It was a crazy day.

A trip with Maureen, ostensibly to go to Balboa Park and use our new park pass to see some museums we don’t often visit, prefaced with a trip to a sewing machine shop and a tailor for Maureen began mid-morning. Her sewing machine developed a problem when she had attempted to put in a button hole on a high end fabric for a beautiful jacket she had designed.

The sewing machine visit developed into a machine assessment, adjustment, and repairs if needed. Now folks, this ain’t my mama’s Singer pedal-powered sewing machine of the past. These suckers cost more than the national debt. The repair was worth it.

We then went across the street to our tailor who announced she could create the needed buttonholes.

We were happy, and headed off to the park.

i turned onto the exit to normal path up a hill to the park only to find a line of cars all the way up the hill, probably a half-hour if not an hour to get to the parking, which was likely full. i did an illegal u-turn, tried another way and found the same thing with all entries to the park.

We decided to just go to one of our favorite digs for lunch. The first one had many folks waiting to be seated, and no parking was nearby. We went to the second, and it was closed for the holidays. We went to the third and the wait was until sometime next Wednesday. We searched for the third and fourth on unfamiliar routes and had to double back about…oh, a half dozen times.

i shall not tell you what i said, but we headed home. We stopped at a brand new place in route for take out Mexican fare of a beef stew (birria) on a corn tortilla and a shrimp taco.

We felt better.

Hell of a day. In its own strange way, it was fun.

We spent our afternoon with our own projects and settled down in the family room for our evening.

i turned on the television. Football. The think-of-the-name-of-a-corporate-advertiser-with-a- really-stupid-logo-name Cotton Bowl. Good teams: Ohio State, Missouri. Good game except for listening to announcers who wished the world to consider the game equivalent the next world war. Ugh.

As i watched a pretty decent athletic contest marred by about two dozen unsportsmanlike penalties ignored, i looked up the scores of other bowl games. That’s when it occurred to me there as a fitting quote.

Violating my usually very loose rules for what to include in my posts, i stole this from today’s “Writer’s Almanac.” It is a quote of William Gaddis, an author in the middle of the last century who wrote two apparently noteworthy novels: The Recognitions and J.R. Not only have i not read them, but i didn’t even know about them until this morning, adding them to my “to read” list which will require me to compete with Methuselah for the longest living man to read all on my list.

But William Gaddis said, “There have never in history been so many opportunities to do so many things that aren’t worth doing.”

And sitting here tonight i thought this applied to every post season playoff game of any sport.

Then i thought Gaddis’ quote applied to most damn near everything today except for my relationships with good folks.

And you know what? Those relationships are enough.

i hope you all have a bountiful and healthy 2024.

This is a quiet Christmas for us. Patsy, Maureen’s sister, will be joining us for brunch and opening presents. Maureen made an incredible supper of scallops last night and we watched “The Ref.” We have reservations for a “Christmas” dinner at Giardino’s, one of our go-to restaurants this evening. We will call our daughters, brothers, sisters and their families throughout the day, probably a couple of close friends as well.

That’s it.

It’s okay. i’m not big into getting gifts. Don’t get me wrong. i appreciate the ones i get because it shows the one(s) bearing the gift care for me. The caring is the feel good part. And i have not had a perfect Christmas since back in the late seventies. Someone was not there with me ever since then. i missed my father in 2014 and my mother in 2013, and Christmas was special when i was with them.

In the Navy, i missed several Christmases (and more Thanksgivings) away from my family. They were the toughest. Now, if i began to feel sorry i’m missing someone, i think of all of today’s men and women service members who are away from home and quit my whining.

i find today a time for quiet, reflection, living with a few of the best memories. It appears my two daughters are both in a good place along with their families. That is the best Christmas gift for me. Most of my friends are still around, a blessing in itself considering our age.

Last night, i sat by the fire reflecting these things. i actually read the Matthew and Luke verses of the Bible relating the birth of Jesus. i have the bible my parents gave me when i was a pre-teen. It has my name, “Jim Rye Jewell, Jr.” engraved in gold on the front. But i chose to read from a smaller condensed version my mother gave to my father before he sailed for the Southwest Pacific and World War II. There is no engraved name on the front. But on the first page, a black extension of the cover, she wrote his name and address in white ink and on the following blank page wrote: “To my husband, Jimmy, with Love from Estelle.”

i’m choking up a little bit here. So, i will move on.

After reading Mother’s entries and as i read the passages, i thought of Maureen and i paralleling notes to each other showing the kind of love they had for each other. i kept thinking “love does conquer all.” i believe the man for whom this holiday was created and often forgotten in our celebrations would approvingly agree.

i hope all of you, even those of you in our country’s service who are away, have the best Christmas you can have with lots of love.

Merry Christmas.

P.S. The tree is green, not blue. i remain tech photo challenged.

Since i reneged on rearranging the lights on my sign, this Christmas post is essentially the same as posted last year with a few edits and comments in green font like this intro.

Christmas decorations are going up a bit early again.

We actually put ours up on the first day of the month this December. We were later than a number of homes around us.

It seems to me back home growing up, we cut down our tree on Wynn “Papa” Prichard’s farm about a week before the big day, decorated it that evening, hung the stockings, hung a wreath on the door, put some lights around the door, and took it all down the day after Christmas. In our neighborhood today, about one-quarter of the houses have blow-up dolls, reindeer statues, lights enough to provide electricity for a small city among other amusements. The decorations here went up a week ago and many will likely remain well after the New Year.

But i wanted to get it out of the way. And so begins the Christmas season. And with that, i offer my traditional repeat of a column i wrote for the Lebanon Democrat about a gazillion years ago. Merry Christmas with this year’s version of Noel:

Have you ever had one of those days when everything turned into an embarrassment? I had a champion day like that several years ago.

It started innocently while I hung our outdoor decoration, a home-made “NOEL” sign from the eave of our garage, hoping to get it up before my wife’s friends arrived for their Christmas dinner.

Maureen and her six friends have been meeting monthly for dinners for 15-plus years. They had this December dinner catered, did it up right. It was Maureen’s turn to be hostess.

It was dark when I began. I was at the top of my step ladder attaching the second of two wires from the sign to hooks secured to the eave when the ladder lurched and toppled. I grabbed a metal ornamental grating above the garage door.

There I hung, my arm intertwined with the “O” of the sign. If I tried to drop, the sign could catch my arm and do some pretty bad stuff.

I yelled, but Maureen had Christmas carols at top volume and didn’t hear. I tried to think of what to do while simultaneously wondering how long I could hold on. The dog wandered underneath, occasionally looking up as if I was a very strange person hanging there.

After several minutes, a neighbor’s son and friend pulled into the driveway several houses away. As they emerged, I swallowed my pride and yelled “Help.”

At first, they could not discern who was calling. Then they spotted me and came to help. The dog decided to protect me and began barking threateningly. The boys hesitated. I assured them the only danger was being licked to death. They finally righted the ladder and helped me down.

I thanked them profusely and then studied whether I should tell Maureen or not. Now that I was back on solid ground, I decided it was too funny not to tell her. She was incredulous and not particularly amused.

I did not realize my embarrassment for the night was just beginning.

While Maureen made final arrangements for her dinner, our daughter, Sarah, and I went to a local spot for supper. The little place was an oasis of sorts in Bonita, where there were only Mexican, Italian, and fast food restaurants. The attraction was different, having a wide-range of ales and beers for golfers finishing a round across the street.

When we arrived, two couples were at tables and three guys sat at the bar. As we neared the end of our meal, the largest of the guys at the bar walked to the door and then turned back. I noticed his eyes seemed glazed. Then he walked back to the bar.

Suddenly, this guy and the one on the other side grabbed the guy in the middle off his stool, slammed him into the wall and started pummeling him with their fists. The three male diners, me (instinctively) included, approached from one side and two cooks approached from the back. Sarah had retreated to the door with the two lady diners. I grabbed the big guy. He spun and fell backward, slamming us into our table, knocking it over with shattering glass. It gave me some leverage, and we spun to the floor with me on top and knocking the wind out of the big guy. The other two diners helped me hold him until he calmed down. The cooks had quelled the other assailant. The two left quietly.

Even though the waitress wanted us to not pay our bill, we paid and left for home. On the way, I talked to my daughter about what I should have done (directed her outside before joining the fray) and what she should do the next time if she were ever in a place where a fight broke out (get out and away and not come back until she was sure it was over). i admonished her not to spoil her mother’s dinner party, adding i would tell her mother after the guests had departed. Sarah nodded.

I was feeling pretty good as we arrived home. Then Sarah dashed out of the car, ran into the house and yelled to her mother in front of the caterer and her six friends dressed to the nines amidst fine china, Christmas decorations, and haut cuisine, “Mom, Dad got in a fight in a bar.”

Some days, I just can’t get a break.

May your holiday season be embarrassment free.

May all of you have a most wonderful and amazing Christmas Season, and “Please, Please, Please (as James Brown once sang) remember the reason for the season,

This is a connection of several thoughts of mine. The poem at the end was included in my book of poems, A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems (available under the “Books” menu on this website). The introduction is something i came up with recalling Jesse Thompson. Jesse was not the old man in this story. Jesse turned his home into a World War II museum and held meetings each Wednesday for other Pearl Harbor survivors. He had one or two glasses of chardonnay almost every day at the Bonita Golf Club. His entire story is remarkable. i caution that the old man in the introduction or the old man in the poem are not intended to represent Jesse Thompson. My characters came from my head. Jesse was the inspiration.

The old man sat in the darkest corner of the bar on a tall bar stool next to an elevated cocktail table, i think they call it.

He was sipping on his chardonnay. He would have three or four over the course of several hours before driving home in the old Pontiac station wagon. The chardonnay had replaced the whiskey on the rocks or the well martinis or the gin and tonics he used to down when he wasn’t drinking draft beer. His home was just over a block away from the bar, drinking just wine slowly was safe enough he figured.

He had lived hard, wild. Navy, playing dice games at the bar long ago, carousing, fighting for his country and in bars like this one. His first wife left him for an insurance salesman. His second wife died young, breast cancer. One son had moved to Spain. One was a lumberjack in Canada. No one else.

The regulars knew him. The female bartenders and the waitresses adored him, thought he was cute. He despised “cute.” He didn’t partake of the bar banter, just watched, listened while sipping his wine, remembering.

This late afternoon, the young’uns at the bar were grousing about how bad the world was and, of course, they were expounding on how to fix it. This went on for about a half-hour.

In his dark corner, the old man cackled.

The boisterous bar denizens stopped and looked at the old man.

“Why are you laughing, old man? You don’t know nothing about what it’s like today.”

The old man rose from his table tossing his money with a generous tip down by his empty wine glass and starting for the door, turned and said, “You are right, you blithering whippersnappers. I don’t know nothing ‘bout all that crap you are blowing into this bar.

“But unlike you, i’ve been to the dark side of the hill.”

The old man turned, swung open the door, walked to his Pontiac, and drove home.

The crowd was quiet, puzzled.

One, contemplating his beer glass, quietly commented, “I wondered what he meant about being on the dark side of the hill?”

the dark side of the hill

I was walking down a small-town street
a cold, harsh Sunday
when from a corner of an alley
a huddled, gnarled old man
leering from under a soiled and torn fedora
spoke to me:

“I have been to the dark side of the hill,
my boy,
“I can tell by your gait,
you are headed there;
frivolity and adventure
are what you seek,
but it’s not there,
son.”

I paid no heed, passing away
from the old man,
continuing to pass through
the sun-reflecting snow
to the zenith of the hill,
and on.

the wind is biting
on the dark side of the hill;
there is no sun
to disperse the cold.

now, on some small-town street
on a cold, harsh any day
in the corner of an alley,
a huddled, muddled, gnarled old man
waits.

i have been to the dark side of the hill;
my gait is altered.

Things have been happening to me in the last week or so that would make an old man grumpy, and they did.

My clutch went out, which turned into my transmission went out. It happened halfway down the hill from the San Diego Zoo, which is pretty appropriate. i sat there on a Tuesday afternoon for more than three hours, followed by an hour drive in a tow truck, time i had planned for doing something productive.

i won’t go deeply into the repairs but it will take at least a week and north of $5000 to get the car back. i am planning to have this car until i can’t drive anymore because i drive better with a standard transmission and about the only new cars left with standard transmissions are sports cars, and i am too old to drive a sports car. i had four of them in my life, loving every one of them, but i’ve seen old men driving sports cars. They look silly to me. The “courtesy car” the dealership loaned me is new and i can’t find the right button for anything. i couldn’t even turn the lights off at the Naval Air Station’s main gate. i finally found the right buttons and dials to turn off the rap music the previous driver had set on the radio.

This past weekend i had my laptop computer assessed and told it was working great. Of course, they reformatted the hard drive, and i had to restore a bunch of stuff. Then yesterday, it did something strange and i could not boot it up, even though i would have liked to boot it somewhere. With the help of Jamie at Apple Care, it is back. Not fun.

i am finding more things to ache due to my aging. Sometimes, it’s doing things i should no longer do. Sometimes, it’s exercising too much. Sometimes, it’s not exercising enough. Sometimes, it’s just from sleeping the wrong way. And i don’t know what the right way to sleep for me really is. Then, i feel guilty because all of my physical problems are minuscule compared to family and friends with real health challenges.

Grumpy.

But something made it all right.

Somewhere around the tale end of elementary school, my family began a tradition for Christmas. i suspect Aunt Evelyn Orr, my mother’s older sister, started the family doing it. When two of our family saw each other for Christmas, the one who said “Christmas Gift” first was supposed to get a present from the one whom they had met. At least, i think that was what was supposed to happen although i don’t think the “loser” ever gave that gift. Still, it was fun and for some reason when someone said “Christmas Gift” to me, it made me smile, even laugh, and feel good.

That tradition will not be practiced here this year with the possible exception of Maureen and i saying it to each other (and then giggle). One of our daughters will be with my son-in-law and grandson in Texas. The other will be with her man and his family near Las Vegas. We decided it would be best not to go to Signal Mountain this year for the trip we’ve made almost every year since 1992. We will have Maureen’s sister Patsy, and hopefully her son Mike over for brunch.

So, Christmas will be a little lonely this year.

You see on Tuesday, i had just finished my secret run for final Christmas presents when the damn clutch went out halfway down that hill. It was a beautiful Southwest corner day. i was buying special gifts and found myself wanting to buy more, spend foolishly for folks whom i care about dearly. i wanted to give more for all of my friends and family. i didn’t. After all, finances are a bit more critical than they used to be.

But the feeling i got was nothing short of amazing. i felt good. It felt like Christmas. The feeling was like the one i got when i read Judy Gray’s Christmas wish poem to her 1962 Lebanon High School class. No, i wasn’t in that class, i graduated from the military prep school across the street. But the fellow citizens my age of Lebanon Tennessee adopted me. There not too many things that have made me feel better than that in my life. And the poem brought back that sense of belonging. The poem and my last little gift acquisitions truly made it feel a lot like Christmas.

To all of you who read this, i hope you get that same feelings i had come over me, and…

Christmas Gift.