oh brother, oh brother,

oh brother, oh brother,
what is to become of me?
i find myself a’drifting
on a ship in the black wild sea;
the night is dark,
the wind conflicted,
the seas confused,
like me.

oh brother, oh brother,
do you hear my plea far, far away
from where we used to be?
as the strange calm is brewing
what i suspect is the center of low,
i face the wind on the starboard wing
throwing my right arm back
to find where that center ought to be;
the nefarious wind keeps shifting;
in turn, i spin in fruitless pursuit
of finding the eye’s beginning
when i realize my ship and i
are amidst the eye a’spinning.

oh brother, oh brother,
this is not dire history
similar to Wordworth’s Leonard and James,
yet Time is intertwined with the sea,
beautiful in its calm,
beautiful in its fury,
with Time merged into the deep, dark waters.

oh brother, oh brother,
one of us did not wander
onto the waters of Time,
nor lose his soul in the spume of the waves:
that was me;
you remained on solid ground,
helping others find their souls,
not losing yours.

as Time slips by and never slips at all,
as age grows upon us,
i have returned from the sea,
my ships are scrapped or down,
down, down in the deep;
the winds on the main have calmed;
the seas are rolling gently;
i can see the stars:
they are Time as well;
the heavens sparkle away the dark;
Time is here,
oh brother, oh brother.

There are a lot of things not right with this world right now. It’s been that way pretty much throughout history: a sine wave of good and bad. Right now, it seems we are on the deep end of that curve. Our country keeps missing the fact we are pretty much evenly divided on how we should run this country and each side trying to bully their way into dominance rather than sitting down, conversing, and trying to do what’s right…for all of us.

Sad.

In the meantime, there is a college athletic program that is struggling. The minor sports are doing well but football and basketball are trying to compete in an environment not conducive to the true “student-athlete” concept of college sports.

Yet this school keeps trying. One sport is, according to moi, doing it the way it should be done in all of college athletics. The coach, Tim Corbin, is a model for doing it “the right way, the Vandy Way” as David Williams, a man who lived his own motto to perfection, described perfection.

This afternoon, Larry “Coach” Creekmore sent this link to me along with other brothers from our fraternity days at Vanderbilt . The bunch remains close, mostly through Vanderbilt sports, which more and more revolves around Vandy Boys baseball.

i am trying to put myself back at 13 with all my dreams and not anything near the athletic talent of Dylan Adams but sharing those dreams of being a college athlete. But i never reached that goal, not close. i certainly didn’t have the obstacles Dylan faced in his final days.

So Creekmore was right when he said i needed to pull out the Kleenex. This is a story of the way it should be, sad but positive.  Vandy’s baseball coach keeps proving an athletic program can be successful doing it “The Right Way, the Vandy Way.”

i don’t care what college team in any sport you root for, or even the professional sports teams you choose to follow.  Your team should be motivated to be what Vandy was for this young man and his team, and his community. All coaches, managers, directors, support staff, and the athletes themselves should strive to recognize their impact on so many fans.

Coaching icons were and are wrong when they promote “winning is the only thing.”  Grantland Rice was correct when he wrote “it’s how you play the game.”

i think this story and Vanderbilt baseball proves Grantland Rice and David Williams were right on.

Thank you, Dylan Adams; thank you, Coach Corbin; thank you, Adam Sparks of the Nashville Tennessean.

It was a good cry.

Let’s keep trying to do it the right way:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/college/vanderbilt/2020/11/05/vanderbilt-baseball-uniforms-dylan-adams-cancer-kumar-rocker/6073456002/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=keywee-retargeting&gps-source=adkwtnr&utm_content=dolookalikegeneral&kwp_0=1801974&kwp_4=5271536&kwp_1=2248219&fbclid=IwAR1IKDIA4jie3xKZvNuR2zUlCrbK0vhz7ZeSHXPc-DvLIPVl3XtWPOFsd1c

i have a number of photos my father gave me, not included in the family albums, not those he sent back to home to his wife, mother, and other family members. Some of these he gave me I will never show to anyone other than my brother or very close male friends. They are photos of war.

This one is not very clear. It may be my favorite.

It is the picture of a man in a world so far removed from his own world in the middle of Tennessee, a good man with only good intentions in his heart, a half world away from all he knew, including a newborn son he had seen for about three or four days before he boarded a “liberty” ship to sail.

He stands in a seascape. From my stops in that part of the world, inland from the scene is most likely a jungle. He is alone…almost. There is another sailor, most likely another Seabee, a silhouette on the beach behind him. The scene is pacific, but the specter of war and death for another cause of domination surrounds him.

Yet he stands proud, at attention, a sailor committed to defend his way of life with all of its goodness and flaws he hopes can be addressed and resolved.

He is there fighting for his life, his country, and in his mind, for the goodness of us all.

There is no such thing as a great war. But this one was the last fought for defending freedom, independence from tyranny, and equality of all men, even when all of us (and I use the term “men” in the sense of all human kind) were not considered equal. It was the last war in defense of us, not for vengeance or our protection of others on our side as all the wars and combat after that one have been. Those lines of what is necessary to protect our country are now blurred.

He and his brethren did not fight for a political party, not even a religion, but for a way of life that promised freedom in the belief all men (again the inclusive term) have inalienable rights.

So here he is, my father, on a hill beyond a beach in the South Pacific. I’m guessing it’s in New Guinea, one of his stops, 1944.

This is a photo of a defender of rights and freedom.

For twenty-two years, i too served to defend those things my father supported. But my service was a choice. His was a willingness to leave his way of life.

Yet all veterans chose to sacrifice the life they knew to serve. I am proud to say there is a lineage from my father to me to my son-in-law.

Those folks should be honored today with a moment of silence, of thanks.

God bless all of you who have stepped up for good, not just us or our country, but for all of mankind, again the inclusive term.

this used to be the time for bountiful harvest;
not so much anymore;
today’s crops have been treated to yield in phases
around the world,
gathered with giant machines, temporary labor;
chemicalized, vacuumed, colored, plasticized, trucked
to the not so super markets
and
it ain’t the same as it once was —
your call on better or worse,
not mine;
but
i remember
and
tonight, coming home from an alfresco dinner,
the declining, reclining sunset red dipped beyond
the horizon
where i used to steam west
chasing the dying red sunset
while tonight,
the waxing gibbous moon,
only a couple of days
from becoming the full harvest moon,
hung from an invisible heavenly string,
over what we now call Mexico
defined by a line
turned into a wall
to keep people out,
not like in Berlin
but no less restrictive from fear,
a yoyo with the string
held by mars overhead, glowing red
as it had for the ancients
who named it the red planet
and
the night was clear and chilled
as if the night knew
it really was harvest time
even if
we have the luxury
to forget.

Written last night, edited this morning.

i am in a strange place tonight.

i froze on writing my book today, just couldn’t get into it. But hey, i am beyond retired and can do what i want, but quite honestly, doing what i want does not sit well on my shoulders.

Then after my whining about many things created by a new world, i realize i am now a bona fide in-the-flesh curmudgeon, modeled after those two old grumps in the Muppets routine.

So i begin to work on making an outdoor chair, rustic of course, very rustic, and i pick through the collected old scrap wood, which should have been tossed years ago, but i, the old curmudgeon hang on to stuff. Memories, you know. Even scrap wood.

So  i wander around the house looking for something that would delight an old man. Give up. Put my clubs in the car and drive to the driving range. Feel better. i mean it’s not quite like lowering your head and shoulders to catch a running back or receiver right in the gut, driving him backward into the ground. Ahh, satisfaction. Nor is it like running at full tilt on a racquetball court for a return and slamming into a corner for a rollout. But at my age, hitting balls on a driving range is close. It’s close.

So i come home and put the trash out. Then, i ask Sarah if i could help her and when she would like to leave. Tomorrow, she goes to Austin to be with our other daughter, son-in-law, and grandson for Halloween. i long to go with her, but it would not be prudent.

So i wander around, and for some inexplicable reason wander into the front room slide the cover back and sit down at the piano. i play the only instrumental i ever created. It is not recorded anywhere and as Don Williams once sang, it’s a “Simple Song.” But it lets me relax, get into it.

Knowing a piece of my heart will be flying to join the other pieces without me is a bit unsettling, but considering these times of uncertainty, it was the right choice — and i continue to be amazed when on the surface the right thing to do can hurt so much. So playing my song helps.

Mrs. Gwaltney had gotten me to a point i was decent on the piano. Could read music and could play both hands pretty well. But what talent or skill that might have been there, perhaps only in my mind, has atrophied over the years of staying away from those 88 keys, and the hands are not so flexible anymore.

My simple song is over. i sit and think about my children not children anymore, and my grandson growing into that time where young men wish to stretch themselves, not with old men at their side. i open the Hoagy Carmichael songbook i bought years ago with the aspiration to learn to play all of the contents. i can peck my way right-handed through “Lazy Bones,” but it’s no fun. The only real playing comes from one song, my most favorite of many from Hoagy’s compositions, “Stardust.” i used to have it almost down, but that too slipped into the pile of untouched piano music. Now, when i open to the worn pages, 30-33, i play slow, very slow. Still the melody haunts my reverie and brings me warmth.

It’s Hoagy’s chords, i think.

i sit on the bench. No World Series tonight. i no longer watch what they call “news” nowadays, which it ain’t like John Cameron Schwaze or Walter Cronkite. We’ll find an old movie tonight. Good.

Then i reach up to the top of the pile and the book with the frayed binding and faded lettering, “Christian Service Songs.” Upon my request, i think my sister Martha may have given it to me, although it might have been my mother who responded with the gift. Except for when i go back home to the Lebanon Methodist church or Signal Mountain where my sister plays the bells and sings in the choir, this is the closest i get to worship nowadays. In a way, sitting with this hymn book is closer worship than the services i rarely attend. They don’t play gospels too much anymore. The music is more grand. But for a “closer walk with thee,” i turn to the gospels we sang at the Sunday night service. i can’t play ’em like Granny or Aunt Barbara. Those two had magic left hands and it was mostly by ear. i have given up on the left hand notes. Too involved. i pick out the keys with my right hand, and if i play it well enough, i sing along.

The book opens up naturally to my favorite. Even now, the book seems to know. i bend over, reading the notes. i do not need to read the words. i know most of them by heart, and if i get lost, i will Ella Fitzgerald my way through the rest. The chording is beautiful, the notes bring calm to me. i am home, away from all else, home more than a half century ago.

Beautiful:

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice i hear,
Falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share
As we tarry there
No other has ever known.

He speaks and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me,
Within my heart is ringing.

And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share
As we tarry there
No other has ever known.

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Tho’ the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go
Thru the voice of woe,
His voice to me is calling.

And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share
As we tarry there
No other has ever known.

Some things seem right and lasting. E’en in these times of tribulation.