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

Ode to the Sea

i have been to the top of the highest mountain;
i have been to the hot dry desert;
i have been to ecstasy;
i have been to hell;
i have been to joy with no restraints;
i have been to the depths of sadness;
i have been in the belly of Rube Goldberg’s mechanics;
i have traveled with the Greek’s Homer;
i have been to the heavens;
i have ridden Aladdin’s magic carpet;
i have talked to nature;
i have been captured by a siren.

it was on the sea:

the mountain was my ship on the crest of a wave higher than the sky;
the driest and hottest desert was in the South China Sea in the doldrums;
ecstasy was the sea walking the path of light from the moon, taking my heart;
unrestrained joy was the sea beneath me carrying me to the islands of dreams;
depths of sadness was the sea taking me away from loved ones: “mid-cruise blues;”
Rube had to be involved with creating the steam system of a destroyer;
i traveled the Mediterranean to most of Odysseus points in his voyage home;
hell was storms with green water over the bridge,
spume obliterating the deep green of the ocean,
rolls to the point of no return;
fire in main control;
Aladdin’s carpet could not compare with riding waves at 35 knots on rolling waves;
“Gertrude,” the underwater telephone, let me talk to the whales who talked back;
and
my siren was the sea
calling me,
calling me,
still calling me.

There is no photo this year. Maybe later. The “NOEL” sign is undergoing major revision in my garage workshop. But my tradition of repeating columns around holidays, especially this one, continues, a blessing revealed to me by my mentor and friend, “Coach” JB Leftwich. Here’s my column from The Lebanon Democrat from long ago:

Notes from the Southwest Corner: An Embarrassing Christmas Moment

As I have noted previously, I am (will be) in Tennessee for Christmas, not in the Southwest corner. The below events, however, did occur near San Diego.

Have you ever had one of those days when everything turned into an embarrassment? I had a champion day like that several years ago.

It started innocently while I hung our outdoor decoration, a home-made “NOEL” sign from the eave of our garage, hoping to get it up before my wife’s friends arrived for their Christmas dinner.

Maureen and her six friends have been meeting monthly for dinners for 15-plus years. They had this December dinner catered, did it up right. It was Maureen’s turn to be hostess.

It was dark when I began. I was at the top of my step ladder attaching the second of two wires from the sign to a hook secured to the eave when the ladder lurched and toppled. I grabbed a metal ornamental grating above the garage door.

There I hung, my arm intertwined with the “O” of the sign. If I tried to drop, the sign could catch my arm and do some pretty bad stuff.

I yelled, but Maureen had Christmas carols at top volume and didn’t hear. I tried to think of what to do while simultaneously wondering how long I could hold on. The dog wandered underneath, occasionally looking up as if I was a very strange person hanging there.

After several minutes, a neighbor’s son and friend pulled into the driveway several houses away. As they emerged, I swallowed my pride and yelled “Help.”

At first, they could not discern who was calling. Then they spotted me and came to help. The dog decided to protect me and began barking threateningly. The boys hesitated. I assured them the only danger was being licked to death. They finally righted the ladder and helped me down.

I thanked them profusely and then studied whether I should tell Maureen or not. Now that I was back on solid ground, I decided it was too funny not to tell her. She was incredulous and not particularly amused.

I did not realize my embarrassment for the night was just beginning.

While Maureen made final arrangements for her dinner, our daughter, Sarah, and I went to a local spot for supper. The little place was an oasis of sorts in Bonita, where there were only Mexican, Italian, and fast food restaurants. The attraction was being different and having a wide-range of ales and beers for golfers finishing a round across the street.

When we arrived, two couples were at tables and three guys sat at the bar. As we neared the end of our meal, the largest of the guys at the bar walked to the door and then turned back. I noticed his eyes seemed glazed. Then he walked back to the bar.

Suddenly, this guy and the one on the other side grabbed the guy in the middle off his stool, slammed him into the wall and started pummeling him with their fists. The three male diners, me (instinctively) included, approached from one side and two cooks approached from the back. Sarah had retreated to the door with the two lady diners. I grabbed the big guy. He spun and fell backward, slamming us into our table, knocking it over with shattering glass. It gave me some leverage, and we spun to the floor with me on top and knocking the wind out of the big guy. The other two diners helped me hold him until he calmed down. The cooks had quelled the other assailant. The two left quietly.

Even though the waitress wanted us to not pay our bill, we paid and left for home. On the way, I talked to my daughter about what I should have done (directed her outside before joining the fray) and what she should do the next time if she were ever in a place where a fight broke out (get out and away and not come back until she was sure it was over).

I was feeling pretty good as we arrived home. Then Sarah dashed out of the car, ran into the house and yelled to her mother in front of the caterer and her six friends dressed to the nines amidst fine china, Christmas decorations, and haut cuisine, “Mom, Dad got in a fight in a bar.”

Some days, I just can’t get a break.

May your holiday season be embarrassment free.

“As i have done in the past several years, i send you my Christmas greetings. May all of you have a most wonderful and amazing Christmas Season, and please, please, please (as James Brown would implore) remember the reason this all occurs every year.

NOEL.

Tomorrow morning, i will be sending a letter of complaint to KitchenAid. That letter is below. i wrote it several days ago to let off steam but a continuing conflict with just about any business entity i’ve run across in the last several weeks has led me to seek…er, justice, rightness, service…er, no, it won’t happen, but i have decided it is time for this curmudgeon to take a shot at the well-insulated, uncaring, except for caring about selling as much of their product as possible with no concern for quality or customer service: See, i told you i was a bona fide, pissed off, curmudgeon. i feel a bit like Peter Finch in the 1976 film “Network” because “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” i thought you might get a kick out of my letter:

KitchenAid
ATTN: Correspondence Team
553 Benson Road
Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Re: KitchenAid French Door Bottom Mount Refrigerator, 27CF FRDR KRFF707ESS

Dear KitchenAid Mis-managers;

I am writing this letter because your email communication does not exist, your phone contact puts one into an interminable automated voice tree, which eventually cuts off, and your “live” chat is not live and requires me to input my name, number, last four of my social security number, date of birth, next of kin, genealogy, address, email address, phone number, birth certificate, blood type, insurance, weight, height, criminal record if any (none, unless your continuing lack of service drives me to do something illegal), political and religious affiliation, and then all of the information in every document involved in the inadequacy of your product and repair service before the chat cuts be off because of the time limit on making an entry (okay, a bit of exaggeration, but it was enough for the chat to time out).

Yesterday afternoon, we had a contractor come to attempt repairs on your product (all of the correspondence and data can be provided upon request, and in view of your operation with this product) will be required to be submitted in triplicate at least a dozen times). The contractor repair man consulted with your “master technician” to determine how to correct a problem with frosting in the back of the slide-out bins, which was supposedly corrected about a month ago, not to mention to replace an LED light which had gone out, making it the third such light, advertised in your product info as lasting for the life of the refrigerator – This, by the way, this light problem has required us to pay $300 for the repairs/replacement because our purchase warranty had conveniently run out several months before the problems emerged (imagine that. And to my consternation, one cannot just replace a light bulb in one’s refrigerator.

We are waiting, with bated  breath, so to speak, for the maintenance contractor to provide a date of return to see if the latest icing fix worked and correct (ha, ha) the latest LED light problem. However, with the frequency of the problems now established, I believe we will continue to have contractors out so frequently, we will become so familiar we might invite him or her to dinner.

I am not writing you about my refrigerator or your dismal record of customer service. We bought a refrigerator in 1983. It operated with no problems (including a cross-country transportation) until we bought a newer model and moved the older one into our garage. When we “upgraded” (I am now convinced it was “downgrading” to a new non-KitchenAid refrigerator approximately five years ago, it was a disaster in just over two years (oh my, just past the warranty; can you imagine?). So we bought KitchenAid because we trusted your quality. That obviously was a mistake. Even though it cost $1600 more than the disaster, it is almost as bad. Even worse, it seems you are incapable of fixing it, or even communicating about our problems. I might add the replaced refrigerator we moved to the garage, getting rid of the 1983 model because of capacity difference (it was still working) is also working fine. Neither of those older refrigerators required maintenance other than my replacing bulbs.

The ongoing effort to get your refrigerator to work may be successful, but I don’t plan to purchase another KitchenAid product, and I will strongly warn any of my friends and acquaintances of the miserable response KitchenAid has made to correct the problem.

In keeping with your inability to communicate with your customers or provide even inadequate customer service, I do not expect a reply.

I just thought you should know what a money digging, piece of shame (and I cleaned that up four times) your company image has become for me.

Very sincerely and not very happy,

James Rye Jewell, Jr.

The turkey is now for sandwiches and, if i can figure out how to do it, turkey hash with giblets to be served on biscuits, all in my mother’s style.

It’s Saturday night of Thanksgiving weekend. Well, not really: When i escaped from watching  “Elf” with the high fashion decorators, i went to my too-cool-to-sit in-go-outside-retreats or in-my-garage-escape, to the living room where i like to read, contemplate, and occasionally tap away on this infernal machine. But i went to sleep contemplating. So it’s  now Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.

The stockings are hung not exactly by the chimney with care, but close. i mean they are on the credenza next to the tree. Okay there are two on each end of the mantel. That counts doesn’t it?

You must understand i have no input in this. i have learned over the years that when there are two women involved in the decorating for Christmas, i needed to put up the tree, cart in the forty bins of decoration and get the hell out but remain close enough i can hear and then comply as the “go get it” man. For you see, i would hang all of the stockings on the mantel. After all, i am old and consequently, old fashioned.

But one can’t hang the stockings from the mantel when those two women have decorated all over. And the Santa doll must be moved for me to have a fire or for Santa to come down the chimney. i wonder if he will understand. Well, he does have Mrs. Claus, perhaps a daughter. i wonder where he might go when the decorating is going on. Ahh, if only i had a reindeer stable.

So i retreated to the minor decoration of the  living room goofy guy retreat. And i contemplated, at least until i dozed off. i thought about how old men can lock themselves into roles. i try not to lock myself into anything. Oh, i’ve locked myself out of a lot of places — the mini-van running incident on the first tee at Rancho California remains a legend among the Order of the Curmudgeons (that’s the group established at FMG, Friday Morning Golf, an event running since 1991). That’s why we have a secret key hidden well, outside the house. But locking into role is easier. We don’t even know it’s happening. My major objection is it keeps me from thinking on my own. It is hardest for me to refrain when i started reminiscing, thinking about how things used to be, how i wish they were still the way it was, not how it is.

Some things, however, don’t change. For example, the Order of the Curmudgeons really hasn’t changed all that much in over thirty years (we unofficially were curmudgeons before FMG). And we have our leader,  Marty Linville, here after the Black Friday round to prove it. The fez was awarded several years ago during our big Order of the Curmudgeon celebration at Pete and Nancy Toennies Coronado home. It was perfectly clear that the Grand Whiner of the Order of the Curmudgeons would have to be Marty.  Pete and i jointly came up with the idea — as usual Shreq and Donkey will forever argue about who had the original idea — but Pete did all of the legwork. Yeah, we are pretty much the same. We almost have to be the same  and as we have repeated our many Curmudgeon Legends so much to each other, they are pretty well emblazoned on our brains.

But change is all around us. Can’t stop it. It amazes me we can’t seem to accept that and rather than trying to make things better for now and the future, we either attempt to change change by retreating in the past or spend our time crying about all of the sins the other side, whatever that other side is or was, committed in the past.

The decorators and i were celebrating change earlier in the day before the decorating began in earnest, even though it was two days early. Younger daughter Sarah turns thirty-one tomorrow. Thirty-One! She is beautiful and has been invaluable to her parents during this COVID thing. Her big changes are still ahead, and her dad is proud of her. Sarah hasn’t locked herself into role, and even at her age, that is difficult.

She asked to have her birthday lunch at Coasterra on Harbor Island. It’s a wonderful place, outside dining with wonderful views and great food. We had a delightful lunch celebrating the change. We laughed a lot. i have four reasons for my happiness. It seems all four are happy, which makes me happy: Maureen, Sarah, Blythe, and Sam (Jason, you and i are grown men, so we don’t count, and i’m sure, like me, you are happy when Blythe and Sam are happy.

Here are my two of my happy’s this Thanksgiving.

As we were dining, i looked toward the San Diego skyline. I locked myself into role. i began to whine with my wine to the decorators., “It’s changed,” i moan., “i remember when the county admin building and the Hotel El Cortez were the two highest buildings (you can’t see them in the photo: they are dwarfed or hidden by the high rise condos and office buildings). The Gaslamp wasn’t a tourist attraction,” i added, “There were some great restaurants with lots of charm right in the middle of the blight. i remember getting propositioned while at a stoplight back then.” Hmm, i stopped there. Maybe, just maybe, all change isn’t bad. i looked again. The San Diego skyline change ain’t all that bad:

It was somewhere along those thoughts last night when my contemplation led to nodding off. i awoke to the downward jerk of my head as the doze hit. The fire was warm, but it was time for me to go to bed a bit early. After all, old men may not take change well, but boy, oh boy, we can sleep well if we don’t worry about change.

i did. Sleep well, that is.

Today, i feel much better and will feel better yet when i go for my walk. My doc keeps admonishing me not to run. “Walk,” he encourages. Down the hill from us is open space. The city hasn’t deigned to keep the hiking, horse riding path maintained to the top of our hill. i used to walk down and up and down and up from there. Stopped for a while. But with the doc’s encouragement, i took the neighborhood sidewalks to an access. i walked up. The hill in the background is where our home is. If you take a microscope, you might find our flag flying.

Eventually, i will get to the top, survey the Southwest corner, and feel good about change. You see this path leads to the mountains. There are old homes, Kumeyaay lands of the high desert, new developments, then the mountains, and a path to change for the better…if all sides quit drawing lines in the sand, locking and loading, but instead, sit down and talk about what is right and good for all of us.

It can be done.

It’s been a rather grand Thanksgiving, 31st Birthday party, and 31st anniversary of my completing Navy active duty.

i hope yours was wonderful as well.