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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It is raining here, a blessing for the parched high desert.

It is cold here although nearly all of the rest of the country would define a high of 59 and a low of 46 as “cool.” Consequently, we have had a fire in the family room inglenook since midday. But except for our routine of the heat on for two hours to warm the house in the morning, the fire will be our only heat source.

As has become our practice for the past several years, we are staying at home, enjoying each other’s company…and the fire. i am recording the Fiesta Bowl. Later, we will probably watch the game sans talking heads and commercials.

Maureen remains plagued by a sinus cold and likely to be in bed before nine. i have no particular schedule for bedtime. But it will be long before midnight Southwest corner time.

It is such a wonderful time of the year. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ in spite of all the commercialism, other religions, and quasi-religions continuing trying to dilute the real reason for the season. Along with celebrating Jesus, we feel a sense of birth. And the new year speaks of resolutions to improve, to look forward to the coming year, to put the negative behind us. In short, it is the season of hope.

As a rule, i shy from making resolutions. i keep coming up with things to improve throughout the year, and there is no sense confusing those with overlays.

But this year in this season of hope, this coming year of accepting oldness, rejoicing in it, i resolve to live my life as well as possible, to deny bitterness and sadness from overshadowing that hope, to accept folks as trying to do what is right and not fault them for their rejection of others.

i will be amazed if i do not backslide.

i will make every effort to be strong, truthful, and caring but with my boundaries established.

May all of you have a New Year full of gladness, good health, and success as you define it. You are my friends and family. i care for all of you.

And i’m hoping as i type.

We just had a trip, not exactly from hell, but it was not a sublime experience.

Yet we made it. My sister and i talked into the wee dark of the morning, solved damn near every problem in the world, and i should follow her to bed.

But i am compelled to make some comments first.

Our transfer flight from Dallas to Nashville was delayed. We had a shuttle reserved to ride to Chattanooga to meet my sister and our arrival time made making that shuttle unlikely. The next shuttle was two hours later. Maureen contacted the shuttle company, unnamed because of my desire not to denigrate the shuttle service or get any of their employees in trouble. The dispatcher told her unequivocally no, the shuttle couldn’t wait past it’s departure time.

We landed with less than 15 minutes to the shuttle departure. i told Maureen and Sarah to wait inside the security area while i went to the shuttle area. There were no food services outside the gate area. i headed for the shuttle, found it, and spoke to the driver. He agreed to wait 15 minutes to see if our luggage arrived at the baggage area. It did, and we made the shuttle. He had waited about 15 minutes, but with the Nashville commuter traffic, the 15 minutes didn’t matter.

As we drove out of Murfreesboro where we had another stop and toward Tullahoma, Maureen thanked me for talking the driver into waiting. i said it wasn’t difficult. i know Tennessee people and although the dispatcher was obligated to follow the rules and hold to the schedule, the driver, face-to-face would be a nice person and make every attempt to help out his passengers.

After we went over Monteagle mountain and were running along I-24 with the mountain soaring up on my side of the van, i looked through the fogged window. There on the side of the mountain was a clapboarded house. It appeared to have no more than two or three rooms. Smoke was rising from the chimney. There in the small, front window was a Christmas tree, lit with multi-colored light.

i tried to imagine the family there, maybe a couple with two or three children, trying to eke out a living, maybe the man going into town working at a labor job while working his plots in the side of the mountain. i thought of them clothed in flannel on Christmas eve, hanging the stockings over the fireplace, the children with wide eyes looking anxiously out the window.

Perhaps there was a wreath on the door; minimal decorations compared to the big houses in town: meager but enough. Presents also limited but again enough. i thought of the children waking on Christmas day and rushing into the room with the fireplace and the tree, finding the gifts Santa left by the hearth along with a note thanking them for the milk and cookies put out the night before on a small table nearby.

It is a wonderful season, and there is no place that captures the spirit like the shuttle driver and the family in the modest house on the side of the mountain.

After all, this is Tennessee.

Merry Christmas in all of its glorious meaning.

I’m sitting in the Dallas Love Field airport watching the herd mentality at its worse because our flight is currently being portrayed as 35 minutes late ETD. It is rather amazing how air travel used to be a nice experience for the most part. Now it’s like stupid on hormones. What happened?

This led me to the bizarre antics of well-intentioned people who started with a good idea and screwed it up. Yesterday, i made the mistake of going to the Exchange/Commissary section of the 32nd Street Naval Station. It was amazing, amazing. When the back entrance  on 28th Street was blocked by about 75 cars trying to get in the gate, i made a left-hand turn and went to the main entrance on 32nd Street. It was worse. Fun.

For the majority of my time in the Navy, shore patrol and base security was manned by sailors in different ratings being assigned to the ship’s shore patrol or TAD by commands to the Base Commander to perform those functions.

Some brilliant bozo, probably a lieutenant commander who had not real promotion probability came up with the idea of establishing a permanent security force by establishing the “Master at Arms” (MA) rating. He actually sold the idea to a Flag Officer and lo, it came to pass.

Entrance to bases is now a nightmare, much like flying. Security, the professional MA’s, figured out how to be secure and thus have established one of the easiest targets for terrorists available anywhere.

By my estimate, there were at least 200 or more cars waiting to get onto the base through the “secure” screenings by the gate guard. With two well-placed explosives or two semi’s, terrorists could easily wiped out around 300-plus Navy personnel and dependents without ever having to breech the base territory.

Good thinking.

This all reminds me of one of my favorite AND TRUE sea stories. It has run here before. Years ago, my command sent a third class gunner’s mate (ratings have been abolished by current Navy regime, thus eliminating a system that has been part of our history since before our Navy was established. Another brilliant attention gaining gambit by a flag.

Anyway, this gunner’s mate was immediately assigned as gate guard for the morning. About mid-morning, an admiral being riding in his command sedan by a duty driver arrived at the gate. An increased level of security had been put in effect, and the gate guard had been ordered to check everyone’s id card.

This new kid halted the vehicle, approached the driver’s open window and declared, I need to see your id’s, Admiral.”

The admiral huffed and puffed, and shouted, “Can’t you see who I am, young man? I order you to let us through.”

The gate guard petty officer, thought for a minute, and then said, “Admiral, excuse me sir. I am new to this security stuff. Am I supposed to shoot you or your driver first?”

The admiral and his driver showed their id cards to the guard, and he waved them through.

And that’s what you do when you are waiting in an airport for a delayed flight.

i took a photo of a rose in our front yard for this post, but i really didn’t do it justice. So the photo didn’t make it. i’m sad because it seemed the perfect photo for this post.

The earth will shake a little tomorrow around 11::45 Greenwich Mean Time. Maureen is getting up to get ready for, are you ready for this, a 15:55 GMT flight. That’s rising at 3:45 with a flight departing at 7:55 by the Southwest corner clock. Maureen never gets up at 3:45 anytime, anywhere. That’s my job.

i mean she is rising four hours and ten minutes before the flight departure. We are packed except for her toiletries (and this computer), and it’s a twenty-minute ride to the airport. i’ll give 15 minutes for the transportation from car parking to the airport. And we are, thankfully, “PRE TSA,” thankfully because i didn’t get down to the office to pay my blackmail to get it all the time.

So i figure, i’ll have not quite two hours in the boarding area. i plan to drink a lot of coffee…and maybe a bloody mary.

Had it not been for her being a wonderful part of this Christmas tradition, i would have been packed tonight, awoke at 5:30 and gotten to the airport to check in, cleared security and have about 15 minutes before boarding.

But i love her for eccentricities; or maybe she loves me for mine; or in spite of…

Regardless, we are going to Tennessee for Christmas. Again. Signal Mountain. A house that screams Christmas at you, makes you let go, feel free, sit by the fire next to the Christmas tree,  think about good things, love everybody, feel toasty, and want to sing carols…or at least hum them.

i won’t go too much further on this because my Democrat column tomorrow is on this very subject. However, i think we all need to take a break. We cannot meet everyone’s expectations, or even our own, at Christmas. As wonderful as it is, we can get wrapped around the axle about who is not with us, to whom we didn’t give a gift, why someone didn’t call or write, wondering who we left out of calls, gifts, cards.

i’m guilty on all counts.

But you know what, that kid who was born under that star about 2,016 years ago had it figured out. And it spread to those sheep herders and wise camel riders, and they celebrated.

Regardless of your religious preferences, this thing called Christmas began because the world was given hope it could be better. We keep struggling with that concept, but in spite of all of the rhetoric rolling around in the media and in our heads, it is getting better.

But even if you think your future, our country, the world, your finances, and life as you know it is going to hell in a hand basket, it’s time to give it a rest.

Think goodness. Think Christmas, and celebrate goodness, or the closest thing we’ve got to it.

We are leaving the Southwest corner tomorrow, something we’ve done for twenty-four years. i loved our Christmases here. We would find a pretty tree and set it up in the living room. Maureen has this incredible flair for creating beautiful trees. The weather was always Southwest corner delightful. i smoked a turkey. We spent a lot of time in the afternoon outside. Ray Boggs, my father-in-law, brought joy, laughter, happiness to Christmas. i loved my Christmases with him.

It was different. But it was still Christmas.

Sometime in the next day or two, i will sit by that fire underneath those stockings and that huge wreath up on the mountain, and  i will have a toddy. i will hope all of you rest from all of that stuff that sticks in your craw and have the most wonderful Christmas and remember where it all got started.

i don’t think that’s restricted to Christians. i think everyone should celebrate. The goodness, i mean. The goodness of Christmas. The hope.

After all, that’s really what’s it all about.

Merry Christmas to all of my family, all of my friends, and everyone else as well.

And i mean that.