Today seems to be overflowing with good feelings for this old man, and many others i’m sure. Amidst all of the praise and love i’m feeling. i had to stop for a moment and think about him. He was the best, at least for me. i have praised him here before and thankfully, i let him know how i felt about him several times before he left me behind. i could not go through this day without honoring him once more. The below includes two columns and a poem about Jimmy Jewell. The first column was one i wrote on his 86th birthday. The second column was right after he passed away just over a month shy of his ninety-ninth birthday and right after his 75th anniversary with his wife. The poem, “Hands,” one of my favorites, has been here several times. When he read it, his comment to me was “I didn’t know you knew all of those things about me.

Thank you, Jimmy Jewell, for being the model for being a good father and a good man to me, your other two children, your nieces and nephews, your grandchildren, and the uncountable number of children who considered you a father or a grandfather.

An Incredible Man

There is an incredible man in Lebanon. He was born September 28, 1914.

The first record of his family in America dates to 1677. His great, great, great
grandfather came over the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky with Daniel Boone and
apparently was Daniel’s brother-in- law. His great, great grandfather moved to Statesville in southeastern Wilson County in the early 1800’s.

He had three brothers and three sisters. He is the only one left.

He has lived through two world wars, fighting as a Seabee in the southern Philippines

in the last one. He has lived through the depression, the cold war, the Korean War, the
Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War.

He had to quit his senior year at Lebanon High School to go to work when his father
contracted tuberculosis. He started as a mechanic, shared a business with his brother-in-
law in the 1950’s, and then became a partner in an automobile dealership and a gas and oil distributorship. He retired in 1972.

He and his wife have been married for 62 years. They remain infatuated with each other. The first home they owned was a one-room house, adjacent to his wife’s family farm on Hunter’s Point Pike. They bought their next home on Castle Heights Avenue in 1941 with the help of a $500.00 loan from a friend. They have lived there ever since.

He and his wife put three children through college. They have five grandchildren.

They have visited every state in the Union, except Alaska, where they were headed in 1984 when his wife’s illness forced them to turn around in British Columbia. Nearly all of their travel has been by RV’s, most in a twenty-eight foot fifth-wheel. When he was 87 and his wife was 84, they made their last cross-country trip to San Diego where they spent winters since 1985 with their eldest son and his family. They have made several trips up and down the east coast since then, and the fifth-wheel is still ready to go in their backyard.

They live comfortably in their retirement. Most people guess his age as early 70’s.

Last month, he painted their master bedroom and sanded and painted the roof of his two- car carport. When he can’t find anyone to go fishing with him, he hooks up the boat trailer and goes by himself. Now he usually throws his catch back in. When he used to bring the catch home, he would clean the fish and give them away. He doesn’t like to eat fish, just catch them.

For years, he had the reputation as the best mechanic in Wilson County. He can still fix anything except computers and new cars because he has shunned learning the electronic advances.

All of this isn’t why this man is incredible.

He is incredible because he is such a good man.

He is a willow. He bends with the winds of change and the changes coming as progress. Yet he never breaks. His principles remain as solid as a rock. He is extremely intelligent but humble.

He seems to always be around when someone needs help. Everyone considers him a friend and he reciprocates.

He is not rich, financially. But he is one of the richest men around.

My generation’s fathers were family men. They lived through hard times and hard work without a whimper. They believed in giving a day’s work for a day’s pay. They kept their sense of humor. Their sons wish they could emulate them.

Jimmy Jewell, or James Rye Jewell, Sr., this remarkable man, remains my best friend. I am his oldest son. I have worshiped him since the first re-callable thoughts came into my head fifty-three or so years ago. I still find myself wishing I could have his strength, his kindness, his work ethic, his love, his faith.

My father and I have had enough talks for him to know how I feel. But I’ve seen too many people wait until someone was gone before singing their praises publicly. I figure he&’s got a good chance to outlive us all, but I wanted to acknowledge how much he means to me and how great a man I think he is.

Happy eighty-sixth birthday, Dad.

September, 2000

Good man gone

By now, most of you know my father, Jimmy Jewell, passed away last Tuesday, 46 days shy of his 99th birthday.

This newspaper and its competition carried articles about him and as well as his obligatory obituary. He would have been embarrassed by all of this fuss over him. He shied away from publicity.

Jimmy Jewell’s near century of living is interwoven with the history of this city and this county. His history has been fairly well documented in many of my previous columns.

But I do not wish to discuss his history or how it has been interwoven with the city. I wish to honor him for what I think he treasured most: being a good man.

In the early 1960’s, I first heard of Jimmy Jewell being described as a “good man” when a Seabee buddy of his from World War II, Elmer Hauser,  traveled from Arizona to see Daddy. Elmer and his wife Minnie went to dinner with us at Dr. Lowe’s second Plaza Motel on North Cumberland. There Elmer leaned over to me and said, “You know your father was the best liked man in our battalion (the Navy’s 75th Construction Battalion). He didn’t drink so he would give his beer and liquor rations to his friends. Everybody wanted to be his friend.”

Elmer chuckled and then explained to me confidentially, “But the reason he was so well liked was not the rations. He was liked because he was a good man.”

July as we prepared to move Jimmy Jewell from UMC to his new but short-termed home of Elmcroft Senior Living in early July, I went to see my mother in their new digs.

A man on a motorized wheel chair met me half way down the long hall.

“Are you Jimmy Jewell’s boy?” he asked, ignoring the fact I resemble my 69 years.

“Yes, I’m Jim, his older son.”

“I thought so. “I’m Basel Tyree. Can’t wait to see him,” he continued, “I’ve known Jimmy since the late 40’s. He worked on my cars. He is a good man.”

We talked some more and in one humorous exchange, I laughed. “When you laugh, you sounded just like him,” Basel observed said.

“Best compliment I’ve ever received,” I replied.

Archie King, also on a motorized wheelchair had met me earlier with eagerness to see my father. When we met the next time, he told a story of when his car had been rear-ended in the early 1950’s.

“The insurance company was only going to pay for the bumper and the dents to the trunk, but the frame was bent. I didn’t know what to do,” Archie related.

“I told Jimmy about it,” he continued, “Jimmy took the phone, called the insurance agent and said ‘I’m Mr. King’s attorney, and we are going to sue your company if you don’t pay for fixing that frame.’

“They paid. There’s no telling how much money Jimmy saved me,” Archie concluded and then added:

“He’s a good man.”

After my father passed away, several folks like Tilford Elkins and John Cook also used “a good man” to describe Jimmy Jewell. I decided to cite them and others in this column. But before the Sellars Funeral Home visitation was over Saturday, I could not keep up with the names of those who used the term, I had also lost count.

That pretty well describes how Jimmy Jewell has been perceived in this town. I think it was his greatest trait.

It occurred to me there are other Lebanon men who have earned or are earning the “good man description.” Perhaps my perception is somewhat flawed, but I recall thinking of many Lebanon men of my father’s generation being “good men.” I believe it was not a false perception. The men of that generation valued the trust and caring of others over physical possessions or power. They did not draw lines in the sand unless it really mattered. They tried to make things work for everyone.

It seems our culture now leans toward self-protection, greed, and self-aggrandizement more so than in those times. There were a lot of good men back then, but they are dwindling quickly.

Jimmy Jewell was one of the best of those good men.

August 2013

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:

Durer, if he saw them,
would want to paint them.
His hands are marked from
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors,
starting in ’34 at twelve dollars a week.

He has used those hands to
repair the cars and
our hearts;

His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bougainville, 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;
tales are etched from
grease and oil and grime,
cleansed with gasoline and goop and lava soap;

They are hands of labor,
hands of hard times,
hands of hope,
hands of kindness, caring.

His hands own wisdom,
passing it to those who know him
with a pat, a caress, a handshake.

His hands tell the story
so well.

2009

i was puttering or piddling, depending on who might be describing my Sunday morning, around in my office when i stumbled up on an envelope in one of my myriad of piles. It was an old airmail envelope.

It came from Mama Jewell’s memorabilia. She, Carrie Myrtle Orrand Jewell was my father’s mother. i’m pretty sure the writing was my grandfather’s. His name was Hiram Culley Jewell. i never met him as he died of tuberculosis in 1939, five years before i was born at the age of 63.

The scrawling handwriting labeled the contents as “Pictures of Mama and Papa.”

Inside there was one photo about 1-inch by 1 1/2 inches in a small thick-paper frame. It was a woman but hard to make out:

i fooled with the simple photo tools i have and enlarged the photo itself:

It is a photo of a young Sarah Jones Jewell. She was born in 1842 and died in 1878. From family stories, she was a most caring woman.

The only other item in the envelope was an unframed photo of my great grandfather:

i also have worked on this photo to the extent i can. He is Hiram Carpenter (Buddy Jewell), born in 1844 and died in 1886 when my grandfather was ten. There are some family stories about how this impacted our lives as well as the one about my great grandmother.

i will provide a link on Facebook and tag all of my relatives that i can.

Tomorrow i will start searching for a place to have these photos restored much better than i can. When that is done, i will distribute the copies to family members. i will retain the originals until i come up with an idea of how to retain them in the family records. By my rough count, my grandfather and grandmother had seven children, 14 grandchildren, and at least 23 great grandchildren. It was at this point in my calculations i gave up trying to count great great grandchildren or other offspring of my great grandparents.

If anyone knows of a individual, company, or service that could restore these two photos, hopefully in the San Diego area, i would greatly appreciate the contact information.

Right now, i feel very connected to my family’s history and small, so very, very small.

There are times when i can get downright depressed. Such a feeling does not occur often. Most of the time such feelings are more annoying than any deep pain, but i must confess i have had those moments as well, just rarely.

i have sought many options, most recommended, some self-invented, for eliminating these moments of depression. i have attempted Buddah-like, Zen humming. i have tried running. i have tried reading the Good Book. i have tried reading inspiring and motivating books. Once, a long time ago when i found out i would be losing the right to be a full-time father to my daughter, i went out in the back yard in the middle of the night, and smashed poles against a tree until they were splinters. And yes, i have tried drinking.

To some degree, they all worked.

This morning early, i arose for what men rise for when they get old. Returning to bed, my mind raced on a number of things depressing to me. They would not go away. i admitted i would not be able to go back to sleep, and slipped out of bed, hoping i would not awaken the beautiful houri lying next to me as she has done, surprisingly willingly for nigh 33 years.

i went to the other side of the house and gathered a pile of to-do papers. On top was a copy of my book, A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems. It was not very successful in terms of making money. Counting the expense of print-on-demand publishing, i think i’m about $900 in the hole. But it is mine. i did what i wanted to do, and about fifty or sixty people have a part of me in their library. i now have a small cache of copies i sign and give to friends when i think of doing so. This copy was in the pile for that purpose.

Before signing, i opened it toward the back. Recently, something occurred i connected to one of my poems. i thought i would look for a connection again. My thumb caught on page 217, the first page of a longer poem i entitled “Fiddlersburg and Billie Potts Resurrected: A Note to My Brother.

i read the poem and i felt better. It not only gave me perspective and calm. Reading it, i realized i had the right perspective and calm within me, and i had them all along. i think i will try reading my own stuff again.

Fiddlersburg and Billie Potts Resurrected: A Note to My Brother

the little star over the left tit.
they buried Little Billie and
no one knew in that patch of land between the rivers which was
Fiddlersburg, revisited and drowned
under the auspices of TVA,
the government men.

i would like to resurrect Little Billie and Fiddlersburg,
but there is no more South,
only a filmy, flimsy image of what used to be
or a caricature of used-to-be South.

and Robert Penn would insert some Italian here:
i would ponder the depth of what he wrote,
but what you see is what you get with this old sailor;
the point is (without Italian)
we strive for balance, and it never is balanced, especially in Italy, especially in Southern Italy; In our South, balance ain’t
Southern lonesome;
it ain ‘t passion;
it ain’t.

i may be there again,
i may be suffering enough,
touching depths of my Southern,
unbalanced male soul,
not brooking balance but
yearning for tragic,
yearning for lonesomeness.
we are the last of a breed i fear;
i wonder how many still exist,
i even wonder about you, my brother;
but we can’t tell even the most intimate soul mate,
even brothers perhaps;
for to reveal the awful truth,
shit,
even to write it,
which it what it is all about, will alter it;
will take it inextricably, permanently away.
we can no longer be the tragic figure
we wish to be,
even though we’ve never
really figured out the tragedy.

there is a sadness in joy
because of all forgotten.
there is a joy in sadness
because of realization.

the schooner, sails hauled down,
motors into the narrow pier
in the mist of twilight.

i posted this team portrait on Facebook Monday. It is of the 1957-58 Lebanon Junior High Girls Basketball team. i asked if anyone could name the players and i received several correct names. i was working on naming them all but was short on four of them. i pulled out the 1962 Lebanon High School annual. The annual was Jimmy Nokes, but he graciously sent me his copy when he read something about me not being able to remembers. Thanks, Jimmy.  i got  one or two more names.

Then, more responses from my Facebook post came in. Sarah (Sassy) Ward Jaeger blew me out of the water by naming all but two. Then Ken Clinard provided Brenda Callis’ input which made the list complete except for the mysterious number 25, second row, eight from the right. This is frustrating in that i think i should know her.

It was a fun exercise about a wonderful time in my life, long, long ago. They were beautiful women, inside and out, and Lebanon Junior High School is an experience not likely to be repeated for anyone.

Below is my annotated list of the LJHS 1957-58 Blue Devilettes, political correctness be damned:

First row: Jennifer Brewington, manager ( she was the Football Homecoming Queen the previous autumn, and i have a photo of Jimmy Gamble and i as co-captains with her in the middle where Jimmy and i look like deer caught in the headlights); Elaine Davis (in the eighth grade, she wore my letter sweater and my ring around her neck); Pet Meadors (who could beat me in one-on-one); Mary Cardiff (at her home on Castle Heights Avenue, right behind my aunt’s home on Wildwood, Mary introduced a bunch of us to “spin the bottle” when we were in the sixth grade: i didn’t get to kiss any girl) Judy Baker; Sharry Baird (i dreamed about her one night in the fourth grade and fell in love with her the next day in Mrs. Major’s class on the second floor of McClain Elementary (1954, i think) and she remained my platonic love (although usually from long distance) for the rest of her life); Sarah (Sassy) Ward (she was my twin in eighth grade class play, “The Sunshine Twins,” at Lebanon Junior High, 1958). Second row: Suanne Smith, Catherine Jones (as mentioned in the Facebook responses, i rode her and sister Betty’s horse — i only remember falling off — on their farm on Coles Ferry Pike), Jean Ballinger, Yvonne LaFevor, Brenda Hankins (one of the most constant friends in my life),  Mister Mac ( a glorious man who did so much for so many and was a close friend of my mother), Marcia Emmert, the mystery young woman, Dorothy Bryan, Angela Wilson, and Bobby Jane Reed.

It was, without question, one of the best years of my life.

Another note about Memorial Day.

Yesterday, my cousin, Lori Oxendine, posted a photo of this young man on Facebook and told of his and his ship’s heroics in WWII. Later yesterday, i found the program included here (again) among my grandmother’s keepsakes handed down to me from Aunt Naomi (Jewell) Martin, to her son Maxwell, to my father, and finally to me. I am in the process of sorting this box of memorabilia and more from Mother, Daddy, and Aunt Bettye Kate Hall.

The photo on the program is the same as the one Lori posted. i’m sure my cousin Joann has a copy, but this one is special in that it has our grandmother’s writing on the side of the front page. i am imagining Carrie Myrtle Orrand Jewell,”Mama” to me, in that house at the beginning of West Spring Street writing the note to file in those special things she kept: “Jessie’s boy that they took care of when he was young and went into the service.”

i do not know the circumstances around Uncle Jessie and Aunt Alice bringing Tad into their family. Knowing them, they saw someone in need and took action, making Tad a part of their family. The sisters, Myrtle, Joann, and Shirley, considered him a brother.

Lori called him “Tad.” The program lists his nickname as “Tab.” i’m pretty sure Lori is correct. i didn’t know him as he and his ship, The USS Rowan (DD 405) were sunk eight months after i was born.

It makes me shudder to think of the sacrifice of all Americans during that war, and Tad’s hits close to home. i can envision the church on North Cumberland Street: dark wood inside with stained glass  windows. i can imagine reading the typed program, and reciting the litany in unison with the congregation. i can hear the rustling of quiet in the minute of silence at the conclusion. i can picture Aunt Alice, Aunt Naomi, my mother, and Mama Jewell tearing up while Uncle Jessie remained stoic during the service. Here’s the four-page program:

While thinking about how powerful a service this must have been, i wanted to say something more and did another web search. There, just as powerful, perhaps even more so was this newspaper clipping:

i found myself wishing Tad had been one of the young men in this photograph. At that moment, i was in tune with the agony of World War II.

i am sending the program to my cousin Joann, a wonderful caring lady in her own right, who knew Tad as her brother.