Thank you, Robert Penn Warren, William Wordsworth, Dr. Bill Holland, and Joe Jewell for giving me an appreciation of “time.”

time?
i am older than the wind;
i am younger than the breeze;
i am then and i am now;
but i am never what will be;
i am the ocean currents;
on the beach, i am the tide;
i am the mountain wind
whispering through the tree;
i am the rain that falls
in the gray of winter’s days;
but i am never what will be.

Twenty-two years ago, i wrote about a good dog gone. My glorious labrador and my best friend Cass, told me it was time. i wrote of him in a piece i called “Good Dog Gone.” i still have an empty spot that finds me every once in a while. i have often said one of the toughest things, if not the toughest, i’ve ever had to experience was putting him down.

About ten years after that, i had to put another down. Lena Horne, a mixed breed, became mine when the “dog lady” in our neighborhood tricked me into going to the pound to help someone else. Lena was a very smart dog and actually needed lots of love.   Like Cass, she produced many tales with her antics. When i had to put her to sleep, i vowed i would not have another dog until i was sure they would live longer than me. Just didn’t want to do that again. i figured it might be safe to have another when and if i reached 90.

Yesterday, i discovered there was something worse than putting my dogs down. Maureen and i went with our daughter Sarah when Billie Holiday had let her know it was time to go. Billie had cancer and was suffering. Being with your daughter when she has to put her dog down was worse than my putting Cass or Lena down. Billie had been with us for about six years after Sarah brought her back from Austin. She was a mixed breed, lanky, and a handsome dog with the most expressive eyes. i spoiled her. When Sarah was away, Billie spent a lot of time following me around. i grew to love her.

i am likely to write more about Billie lately. She created some great stories. But right now, it’s a little empty around here. Quite frankly, i’m not into telling stories today.

i just wanted to honor her a bit, to get this loss of my chest.

You see, Billie was a good dog, too. And now, she’s gone.

i once again have come out a lucky man.

Thank you, Jason, for being who you are, and being in our family.

And Happy Birthday!

Perhaps it’s my age.  My hackles are up. i am a curmudgeon. i am not liberal or conservative. i like to think i’m for common sense. i’ve been called, quite correctly, a contrarian. But it’s time for me to make some comments about stupid.

i did not send the below to Navy’s “Morale, Welfare, and Recreation” organization in San Diego: think stupid bureaucracy that has forgot its mission. i think it’s indicative of our lack of commons sense and critical thinking, which has caused  many problems we have.

So i’m posting the text of my letter never sent just to be public about my frustration:

Commanding Officer, MWR

Last Wednesday, July 24, I went to the pro shop of the Admiral Baker Golf Course to punch my card for a round and pay for a riding cart. As I handed my twenty-dollar bill to the attendant, I was informed the facility was now “cashless” and would only take credit and debit cards.

On Friday, July 26, I played my usual round at North Island’s Sea ‘n Air Golf Course. After finishing our 18 holes, I bought a pitcher of beer for our group of seven players. A brightly colored sign on the club house bar announced this facility would be “cashless effective 15 August.

I recognize the methods of payment of goods, services, and debts have changed greatly over the years, but I try to minimize the amount of charges I pay with credit or debit cards. I also believe in the sanctity of our financial system founded during the presidency of George Washington and his Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. The wise people of that era established an incredible system that allowed our country to become more prosperous beyond anyone’s imagination.

On each bill of currency established back then and still in existence today is the statement:

“This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”

With this in mind, I wonder why a government institution would demand a system of payment that undermines the currency of our country.

If I understand this correctly, if I should arrive at either Navy golf facility in San Diego with no credit cards, I will not be allowed to play because I have no credit or debit cards with me, only cash, I will not be allowed to play.

Or perhaps, since these facilities will be incapable of recognizing or accepting legal tender, I would be allowed to play for free.

Please advise.

The would have accused me of disrespect had i sent this i know. That’s what they have done with my past frustrated  submissions.

This was begun last night, and i got stuck. And i got sleepy: After all, i am an old man. Then in an email today, one of my closest friends from Vanderbilt days, Susan (nee Butterfield and affectionately known as Butter) Brooks, asked about what i had done and where did we dine. She opened up my mind as she as done a number of times in the past. Thank you, Susan. i completed the post this afternoon.

i sit in the room. The fire has been a quiet one, crackling minimally. i have turned out all but the reading light. Maureen has gone to bed. i have read some. i have filled out my tomorrow’s plans. My hands on the keyboard in my lap are old hands, weathered, veins standing out, wrinkled. Old hands.

i can remember donning my double holstered six-guns and heading out to the empty lot between our home and the Padgett’s. Night. Summer. Looking at my hands and envisioning them as old, weathered, cowboy wrangler hands, quickly darting into the holsters and with a blaze of glory, surpassing even the quickness and accuracy of Wild Bill Hickok, wiping out the bad guys in the black hats. The absurdity of imagining a nine-year old, barefooted, shirtless in shorts, carrying toy six guns for instruments of justice and death never occurred to me then as it does while those hands poise over the keyboard by the fire.

It has been a good day, a fitting day, i think. i kept a vow of responding to well wishes.

Then, there was this experience we attended. A fairgrounds, a horse race track. In some respects, an odd place to revere artists.

Maureen, Sarah, and the goofy old man went to “Beyond Van Gogh” late morning.

i remain somewhat stunned. To say i was moved is an understatement. This huge enclosed space was continually filled with brush strokes recreating Van Gogh’s works with accompanying and very appropriate music (there were even a few scores from Don McClean’s “American Pie” side “B” where McClean honors the artist with his songs, played beautifully by an orchestra at the exhibit). Technology gave us an essence of the artist without allowing the sophisticated electric magic to come to forefront.

It was truly magic. The photo shows at the entry into the exhibit. Van Gogh’s quote on the wall is  “I dream my painting and I paint my dreams.”

Truly. i found myself hoping that somehow, somehow, Van Gogh knows of the appreciation he earned and has now been so beautifully captured.

After that, Maureen and i went to The Fishery in Pacific Beach, a surfing part of town with the air of bohemia. The restaurant was true to its name in atmosphere.

The oysters were as fresh as they could be and as good as i have had anywhere.

Their clam chowder was right up there with the Black Pearl in Newport, Rhode Island, and Hudson Bay, a shack in the public sea fishing boats near Shelter Island.

The Black Pearl is where i sat next to Frank Sinatra who had sailed that day with the owner of the Black Pearl, both the restaurant on the pier and the two-masted schooner moored down the pier. The secret i was told by the waitress (Kathy McMahon was whom i dated while in Newport in those magical years and continues to be a close friend: she was attending Salve Regina and is now a retired doctor (as if she could actually really retire) in special education at the University of Miami, Ohio) was armagnac.

Hudson Bay closed several years ago. On its last day, Pete Toennies and i went there. The owner and holder of the magic recipe for the chowder saw us eating our chowder at the rail on the narrow porch looking out at the fishing boat crews cleaning up. The other customers had left. She brought out a bottle of the chardonnay we were drinking and we discussed clam chowder, Arizona where she was headed, the state of the world, and over that bottle and one more, the world seemed a little bit better. A beautiful afternoon with a good soul. She did not pass on her secret to chowder.

So The Fishery chowder is in high cotton.

The mussels and their broth and the bread served with it was beyond incredible.

It was so good, we ordered the Chef’s Catch to go and had it for dinner with Maureen’s salad. Yesterday’s catch was mahi mahi and cooked with butternut squash, sun dried tomato, cilantro lime crema, pine nuts, and cilantro.

We ate on dinner trays, watched an episode of “What’s My Line.”

i write after a long day and pretty long life, certainly a crazy life.

It was a fitting day.