My dear bride pointed out to me when i got home from golf, i had inadvertently published the beginnings of my post about Willie. Mea culpa. i’m trying again.

i’ve been watching, listening, and reading all of the praises (deserved) of Willie Mays who crossed over the bridge yesterday at 93.

Many of the accolades claim Willie was the best baseball player ever. i remain amazed that folks could claim such.

In my mind, folks who try to assess baseball players from, possibly 1786, until today, are barking up a tree where the there are no squirrels. Equipment, field conditions, injuries, medical advances, baseball quality and consistency, specialization, coaching (from an absurd age, almost infancy), money, number of games in the season, information, oh, yes, PEDs, and lord knows what else have made such comparisons ridiculous. But the public wants to compare: they are good at being illogical and ridiculous. And the sports moguls eat it up because they make money on it. So we have it.

Correction: i do not have it. Comparing Walter Johnson to Bob Gibson to Gerrit Cole is worse than comparing apples and oranges. It’s comparing high tech to farming. i’m out.

So i will not state Willie Mays was the best. i certainly argued with my father enough about whether he was better than Mickey Mantle, but we never reached an agreement.

However, there is no one, no one who made me happier than Willie Mays when i watched him play. He was magic. He was made even more magic by Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reece in their description in the Falstaff Beer Game of the week on Saturdays. It really didn’t matter who announced. Willie made it magic. You could feel the joy.

i was a Pirate fan. Bill Mazeroski, Don Hoak, Dick Groat, Smoky Burgess were in a place of honor. And if you ask me about the greatest baseball player of all time, my vote would be for Roberto Clemente.

But, as i have noted, baseball greatness is arbitrary.

Willie?

i smile when i think of watching him.

Rest in the peace, incredible and forever, young man.

Say hey!

As i explained last year on Father’s Day, my brother, sister, and i didn’t call him “Father.” We didn’t call him “Dad.” We called him “Daddy,” always. His grandchildren and great grandchildren (there was only one talking before he left us) called him “Grandpa.”

And so he was.

In all of the stuff i’ve written about him, i don’t think i’ve said one of best things about him. Several years ago, Peter Thomas and i concluded that the most consistent and most important thing about the most effective leaders in history is they did the right thing.

Daddy did the right thing. Always. Sometimes it was tough to do the right thing. He did it anyway.

Most folks believe their father was the best. They probably were for them. So i’ll join that choir.

My graphics capabilities stink. Photos are with with him and me, 1944, a month before he went to war; with my daughter Blythe, 1974 in San Pedro California; with my daughter Sarah, 1998 in his home on Castle Heights Avenue in Lebanon, Tennessee; and with his great grandson Sam, c2010 on a walk in Deer Park community – Blythe, Sam’s mother will have to straighten me out on the year.

And on many occasions pertaining to Daddy, i repost a poem i wrote about him that he liked very much:

Hands

When most folks meet him,
they notice steel blue eyes and agility
his gaze, gait and movements
belie the ninety-five years;
but
those folks should look at his hands:
those hands could make Durer cry
with their history and the tales they tell.

His strength always was supple
beyond what was suggested from his slight build.
His hands are the delivery point of that strength.
His hands are not slight:
His hands are firm and thick and solid –
a handshake of destruction if he so desired,
but
he has used them to repair the cars and our hearts;

His hands are marked by years of labor with
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors
(long before mechanics hooked up computers,
deciphering the monitor to replace “units”
for more money in an hour than he made in a month
when he started in ’34 before computers and units).

His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bouganville, New Guinea, the Philippines.

His hands have nicks and scratches
turned into scars with
the passage of time:
a map of history, the human kind.
Veins and arteries stand out
on the back of his hands,
pumping life itself into his hands
and
beyond;
the tales of grease and oil and grime,
cleaned by gasoline and goop and lava soap
are etched in his hands;
they are hands of labor,
hands of hard times,
hands of hope,
hands of kindness, caring, and love:
oh love, love, love, crazy love.

His hands speak of him with pride.
His hands belong
to the smartest man I know
who has lived life to the maximum,
but
in balance, in control, in understanding,
gaining respect and love
far beyond those who claim smartness
for the money they earned
while he and his hands own smartness
like a well-kept plot of land
because he always has understood
what was really important
in the long run:
smarter than any man I know
with hands that tell the story
so well.

Yesterday, we played nine afternoon holes of golf, took burgers from the clubhouse home for supper. We would have stayed and eaten there — after all, their clubhouse is my briar patch — but it was the cats feeding time. The Padre baseball game wouldn’t start for about two hours.

Planning to listen to the local weather report, which is never quite right, we ended up watching a snippet of news. Not my thing. Then, because we both were interested in hearing golfers talk about their game, we went to the golf channel with its coverage of the US Open. They had a tribute to Payne Stewart, a terrific golfer who died in a plane accident. It was well done. Then, Brandel Chamblee and four or five other “panelists” talked incessantly about how much they knew, describing the course, which is really irrelevant to playing it

Then the game came on. Being that watching the whole game is part of my religious vow, i did: walk off homer for my Padres in the bottom of the ninth. i prefer to listen to the announcers for the flavor of the game, but i’m getting close to swearing off. Don Orsillo, Mark Grant, and Bob Scanlan being som impressed with themselves and their useless information, including banter they thought was funny. They weren’t.

i sat there as the Padres’ catcher Kyle Higashioka leads off the bottom of the ninth inning with a “walk off home run,” which by the way, had nothing to do with what Kyle did: he didn’t sprint but his trot was closer to a run than a walk. However, anyone on the telly takes great liberty in exaggerating actuality.

i clicked off the electronics systems and sat there pensively. In 1976, Mose Allison nailed my evening of streaming. Every person who opened his mouth during my evening of watching perfectly fit Mose’s admonition in his song, “Your Mind Is On Vacation” (“but your mouth is working overtime).

Be sure and listen to the lyrics because it’s not just television where folks are nailed in Mose’s song:

Note: i have resorted to using YouTube. i have Mose’s album by the same name. i bought it when it came out. Jimmy Smith, my mentor, introduced Cy Fraser and me to Mose in 1963. But i am technically challenged and could not remember how to put that version here. With Walker Hicks, i will relearn how to do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxZ-scE9mDk

Been a bad week. Nothing went right. The list is too long to include here. Nothing serious compared to what others i know are dealing with. Besides, if i enumerated on my problems, we all could call it whining from a curmudgeon.

It sent me to a dark place, i admit. While i toiled away at pursuits that would only expand the work to get it done. i chased paper, only to find more requirements required to finish the task. The internet and its maze of technicalities of which i’m not equipped taunted me. A project only important to me continued to hit speed bumps like a Maserati in a “quiet zone” neighborhood demonically designed to slow you down.

Then, Maureen and i mutually decided to abandon our plans to go to dinner at one of our favorite places because we just didn’t have the energy.

So i set up the dinner trays, and set up the napkins and silverware in preparation of our watching the Padre games later. i poured a Martin (thanks again, Mr. Fraser), added the olives and sat down. Rather than turning on the idiot box to watch biased and the really bad, un-objective news or something else before the game, i turned on the Bluetooth speaker and selected Andrea Bocelli’s “Ciel de Toscana.”

Our next door neighbors have heard my music collection many times because i play it on my iPhone and Bluetooth speaker when i am outside, at least daily. When we went out to lunch Salvatore commented, “Wow, you sure have a lot of different music. We even heard you listening to opera the other day.” i smiled and explained i had been a deejay back home and had gained an appreciation of most music genres.

Still, i was puzzled by his comment about opera. Finally, it occurred to me he had heard me playing Bocelli’s album.

i could go on and on and on about my music collections, preferences, and dislikes. Everyone has their own preferences in music. But that is not what i’m getting at here.

i only wanted to convey after being frustrated, a curmudgeon in a dark place, when i put Andrea Bocelli’s music on my bluetooth, i relaxed. Calmness ensued even while we watched a snippet of news and turned it off when it was too difficult to bear.

Thank you, Andre.

For the readers here, you might try it. i would recommend Enya also.

When reaching my age or thereabouts, many suffer from old age pestilence. Cancer; tendons, ligaments, and bones weakening, breaking or disappearing. At eighty, i too have some of those ills but marginally so compared to many of my friends and others.

Many in all age groups that call themselves adults have their problems because they were in the military service, a large number of them in battle, some in hand to hand combat, some who didn’t come home or died early because what our country required them to do. Oh, i was too close to battle numerous times but was never in actual combat. i experienced losing someone at sea, an electrician losing his arm in ship’s switchboard, a airman losing his leg in a helicopter crash, and a list of such harms too long to list here. i was in a number of situations on ships that had the potential for losing my life. Like those casualties and those life threatening situations, they occurred in service of our country.

i play golf once a week or more at a military golf course, mostly at Sea ‘n Air, Naval Station North Island’s course. Usually there are about six to eight of us. We play early. Somewhere around the fourth through sixth holes, we hear a bugle play first call to colors from base loudspeakers. Five minutes later, our National Anthem begins. If golfers are out of earshot, someone who can hear the opening notes, yells “colors.”

Everyone on the course stops, takes off their covers (hats to you civilians) and puts their right hand over their heart until the anthem is concluded and “carry on” rings out from the bugle call. The players resume play.

You see, these folks served their country and continue to honor their country by honoring our flag according the “U.S. Flag Code.” They are not honoring a president, a congress, the supreme court, or a political party, or philosophical position on government. They are honoring our country. They are honoring our citizens, all of them, whom they defended, through showing respect for our flag.

It seems the citizens of our country don’t feel they should honor and respect the flag. Judge Alito and his wife displaying the flag upside down was a gross disrespect for our flag and our country. The US Flag is not a platform nor should be used as one to state a political stance or be used in a squabble between neighbors. i am not taking sides politically. i’m done with that. All political parties have lost their moral compass to get their people elected.

The citizens are even worse in their disrespect for the flag and our country’s constitution. Here are some things all should consider before displaying our flag. These come straight from the U.S. Flag Code:

The flag should not be displayed on a float in a parade except from a staff.

The flag should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle or of a railroad train or a boat. When the flag is displayed on a motorcar, the staff shall be fixed firmly to the chassis or clamped to the right fender.

When displayed either horizontally or vertically against a wall, the union should be uppermost and to the flag’s own right, that is, to the observer’s left. When displayed in a window, the flag should be displayed in the same way, with the union or blue field to the left of the observer in the street.

No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing.

The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.

The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.

The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker’s desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.

The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.

The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.

This includes political advertising. And making it different colors or otherwise altering its appearance is disrespect for it and our country.

No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica, should be worn on the left lapel near the heart.

So now, if you are using the flag to support your political position, you are not only showing disrespect for our flag, but for our country and for those who have served to defend that flag, our country, and our citizens.

No, i’m not going to come after you or try to punish you. My service to my country was, in part, to defend your rights to say and do what you want within legal limitations. But you should be ashamed. You are showing disrespect for the country that allows you to do what you are doing. Shame.

There are many other things i would like to include here, but those things smack of politics, which i try to avoid. i will add an observation:

Folks of my vintage and beginnings, think of the Golden Rule as being espoused by Jesus in the New Testament of the Bible. It was. It also was a key rule from around 2340 BEC in Egypt and is found in nearly all religions in various forms — DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

It seems to me all of our politicians and damn near all of everyone else in this country, especially those who claim they are “religious,” have decided to ignore that dictum. i think the world would be a whole lot better off if each of us made that our primary watchword.

i am a citizen of the United States of America, i served my country in the Navy for more than 22 years and sacrificed some of my rights while serving. i believe our constitution with some flaws due to the time in which it was written contains the ideas for the best government on this earth throughout history. i belief many, from the start, has abused its ideas of equality and freedom to gain wealth and power and abuse others. i honor the United States of America Flag, Old Glory to signify my beliefs.

i am worried we are destroying our constitution and our country by our selfish and blind adherence to party politics. It seems we have not learned from history, just ignoring it to repeat its failures.

i am ashamed of what it appears we have become, or at least on the road to becoming.