“Ah! The good old time — the good old time. Youth and the sea. Glamour and the sea! The good strong sea, the salt, bitter sea, that could whisper to you and roar at you and knock the breath out of you.”

Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s “Youth, a Narrative”

That is the number of the Tennessee State Highway that cuts through Gallatin almost directly south to US 70, more commonly known back in his and my days as the Nashville Pike. 109 has changed and grown enormously since my days back home. i’m not sure if that is good or bad. It’s changed. Change is inevitable. I like many changes since my youth. There are also a lot changes i don’t like, but i try to deal with the good and bad.

i think he would approve of my approach. He might even chuckle at my comparing TN 109 to his age. September 28, 1914 was when he was born, the fifth of seven children of Hiram Culley and Carrie Myrtle Orand, who moved a whopping 26 miles around 1900 from the farming community of Statesville to the big county seat of Wilson County, Lebanon, Tennessee, population 1,956. When he was born, i doubt TN 109 was nothing more than a country lane. The big town of Lebanon had two paved roads, a coal fired steam plant that provided 500 homes and businesses electric power.

To say it was a long time ago is pretty much redundant. i just wish that the powers that be had kept him around for the rest of my lifetime.

But that isn’t the way life works. i know from my discussions with him, he is perfectly okay with that. So am i.

i was just going to repost the one i wrote last year about his birthday, but i had to add how much i miss my best friend. The below is a revised version of that post. i can’t add much to that.

Happy 109th birthday, Daddy:

…i still miss him terribly. He would chastise me for that. i have written volumes praising him until he told me to stop.

After he passed just shy of 99, i have praised him again, often. i don’t think i can add to that. Below are two items i wrote about him that he liked. i don’t think i need to add anything.

An Incredible Man (2000)

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 of “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 worshipped him since the first recallable 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.

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:
those hands could make Durer cry
with their history and the tales they tell.

His strength always was supple
beyond what was suggested from his slight build.
His hands are the delivery point of that strength.
His hands are not slight:
His hands are firm and thick and solid –
a handshake of destruction if he so desired, but
he has used them to repair the cars and our hearts;

His hands are marked by years of labor with
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors
(long before mechanics hooked up computers,
deciphering the monitor to replace “units”
for more money in an hour than he made in a month
when he started in ’34 before computers and units).

His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bouganville, 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 itself into his hands
and beyond;
the tales of grease and oil and grime,
cleaned by gasoline and goop and lava soap
are etched in his hands;

they are hands of labor,
hands of kindness, caring, and love:
oh love, love, love, crazy love.

His hands speak of him with pride.
His hands belong
to the smartest man I know
who has lived life to the maximum,
but in balance, in control, in understanding,
gaining respect and love
far beyond those who claim smartness
for the money they earned
while he and his hands own smartness
like a well-kept plot of land
because he always has understood
what was really important
in the long run:
smarter than any man I know
with hands that tell the story
so well.

Happy Birthday, Daddy.

This was begun Monday, September 25, 2023.

i fed the cats while Maureen slept before i walked out to retrieve the newspaper, a tradition since my birth that i fear will end soon.

It was gray, a seaport morning. i stood in the middle of our driveway and wondered what folks would think of an old man standing barefoot in shorts and tee shirt before the Southwest corner really began to stir. i raised my sights to the sky. Gray, all gray. Then, a lone raven came a’winging on high from the northwest headed southeast toward the Mexican hills and mesas as if on a mission. i watched him in his flight, flapping quickly, on a mission. His energy expended would wipe out a runner before 100 yards. His flight was straight, unwavering. i wondered why this solo raven would have such purpose.

Then, another raven appeared from the same origin, on the same line as the first disappeared into the gray of the Mexico sky. Then another: same flight, far enough to seem unrelated. Then another, again distant enough from his predecessor to seem unrelated. And another, the last one, followed, the same path with the same energy.

i marveled at the world, at nature, at ravens, at life. There is so much we don’t know, can’t comprehend in this gray of morning in a seaport town. This, i think, is a good thing, sort of like living with it, dealing with it as is.

Early morning gray and purposeful ravens is a good way to start a day.

ah, to feel the sea
to be as one with the sea,
to talk to her,
one must, must
sail past Cape Hatteras
in the night where
‘tis never calm:
the seas always building
to a frenzy,
the winds a’ whipping
like a banshee screaming,
the ship a’ pitching and a rolling
like it ain’t gonna stop rolling over
until
past the point of no return;
the white caps dominating the seascape;
the torrent of salt water plunging
down the weather decks
worse than the most violent
flood surge of the Mississippi;
the sailors around turning pallid
taking turns upchucking over
the port or starboard sides
and
in the middle of the fear and panic
understanding comes
and
she, the sea, talks to you,
tells you in a way no one else can hear
this is her way
to allow you to acknowledge
she is the sea.

peace will follow
and
you will rest easy
at sea.