i’m back on Facebook.

Actually, i never went away. i monitored, but not as intensely or frequently. i shared links to the posts on my website and my Democrat columns, and i posted albums of pictures i’ve scanned for posterity because i’m too damn old and ornery to learn how to share those old photos with my family any other way.

The truth is i like sharing stuff back and forth with friends and family. Those reconnections and new ones give me a lot of pleasure. i decided i just couldn’t give up those connections.

But i’ve made some rules. i’m only going to “like” posts i truly enjoy or find especially interesting. i am no longer going to “like” a post because i want you to know i’ve actually read it.

i’m going to skip all those pass-along jokes, feel-good videos, prayer requests, political comments, copy and paste demands, etc. That doesn’t mean i don’t respect you. It just means i’m not on the social media for such stuff. i like the social aspect.

You see, i set myself some goals, not resolutions, before the  end of the year to reinvent myself. i want to live the rest of my life in a better, healthier, more productive, and more giving back mode of operation. i also don’t want to sweat things anymore. i want to truly retire except for that giving back thing, which i plan to do through writing.

Well, i backslid on those goals, not resolutions, pretty soon after the turn of year. Not completely, mind you, not even too badly, but i did backslide in my opinion. But you see, i have an automatic reprieve. My birthday is January 19, which i share with Robert E. Lee, Edgar Allen Poe, Paul Cezanne, Jean Stapleton, Tippi Hedren, Phil of the Everly Brothers, Janis Joplin, and Dolly Parton, among others.

And of course there is James Winston Watts, who developed the frontal lobotomy.

It all seems to fit.

So i’m renewing my efforts to reinvent myself. Whatever is left in this life for me, i intend to enjoy it.

This morning, i completed a project, the first one among many. It’s not that impressive. i made an herb table which we will put out in the old dog prison (no dog, no prison) where Maureen can work on raising her herbs and potting flowers.

It’s really not impressive. i made it out of scrap lumber and some sheet metal. It is not square, but i did it with no plans, just sort of began puttering.

Still it’s a change. i have somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand projects in my garage and office, and that’s not counting the four billion and growing list Maureen has for me. This herb table is the first step in completing those tasks and the beginning of the reinvention of my reinvention.

And as i drug the table from the garage work area to the old dog prison, i passed the rose bush Maureen has in a planter.

i didn’t see this at first what with rousting about the table. i experienced the aroma first, one of the sweetest smells i’ve come across in a while.

Then i saw the rose. ‘Bout damn near perfect. Not a bad way to kick off a reinvention.

The story is dated and a bit overwritten. The writer, Laurence Zwisohn, was obviously a fan of the King of the Cowboys.

i have justifiably been accused of overwriting and being “sappy.” i also was a huge fan of Roy Rogers, shown below with Trigger (i purloined this photo off of a Mexican website, http://undiacomohoyhuaraz.blogspot.com/2015_03_01_archive.html).

Roy Rogers could not exist today, nor will anyone come along like Roy, nor will anyone come close to emulating Roy’s life.

My father in his later years and i would watch Roy’s movies together. Now, on rare occasions, only my daughter Sarah would deign to watch them with me.

i don’t think there are many folks in the generations following mine could understand, let alone enjoy Roy’s “B Oaters.” Many would complain they were not realistic. Many would complain about Roy’s lack of faults or the villains, you know, the ones in the black hats. Many would complain of the violence. After all, the villains did shoot people (Roy just shot the guns out of their hands), and there were lots of fights where Roy fought fair and his adversaries would cheat, throw dirt in his eyes, and use chairs and such to try and whack Roy unsuccessfully. As expected, or even known beforehand, Roy would ward off the yellow-belly cheater’s attack and knock him out (often after catching him in a horse race — no horse was faster than Trigger — diving and taking him and the culprit rolling down a hill) and win the fight. But yes, it was a fist fight earning an R rating by the supercilious.

There would likely be others who would complain about animal cruelty. They would likely want Trigger to be put out to pasture, and the cows not be herded and branded.

Even though, as Zwisohn points out, “Indians” were always friends with Roy and never fought against him, or him against them, there would be some “Native Americans” who would object to the portrayal of these indigenous people as degrading.

Atheists would decry Roy and Dale’s fervent religious beliefs. Rocks would be thrown at the couple from all angles. The left would deride him. The right would demean him. Journalists would haunt Dale and him, looking under every rock, trying to find dirt to print. Some would probably just print something on a hunch. Attorneys would be looking for a kid who missed getting an autograph so they could sue.

It was a different age, a different mindset. Sure there were folks who were no better, perhaps worse than many today. Certainly, there were backdoor deals by the bigwigs in every facet of American life. Prejudice raged in every direction. There were actresses who were abused, but some using the director’s couch to climb the ladder of stardom. Hollywood was a nasty business with a dark underside and shaky morals.

But Roy and Dale were above that. They lived a rather incredible life of religious belief, unblemished behavior, and success.

The museum made way for a highway in Apple Valley. They moved it to Branson, Missouri. It lasted for a while and then closed for lack of interest. Sad. It was a good place to go and feel good.

But if you want to feel good about at least one couple getting it right for them, then read Zwisohn’s article. It’s almost like magic, like pretending. But Roy and Dale did exist. The piece is a bit long, but for me well worth the read:

http://www.royrogers.com/roy_rogers_bio.html

And every once in a while, the Western channel during daytime programming, not prime time, will vary from their usual inundation of Gene Autry movies to show one of Roy’s. Watching it for me is like getting healed. The bad guys lose, the good guys win, and Roy and Gabby ride off into the sunset, obviously after Roy has sung one last love song to the heroine.

i almost threw it away.

It was in the middle of a bunch of stuff in a box of many boxes i was cleaning out.

It was yellowed and sort of fragile. i was afraid it might crumble into pieces.

But it was a newspaper clipping, easily recognizable as a sports item. “Lebanon Wins / Over Watertown” the two-line, one column headline read.

Being an old sports reporter and editor, i paused and read the three paragraphs and cringed. It was not the way i had learned to write sports stories on athletic contests: first paragraph twenty-five words or less letting the readers know “who, what, where, and when;” all other paragraphs short and written with the least important parts of the story at the end, so the editor when making up the hot-type page could throw out linotype lines from the bottom up to make the story fit in the space. Half-way through the third and final long paragraph, i found the reason the clipping had been saved. i wondered if other such stories had been stashed away by my Prichard family. The important part was even underlined: “Captain Prichard ended her high school career by leading the scoring for the evening with  ten points.

i shook my head. i’m pretty sure my mother, the captain they lovingly nicknamed “Runt” since she topped out somewhere around five-feet tall, played one more game. i’m pretty sure she told me they had one tournament game, which they lost. Still, “Runt” had a pretty impressive run. Her single game and season point totals remained a Lebanon High School record for a quarter of a century. She was one of the initial inductees into the Blue Devil Hall of Fame. i still laugh when i think of her standing between Rita Rochelle and Louis Thompson, both of whom dwarfed her.

And to give the un-credited writer credit, he or she did mention nearly every player for both teams, men and women.

When i concluded, i thought it would be good to post the clipping. After all, there are a lot of Lebanon and Watertown folks who might recognized the other names.

One thing that hasn’t changed from one year to the next is organizing. For some while now, my focus has been on photos. i have photos everywhere. Some are in boxes, lots and lots of boxes. Some are in albums; mine, my mother’s, my aunt’s, Maureen’s, and Maureen’s family; lots and lots of albums.

It is a task, not likely to ever be completed, but one that nearly always take me back to happy memories.

Yesterday, i stumbled upon some framed pictures in a box. Boom: memories of love:

1983. Maureen had some photos made of her to remember her by when i would leave right after our wedding, report to my new ship, USS Yosemite, in Mayport (Jacksonville), Florida, then leave for almost eight months on a  deployment to the Indian Ocean. One of the owners of Parron-Hall Office Interiors where she worked was also an amateur but very professional photographer.

One of the photographs was a beautiful shot we framed. i hung in my office wall opposite of my desk so i could spend most of my days at sea looking at her. This one, smaller head shot, i kept by my bedside in my stateroom just forward of the office.

She hasn’t changed much, and i love her as much as i did on those eight months at sea, in some ways maybe even a bit more.

Circa 1993. Also framed in that box was one of my favorite photos. It was taken at Dan’s A-Frame in Grass Valley during Thanksgiving, i think in 1993. It’s my family. We were seldom together because Blythe was in Austin with her mother. So the photo is rare and therefore, even more precious to me. The focus is not perfect, but i still have another copy framed in the house to look at and think of how lucky i am to have all three in my life.

2016. There are more photos, but lying next to the pile waiting to be scanned along with the  two above  was a small painting. Sarah had painted it for me as a Christmas gift this year. It was to remind me of the trees outside my sister’s house on the hill sloping fiercely down Signal Mountain. It captures that memory perfectly. It also shows off another one of her talents.Both Sarah and Blythe are exceptional artists, something they got from their mothers. i am always amazed at how talented they both are in so many different ways, and as i often tell Maureen, the two of them are already successful as humans and are destined to be successful throughout life.

Now i must stop and get on to appointments and errands. But tonight, i think i’ll look for some more boxes with photographs. They won’t be hard to find.

Yesterday was the first of the year, but my year really didn’t get started until today.

You see, i made black-eyed peas with hog jowl (the jim jewell version includes tomatoes, onion, and a whole bunch of stuff that sounds good to me at the moment) and my mother’s version of cornbread, which never includes sugar – and someday, i will get brave enough to fry it like my mother sometimes did or make cornpone, two distinctly different things. If i ever tell Maureen the Southern tradition of making turnip greens because of the belief it will bring you money in the coming year, then i will probably add that to the New Year’s Day menu…by request. But for now, it’s enough to do what i do.

Then there were other things to attend to yesterday, mostly getting organized to start the year one day late.

So here it is, my first day of the year. This morning, i made my walk/run, for now walk only. Through an unintended selection from my normal “shuffle all” due to fat fingers, i ended up listening to Tom Waits’ album “Closing Time.”

It occurred to me there are about a half dozen singers who have had a significant impact on me and are my favorites to whom i listen most of the time. I decided to add Waits (a second cousin to my shipmate, apartment sharer in bachelor heaven, and friend, JD Waits) to the list. i identify with the thoughts in Waits’ songs, especially on this album, even the rough parts. i’m adding him to my list because the same is true of the others.

Jimmy Reed was the first to resonate with me. i listened to and watched Snooky Lanson and Dinah Shore on “Hit Parade” in the early fifties after hearing Fred Waring on his television. Before that, it was nearly all old country and Dennis Day on our 78-RPM album “Johnny Appleseed.” i’m sure there were others but those and of course, the inimitable Spike Jones struck in my head.

But Jimmy Reed impressed me, something new; no, not new, radically different from rock ‘n roll, bubblegum rock. He sang the blues. i do not know how i first started listening to WLAC at night. The news, talk, and easy listening Nashville station went to the dark side at night, nine o’clock to be exact. i loved it. Big John R, Gene Nobles, and Hoss Allen introduced me to blues, called “rhythm and blues” back then – and it was so much more rhythm and blues than the genre label today. The dark side went until way into the midnight hour and beyond, the ending time still unknown by me as i don’t think i ever stayed up that late, with the small radio under the covers thrown over my head so my parents would not hear how late i was staying up. Of all of the great blues singers, all gone now, Jimmy Reed was my first favorite. Then at Castle Heights in the spring, the track team when practicing boomed Jimmy Reed albums on the football field press box speaker system. Coming back from baseball practice down Hill Street, i envied the track guys. Jimmy Reed’s “Live at Carnegie Hall” still gets played frequently on my turntable.

Then came Vanderbilt where my Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers introduced me to Nina Simone and “Nina’s Choice,” still my favorite album of hers, perhaps because it was the first. I learned more about her and learned to appreciate her demand for equality and felt i understood, as much as a boy my age from my culture could understand, her anger. She taught me a lot. i’m pretty sure i have more CD’s of Nina’s than any other artist, but i still listen to “Nina’s Choice” the most.

Sonny Boy Williamson was added to my list much later. i loved much of Sonny Boy’s songs as i did Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Eddie Floyd, Slim Harpo, John Lee Hooker, and the more popular with the general population Bobby Blue Bland as well as others that blurred the line between blues and rock ‘n roll. But the four CD album, “The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson” laid it on the line. It is raw and it is the blues. i listen and i am back in the deep South where someone like me shouldn’t be, and i identify.

Of course, i was raised thirty miles from the capital of country music. Growing up, even though i liked listening to a lot of it, i rejected it as hick. i didn’t want to be labeled as a hick. But bluegrass captured me. It seemed to be genuine country, and Flatt and Scruggs were the icons of Bluegrass for me. Oh sure, there was Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers, but i loved Lester’s smooth voice, the unequaled banjo of Earl, and the dobro, oh yes, the dobro of the Foggy Mountain Boys. i play their albums often, especially “Folk Songs of Our Land.” My fraternity brothers, Alan Hicks and Cy Fraser, are much more informed than me but we have enjoyed Flatt and Scruggs and other Bluegrass bands together for years.

Somewhere in there, i am not sure exactly when but it was during my MTSU years, 1965-67, because i was at our home on Castle Heights Avenue when i heard a Carter Family song on the radio. It was “Heaven’s Radio.”  I was enthralled. After all, the Everly Brothers in “I Wonder If I Care As Much” are the only singers i’ve ever heard with an equally evocative pronunciation. The Everly’s sang the title line as “I wonder if I keer as much.” The Carter’s did them one better because they made a rhyme of “If there’s static in the air, and you can hardly hyar, you better turn on the radio of the Lord.” i have their album “Clinch Mountain Treasures” and often put on it on my CD player and go back to my roots.

Then, there is Hamper McBee. At Vanderbilt, my fraternity brother Billy Parsons – i think i’m going to drop “fraternity” from my descriptions because all of those guys are truly “brothers” to me – introduced me to Hamper McBee. He was close to a ne’er do well up in the hills of Monteagle Mountain. He bootlegged whiskey, occasionally got thrown in jail, and he sang a bit. If i remember correctly, Tubby’s Tavern was just a bit south of US 41 as you rolled into Monteagle about halfway from the town to Sewanee, the University of the South. If you took a detour to Tubby’s and there was a white mule tethered outside, you knew Hamper was in there singing songs. When i detoured from a trip to or from Chattanooga, the mule was never there. But others made that stop. Some Nashville dentist (i believe he was a dentist and i think he later became a politician) went up in the mountains and interviewed Hamper in his natural habitat: the woods, not the jail or Tubby’s. The result was some hilarious interviews, but the music was superb Southern hill folk music.

In the early 1980’s, i spotted an old record store on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego. Maureen, whom i was dating, went in with me. There were some great treasures in LP’s in the rows and rows of records, but i couldn’t find that album. Finally i asked the owner, an older man on the heavy side with a white wispy beard if he had anything by Hamper McBee. The man went into orbit. Not only did he have about thirty songs on a cassette, he was a fanatic fan of Hamper. i couldn’t believe it. Hamper is another who takes me back to my roots. Soon i hope to digitize my cassette.

Judy Collins came into my awareness while i was on my first ship, the U.S.S. Hawkins. She had an incredible voice, was one of the leaders of the folk movement in the late 1960’s, and i think i loved her. Someday i will relate how the staff officers of COMPHIBRON Five would relate to that song when sung by “Baby” at the Subic O’Club. Only Nina’s albums are greater in number in my collection.

So i sit by our fire with the new year upon me. i have given up on Facebook for a while so it is truly a new year.

To usher it in there is nothing much better to express my eldnerness and hopefully, my approach to the world for the rest of my life than Mose’s song, “Ever Since the World Ended:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbSR0z8uMME.

Now if you hit the link and listen to that song, you may stay on and hear a marvelous interview and collaboration between Mose and Van Morrison.

i hope you too have a wonderful New Year.

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