Despite rain up the gump stump added to more rain up the gump stump to be followed by more rain up the gump stump next week in the Southwest corner (mild compared to the deluges north of us), i was feeling pretty good when i went to bed last night.

Here are some thoughts as to why:

One…and far away the top number one reason for my feeling good, Vanderbilt beat Kentucky. Better yet, Vanderbilt quieted Kentucky fanatics with fanatics of their own. i’m sure the Wildcat fans feel the opposite, but the Commodores handled the Cats’ massive center, Oscar Tshiebwe, in spite of some very favorable calls in his favor when, it appeared to me, he was the culprit not the victim. As my really good friend who i don’t see enough, Bob Davis, noted, the television talking heads were fawning over the fabled Kentucky, but had flipped mightily by the end of the game.

Certainly i hope the Commodores take down the Aggies, my second allegiance to SEC teams, and if so, i am terribly pessimistic about their chances against Alabama. But i’ve been pretty much pessimistic until the final buzzer of almost every game so far this season.

It was good, very good. And when it was over, my dominant thought was i wish my parents and Mike Dixon were here to have seen it. Perhaps they were,

Two, the San Diego State Aztecs easily handled the San Jose State Spartans to reach the finals of the Mountain West conference today. For me, the comparison between the two games was intriguing. San Diego State is the deepest talented college basketball team i’ve ever watched. But they are terribly sporadic.The Mountain West is very competitive. It’s a very different game, again to me, than the SEC game. i think the competitiveness, the intensity in the SEC is greater, and i would give the edge to Vandy in a head-to-head matchup. It will be fun to watch the different conferences with their different ways of playing the game, especially the big boys, go at it in the tournament.

i am rolling. i am in a good place. Sports and sports writing are good for me. And folks, i cut my teeth in sports reporting under Fred Russell at The Nashville Banner when Vanderbilt had many of my friends Clyde Lee, Snake Grace, John Ed Miller, Keith Thomas, Kenny Gibbs, and Jerry Southwood, and goodness let’s not forget Roger Schurig, on the team. The vibes, even though it is a much, much different game today, were similar to the vibes of the current Commodores.

Go ‘Dores.

Interesting thoughts in the middle of the night: Like many things i end up writing, i don’t have a clue as from where the first one came. i’m not going to expound on what and how they occurred, but i will say the first, the angry one came first, and the second was created by Maureen, giving me a feel good to meet the day.

Hush Your Mouth

hush your mouth, man (woman)
i don’t want to hear
how bad you’ve got it
how awful it is
how the world is going to hell
how other folks are using abusing you
how you are going to fix it all
with no regard to the fall out
of your fix

i can tell you things you’ve never known
things that would make your hair fall out
i can tell you of times when it was worse
exponentially
i can tell you how so many folks have tried
their fix
resulting in
what we have now
but
i know you would not listen
would not learn
would not accept any thought
that would conflict with your version
of wrong
and how you are going to fix it
with no regard for history
so
i will say nothing
it would do no good
but
please
hush your mouth.

Recharged

we awoke almost at the same time
earlier than we desired
we both shuffled about
to get more comfortable
attempting to return to slumber
we lay quiet
i moved again
my hand touched hers
we clasped hands as we have
over a million times
in lo these many years
i felt as if i were recharged
like that small, damnable
electronic wonder
over on the nightstand
with its electric plug
recharging
i felt, knew i was ready to go
meet the day
i arose
once again
she had recharged me.

Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell wrote it in 1951. Roy recorded it that year with moderate success on the Rhythm and Blues Charts — long before R&B became some throat and lung exercises in excess. Then B.B. King took it to the top and then off the charts with his 1969 cover.

When i hear it, and that is frequently because i find it and play it, i often think it was likely what a number of dear women in my life thought of me.

This morning when i played it again, i wasn’t thinking about lost loves. i was thinking about how the short sentence applies to aging — Remember, “sentence” has two basic meanings.

You see, up until i finally gave in and accepted i wasn’t young anymore, i was a thrill seeker, even though i didn’t think of myself in that way. i was looking to be thrilled, awed, blown away. i wanted to dance the fastest dance. I wanted to drive the fastest car (and there could have been others, but the car Daddy bought when i was rolling into 16, the 1958 Pontiac Star Chief with the biggest engine GM built underneath three two-barrel carburetors was damn close to the fastest on the road). i wanted to date the prettiest girls. As a linebacker, i wanted to take on the biggest, meanest runner. I wanted watch the raciest movies. I wanted to go to the biggest concert, watch the loudest and biggest fireworks show, and live in the biggest cites, and be those cities’ biggest star.

i was looking for the thrill of it all.

i continued looking for thrills, traveling the furthest i could go, seeing all the wonders that i saw, living wild most of the time until i grew up (or at least until i thought i grew up: there are moments when i am still not sure if i have actually grown up, you know).

This morning, i awoke. I did not rise from the bed as is my habit. i was awake, wide awake. i just felt comfortable, in neutral, no pressure, just lying there, quiet, peace, calm. Nowadays, we only turn on the heat in our house for a couple of hours to knock the chill off after we wake up. At night, the heat is off. This time of year, it will often get down to the low 60’s in the house. We like it that way, enjoy fresh air, like covers while we sleep. It was around 61 when i awoke. But it wasn’t the chill that kept me there in bed. i get up in that kind of chill until late March when Southwest corner real weather marches in and claims the next four months. My continuing to lie there was…well, it wasn’t looking for thrills.

Now i look for comfort, quieter music, walking not running, golf not football, old friends not seeking new ones, memories warm, peace not clamor. i revel in how Maureen’s and my relationship has matured, gotten deeper, richer. Politics, news have been excluded. i do not wish to be amazed at what children do now-a-days. Hell, i don’t even want to know what so called adults are doing.

i am in a comfortable place.

A couple of years ago, i told someone special and important to me that Peggy Lee had nailed it. Actually, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller nailed it. They wrote the song, “Is That All There Is,?” that Peggy sang nailing it — amazingly, these two are the guys who wrote most of the Coaster’s hits like “Searching,” “Young Blood,” and perhaps my favorite, “Idol With the Golden Head.”

But i was wrong about that song and Peggy and Jerry and Mike nailing it. For me, the nail that was hit was created by Hawkins and Darnell.

The song is pure, pure blues, almost agony triumphed, sad. For an old man, the thrill being gone is not a bad thing.

It was dark, significantly before sunrise, even way before first light, when i went out this morning. Clouds had claimed the sky. It would have been a perfect night for striped bass fishing back on Center Hill Lake. The shad minnows were more attracted to the Coleman lanterns hanging off the gunwale of the boat in the dark with no moon and stars to lighten the sky. And where the shad minnows moved, so did the striped bass.

It is Tuesday. That’s trash day around here. i went out to the side yard next to the garage, opened the gate, and began moving the three bins to the street. Around here, you have a bin for yard waste, one for recycled things, and one for trash. i don’t do inane arguing about global warning. To me, it makes no difference if it is or isn’t happening. Recycling, reusing yard waste for mulch and other purposes, and reducing our trash output is good for our environment regardless of who wins the inane argument.

i line two bins up by the open garage door and take the yard waste bin to the street. i cross the street to the widow’s side yard and move her bins to the street before filling my other two bins and repeating the process at our house. You see, some guy began moving a next-door neighbor’s bins out to the street after she got a divorce. Now, it is almost a race for neighbors to move other neighbor’s bins out or back in after pickup in the houses near the end of the cul-de-sac.

This morning, as i moved the first of my bins to the front, i remembered moving trash cans before they had bins in another place in another time in a world far away.

This was after my hometown public works took Jake Hughes means of income away by buying the new trucks and providing trash services, garbage only, to the citizens. Jake stopped coming to our house in his mule drawn wagon with four car wheels to go to the back of our garage. That garage was on one side of the back yard, not in the front for most homes today. The back is where i prefer garages for reasons i may someday reveal. Jake would take our garbage can to the street, dump the contents into his wagon bed, return the can to the back of the garage, and leave with our garbage.

After that, a household member had to take the garbage to the front, which normally was the oldest male child, a.k.a. me. My new requirement of garbage dumping coincided with my going to a movie showing downtown in 1957. The movie starred Michael Landon way before he was “Little Joe Cartrwight” in “Bonanza.” The event was on a summer Monday night, two days for garbage pickup, i think. It certainly wasn’t on Saturday because those afternoons still were reserved for Westerns.

The movie was “I Was a Teenage Werewolf.” For those of you who might be too young to remember, that movie was not a prequel of “Teen Wolf,” the comedy another Michael named Fox made in 1985. That was a comedy. “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” might have been silly by today’s standards, but it was a horror movie for that day and time. That night, i had nightmares about the movie.

Now all of this may seem unrelated, but the next evening after sunset, it was time for me to take out the garbage. Opening the back door of our house, i found a full moon lighting the dark.

i paused at the door. i was afraid, very afraid, there could be a werewolf lurking behind the garage, waiting to kill me with those terrible fangs. i realized such fear was self-inflicted, cursed my nightmare, and walked to the back of the garage. i admit the fear did not go away until i had deposited the garbage can by the street and returned inside.

Here, i was to make some philosophical comments about fear and hate and all sorts of stuff. But i will let it ride.

But this morning, i was never afraid…

…after all, it was cloudy and the full moon is in its waxing crescent phase, nowhere near a full moon.

Ben raised his glass, tilting it momentarily
to greet the stranger entering the bar
sunlight streamed behind the stranger
blazing to obscure any focus
of the stranger  as he turned
toward the rear of the bar,
Ben warned him
do not go in there;
you see, we are not sure what’s beyond
the dark
we can feel it
but
we do not know what it might be
or
shall be
or
even worse, could be
and
there have been several
who dared the dark
and
did not return
so
sit down here at the bar with me
have a whiskey
i prefer mine neat
come on, come on, sit here
Ben pleaded
the stranger, dressed in black
with a black stetson,
paused, turned briefly toward him
before abruptly turning back
toward the dark
and
the stranger passed from the sunlight
into the dark
Ben finished his whiskey
dropped a sawbuck on the bar
rising from his stool
he moved toward the door
and
the sunlight
laughing quietly.