i have a Christmas present.

This is pretty much a photo essay. It is the follow-on to a post a week or so ago when i reinvented a walk in the woods…okay, okay, they ain’t woods in the sense of Tennessee or Vermont woods, but it’s open space, which once was open space…

Oh, this could go on and on (and probably will), but i just found a route from the top of my hill that allows me to take a hike (and many, many people have told me to take a hike). My access to the hiking-riding trail was closed for a while,  a good while, so i can do a real, no-kidding (and i cleaned that up) hike for almost as long as i choose.

Today’s was an hour’s two-plus miles up and down. It was glorious to me. It can replace the running, my doc told me to stop (and i might now). So Merry Christmas to me; Merry Christmas to me:

i found a new path from our house. The old one had grown over and not been maintained. Two days ago, some off road bikers came up to the top of our hill so i knew there had to be a way down. i found it.

This is down into a ravine and back up. The ridge is the trail that i posted in a photo last week.

Down that hill is community training corral (i think that’s what it’s called). It’s not very seldom used, but i saw these horses and had to visit.

It had been a while, so i forgot to look out for the nasty cholla cacti, their splines break from the main cacti and stick to the enemy, aka moi. They sting and getting them out is tricky. i have taken them off of our cats and dogs and can tell you this is one of the most un-fun things you can do. Fortunately, only three splines stuck me and only one stayed in my leg. i removed it and am fine and will be a bit more cautious on my next hike.

These things can grow in bunches, so if you see some on your sidewalk, walk around.

This is my new friend. i think i might have made friends with the white one, but she/he wasn’t interested. Besides this old guy and i had a great conversation. He’s getting a little white around the edges like me, so he’s a bit older, but from our conversation, he is very wise and very gentle. We promised to meet again. They reminded me of two horses in a pasture between my small home in College Station and Judy McConnell’s parent’s home there. i took Blythe for a walk one day and had an apple. One of the horses (i think his name was Lightning) came to the fence while i held Blythe with one arm. We petted him and i offered him the apple. He took it along with my entire hand. i stood there with my hand around the apple trapped by his teeth; i was afraid to be aggressive for fear of scaring or even hurting Blythe. i kept talking quietly to Lightning and pulling gently away from his mouth. Finally, he let go. Of course, he kept the apple. But this ole boy, seemed to gentle, too wise.

This is one of the better views of Mount Miguel. Without fog, it is one of the first things i see almost every morning, and it always connects me to our original settlers in this country and this region, the Kumeyaay and to the east, the Navajo. i continually try to envision this land when others came, before this rather incredible chunk of the Southeast corner, probably habitable for about five or six hundred people due to it being a high desert, began to add folks and houses and businesses and the money men who did not care for preservation or even quality of life but just making money and wishing i could walk across it in its and my innocence.

Coming back around before my climb back up to my hill, there is a glen. i always think of what a nice place it would be to lay out a blanket and have a picnic there. Peace.

And i made it up the hill, no mean feat for an old man, surveyed my view of the San Diego, Point Loma, the Coronado Bridge, ships of the fleet, and the Pacific horizon. i gingerly walked down our slope, and retreated to my lair with an appropriate energizer. i am a long, long way from home, many years have passed. Tomorrow is a different Christmas Eve, but all is well.

Peace on Earth. Good Will to Men.

This is not a Christmas post. But both incidents, 42 years apart, occurred as Christmas approached. i should have learned 42 years ago:

1978, Bryan, Texas, the sister city of College Station, Texas, home of TAMU and entwined much like Chula Vista and Bonita are entwined in the Southwest corner today. Christmas break at Texas A&M. December 22 with Bill McFall, the executive officer of the NROTC Unit at Texas A&M suggested (or perhaps it was me) that the two of us play golf at the Bryan city course.

It was cold.

We dressed warm. Surprisingly when we got to the clubhouse, the parking lot was empty. The starter was the only one in the clubhouse. Perhaps, because it was several degrees below freezing, the only  person besides Bill and me was the starter. We had no problem teeing off on time.

It was about 7:30 when we teed off.  My drive was okay but to the left, unusual for those days — i was a major slicer then and for most of my golfing exploits. Bill hit a nice drive down the middle. Figures. Aviators are always good golfers. i  took out a six iron. The shot went significantly right and landed on the water hazard next to the green. Except the water hazard was not water. It was iced over. My ball hit the ice and rolled to the middle of the hazard,.

Since there were not a lot of golfers before or after us, like none, we approached the green and decided to retrieve my ball. We found stray limbs around the hazard and  slid them across the frozen pond attempting to hit the ball and impel it to the other edge. It took a while, but we did get the ball back. We laughed. We were dressed warmly and the layers made throwing accuracy not, sort of like our golf shots.

It was cold.

It was the coldest round of golf i’ve ever played. i vowed to not to play in really cold weather again. Of course, i have violated that vow many times but it was a relative thing.

This past Wednesday, i remembered my vow. Unfortunately, i remembered on the second tee. There were few tee times available, but i managed a 6:38 for two at Bonita Golf Club, one of my favorite of comfortable places to play in the world.

(Dealing with the pestilence upon us in the Southwest corner is a curious thing. The restrictions keep changing based on reaction, not proaction. This has led to some very strange curiosities. For example, restaurants were shut down, then opened to take out, then open to outdoor dining, then open to social distancing  — damn, i still dislike that rather oxymoronic phrase — then restricted to outdoor dining, then takeout only, and the bounce from the last two phases has occurred three times in the last five days. Parks and play areas for children have been closed along with the restaurants,  but, get this, strip bars were allowed to operate until last week and then won a lawsuit to remain open, in which the judge included restaurants and that, my friends, lasted one day, Now there is an injunction putting the re-openings on hold.)

Golf courses have remained open since the first two months of the entire Southwest corner going homebound (March and April). Then, somebody figured out, golf was pretty safe with some precautions, which every course deciding what was “pretty safe” without any consistency whatsoever. Long live 2020, not only in crazy, but kicking it up a notch pretty damn close to idiocy.

Yet that has allowed us to have some relief. It just turned out last Tuesday was one of the coldest days in Bonita for quite a while. Somewhere around 5:50 when i left our house on the hill above the valley where the golf course abides, the thermometers read 42. i’m thinking “this is okay, it will warm up quickly. Wrong. As i drove through the entrance to the course, the outdoor temperature reading on my gauge read 38.

It didn’t feel like 38. It felt like it was Antartica. Before my second shot on the first hole, my hands like they were hanging in a meat freezer. For about five holes when i hit my shot, it felt like i was hitting a five-pound rock. It was not pretty. i was cursing myself for not buying some hand warmers or golf gloves. By the sixth hole, i began to feel like my hands were actually attached to my wrists. Before we finished the first nine, i was out of three layers of clothing and playing in my short sleeve shirt and trousers (i mean you folks have to live in the Southwest corner for a while to understand this weather). i think i got up a bit of a sweat by 13. But when i finished, there remained a tingling in my fingers.

Pete and i made an oath to not play before 8:00 a.m. between November and March. i’m guessing this vow may last a couple of weeks. But a couple of weeks is a chunk shorter than 42 years between my round with Bill McFall and this one.

But i’m old and now bragging is sometimes more important than my golf score or frozen slabs for hands.

Merry Christmas…and in memory of Jeff Caplenor, if you have a chance, play a round of golf.

Cold is relative.

Well, it ain’t as good as i would like it to be, and it took about two weeks longer than i planned. When i hung it up this afternoon, i’m a’ thinkin’ folks passing by would laugh at the amateurish attempt.

In spite of my great adventure of the Christmas event i wrote about earlier, NOEL has deep roots for me. Colonel James “Jimmy” “Alligator” Lynch and i put his up on his front porch roof in the mid-70’s. i almost got electrocuted and almost slid off the roof of 911 South Main in Paris, Texas. But the idea stuck.

i like the simple message. This year, i went with a lighter model and green lettering rather than white. i will continue to tinker. Fooling with Christmas tree lights is a lot more complicated than it should be.

Still, it’s mine and says what i want to say about this Christmas season:

Merry Christmas and NOEL!

This year, Christmas seems excessively not so merry. If you have been reading any posts here, you will understand, i’m not particularly happy with this pandemic thing halting my travels. We cancelled our October trip to Austin to see daughter Blythe, grandson Sam, and son-in-law Jason in Austin. We won’t see them at Christmas. Nor will we get to go back to my hometown or Nashville. And the tradition of Christmas on top of Signal Mountain is down the tubes. Even worse, there is a slight possibility of a white Christmas up that mountain outside of Chattanooga, making the non-travel even worse.

Then, my iPhone started dying. Obsolescence is built into these products so obsolescent folks can curse and wish for the good ole days when the phones were on the wall with a live operator and a party line.

My supposedly wonderful brand new, gadget rigged for Star Wars Mac Air laptop does not like me, and apparently doesn’t care for “Apple Care” reps or the folks at their stores. It refuses to do what they keep trying to fix and is annoying as hell. Not to mention, the fixes those folks have induced, has wiped out my system and passwords  and re-implementing programs has been one giant continuing headache. Worse, i can’t get to the next level and have to go through the same routine with no solution each time i contact those Apple folks.

My “NOEL” sign had some problems and i have tried to improve with a new sign. It sucks, in my opinion, and i will explain that in a later post.

Now, there is thing about presents. i’m never very good at it. Seems like everyone else is generous, inventive, and giving me things i really appreciate. i just don’t seem to have that knack, so even if i am going overboard in some respects, i just don’t seem to measure up to people i care about and their gifts.

And my golf game suggests i should just give it up. It’s that bad.

So this afternoon, i said screw it (after hanging and looking at the disastrous “NOEL” sign), sat down to this infernal machine, and put on some music while trying to get some other million things intended done. i put on some music.

Thank you, Ike. And thank you, Blythe. You see, more years than i can count ago, Blythe sent me this CD as a gift. It was a studio album, “Here and Now” created by Ike Turner (no, not Eisenhower, but i still like Ike). If you like Blues or old style Rhythm and Blues (and i’m sure there are other genres associated, which are beyond my ken), this is an incredible album. It is the blues, Ike Turner style. And it’s real.

i started listening as i began to fool with this machine. Then, the third cut, “You Can’t Winnum All” came on. i stopped and just listened. In all of his and our dark times, we just get caught up in the negative. Bad happens. It’s life. We need to accept that and move on.

i feel much better now. My feet have been tapping. i have a smile. Perhaps if you listen, you will feel better also.

Thank you, Ike, and thank you, Blythe.

And to all, a Merry Christmas:

i’m on a roll. i keep finding posts about Christmas to repost. i need levity, i need thoughts of good things. And one good thing, for me, is Maureen. Through so many Christmases, which could have been dark times for me, she has been steadfast. Our first one together proved i had a wonderful woman and proved i had found someone who could put up with my goofiness and still love me. Folks, it just doesn’t get better than that. Here is a repeat of that Christmas in 1984.

A Christmas Keeper

i may have written about this before, but i don’t remember if i actually did post it here, or if it was such a seminal moment in my life, it just seems i have written about it a thousand times.

It happened in 1984. Christmas Eve actually. In Mayport, Jacksonville, and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

The USS Yosemite (AD 19) had returned from its historic deployment to the Indian Ocean eight months earlier. If anything, the executive officer’s, a.k.a. moi, workload had increased. But down time was a lot more fun.

After Maureen had given up on her weekly commute between Jacksonville and San Diego  in early June, she and i had become a permanent couple in the same place. We had been married July 30, 1983 in her father’s home in Lemon Grove, a suburb of San Diego. Yup, the Southwest corner. Ten days later, i had flown home to Lebanon, Tennessee to pick up my Mazda Rx7 and drive to Yosemite’s home port of Mayport, northeast of Jacksonville proper. Other than a romantic Labor Day weekend with Maureen, i would not see her for another eight, almost nine months.

i was elated to see Maureen on the pier when Yosemite moored on her return and even more excited when she gave up the commute. It was not quite two months before our first anniversary and we had been together only two months of our marriage.

About eight months later, Christmas was going to be special, extra special, our first together. Our first married Christmas, Maureen was with her family in the Southwest corner; i was in Diego Garcia.

The Yosemite cooks and mess specialists (MS), nee “stewards” had done an incredible job for a Christmas away from home, but it wasn’t’ home, and the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet — some bozo later decided to change the name because they wanted only the president to be the “Chief” commander – wanted to raise the esprit de corps of the tender’s crew and wardroom, which meant Yosemite had a personnel inspection on Christmas Eve and this XO joined Captain Boyle, Admiral Crowe, and his aide for a Christmas Eve lunch. The admiral was a great guy and later became the CNO and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But it really wasn’t the kind of Christmas Eve i would have preferred.

So the Christmas in Mayport was going to be special. But not in the manner i anticipated.

The ship’s doctor, Lieutenant Frank Kerrigan, and i had become good friends on the deployment and had a common interest in playing golf and racquetball, as well as being ardent sports fans. Frank was my escape from XO in many ways. Fresh out of medical school at the University of Chicago, Frank came to the ship with no Navy experience. i taught him many of the ropes, and he allowed me to talk and act like a human, not a Navy commander, number two in charge of a ship’s crew of 900. Janet, his wife, also had earned her medical degree with Frank in the Windy City, and was the resident doctor at the Mayport naval base clinic. Maureen became her patient, which evolved into them becoming close friends, like Frank and i, until this day. The two are the godparents of our second daughter, Sarah.

We were all away from our other families. So we decided to celebrate Christmas Day together at our home in Ponte Vedra Beach. It sounded like an excellent idea and eventually, it was.

But Christmas does not reduce a ship’s exec duties. The holidays actually increase the things an XO must do. So i kept putting off Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve. Frank (a ship’s medical officer is also busy), came up with a plan. To this day, i claim it was Frank’s idea, and he claims it was my idea. We agreed to that strategy.

Regardless, we had it all worked out when we added something we both loved as a Christmas present to ourselves. We got a tee time with a couple of Frank’s friends. The course was a new championship course with the holes entwined with a river on the west outskirts of Jacksonville, about an hour drive from the base.

The plan was to leave the ship around 0930/1000, drive out to the course, play 18, and finish up our shopping for our wives before returning to our homes around 1700. Our wives, aware of the stress and workload we both were under, agreed to our plan.

Great idea.

But then there were some complications.

Just after morning Officer’s Call and Quarters, Frank came to my office.

“XO, we have a slight problem,” Frank said, “One of our enlisted women overdosed on some prescription drugs. We have to get her to the Navy hospital. We’ve called the EMT vehicle.”

“Man, that’s terrible,” i reacted, “Is she going to be all right?” Being the good XO, i added, “Have you told the Captain? If not, i better let him know.”

“I think she’s going to be fine,” Frank answered, “I would appreciate you notifying the CO, adding, “but there is another problem.”

“What’s that?”

Frank responded, “I left my clubs at home in Atlantic Beach, thinking we could pick them up on our way to the course.”

“So?” i asked.

“XO, I have to go in the ambulance to the Navy Hospital,” he explained. The Navy hospital was about a half-hour away on the other side of Jacksonville.

“i guess that means our golf present to ourselves is cancelled,” i said resignedly.

“No,” Frank replied, “If you don’t mind, you can go by my house. I’ll give you the garage opener. You can get my clubs and shoes and pick me up at the hospital around ten.”

Then he explained, “I don’t think it would look very good for the ambulance to stop at my house and put the clubs in the back with the patient.”

i agreed with his explanation, also agreeing to his plan. He gave me his garage opener.

Well, being an XO on Christmas Eve, complications on the ship can arise. They did. My planned departure of 0930 was pushed back to past 1030. i called Frank and told him i was on my way. i picked up his clubs and headed west through the maze of interstates, bypasses, and confusing surface streets. This was long before mobile phones of any kind or GPS navigation. Being me, i got lost.

i finally made it to the hospital about 1230. Frank got in my RX7, and we sped to the course. We were about twenty minutes late. Frank’s friends had already teed off. We guessed they would be on the third or fourth hole. Now, i don’t know if you have noticed or not, but not a lot of golfers play on Christmas Eve in the afternoon, especially on the East Coast where it gets dark, real dark early in December. Frank and i decided we could play really fast and catch up to his friends.

We didn’t catch up. Tough course. As we got to the fifteenth tee, the sun was setting. We discussed our options. Being golfers, whether decent or bad, logic was not included in our decision. We decided to complete the round. After all, it would be a shame to not “see” the last three holes.

By the time we reached the seventeenth tee, the sun had not only set, the stars were out. The course, surprise, surprise, was dark. We played in the dark, guessing the direction where our shots were headed. If the balls weren’t where we guessed, which was nearly all of the time except on the green, we would drop another ball and continue playing. When we finished, Frank’s friends were long gone. There was no one in the clubhouse except the rather anxious pro. He had to finish his shopping as well.

i began driving toward the big shopping center on the coast near both of our homes when Frank told me we had to make a detour and a stop.

He explained, “Well, Janet wanted a kitten for Christmas, and I made a reservation to pick one up from this lady.”

Thinking this exchange would be a slam dunk, i agreed and took Frank’s direction to the lady’s house.

The house was a trailer home in the middle of a swamp of some sort, or perhaps a jungle. i drove the RX7 down the unpaved, one-lane road to the clearing where the trailer home stood. Frank knocked on the door.  The old lady came to the door.

He told her he had come to pick up the kitten and asked how much he owed her. She responded the kitten was free. i thought the deal is done; we’re out of here. But there was another twist.

The old lady muttered, “You’ll have to catch one.” She closed the door and returned to watching the television.

Frank and i spent about twenty minutes chasing all kinds and all ages of cats through the brush and the trees before catching one. We found an empty orange crate, opened the hatchback of the RX7, and i started to place the kitten in the crate.,

The kitten was not pleased with the idea. (Now here, you need to see the video of “Pinky the Cat” if you haven’t already, https://www.google.com/search?q=pinky+the+cat&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS912US912&oq=pinky&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i67i457j46i67j0i67l3j0i433j46i67i433.4949j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. This cat in question, not Pinky, but a lot like Pinky, attacked me like the cat from hell, puncturing my hands multiple times before climbing up my left arm at full speed, leaving claw marks for my entire arm’s length, and departing with a shriek.

We returned to the hunt for about ten minutes before giving up. It was too dark.

Frank was disappointed with this turn of events but okay. He said he could get a kitten later and he had already bought Janet another nice gift.

i had not planned ahead that well. i needed to get to the shopping center. i wanted to get Maureen a nice piece of clothing and nice piece of jewelry. i sped there. The shopping center closed at nine. Except on Christmas Eve, the mall closed at six.

The parking lot was empty.

i was frantic. Frank rode with me looking for something open. The only place we found open was…a Pick ‘n Save.

They had absolutely nothing Maureen would want for a Christmas present, especially for our first Christmas together as husband and wife. Frantic, i ran down the aisles looking for something, anything.

Then this yahoo spotted something that would be awful but might somewhat make amends if i told my story, apologized, and promised great gifts beyond her wildness imagination in the future.

This would have probably been a good plan. But the gift i chose was a set of four whiskey sour glasses for $6.99.

I got home at 2100 (9:00 p.m.). i explained most of the misadventure, blaming Frank. She already knew me well enough to believe a little less than half of my tale. We dressed and went to wonderful midnight Christmas Eve service, sitting in the small balcony of an Episcopal Church close to our home. The service was almost completely carols with the sanctuary lit by candles and filled with the aroma of the pine bough decorations. It was romantic. It was so Christmasy.

But it did not assuage my fear of our gift opening the next morning.

The next morning, we had a wonderful Maureen breakfast. Before Frank and Jan came over for the Christmas turkey feast, we opened our presents. There were many wonderful gifts from our families in San Diego, Tennessee, and other places. Maureen’s present to me was wonderful, a sweater, i think. i waited as she took the rather shabby wrapping off of my gift as i once again expressed its inadequacy with my weak explanation, blaming Frank and the failed kitten hunt again. Dread is probably the best way to describe my feelings as my “gift” was revealed.

When she saw the box of whiskey sour glasses with the price tag i had forgotten to remove in my haste…she laughed her crazy, legendary laugh. At first, i thought she was crying, fearing our love affair and marriage might be falling apart before my eyes. Then i realized she really was laughing. She came over and gave me a wonderful hug and kissed me. My relief cannot be overstated.

The story has become legend among our families and our friends.

The whiskey sour glasses made it back to the Southwest corner when i was relieved as XO and headed back to San Diego for my twilight tour (the last tour before retirement). Shortly afterward, the four glasses strangely disappeared.

But that Christmas morning was when i realized i had a keeper and would be married for a long, long time.

That realization came thirty-four years ago.

And she still laughs about it.

And i’m still paying for it.

Merry Christmas, Maureen, dear wife of mine