Our new next door neighbors, Vincent, Judith, and their son Vincent will move into their home in about a year

They are doing significant renovations to the acre-plus yard and the house. i have watched with interest and have established a good relationship with the site managers, bulldozer and back hoe drivers, and the other workers of which there many: hard working men. There are no accountants back there, no finance folks, no insurers, not computer wizards, just hard workers. It is fun to watch. i do.

Of particular interest to me in the past few days have been the stone masons (i guess they are still called that). They are putting a facade of stone on the chimneys and perhaps the entire exterior. It looks as though it will be beautiful when finished. It also requires unique hard work and art. The scaffold rises about forty feet to the top of the chimney. The stone cutting saw sits on the top rung of the scaffold. The worker hauls up the stone pieces in a bucket with a pulley. He measures and cuts the stones to fit closely together, fits them, and then uses mortar to glue them in place. It is fascinating.

i became more and more enamored with the requirements to do it right and the rigorous physical requirements to get it done.

Then around 10:00 a.m. this morning, i went to the kitchen to clean out my coffee French press. As i began to rinse it out, i looked toward the chimney. There, this hard working mason was taking his mid-morning break. i kept fooling around in the kitchen as i watched him eat at least three tamales. Then after finishing his break meal (snack?). He laid out on the fourth level slats of the scaffold and took a half-hour nap.

So much for hard work.

i could post several hundred more photos of him and still not capture his essence. i miss him every day. He was loved by everyone who knew him, especially his children, his grandchildren, his great grandchildren, and lord knows how many children he claimed and loved. Happy Fathers Day, Daddy…and Thanks.

And then there was this o

And then there was this other father of mine. Thanks, Ray.

The water hazard in front of 12th tee at the Sea ‘n Air Golf Course on the North Island Naval Air Station has become a legend…at least with a certain group of golfers who have played there since VADM Shultz drove the plan to add a second nine in the mid-70s to the first nine that was constructed in 1959 (that story is whole other adventure).

The classic story from that hazard has been told many times. Many folks claim to have been in that foursome. i can only aver that Al Pavich and i were there. i think i remember who the fourth was that day but will not reveal whom as i want the others who claim so enjoy their day in the lore.

The 12th hole is a par five with the water hazard in front of the tee box and another in front of the green. Both have claimed many, many golf balls. The first hazard requires a shot carrying at least 140 yards. i told this Marty Linville story here about eight months ago. His condition was making it difficult to hit the ball over that water. Finally tired of losing his ball, Marty declared he was going to lay up. He took out his wedge and hit a nice shot that would have accomplished his purpose. But it wandered right a bit, enough to hit the golf cart path and bounce into the water. Being the Grand Whiner of the Curmudgeons, he did as all curmudgeons would have done and laughed along with the rest of us.

As we have aged, the difficulty of clearing that hazard has become a problem for all of us. We laugh almost every time one of our errant tee shots finds the water. Last Thursday, our threesome added to the lore.

Jeff Middlebrook, who was having a decent round took honors and was first on the tee. His drive was a screaming liner that hit the water about midway across the hazard. It bounced at least five times before skipping out and a good ways down the fairway. We laughed.

Rod Stark was next. He hit a low draw to the left that replicated Jeff’s skipping effort to the right. His ball also skipped out of the hazard. We laughed.

i was the final guy on the tee. i hit another line drive screamer, but mine was on the right perimeter of the pond and did not touch the water…initially. It was clear of the hazard when it struck one of the poles they have installed to stretch cords across the hazard to keep ducks and coots off the water (of course, as with all of their efforts, the results have been a failure). But my ball struck one of the those metal poles and it bounced sideways and backwards into the water.

We three laughed harder, and i’m pretty sure Marty and Al were up there laughing along with us.

i’m pretty sure i first read The Unvanquished in high school. Most likely it was during my senior year at Castle Heights (1961-62). i’m guessing i started reading it in the library’s second floor stacks, sitting on the floor resting my back against the shelves. i experienced several wonderful, escaping-from-the-world reads up there like that, looking down on the lobby with study desks and the large one just beneath me where Major Hurd sat and ruled over the Rutherford Parks Library.

i think James Street’s The Biscuit Eater (1941) was the first one i read up there. The second was The Etruscan by Mika Waltari (1956). i believe i read both in one sitting each. The Etruscan may have taken two sittings. i was enthralled and thrilled with both.

Then, i picked out William Faulkner’s The Unvanquished. i began reading it up in those wonderful stacks, but had to check it out. i finished late that next early morning under my bedcovers with a flashlight and the small desk radio playing WCLA’s blues for the night.

It was my first experience with Faulkner. i was blown away. i don’t think my Heights’ English professors pointed me to it. Major Lindsey Donnell, freshman; Captain Robert Morgan, sophomore; Major Paul Wooten, junior; or the famed Major Tom Harris, senior all were capable of such a thing. i was always amazed at their ability not only to teach me English and literature, but making me think. Still, i don’t think they were responsible for my becoming an avid Faulkner fan.

It doesn’t matter. The Unvanquished gave me a depth of understanding as a great grandson of a Confederate soldier. The understanding and revelation of all aspects of the Civil War in the South took me into a place i had not grasped yet.

There are those who with no real understanding of humanity who will reject The Unvanquished as racist with hatred, not comprehending the complexity of many levels of the relationships between caucasians and negroes, poor freemen, and aristocracy of the South. Faulkner explores their humanity, their faults and their evil and their goodness.

In December 1967, i staying briefly with my friend John B. Johnson in New York City. Yanch was pursuing his joint masters in journalism and business. i was on Christmas leave from Navy OCS in Newport headed for two weeks back home in Lebanon. We were invited to a Christmas party by the parents of our good friends, Alan and Jim Hicks. Dr. Hicks and his wife were fixtures in NYC. The party was at their home on 95th and Park Avenue.

It was a gala affair. i enjoyed myself immensely, and as often, had a wee too much Tennessee whiskey. i found myself in a conversation with an erudite and nice gentleman in the middle of the living room. When he heard my accent, we wandered into a discussion of Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren. He asked me why i thought Southern writers wrote so well with deep feeling. i pondered for a few seconds and then replied.

i think writers in the South have a deep conflict within themselves about a wonderful society of pride and even goodness and the aberration of the inherent wrong of slavery. Dealing with the inhumanity of an institutional wrong and the humanity of each human within it, creates a culture inducing an environment of introspection. Or something like that. i’m sure nowhere near as in depth as my recall here.

He responded, “I always wonder about that. My best writers are from the South. We parted. Someone informed me that he was editor in chief of Newsweek. i still wish i had asked him for a job.

i think William Faulkner captured that anguish, that conflict of all thoughtful folks in the South in The Unvanquished. My reread had more of an impact, i think, on me, than the previous times i read it a long, long time ago.

i recommend it.

Thursday, May 22, Maureen and i watched Samuel James Jewell Gander receive his high school diploma.

His mother and father, Blythe Jewell Gander and Jason were there. His other grandparents, Carol and Bob Shea from Clearwater Florida, and his special Aunt Sassy, our other daughter Sarah Jewell Withers were also there. The family of Leigh and Wally Cook were represented by Leigh and their son and daughter, a close family relationship since i can remember, including Spencer and Gracie, their son and daughter. Wally stayed at home to cook the barbecue for the post graduation party. We sat proudly, and a little unruly, in Austin’s HEB center along with about 4,000 other relatives and friends (a guess on the number) of the 500 or so graduates. It was grand, nostalgic, hopeful, encouraging for the graduates…and long.

But time didn’t matter. My grandson Sam was graduating along with 600 other seniors. The new showcase for sports and events

When i sat down, the first thing i did was look for Sam’s name in the program. When i found it, i became quiet and felt tears of pride: “Samuel James Jewell Gander.” His two middle names are for my father, Jimmy Jewell. i sat there trying to channel Daddy because i wanted so much for him to be sitting in the empty seat beside me.

That feeling lasted throughout the ceremony and into the following celebration.

As the highest achievers in the class made their speeches to us, i recognized being my age is a good thing in many ways. i sat there and remembered my graduation at Castle Heights and compared. It was a different world back then.

i thought of the feeling of completion and accomplishment my fellow cadets and i experienced. as we received our diplomas. Time changes things and this group who were tossing their tassels from the right side to the left surely had the same sense of accomplishment and completion.

The Heightsmen of 1962 had hopes, goals, and dreams for what was ahead. These young men and women have theirs. Their journey will have more uncertainty, more knowledge about so many things, more assistance to get there, more choices, and many more obstacles than that 100 or so young men in uniforms in Lebanon, Tennessee so, oh so long ago.

i also had this strong desire to let Sam’s grandmother Kathie he called “Nene” know i was there with her precious grandson and how much she had contributed to Sam’s journey.

Sam will be a camp counselor again this summer. Then, he will head for Savannah, Georgia, to pursue a degree in interior design at the prestigious Savannah College for Art and Design (SCAD). Needless to say, i am very proud to be his grandfather. i know he will succeed in life and that is most important: living well.

Congratulations, Sam. You go, man.

papa.