetry), and i will probably keep writing a post or so when it moves me, but writing will be behind me. Writing has long been this bear (since at least my senior year in high school), the bear with the tangled paw that left the print for Ike McCaslin in Faulkner’s “The Bear” that loomed larger than life in the antediluvian woods of Mississippi, looming over me while i shunned it, ignored it to go on making a living, trying to piece the writing together with being responsible, but having enough sense to realize the two just didn’t jive together. And i had a life to live. i mean i think it’s time for me to — excuse me gentle people for my language — to shit or get off the pot.

Now mind you, i ain’t complaining. i’ve had a hell of a good life, a whole lot of it by accident and circumstance. i’ve done a lot of things most people don’t get to do; seen a lot of places and things most people don’t get to see (or can’t anymore); and done a lot of things most people will never do or understand. i have done almost all in good faith. i have a few people who think i might have done better, but that’s their problem, not mine. And now after my moment of silence, i will be able to live the rest of my life relatively comfortably in a place that begs to be enjoyed, and believe you me, i will enjoy. i have been good at that all of my life.

But i gots to get this bug out of me before i can enjoy it.

If this 12 days of Christmas in June in Flagstaff proves to me what i hope, then my life will change. i will know in my heart i can write something worthwhile and have around ten projects in mind, to which i will pursue with an unbridled diligence. If i assess i ain’t got it in me, i will keep on, put it behind me, and enjoy my remaining days.

So i’m just warning you, sometime around the disappearance of “June Gloom” in the Southwest corner, i’m gonna be me. i just don’t know who the hell that exactly will be.

Typical of Maureen, she wished to be low key on her birthday. She went to yoga, a new location as the athletic club closest to us has begun cutting back. From there, she spent most of the day escorting her sister to a doctor’s appointment and the follow-on pharmacy pickup.

i had planned to take her out to a nice dinner. i suggested an excellent French restaurant, Et Voila (you wouldn’t have known it was French if i didn’t tell you, would you?). It’ a place we love both for the cuisine and the atmosphere. i gave her that choice with some other of our favorites. She considered some new ones she was researching before she agreed Et Voila was the best choice.

By three o’clock, i realized she had a demanding day. i called and said i could pick up Thai food for tonight, and we could go out another night to celebrate her birthday. She seemed thankful. When she started home from her sister’s place in Santee, about 20 miles north of here but tough in the commute traffic, she called. i revised my suggestion, giving her the choice of Romesco’s.

Romesco’s is one of our go to places. Its subtitle once was “Mediterranean Bistro,” but has since been revised to “Mexiterranean Bistro.” Good change. It originated in Tijuana and is still a thriving restaurant. A son of the original owners started this one just down the hill from where we live. It has gained notoriety for its wonderful dining and even more so for its tapas bar in the back. Almost since the beginning, Maureen and i take refuge at the well appointed bar in the restaurant. The tapas bar is party town with about five flat screens showing disco videos and a motif featuring Spanish bullfighting. The restaurant bar is quieter and the music is usually jazz. We share two or three tapas and drink a glass of wine or two.

Tonight, we shared salmon carpaccio, excellent with fried capers; a roadside ahi tuna tostada, and cochinita pibil Yucateca. They seemed even better than usual. We always have a glass of Ergo tempranillo. Tonight, Maureen tried a new one, a cabernet, tempranillo blend. She liked it. i’ll stick to my Ergo.

It all went well until i mentioned four San Diego high school baseball teams would be playing a double header in the Padre’s Petco Park in late April. She liked the idea of attending. Then i wondered how thrilled i would have been if my Castle Heights Tigers team had played in Sulphur Dell.

“What is Sulphur Dell?” she marveled.

“It was the oldest professional baseball park in the country at that time,” i explained. “The Nashville Vols, now defunct, played there in the Double A Southern League,” i continued, “i went there quite a bit.”

“Cy Fraser, Billy Parsons, Alan Hicks, and a lot of others went there when we were at Vanderbilt. My father took me there several times.” i was on a roll.

“i went there with several kid groups,” expanding, “In the sixth grade at McClain Elementary, they took the school patrol to Nashville to thank us for holding the traffic flags. We were supposed to go to the state penitentiary and to a wrestling match.

“The wrestling match was cancelled or something, so we went to the Vols’ game that night,” i should have stopped there…but i didn’t.

“We did get a tour of the penitentiary. That’s when i bought the miniature electric chair.”

Maureen stopped and looked at me accusingly, “Please tell me you are kidding.”

“Nah, i’m not kidding,” i foolishly went on, “They sold them in the little prison shop. They were wood. No electricity. The prisoners made them.”

It finally dawned on me this conversation was not going well. i shut up.

We enjoyed the rest of our tapas, paid our tab, and went next door to Baskin Robbins, one of Maureen’s favorite places in the world because they have jamocha almond fudge. Feeling guilty, i punished myself by not having some black walnut.

We came home. i’m still trying to figure out what happened to miniature electric chair. Perhaps i gave it to someone. Man, it was cool.