i heard her footsteps
but
she wasn’t there;
i turned to speak to her
but
she was gone;
the cats looked lost
when­
her lap was missing
and
eyed me questioning
when
i put them up for the night;
oh, she’s only gone
for a couple of days,
a respite in Monterrey
with a friend;
‘twas too soon to pine,
too short to hurt;
but
it was downright scary
to be lonely;
over forty years,
love evolves;
infatuation, passion
pass with age
dependence on each other,
expectations grow;
we know each other
as well as our own palms;
that’s sometimes good,
sometimes not so good,
but
after forty years.
i can tell you
it can be downright scary
to be lonely.

­­

I paused. Just before we commenced our normal late afternoon routine, i sat in my spot in the family room and paused. I had sat the book on the side table next to my chair. I tried to capture how i felt.

I broke from the spell. As Maureen fed the cats and gave Bruce Willis his meds, i set up the dinner trays next to our spots, placed the napkins and silverware on the trays, changed from my contact lenses to glasses as any hard exercise was put off until tomorrow. After all of my preparations were done and Maureen had commandeered the kitchen to create yet again a culinary piece of art i will find different, interesting, and like very much, i repaired to the refrigerator freezer and poured myself a “martin” (bless you, Mister Fraser) into the frozen unbreakable martini glass Sarah gave me a couple of years ago, complete with unstuffed pitted olives, preferred by my friend Marty Linville.

I delayed as long as i thought i could in turning on the television without raising Maureen’s ire. She likes to have the television on while she cooks. It is “soothing” or something. Since there is little i like to watch, i am not a big fan of television noise, and my nature compels me to actually pay attention to whatever is on. As usual, i choose the local news to at least get the weather forecast (70 degrees with morning marine layer clouds and a slight breeze.

It matters not this afternoon. I normally ignore the news(?) unless it is something that might affect us. But today, i was deep (for me) in thought.

I had just finished the third short story in the tome of Joseph Conrad: Complete and Unabridged. I sat thinking about how i felt akin to the almost Polish, before it was Ukraine, Russian born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. The story was “Lagoon.” As you might have ascertained, it captivated me.

I had read Conrad much earlier in life. I’m pretty sure i read Lord Jim while either a junior or senior at Castle Heights Military Academy. I think Major Harris was the professor who assigned that reading, but i could have just picked it up myself. I was a pretty voracious reader back then. I remember finishing with a feeling i had learned something. I just wasn’t quite sure what i had learned.

But my attraction to Conrad was his short stories about life at sea on ships. It was an adventure i could not imagine. I felt the sea and the struggles and deep rooted joy of men who were enveloped by the sea and the people they met far away from the reality they had known in their early life. There was a finality to it all. I felt it.

But i put Conrad and his sea stories away for more esoteric pursuits: southern literature, sports writing, partying, loving women… and, oh yes, for many diverse reasons, going back to sea.

And finally, i made it to his playground: the South Pacific, and even got a taste of seamen on ships, non-military ships. I went to Vietnam first and got a taste of life much like the Malaysians. More impactful to me was riding merchant marine manned USNS ships, carrying Korean troops to Vietnam and back to Korea. It was a complete change from my Navy experience. I felt Conrad. I felt his stories of the sea. I felt men at sea and in strange worlds dealing with the essence of living. It just didn’t quite sink in for me right then.

Then after really sort of giving up on my hopes to see the world, i went to a ship on the West Coast. I hit the western Pacific on a continuing basis…and i loved it. I went to Australia four times within four years. I spent ten days in Singapore. I stayed at Conrad’s go to place, Raffle’s Hotel and sat in the bar thinking of him. Visiting and transiting the Straits of Malacca, the narrows between Malaysia and Indonesia where literally thousands of merchant ships created a gauntlet for navigation brought Conrad’s stories to the forefront of my thoughts.

Now, the man may have been the best writer of the greatest novelist of all the English writing novelists. And English was his adopted language. His descriptions of any scene can just blow you away independent of the story line.

But more so, he writes of humanity, good, bad, faulted, and it resonates with me.

I hesitate to recommend you read him. He’s mine. His stories resonate with me. i will read all of his stories and may even reread him again.

As much as i identify with him, feel as if i am connected to him, there is a difference. He is a great writer, one of the best at writing short stories and novels. i am a storyteller.

I just hope he didn’t like the original Singapore Sling at Raffles any more than i did.

Nope. Ain’t buying it. i don’t call meteorologists by that name since around December 1968, actually even before that.

In 1974, my commanding officer, CDR George Phelps, aboard the USS Hollister (DD 788), anointed the three line department heads one day as the “Wind,” “Rain,” and “Seas” controllers. As CHENG, i was the “Rain Control Officer,” not a bad job in Long Beach. The CO believed we had as much capability of controlling or predicting the weather as those proclaimed meteorologists whom we called “weather guessers.” i still identify them with that term, “weather guessers.”

Those guys (and girls) who claim meterologistism (my word) have grown in numbers and viewership. They even have a channel called “The Weather Channel.” This is the channel that sends folks out in the teeth of storms or floods or other earthly disasters to tell us the weather is bad while having difficulty talking into the their microphone or holding on to various parts of their clothing.

Now, these folks don’t make their money off of good weather, normally the domain of the Southwest Corner. Nobody has said much on any weather forecast about the Southwest corner for quite some time, except of course, for the local weather guessers who are filling the airways with tales of gloom and doom about how the unusual amount of rainfall has produced a lot of plant growth that could become a potential wildfire disaster when it dries out and the Santa Ana winds revisit the land. They make their money by scaring the bejesus out of us with the dire impact of the portending weather’s next Armageddon.

And so we come to this weekend in the Southwest corner. Our plight has been broadcast coast to coast with the pending maelstrom of Hyper Hurricane Hillary coming up from Baja. Maureen and i are being contacted by friends and family from other parts of the country concerned about our well-being.

i am not referring to the hurricane or Hillary being hyper. i’m talking about the weather guessers predictions and how folks in the Southwest corner are reacting. It’s all hyper.

When my sister, Martha Duff, expressed her concern to me via a text message this morning, i responded:

i don’t think it’s going o be anywhere near as bad as predicted, but we are securing all that might be impacted by winds. The mountains could be in trouble. The cold Japanese current coming from the Arctic is still cool enough to negate some of the effects. However, if it rains a lot in August as predicted, this whole area is going to be a zoo.

The National Weather Service to which i check when i have any real concern about weather, had this report this morning:

Tonight
A chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 69. Calm wind becoming northeast around 5 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Sunday
Showers and possibly a thunderstorm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. High near 78. Windy, with a north wind 5 to 15 mph increasing to 25 to 35 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible.

Sunday Night
Showers and possibly a thunderstorm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. Low around 66. Breezy, with a west wind 20 to 25 mph becoming south 10 to 15 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 35 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible.

Monday
A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 72. South wind 15 to 20 mph becoming southwest 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Folks, for a mariner, even as long ago as it was, 30 knot winds, even gusts to 50 knots, is of concern, but panic is not needed. We occasionally get those kinds of winds here in the winter storms, and other than lowering umbrellas and securing light outdoor furniture, no other preparations are required.

Of course, the Southwest corner folks, including my wife, are not taking chances. Today, i will be securing out exterior from a storm beyond description. We are moving and tying up plants, relocating and tying down lawn furniture, securing any loose items with chains or something. We haven’t gotten to the point where she is specific about that, but i will not be surprised if she inquires where we might get an anchor.

Bottom line: Don’t worry about us. The Hyper Hurricane Hillary rolling through here is not likely to cause major harm to us or our belongings.

However, if you want to see a zoo, watch the Southwest corner when and after the rain hits us, less than two inches max is predicted here in Bonita. Folks out here can go berserk trying to cope with rain.

Proof. i have proof. The goofy guy has been many things. But the boy Jesus?

Maureen and i were back home in Lebanon, staying with my parents when Erma and Charlie Baird came to visit. Erma and Charlie were two of my favorite people back home, that is independent on how much i cared for their daughter Sharry. There was a great deal of talk about good times from the past. As they rose to leave, Erma announced she had something for me. She handed me a packet with six photos.

When Maureen looked at the photos, she went beyond her legendary laugh. She was practically catatonic. i was concerned she might fall on the floor laughing. You see, the 1960 photos were of a play put on by the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF) appropriately in the Lebanon First Methodist Church’s Fellowship Hall. It was a play about the boy Jesus. The fourteen-year old playing the boy Jesus was me! i don’t think i was convincing, and i am almost positive most or you won’t believe it. But here’s the proof:

◆ ◆ ◆

But the world moved on. It became abundantly clear that this guy was not cut out to be the boy Jesus. He ended up in Qui Nhon, Vietnam, taking Korean troops to and fro. The 101st Airborne’s main camp was outside of the Qui Nhon. Joseph’s…er, Henry Harding’s brother, Jim was the officer in charge of medivacs (i think i got that right, Beetle) for the 101st. He came to visit. And this is the two of us alongside his jeep.

Now, the kicker here is there is photo missing, It is one with most of the cast and the boy Jesus sitting on a stool in the middle of the stage. His legs are spread. You and the audience can clearly see he is wearing madras shorts below his toga. That’s the one that lit off Maureen. i think she has stowed it away somewhere for posterity. She denies that.

It is a small world, and i think Jesus, boy or otherwise, would like that

do not take me on, you specter;
there’s not a chance that you can win,
i have become your worst nightmare,
as i’m a curmudgeon and wearing thin,
who wandered the world on a dare,
looking for someone to take me on,
i have fought on the shores of hell
to keep the evil ones at bay,
walking away unscathed
to fight another day.
i laugh at your inane presence,
i scoff as you try to engender fear.
for you see, i am a human
imperfect as i am;
yet i know my power
lies within me
to fend off evil such as you.
don’t get behind me, specter,
for i don’t trust you there;
i am an old curmudgeon
and
like you at this very moment,
i shall soon vanish in the air.