The cover to our hymnals, the Cokesbury kind, were brown, not white. More majestic and fewer hymns were sung at the Sunday morning service, and i think we just called them hymns, maybe gospels some times, and i don’t remember singing “Leaning on Everlasting Arms,” but if you hummed a few notes, i’ll bet i would remember.

Sunday night at the First Methodist Church in Lebanon was when those gospels rang out, many and loud in that sanctuary with the balcony in the back. It remains one of my most joyful memories from my past. There was so much energy, so much peace, so much understanding, so much belief. It would be a wonderful thing to go back one more time and sing. “Rock of Ages,” “Amazing Grace,” “Old Rugged Cross,” “Blessed Assurance,” and “How Great Thou Art.” Those hymns were shared with the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and pretty much every church within an arm’s reach of Lebanon, Tennessee back then. And “In the Garden” has a special place and a special meaning for me. i wish i could do more than peck at the piano with my right hand and wish i had learned to play the left hand like my Granny and Aunt Gussie.

Sean brought those memories all out of me when i read his post this morning:

https://seandietrich.com/tried-and-true-hymns/

Thanks, Sean.

i could write a million posts about her. Have already put a crimp in that number.

i could retell legendary stories about how we met, what we have done, etc., etc. Pretty much covered that ground.

i could post about a gazillion photos of her, with or without me and with our daughters and grandson. Those photos too have had a chunk of ’em posted here.

Tomorrow is our three eight, anniversary that is. It remains remarkable to me how we met, how we kept together, how we became a husband and wife, and how, oh, lord, how we match up so well.

Tomorrow morning, we begin our celebration. Typical of Maureen, we will celebrate with our friends: the FMG, that’s Friday Morning Golf curmudgeons, all old male military guys at the Sea ‘n Air Golf Course. Amazingly, she will fit in. The finer, more intimate part of our acknowledgement of each other will be later for just the two of us. Special.

i am a lucky man.

The restructuring continues and memories abound as i sort through the stuff i’m putting back in different places and for once, i’m actually tossing a few things away.

Timely, you might say, was yesterday’s reconnect. Nancy Orr Winkler Schwarze turned 80 yesterday. She is more of another sister than a cousin. Florida. She moved there from Red Bank in Chattanooga in the late 50’s. She’s been there ever since. She is a marvel. She is also beautiful.  My birthday wishes for you yesterday were perfunctory but heartfelt. i wish we could have been together like we were around the mid-40’s. In a much earlier post, i mentioned i was the first to be a dinner guest at her home in Florida in 1960. Being her first dinner for a visitor, we had about six courses. There was the meat, then the peas, then the potatoes, etc. or something like that. As always we had a wonderful laugh about that, and it has become a part of our family lore.

Happy Birthday, sister Nancy.

As i recently noted, we continue to reel from our home improvements. About time, you say? Yeh. Thirty-one years this September. When we really, really, really chucked any ideas about relocating or buying down, we started this stuff. Copper re-piping, done. Dry wall repair, done. Paint, done. 13,000 square feet slope reinvented, done. Bath and half-bath re-do? It started with planning today.

And i’m still moving back in my office and cleaning up my garage. Yeh, it’s my garage…for her car and all the stuff of mine she doesn’t want in the house. Love it.

But you know what? Good things can come from upheaval. For example: after clearing out my treasured large bookcase and my office closet and taking everything off the walls, i had to put them back up. It is taking me a while. i keep running into things that demand some reflective dreaming. Like yesterday, i ran across a box originally for a dozen golf balls. Inside were treasures like:

On the left, my cousins, Myrtle and Joann Jewell, c. 1932. Two beautiful women who also happened to be some of the nicest folks around. They and their younger sister Shirley made their parents, Aunt Alice and Uncle Jesse proud.

On the right, their and my uncle George Martin doing what made him happy. He was not only my father’s brother-in-law, they were cronies in everything, and his son Maxwell followed in his footsteps.

For now, i’ll end with this other treasure:

Maureen’s office, Parron-Hall Office Interiors had a party on a ship in the bay, San Diego Bay. It was a great time. i remember how we wowed them with our dancing to old time rock and roll. i moved pretty well back then, but she was marvelous.

And i’m still going through this stuff.

What’s next?

One hundred and four years ago, my mother was born as World War I was entering its final stages. She was born in Lebanon, a small county seat smack dab in the middle of Tennessee, far removed from the war in Europe.

She lived in that little town for just shy of 97 years. She pointed out her eventual husband to her mother from a house porch on North Cumberland Street when he was walking down the street from an afternoon job working with his father. He was eighteen, having lost three years of school because he contracted yellow fever when he was seven. They were in the same sophomore class, 1932-33, at Lebanon High School. In 1938, they were married by her grandfather, Bishop Joseph Webster at the First Methodist Church, inside because the plan for an outdoor wedding was abandoned due to the day long rain deluge. It was her father-in-law’s last public appearance. Hiram Culley Jewell died months later of tuberculosis.

The marriage lasted for just over seventy-five years. He died in August 2013, just forty days or so shy of 99. She followed him nine months later about a month shy of 97. They are gone but i think of them every day and both of them continue to teach me how to behave as i reach that part of the path they have already walked.

i have written volumes about her. Today, i walked up my hill to change the hooks on my flagpole, which had deteriorated over the years.  i accomplished my tasks. As usual, i scanned the view to the west. Navy ships moored at rest in the Naval Station, the Coronado Bridge, Point Loma, and the skyline of San Diego. Then i turned eastward and checked out Mount Miguel. Finally, i looked down on our backyard and noticed the empty chair outside our kitchen door. i often pull it from the patio set to tend to my grill when i have cooking duties.

It dawned on me that was one of the places she loved to sit. When they would come out for their winter sojourn, they stayed in their fifth wheel in an over-50 RV park at the southern end of the Silver Strand but spent the entire day and evening at our home, doing miraculous projects to make the home better.

When the Southwest corner sun would complete its swing across the southern hills and mesas of Mexico, it beamed its warm rays onto our backyard. Often Mother would stop whatever task she had taken on for the day and walk out to that patio and sit in the chair i had placed there. Unaware anyone was watching, she would sit down with the chair facing the sun, 70 degrees, no clouds. She would lean back, raise her head to the sun, close her eyes. And rest.

She was the picture of some one at peace.

i remembered, standing on that hill looking down this morning. Her smile with her eyes closed spoke volumes about contentment.

i think of her love for her husband, children, grandchildren, relatives, and countless number of friends. i’m sure sitting in that sun on what is now an empty chair, she was contemplating her love for them..

i suspect she is enjoying that sun now, loving the warmth, loving all of us.

Happy Birthday, Mother.