The birthday wishes, lots of them, are over. Sarah and George are in flight back to Austin. Maureen warmed a splendid ragu sauce and spaghetti dish we had with a salad and a nice merlot for dinner. Just the two of us. She is now listening to the news in the family room with the fire i built earlier dying down.

i may put on another log later and read a bit. There’s this Robert Penn Warren book,  A Place To Come To,  i want to finish. i started reading it about six months ago, and unlike most of Warren’s work, this one is hard for me to get into. Warren and Faulkner remain my two favorite novelists, and this novel is just a bit disappointing. But i find it difficult to not finish any book.

Tomorrow, i plan to start my year of seventy-two. Of course, there is a golf round involved. This one with one of my best friends, Pete Toennies, whom i’ve known since we were both on an Amphibious Squadron staff deployed to the Western Pacific in 1979-80. That deployment was one of the craziest and most rewarding in my span of nine long deployments.

There’s this bathroom wall i need to mend. i hope to repair at least one fault a week in our 26-year old house from here on out. Houses a quarter of a century old require attention, and i haven’t been very good at addressing aging problems, with the house or me.

It will probably take at least the rest of the month to work out our travel plans and budget for the year. This fixed income stuff is a little tiresome when it comes to our desires to see people and things. So we are going to be a little more proactive and plan ahead. Maureen is good at detailed planning and budgets. i’m not. i’m also, as Ricky Nelson sang, a “Travelin’ Man.” It is hard to get that out of my blood. i’ve seen enough places but there are others i would like to see with Maureen and return to my favorites. Now, i am more interested in seeing friends and family than places, but those friends and families are spread just about everywhere. So travel can accomplish both of my needs.

If it were just me, there would be constant travel, but there is this lady, you see, who likes to spend her evenings with me at this home with a fire in the fireplace with music playing while we read. And she likes to fix me breakfast and eat the same at our kitchen table every morning looking out the breakfast room window and hopefully catching sight of a humming bird. Strange, i think, in the quiet of this evening after the whirlwind weekend with Sarah and George, strange that i enjoy the evenings and the breakfasts and the fire and the humming birds and, most of all, being with her, probably more than she does. And all the while, i’m thinking of hitting the road to somewhere. Strange, indeed.

And as this afternoon wound down, i received a wonderful phone call. Blythe, my daughter, wished me “happy birthday,” and then, Samuel James Jewell Gander, my grandson with the middle names honoring my father, pronounced, “It’s good you have lived so long,” (or something like that: Blythe, please correct because i think his actual pronouncement was funnier).

Here is Blythe’s correction on the Sam quote: “Hey, good job on staying alive for so long.” and i was right: it is funnier.

After  a brief conversation, i asked him how he was, and he replied, “Amazing.”

Made my day, and now, i will sleep well tonight.

i am violating one of my rules to post this today. i normally wait a day to post my column from The Lebanon Democrat. But what the hey? i’m 72 by three hours and i want my friends to read this on my birthday. i will return to my normal column posting practice next week. i have received a grunch of well wishes, mostly on Facebook concerning this event. This morning, i vowed to respond to every one. But there are a lot of them, and i am old. So it will take a little time, a little time, but thanks in advance.

BONITA, Cal. – When you read this, I will have just turned 72.

Dr. Charles Lowe delivered me at 7:35 am, Wednesday, January 19, 1944, ably assisted by my grandmother, Katherine Webster Prichard at McFarland Hospital. I’m sure Estelle Jewell was glad to get rid of me, unaware of what she would have to put up with for the next 70 years.

My father for whom I was named was in the waiting room. The next day, he caught a train back to his 75^th Construction Battalion in Gulfport, Miss.

I have thought about that day and this day, and what it means to me. I am not sure why 72 seems like such a significant age.

Turning 60, 65, and 70 didn’t bother me. Oh, I celebrated like everyone else on those significant milestones with black balloons and bad jokes, but my participation was to make my family and friends who were honoring me feel good about the celebration. I really wasn’t all that caught up in the symbolic meaning.

But why 72? Why does this year seem different, more significant, if you will?

Perhaps it’s because 1972 was a pivotal year in my life. Perhaps it is because part of that significant year was my first daughter, the beautiful and talented Blythe was born. Perhaps it was because my career intentions as a sports writer took a U-turn: I gave up my sports editorship of The Watertown (NY) Daily Times and rejoined the Navy with a four-month Mediterranean deployment at the end of the year.

My life had been altered dramatically.

Perhaps that is why “72” seems significant.

Regardless, I feel I have crossed a meaningful threshold today. Except for a number of minor maladies (which a generation ago would have probably killed me) and various aches and stiffness, I don’t feel old. But this weekend, I took my younger daughter Sarah to Disneyland for her adventure with five friends. I confessed to myself I was old.

After I returned from my chauffeur duties, I considered where I have been and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Although I officially left Lebanon as my home almost a half-century ago, my hometown has been a major factor throughout my life, perhaps more so now than since I left in 1967 for Navy OCS. Lebanon, my family, and my friends have been a wonderful influence on me.

I realized I loved to write and have been doing so ever since Lindsey Donnell and Tom Harris hooked me on writing and J.B. Leftwich hooked me on sports journalism at Castle Heights. The Navy took me to places I would have never seen (even a few I would have cared not to see) and gave me a look at the world and people I would have never appreciated had I not spent about 15 years at sea.

I found websites providing facts about today. One stated my “Life Path” number was 11. I usually ignore such things like horoscopes, fortunetellers, etc., but one of my football jersey numbers was 11, so I read on. My number supposedly meant I possessed “intuition, idealism and invention,” and had “the potential to be a source of inspiration and illumination for people.”

I like that, but it is relatively unimportant when I am 72. The “illumination for people” part intrigues me. I have long thought the older crowd should be a source of information about the past. My mother and father provided me many tales of Lebanon and my family. Their stories enriched my understanding life and helped in my decision making.

Providing stories and observations from the Southwest corner is now my goal. I hope I can provide stories to help younger people make better decisions in their lives – not to emulate me for mine has been a bumpy ride, but what they can consider in determining their own paths.

Sometime today, I will remember a conversation I had with my father when he was 86 and on his last trip to the Southwest corner. We were on a task in the garage, when he stopped, looked at me and said, “Son, I’ve had a good life. I have a wonderful wife, good kids, and great grandkids. Now, I only want one thing: When I go, I want it to be quick.”

Celebrating my 72^nd birthday, I completely understand what he meant.

In my continuing quest to not do anything productive after 3:00 p.m., i have spent most of my late afternoon and evening piddling around with a whole bunch of stuff, including shuffling my piles of things to do into new piles. While doing so, the below photo, included here before fell out of a pile.

It still makes me laugh and recalls a port visit filled with unique experiences. This was one of them.

In November 1969, i joined the staff of Commander, Amphibious Squadron Five in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Most of the squadron ships went from there to Sydney and then through the Great Barrier Reef to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. On one day of liberty, several of the staff officers went out to artifacts shop, a large open-air building with an unimaginable amount of stuff from the natives.

Had i a brain, i would have bought everything i could carry back to the ship. All of it was at bargain prices. i could have made a bit hit financially selling it back in the states. But, of course, i didn’t want to fool with it. So i bought a wooden carving, a rather grotesque face carved into a shield shaped three-foot board. The face had an oversized hook nose. The shop sales person informed me, it was used by natives to hang raw meat from the roof of their straw and mud hut to keep it away from animals before it was cooked.

After i was married to Maureen, she decided my treasure was ugly, scary, not politically correct, and several dozen other things to express her displeasure. After my arguments, aka pleadings, were summarily dismissed, i threw it out.

About six months ago, we went on one of our frequent visits to the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, one of favorites. One exhibit had wood carvings from Africa and Southeast Asia tribes, among others. There were a number of such works on exhibit with information attached including the estimated value. i pointed out to Maureen we could have displayed it in our home to show how connected we were with native artwork in many countries or we could have sold my hook-nosed buddy for about a thousand dollars.

She moaned and complained about me listening to hear and complying with her wishes to throw out the old hook nose.

As i roamed around the shop with Conrad Borman, the guy i was relieving as Current Operations Officer, i spotted the statue in the above photo. i gave him my camera and he took the shot. i could not resist placing my hand in a most inappropriate place.

i should have bought the statue instead of old hook nose. Maureen might have let me keep it but with no fondling allowed.

This morning as usual, i walked out to our driveway to retrieve the Sunday paper. Making the coffee and retrieving the paper while Maureen makes one of her wonderful (and healthy breakfasts, sometimes even including a sausage patty for me). Breakfast and newspaper reading has become our daily routine, interrupted only when i play early golf.

But when i looked up over my neighbor’s house across the street, Mount Miguel once again took my breath away. The photo below is not as clear as it could be because i took it quickly with my phone before the clouds rose or burned off. It doesn’t do the scene justice. Still, it is an awesome sight and encouraged me to post a poem that has been here before and included in my book: A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems.

Mount Miguel February Sunrise

East north east of my front door,
Mount Miguel wore a shroud this morning;
Low clouds draped across her shoulders
below the peak at sunrise.

By circumstance, my front door faces east,
greeting the sun god
like the Navajo’s hogan door has done for centuries
over in Four Corners, a mountain or so
east of here.

Man’s antennae now reach skyward
on Mount Miguel’s peak,
silhouetted black against the rising orange orb,
before it slings white hot heat and light low to the south,
moving through the day,
bowing to the Baja lands of Mexico,
as it is wont to do in the winter months
here in the high desert.

The instruments of new fangled transmission look foreboding:
Spanish castle towers of the inquisition;
I wonder if the Kumayai once sat atop,
above the cloud shroud,
lifting their own clouds of smoke,
transmitting their own news of the day.

The city folks implanted here
tend to forget what this land beneath them was;
really is.
We have learned to just add water
to get paradise,
now overrun with those that forget
to look East at the sunrise
silhouettes of the ghost talkers.

Captain J. C. Hayes is someone i will never forget.

I met Captain Hayes in August 1980.

I had been high-lined from the USS Cayuga to the USS Belleau Wood as Amphibious Squadron Five was en route to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I had been serving as executive officer of the Cayuga for two months due to the standing XO having a breakdown (another story). When the new XO arrived, i returned to my job as the staff’s current operations officer (by high-line).

Captain Hayes had just relieved as commanding officer, and was senior to our commodore, Captain Jim McIntyre, an E2 pilot who preferred to be known by his aviation handle of “Silver Fox.” This seniority business made things, i later found out, a bit awkward.

After the high-line and settling back into my quarters, i made my official visit to the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Hayes, in the late afternoon. He was a big man. We hit it off. The captain was from Easley, South Carolina, which made it easier. I enjoyed our visit and decided i liked him. The surface line officers stuck together in the amphibious environment where many senior aviation officers went to get their major sea command tours for furthering their careers.

I later was told in World War II, Captain Hayes had been a coxswain of an LCM3 (5 generations earlier of the landing craft LCM8, which were the state of the art during my service). His ship was involved in the invasion of Okinawa. Captain Hayes, then a third or second-class boatswainmate, took supplies into shore after the beach head had been established. As the story goes, when he returned from his run, he could not locate his ship: Japanese gunnery or a Zero fighter had sunk it.

He also was in a underwater demolition unit (the origination of Navy SEALs) in the Pacific, was awarded a masters degree in nuclear physics from the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California, and was in Admiral Byrd’s command in the admiral’s last exploration of Antarctica.

He was legendary among surface sailors and had been known to go out on a bridge wing and cuss out the line handlers on the forecastle several hundred feet away. And they heard every word. He was an old school surface mariner, my kind of Naval officer.

After getting back on the Belleau Wood for the next couple of days, i was deeply involved with catching up on my duties. I had been on Cayuga for over two months. I saw little of anyone except at the morning message meetings with the staff.

After we entered Puget Sound and set sea detail for going into Esquimalt, the Canadian navy base, the staff assembled on the flag bridge directly below the ship’s bridge. As the Belleau Wood closed to the harbor entrance, we received an intercom message from the ship’s bridge. The boatswainmate of the watch told us the port master wanted to talk to the commodore on the bridge-to-bridge UHF radio, which was not on the flag bridge.

The Commodore was loath to leave his post and directed me to go up to the ship’s bridge and talk with the port personnel.

I climbed the ladder to the bridge, feeling a bit awkward. The port should be talking to the captain of the ship, not the commodore, and there was this aviation-surface tension, not to mention the reverse seniority awkwardness. As i arrived, Captain Hayes in his gravely booming voice directed his junior officer to give me the microphone to the bridge-to-bridge radio.

The port officer pointed out crosswinds had picked up significantly, the harbor entrance was narrow, especially for a ship such as a helicopter carrier, and the tight berth would be difficult for ship of such size with the wind to moor without some damage. He then asked if the commodore would agree to going to anchorage, a mile-long liberty boat transit for the liberty party.

Feeling proud of myself for my tact, i pointed out to the port officer the commodore was not in charge of the ship, but i would ask the commanding officer, Captain Hayes, what he thought was best.

“Thanks, Lieutenant Commander,” Hayes began, “Tell them i won’t enter the harbor and will go to the assigned anchorage.”

“Aye, sir,” i replied. Then hitting the transmit button on the bridge-to-bridge, i told the port officer, “Captain Hayes said he can’t get the ship to that berth in these conditions and will take the ship to the anchorage.”

Then i heard Captain Hayes in full force:

“GODDAMMIT BOY, I DIDN’T SAY I COULDN’T GO TO THAT BERTH, I SAID, I WOULDN’T!”

“Yes, sir,” i replied meekly. “I apologize,” quickly retreating down the ladder.

The ship went to anchorage. I went on liberty, caught a hydrofoil to Seattle, rented a car and picked up Blythe, my ten-year old daughter at the airport. She and i spent a day in Seattle, rode the hydrofoil back to Victoria, stayed in the Empress Hotel, one of my all time favorite places, took a ferry to Orcas Island where we stayed with my long-time college friend Cy Fraser, spending the night in sleeping bags on the small patio of his log cabin to wake up and watch the deer grazing between us and the rocky beach of Puget Sound about thirty feet away.

Blythe and i went back to Seattle where i put her on a plane back to Austin. It was one of the nicest weeks i have ever experienced, all because i was with Blythe.

And to this day, i feel a kinship and understanding with J.C. Hayes. He taught me the difference between “can’t” and “won’t.”

Captain Hayes retired in 1983 after 40 years of active duty. He returned to his home in South Carolina where he passed away last year.

Sleep well, you wonderful mariner.