Mind you, i am in pretty decent shape for an old man. My friends, family, doc (yeh, yeh, now all of you folks are likely aware health insurance concerns need to make it more technically for legal purposes so they can charge exorbitant prices to keep me safe and them financially independent), and the specialists say, “You are in great shape for someone about to turn 80, but let’s make sure in my specialty,” so i go through incredible tests that some make a small fortune off of me and my insurance, and they all seem to point out i have something that could kill me tomorrow but i shouldn’t worry.

So i feel old, wondering if giving up a bunch of stuff i like in lifestyle, diet, physical regimen, and on and on and on would be worth it.

Then i played golf, Friday Morning Golf, which i’ve been playing with military friends since 1991, and played like…er, like i am damn near 80, and got home and felt old.

After a long nap and a shower, i sat down at this infernal machine. But i shuffled my music from my library, not all that stuff that some computer thinks i should like, and a perfect song for me pops up.

Thank you, Don Williams and the Pozo Seco Singers. i feel better now.

The juggernaut of photo organization continues. i’m too stubborn to get a professional to do it, and i’m damn sure they couldn’t express what i feel about these. So, even if it isn’t possible to get these completed before 2384 when i will be 140 years old, i’m doing it my way, that is, haphazardly, the privilege of being an old curmudgeon. These two are special:

My buddy Ray with me and his daughter, my wife, in our first home on Red Oak Place, circa 1986-87. Man, i miss him.

And this one is an extra special memory, Maureen and i in my and JD Waits’ condo on Antigua Court in the Coronado Cays. JD’s 25-foot Cal sailboat sits outside in our boat slip. My shirt was likely a tee given to runners in a 10K somewhere. From our expressions, i could be attempting to get Maureen to watch Midget Wrestling reruns. It was 1982. We were not yet engaged.

Oh Lord, what a wonderful time in my life over the rainbow:

As i completed this early this morning, editing, changing a word or a phrase or two, it hit me i break a lot of rules writing these things that sort of come off as poems, and for that matter, some might say butchering the language in other writings as well.

Many of my errors come from just writing with abandon, carelessness, poor editing for which i’m famous. But also, i am experimenting with expressing what i feel, mixing my understanding of Faulkner, Warren, Conrad, cummings, Greene, Doctorow, and my brother Joe with my own, and rather independent way of putting pen to paper, or whatever process is now in vogue.

It is storytelling, my storytelling. i do not desire to bring you to my conclusions, even my feelings. i just hope in some small way, i allow you to get in touch with your feelings when i write. This came to my head standing outside the front of our home this morning. i wanted to share.

just past first light,
been a while;
even the early riser
rarely catches first light
in the summer
when first light is earlier
than rising;
looking east nor’ east
Mount San Miguel,
which we intruders shorten
to Mount Miguel,
is resplendent with its backdrop
of the first light bringing gray,
then pink with the continuing
Sol rising,
then almost white, the sky
before becoming
blue, blue sky
of the Southwest corner;

didn’t notice her first;
too busy standing there,
looking at mountain and sky;
it is silent at first light,
cool, even refreshing,
reminding me of late August
back home in Tennessee
years ago:
blazing hot mornings
yielding to preview autumn
coolness bringing a sigh of relief, gladness;
her gleam caught my eye,
the lone gleam in the sky’s vastness;
she was dead east about twenty degrees
above the horizon in azure,
a perfect display of the Morning Star
bringing understanding why the ancients
named her Venus.

the world is silent as first light
grows to dawning
bringing contemplation
of how the Kumeyaay took it all in
before the intruders came
from the south then east,
taking the land,
turning it to easier habitation,
concrete, steel, towers;
draining a great deal
of what it used to be
down the drain, gone;
comprehending, perhaps,
how the ancients came to believe,
create their vision of god,
as others have elsewhere and before
with codes for living;
after all, such a god
would make sense of it all
give the ancients and us
a purpose for living
that makes sense
with Venus, the mountain, and dawn assuring
all is right;
standing there in modernity alone, silent,
taking in the vastness
of Mount San Miguel,
Venus in her glory, the Morning Star;
eternity?

in a near silent murmur,
repeating the Lord’s Prayer to myself,
the Lord God of my forbears,
seeking purpose, solace
in the vastness of the morning
just past first light
alone.

While Maureen was away, i once again demonstrated an incredible talent for procrastination. As i often do, i sought out another pile of photos to sort and organize rather than something important with an actual chance of completing in the next hundred years.

But, you know what, i enjoy such dalliances. Memories are a treasure chest for old men.

Like the photo on the left. Ray Boggs, my father-in-law and one of my best friends is shown here. He is in the basement workshop of the San Diego Aerospace Museum, his version of heaven. He is creating the pilot seat of a World War II cargo plane. Plans and specifications had been lost over the years. The museum was creating a replica. Ray drew up the blueprints, researched other planes of the era and came up with the plans. Then, he built the seat, which was installed in the replica. The plane was flown once and then lowered through the roof and hung as an exhibit in the museum.

Ray, being Ray, did not brag about it, but it was obvious he was proud of his contribution.

The photo on the right is precious to me. We opted for Sarah to attend a Montesorri school for preschool and kindergarten before first grade. As Mister Mom, i got to take her and pick her up most of the time. Here she is on graduation day. There was one proud dad ther

The quest for more procrastination continues.

As documented, Maureen was gone on a lark for four days this week. The refrigerator was bare. i put off eating anything healthy for a couple of days, but before she returned Thursday, i decided to go to the grocery and fill the larder.

Ralph’s (folks back home should think “Kroger”) is about a mile down and up the hills from us. Maureen goes there all the time for the usual stuff, hits Costco for bulk items, and then goes to Trader Joe’s for her gourmet specials. When required while i was in the Navy, i went to the Navy commissaries.

Maureen does not like the commissaries, primarily from her introduction in 1983. We married. i left for the other coast within ten days and in another month, i sailed east for almost eight months. She remained in the Southwest corner where her career blossomed as an account executive, a high-end office interior firm. She dressed the part.

One weekday, she decided to go for a new venture, grocery shopping at the Navy Commissary at Naval Station, San Diego, known by seafarers as “32nd Street.” It was days of yore and the Navy was a bit different then compared to now.

Pay was only a smidgeon of what Navy folks get paid now. There were only a few very senior officers who drove Mercedes and i only knew of one officer, my good friend from Lebanon, LCDR Earl Major, who drove a Porsche. Very few of the enlisted owned their own cars and most of those were used. Many single sailors and officers as well lived aboard their ships. All of us received our pay checks or cash as we had indicated on the fifteenth and thirtieth of each month. Credit cards other than American Express, which many officers possessed were pretty much non-existent. Direct deposits and auto-payments were years away.

So married sailors lived from paycheck to paycheck. The two monthly paydays was the days they went shopping…to the commissary, which was then, the Navy version of Costco. They would stock up with the staples, enough to get them to the next payday. Wives did the shopping at the commissary.

So Maureen, unfamiliar with this phenomena, decided to go shopping at lunch to the commissary on the 30th. As usual for her work, she was dressed to the nines. Then, the commissary was a cavernous quonset hut. She showed her dependent (hah!) identification card at the gate with her recently acquired base decal, entered through the gate, and parked in a full parking lot.

She picked up a handful of items and looked for the checkout line. It snaked around two of the aisles of food. There was no quick check out lines for a small number of items back then. She found herself behind a very large woman carrying a baby who was pushing one cart in front of her and pulling one behind her. Both were piled high with Twinkie’s, sugar-coated, frosted, flavored cereals and cartons of milk, cheeses, potatoes, and all things not necessarily healthy.

Maureen quietly placed her few items on the shelf beside her, turned around and walked out as unobtrusively as she could.

The only times she has returned was at my insistence, and i have given up trying.

* * *

After USS Yosemite returned to Mayport in 1984 and after we returned to the Southwest corner in 1985, i did my share of the cooking, especially after i completed my Naval service (with our daughter born that very day) in 1989. Along with that, i did most of the grocery shopping…at the Navy commissary until Maureen retired. Later in her career, i realized Maureen liked to cook and that was a break from her workday, and it soothed her. i had no problem relinquishing the kitchen duties to her. After all, she was and remains a gourmet cook. i am not.

But while she worked, i continued with shopping. i began to go on Sunday mornings. Church goers did not show up until after church. The commissary was less crowded in those hours. i not only shopped, i discovered several pleasures. The Navy commissary is a wonderful place to people watch. Folks of all sizes, nationalities, different tastes, hit the aisles with purpose. i realized i should not get in races, push to get past a crowd at one item, to take it easy and just watch the goings-on.

It was also fun to check out the shelves. With the variety of folks shopping the many variations on things to eat, and especially things to flavor what is eaten, my journeys were an education. Sometimes, i would shake my head in wonder. Sometimes, i would laugh. Sometimes, i found something i wanted to try.

This Thursday, i opted to go to the nearby Ralph’s. The commissary was further away and i had a bunch of chores and straightening up to do before picking up Maureen at the airport. Still, the experience of going up and down the aisles brought back memories of how much i enjoyed my commissary trips. They are mostly gone.

Of course, i do go back occasionally. You see, the North Island and 32nd Street Navy Commissaries are the only two places in the Southwest corner that carry Tennessee Pride Country Sausage.

And that makes my now short, quick trips worthwhile.