Today, just after midday, Morice O. Mumby, Commander, USNR, retired, was interred in the Miramar National Cemetery. It was a military service, impressing those who are not used to our way of doing things. Vanda, his wife, asked me to speak. i was pleased to be so honored and the speech was easy until i gave it. Right now, there are about a gazillion things i would like to say about Spud and about helping Vanda navigate the maze of the Veteran’s Administration requirements of the next of kin while they are bereaving their loss of a loved one. But that can wait.  This is what i said at Spud’s service today:

When my father passed away, the men of his generation unanimously told me he was a “good man.”

This is about the highest compliment a man could give another.

Spud was a good man.

We were neighbors. We lived across the street from each other for thirty years. We, our spouses, and other neighbors, shared our homes for cocktail hours and supper and celebrated major events together. Spud frequently gave me a bottle of his homemade port, which was as good as any port i ever tasted.

Spud and I were both Navy commanders. He was proud of his service. He should have been. He flew helicopters in Vietnam, the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Mediterranean. Other than telling sea stories about others, Spud never bragged about his own achievements. It is fitting he will be interred today right after Independence Day. He helped us keep that independence.

Spud and Vanda were together. He told me she was his “little spitfire.” They hunted together. They worked their garden together. They watched the grunions run together. They dug clams together. They raised quail together. They were beautiful together, a perfect match.

Spud played golf with me until injuries and ailments kept him from playing. He became a part of our Friday Morning Golf legends.

But for me, most of all, i will remember our waving at each other when we retrieved our newspapers, met at the mailbox, or caught each other at chores in our front yards. We would meet each other in the middle of the street. We critiqued all of the world, including our homes and our yards. We would tell tales, sea stories, jokes: all of the things men share with each other.

And it was enough to let me know Spud really was a good man.

When i feel sadness coming on because Spud has left us, i will remember how Spud would want me to react…and i will smile for knowing him.

Rest In Peace, Buddy.

This one moved me. Great story and one i had not read or heard anywhere. Thanks, Sean.

https://seandietrich.com/the-ballad-of-bubs-mcfee/

I have written numerous times celebrating Independence Day, the Fourth of July, today.

I will celebrate in my own way today. However, this year, my celebration will be mixed with sadness and concern.

I will honor the 245th anniversary of declaring this country’s independence with a rather remarkable document created and signed by 156 men. Those signers had flaws just like everybody i know of today. I will not judge them by today’s standards as we seem so eager to do. Yet flaws and all, they created this testament of freedom, regardless of their operational definitions produced by their culture in 1776.

I will go up to my flag at the top of our hill, look down on a city that, like so many others, would not exist, certainly not in the same way, if those men had not created and signed the Declaration of Independence. That flag, our flag, is the symbol for the freedom of us. All of us.

I will be sad. 

There will be those who wish our symbol to be only theirs, not everyone’s in this country. There will be those who believe they have been disenfranchised and had their freedoms curtailed leading to some rather illogical thinking that we should get rid of the system created by that Declaration and the Constitution of the United States.

There will be those who are trying or will try to subvert the beautiful, powerful words of: 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

There will be many on just about every side of political stances who will desecrate Our Flag by disfiguring it to make statements to support their position. The flag, Our Flag is unique. There are seven red stripes alternating with six white stripes for the thirteen original states. There are 50 white stars on a field of blue in the upper corner. representing our current states. The Red symbolizes hardiness and valor. The White symbolizes purity and innocence. The Blue represents vigilance, perseverance and justice. That’s it.

There are others who will not honor the flag and the equality and freedom we continue to try to attain for everyone. There will be numerous of us who will actually demonstrate disrespect for the flag by turning away, kneeling, not take off hats, not standing silently, not putting their right hands on their hearts, some even burning it. People corrupted the way we do business, not our Flag. Ironically, our Flag represents the freedom and equality we all should be seeking for ourselves and others.

It is against the flag code to show disrespect of the flag and the country by changing its colors or adding words or symbols. 

Our Flag represents the freedom and equality we all should be seeking for ourselves and others. It is our right to protest peacefully. i spent a goodly portion of my life protecting our right to protest peacefully among other rights. Even if one chooses to show disrespect for the Flag and what it symbolizes, i shall not object. But i will be sad you have exercised your right by also disrespecting Our Flag.

The Declaration of Independence declared our rights to equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution established how our country would go about ensuring those rights. This is not perfect, but it is as close as any government has established to ensure those rights.

The U.S. of America was created by men who were from different sides of the political spectrum. Yet they forged ahead with negotiation and compromise to create the best way to run a country in the history of the world. As Aristotle said, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Yet today, it seems everybody believes they have the only right answer, are unwilling to compromise, and more concerned about getting their leaders elected than trying to make all of this work with the intent of the Declaration and the Constitution.

So when i’m at the top of that hill underneath our Flag, i will quietly give thanks that we are in this country with its two defining documents. I will also be sad that we keep messing with the whole trying to make it one part, not the sum. And i also will be a bit fearful one side or the other might take total power, making the part something those men who signed the Declaration of Independence never intended. It is the words of the two documents, not limited by what it meant in 1776. And those men worked it out to have the sum be greater than the parts. Now, folks want it to be one part, their part. Therefore, i am sad.

i won’t say “Happy Fourth of July.” i will say: May God bless our independence and grant us the ability to keep it that way. 

God Bless America.

Piddlin’ round of golf on a grey day. My Vandy Boys are taking it on the chin, and without another miracle, will be second, i.e. loser in the College World series to a good Mississippi State team i would root for had not one of them, or maybe more decided to demonstrate the things i don’t like about Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and yes, even Tennessee. This supposedly Bulldog fan hurled racial slurs to the parents of Vandy’s black athletes. i think the idiot must believe the South won that damn war.

The Padres are making a comeback in Cincinnati, but i am tired. Tired of darkness, tired of things not going my way.

So i am going to tell a story that pleases me because it is laughable, unless you are somewhat of a deranged animal lover.

You see, once upon a time, there was  this military guy, who shall remain anonymous here, who had a pet monkey. He loved the monkey.

His work included a lot of parachute jumps, which he also loved. It was a great thrill for him. He wanted to share this thrill with his pet monkey. So he rigged a tiny parachute for his pet monkey in order for the monkey to share the thrill of parachuting with him.

He took his pet monkey on the next parachute jump. When it was his time to jump, he leaped out of the plane holding the monkey, rigged with the tiny parachute, close to his chest. As he pulled his rip chord and his parachute deployed, he pulled the tiny rip cord on the monkey’s parachute and gently let him go, thrilled that he was sharing a parachute jump with his beloved monkey.

Now if you haven’t figured this out yet, our young parachutist had not done a great deal of critical thinking about his project.

If you drop a monkey out of a plane and then let go of him several thousand feet above the earth, the monkey is not likely to be thrilled. He’s more likely to be scared shitless. When a monkey is scared, he does what scared monkeys do, he climbs higher.

Well, the pet monkey did exactly that. He climbed up the parachute rigging to the top of the parachute. This, of course, collapsed the parachute, and the pet monkey began an accelerated fall to earth sans an effective parachute.

The parachutist watched in horror and yelled to the heavens, “OH NOOOO….

i shall not tell the end of this story.

i stole this story from a friend.

i have been having thoughts similar to what Sean expressed in this article:

https://seandietrich.com/candy-coating-things/

This is true for all my friends who spit venom at the other side of the argument without pause. Old folks, who will do nothing about it but rage are worse than the others because they aren’t going to change it.

So why not appreciate what we have?

Thanks, Sean.