have you ever heard the green grass growing
in a glen among the trees?
have you ever smelled the rain a’coming
on a Southern August morning?
have you ever sat on a grassy slope
watching baseball in the spring?
have you ever cast a flyrod in a pool
on a creek chocked full of bream?
have you ever played mumbly peg
with your jackknife under an elm?

i did a long, long time ago;
moments i cherish;

i fear there are few who have such memories
with the changes we have had;
perhaps there are adequate substitutions;
i do not know if the replacements meet
the memories that i have,
but
lord, i hope that they think they are
because
mine have made me whole.

For some reason, i don’t know why, i have this sad/mad feeling coming over me. Breakfast is over. I sit at our breakfast table looking out on the Mexican sage where the hummingbirds roam. I am staring at this damnable screen with a keyboard, not my newspaper, something that has been like an anchor in my life until a couple of months ago.

Perhaps not having the morning and afternoon papers are behind the mad. I don’t know.

For another reason i cannot fathom, i put Enya’s “Amarantine” album on my Bluetooth speaker to listen to for breakfast. Her music produces a quiet, peaceful sadness in me.

A great deal of the morning has been spent hitting my social media, Facebook. It was there i saw our youngest daughter. It was a photo Lisa Brannen had sent several years ago. Sarah was in Bonita Vista High School’s women’s show choir, Sound. When i showed it to Maureen, she took a deep breath.

That’s Sarah in the center. Lord, could she project. i was glad we had those times and wish i could recapture them. But i’m too old to be sad. i would be sad all the time with the memories i have.

Then i read a post i shared about eight years ago. My late close friend and shipmate, Al Pavich, had passed it along. The post was from another of Al’s friend and ended with a quote from an old man who had said goodbye to his daughter for the final time and parted with “I love you and wish you enough.”

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

He then began to cry and walked away.

It read so like Al. i miss him. He was a wonder. i felt myself getting mad not having him here until i caught myself again. As with sadness, i’m too old to be mad. i would be mad all the time with the memories i have.

A hummingbird flitted by the sage distracting me from my thoughts. It’s going to be a beautiful Southwest corner January day with a high of 72. We have friends coming for lunch. Time to get to work.

i first saw her in autumn during her freshman year at Vanderbilt. She was walking back to the women’s quadrangle with several other freshman women. She wore a knee-length skirt, knee high socks and a blouse on a beautiful Nashville sunny day.

i was standing with Charlie Hon, a freshman from Chattanooga (who became a legend in our fraternity) on the porch of the Kappa Sigma fraternity house across the street from the quadrangle. i asked Charlie if he knew her. He replied she was Susan Butterfield, also from Chattanooga. i was infatuated. i thought she was attractive and had beautiful legs.

Then, we had a party. Charlie had a date with his future wife, Ann Hon. Ann was Susan’s roommate in the quad. Butter, by which she was known, was double dating with Jeff Redmile.

i had a date with Jack Daniels. A group of us without dates had been watching the Porter Waggoner show on WSM while waiting for the Flatt and Scruggs show, which followed. It had become a weekly mainstay for about four or five of my brothers and me. Unfortunately, this night, i had stuck a fifth of Mr. Daniels’ fine fare into the refrigerator and began sipping with no governor. My date was having a not-good effect on me about the time the party started.

i took a header on the couch and went to sleep (my version), or passed out (everyone else’s version). When she saw me in my sad condition, she asked Jeff to take her back to the dorm and return to take care of me. He did.

From then on, we have had a relationship. Most of the time, including now, it has been as friends. There were some times when it was much more than that. There was one time when i lost track of her. The Navy has a habit of doing that to folks. But by chance, i found her again. She finally married Mike Brooks, also from Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga. They live in Atlanta and are a great fit.

Susan (Butter) Butterfield Brooks is one of my dearest friends. She and Maureen are also close friends, or as close as you can be with one in Atlanta and one in the Southwest corner. i shall save future birthdays to relate other special moments with Susan here.

She remains beautiful in so many ways.

Happy Birthday, Butter.

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.”