A big shout out (a current phrase i’m told for “great job” or the Navy’s “Bravo Zulu” (“BZ”) to Mac at Apple Care. After a reformat of my hard drive about a month ago, nothing seemed to work correctly. Today when i lost two important pieces of work i updated last night, i finally called “Apple Care.” For anyone who owns an Apple product, i strongly recommend you get Apple Care. It’s the best customer service i’ve encountered in a long while. For now, here is one of the pieces of work i lost:

It is raining still, harder than at party time. The party is over.

i took my sister Martha, the last of my relatives from out of town, to the airport today (Monday). A normal 20 minute trip one way took an hour and a half to get there and an hour to come home. You see, folks in the Southwest corner don’t know how to drive in the rain.

Later, Martha called to tell us she was on the plane and an hour after the scheduled takeoff, it was still on the ground. The delay is likely to cause her to miss her connection from Atlanta to Chattanooga.

It was raining during the party but thankfully, not enough as this, no, not this much. When it does rain here, the Southwest corner floods in lots of places because it was never intended to have much rain. And this folks, was and remains a rainstorm. It started on the morning of the afternoon party. Even though the party is over, it’s still going. This gully-washer is one of the longer water bearing storms we’ve had lately.

My brother-in-law Danny departed for Crossville, Tennessee early Sunday morning. Our daughter Sarah departed for Las Vegas after Sunday lunch at North. Our daughter Blythe, son-in-law Jason, and grandson Sam left Sunday morning for Austin, Texas.

The other party guests were gone by 8:00 p.m. Saturday evening. The party is over.

The house is back in order with only a few exceptions. The many loaned tables, chairs, tents, and coolers are staged in the garage to take back to neighbors and friends when the rain stops. The left over beer, wine, and non-alcoholic drinks are poised to be given to friends or properly stacked in our wine rack and refrigerators. The party is over.

All the gifts i requested folks not bring are opened. “Thank you’s” will ensue. The party is over.

It is one of the few parties i’ve hosted that met my goals. There were just short of 70 attendees, more than both of us expected. Our next door neighbors, Gabriella and Jesus Avila are the owner of Chuchy’s Taqueria catered with incredibly delicious carne asada, chicken, and birria tacos with sides.

i didn’t want the party to celebrate me. i wanted the wide range of folks who have had positive impact on my life to meet each and enjoy each other. That happened. i’m pleased and honored to have had them here.

Now, it is time for me to get back to work. Even past 80, i find my most satisfaction from taking on tasks and completing them. i don’t intend to stop although the tasks may change as i age further. i don’t know. i am in a good place, and have wonderful wife, family, and friends. Life is good.

My sister has landed in Atlanta but did miss her connection home to Chattanooga. After spending the night in the airport, she made it home this morning.

(From last night) Our brief respite from the rain ended about a half-hour ago and we can hear the raindrops again. It is supposed to end sometime tomorrow and be sunny in the mid to high 60s by the weekend. But we have fire in the fireplace, and it is quiet.

The party is over.

i readily confess i am a mushy old man. i don’t know how i got there. Strangely, i think i got it from my father. i saw him cry twice and heard him cry once.

The two times i saw him cry i was with him walking outside our home. He was in his eighties both times. He cried because he was so moved in appreciation of his wife, my mother. i heard him cry once in his nineties. My mother was ill enough for be to be back home to help him deal with it. She was in rehab. We had watched a baseball game. He wrapped up the evening at 10:30 p.m., a routine he had since the television evening news became our last evening event in the early 1950s. i stayed in the family room of their duplex condo to read a bit. i heard him praying and crying for my mother. Needless to say, it was a pretty emotional event for me. i never told him i overheard.

He was a man, the kind that went through hard times worst than what we have experienced, war, depression, and they not only survived but became, or perhaps already were, men of substance, caring, hard workers, and eventually success. That kind of man back then did not talk about his emotions. But he cried.

i feel like that gives me the privilege to cry. i don’t think i’ve ever cried, except, of course, when i was an intolerable toddler, for not getting what i wanted. Nearly all of my cries have come when something touched me deeply, like when my two daughters gave me a framed photo of them holding each other for my birthday. They both knew i would cry.

Today, an impulse hit me. i have no clue why. Maureen was at her hairdresser ensuring she was beautiful, Maureen, not the hairdresser. i had done a number of home chores, fighting through a very mild reaction to the latest COVID booster. Tired. Since she wasn’t here, i headed for, what else, a golf course bar. Bonita Golf Course, one of my favorites. Now, i’m not saying i wavered from dieting healthy, but i suspect there are a bunch of nutritionists whose neck hair stood on end. On the way home, i listened to my records, digitized for my phone. The song playing for most of the way was Richard Harris singing Jimmy Webb’s 1968 song, “MacArthur Park.” That’s when the impulse hit me,

i called Maureen. “Let’s watch “Camelot,” tonight.” To put it mildly, she was surprised but readily agreed.

So last night as usual, we set up our dinner trays in the family room. Maureen served, as usual, a terrific healthy dinner. i started a fire in the fireplace, and we turned on “Camelot” on the television.

Now folks, musicals in 1968 were different than now. The movie began with a musical overture. No credits. No screen action, just a pleasant scene on the screen and about five to ten minutes of nice music. i was enthralled. Then, this wonderful, tragic, magical love story of majestic folks but like you and me, trying to do right while plagued by all of the impediments, mostly people with less than noble intent, that disrupt harmony, caring for individuals, common sense, and a willingness to buy that snake oil the bad guys are selling.

Maureen and i were taken back to a more innocent time. Ours. She sang along on most every song. i came close to weeping several times. i was captured by the story of King Arthur and enthralled with the idea of Camelot and the Round Table again. i rooted for Richard Harris and never liked Sir Lancelot or his portrayer, Franco Nero, since i watched the movie 54 years ago — However, thought the first movie in which Nero starred, the Italian Western ‘Django” the most outrageous, and funny movies of that genre, even banned in many countries.

i was enraptured, enraptured for three hours. There was even an intermission. What a concept.

i don’t do movies anymore. They seem to be so contrived. Sex scenes and excessive profanity seems to me to be some attempt to distort reality, to titillate our senses. All of the new graphics capabilities are apparently thrilling to many, but again, they take away from the essence of the story. “Camelot,” for Christ sakes, was a musical. It was sexier than any movie i’ve seen since Brigette Bardot movies without throwing it in our face. It was moving. It was magical. It made you think. And the music fit.

When it was over, Maureen went to bed. i sat in my chair and confessed i am a curmudgeon. But damn! They don’t make ’em like they used to. That makes me sad.

However, regardless of your age and your take on movies, i think you might enjoy “Camelot.”

i heard him talking underneath the maple tree in our side yard;
i could not understand what he was saying,
nor to whom he was talking
but
i could hear him
and
wondered why.
i mean, why would someone even be in our side yard under the maple tree
talking to someone
in the late afternoon
toward dusk?
there was no drama in his voice, no humor, no anger, no angst;
from the sound of him:
it seemed to be a droll monotone to whomever he was addressing
and
why do i assume it was a woman?
and
why are they in our side yard under our maple tree? at dusk?
i wondered if i should go out to the side yard
and
introduce myself
to see what was going on.
would it be dangerous?
who was this man talking to someone under the maple tree in our side yard?
i turned on the television to the Five O’Clock News,
the only one we could receive in our small Tennessee town.
NBC, John Cameron Swayze, the clock that keeps on ticking,
but
i kept thinking
why would someone be in our side yard underneath the maple tree
talking to someone else?
his talk had turned to quiet murmurs;
i did not know why.
maybe i should go out
and
ask why he was talking to someone underneath the maple tree in our side yard?
if that worried, i queried myself, perhaps i should take my gun,
a snub-nosed version of the 44-magnum,
the same Harry Callahan used to wipe out many bad guys,
just in case, just in case;
but
as John Cameron Swayze droned on with the evening news and Timex resisting failure in spite of being tied to a 75-horsepower boat engine propeller,
the voice underneath the maple tree in our side yard
began to fade;
i was no longer sure he was underneath our maple tree in our side yard;
he, probably the two of them, were moving away;
i could no longer hear
his voice underneath our maple tree in our side yard,
and
i wondered why?

My parents took my two widowed aunts on a trip around the country in the late 80’s, sort of a bucket list of places my parents had been on their many RV trips. The trip is legendary for a family trip. One of the stops was at Mount Rushmore.

My Aunt Bettye Kate Hall sent me the below post card.

i think it represents the kind of humor both sides of my family loved:

Well, it’s been a while and i need a good rant. So this is for marketeers and the PR experts, those folks who sell a product or cause to just about the entire world, or rather they try to do that.

Folks, i thought you might want to know you ain’t getting to me. In fact, your efforts to sell something nearly always has the reverse effect on me.

i’m sure this will make absolutely no impact on the marketing/PR folks as i am not statistically relevant. i find that very assuring, sort of like having a life and not being a number.

For example, Maureen and i enjoy watching professional golf. Some brilliant marketeer sold the golf media folks, “Playing Through” was a neat and new idea that would sell a lot of product. So while i’m watching golfers play golf, over half the screen becomes a commericial, complete with sound. The golf picture is then so small, i have no idea of what is happening on the course, the golf course. Well, i make a note of all the companies in the commercials and vow never to buy any of their products again.

*  *  *

And for all of you who must know more than me about selling prescription drugs. i hope you are getting to some docs because you are turning me off. i rely on my doctor to prescribe what i need (oh sorry, the insurance folks now want me to call him primary care). Since i had to have a VA primary care doc to make myself available for the VA services, i now have two. i know which one is my primary doc, but you see, civilians, the veteran administration, and Navy medical are not allowed to talk to each other so i have to double or triple up on my communication. i’m pretty sure it has something to do with money.

But back to these prescription ads. They generally make me nauseous, if not ill. And if you might actually make me think about your ad, that qualifying stuff — i’m sure included to avoid law suits from ambulance chasers — at the end of each commercial snuffs out any attraction your ad might have.

And every time when i see one of those commercials after i turn the sound to mute, i wonder how much money was added to the cost of the prescription.

And who the hell are these folks you have on your commerical…and how much are you paying them to push your product? i can’t imagine anyone afflicted with what your product will supposedly cure would actually try to get your product with all the bad things could happen you reveal at the end.

And once again, if i do have a choice in what prescription i will take it won’t be any i’ve seen or heard or read on these ads.

*  *  *

And i would be much happier, if all of you folks selling stuff, would just tell me about your product or service, not how bad all the others are, not making me laugh and think it will make me buy it. Or have beautiful people that have no resemblance to me to buy your ad. And i’m damn sure i’m not going to buy it if an admired athlete or movie star is pushing it.

Once upon a time i was a a business development manager for a military contractor. A former employee who had been in my position asked a friend and fellow employee if we were “still selling smoke.” Sadly the answer was yes.

And it seems nearly every product or service is selling smoke. i guess those statistics these folks use in which i’m not relevant it sells their products. Not to me. Sorry. Oh, i enjoy some of the commercials when i fail to mute them or fail to record the program and fast forward through things that make all the sports i watch at least an hour longer than they should be. Some are funny. Some are touching. Some are interesting. But i ain’t buying. Sorry.

Now if you want to add a little box at the bottom of the screen that tells me you are the sponsor and what product or service you have and an objective point as to what it is, and let me watch whatever i’m watching, or listening, or in the case of the internet, reading, then you might have a chance with me.

But i know. i know that isn’t going to happen.

It is sometimes really enjoyable being a grumpy old ranting man who is irrelevant.