i reached a major milestone today. With the blessing and assistance of the Coronado Library staff, who gave me access to the microfiche reader and scanner, i now have the ship logs in readable form for the USS Yosemite (AD-19) during her Indian Ocean deployment in 1983-84. The logs are the last piece of the available puzzle to complete my book on that deployment, which was the first where a Navy ship with women as part of her complement spent extended out of port time. My working title is Steel Decks and Glass Ceilings. There is still a lot of work to do, perhaps the most difficult work of validating the facts, eliminating duplications, making the damn thing properly readable (perhaps the most difficult task of all for me). But i can see the end, and i am very happy. i think it’s a message that needs to be put out there.

Thanks to Shaun Briley, library director; Glenn Risolo, library manager; and Nick Burmeister and Loren Cruz, research staffers. You made it happen.

As i sat in the library this afternoon, taking a break from the laborious and tedious work of scanning microfiche and copying to a computer file, i reflected on life, mine in particular. Once at 87, my daddy told me he had lived a good life, had a great family, and all he wanted then was to “go quick.” He did go quick eleven years later. He did have a good life. Sometimes i think i might have been better off had i stayed at home and followed in his footsteps, but i didn’t and it is all right. So i jotted down some thoughts about life, mine in particular, and put in the poem below tonight:

i prayed with the pious
i sang gospel with the church folks
i ran with the wild ones
i sailed the seas
i dug the graves
i played the music,
all genres of the time,
i professored with academia
i tackled the running backs
i hit doubles to left center
i nailed threes from the corner
with a push shot in my socks
i hit every shot in golf
in the wrong direction
i have run a long way in many directions
i hunted the game
i fished for the fish
i have lived in a grunch of places
i marched in a line
i ate in the five stars
i ate in a diner
i drank in elite salons
i drank in dive bars
i have done good things for folks
i have done some bad things
i have loved and lost
i have loved and won
i have lived a full life
but
looking back
it tweren’t much different
than all the others
if you cared
as you went about your business.

Yesterday, Judy Gray posted on Facebook about wanting peace in this time of angry. i responded with a comment and told her i might use my comment in a post. That comment is below. At the end of my comment, i realized where i am in the midst of vile craziness in nearly all aspects of our public life. Earlier i wrestled with making comments on some negative thoughts expressed by others. i had a long talk with my brother Joe about how i was feeling, and he helped me greatly. I feel free and the crazies can carry on with their hate without me. Thanks, Joe, and Judy.

We have chosen, as a country, to demonize each other and what it can lead to is frightening. i was going to write a post about fanatic LA sports fans when they sent death threats to Daniel Green after he missed a game-winning three point shot, but then they looted and burned in common sense defying hordes to celebrate the Lakers winning a meaningless championship. But then i realized it wasn’t just LA and sports. It was the country. I am exactly three months from 77. i am checking out of politics, news, any mention of any of those on this social medium, and have considered finding 40 acres with a small cabin in the middle, removed from our uncivilized civilization either in Wyoming, Utah, the Smokies, or a Tennessee lake (if there are anymore of them not populated enough to consider remote) and spend my days reading, writing, exercising, doing the chores…you know, a simple life. But i have a wife, two daughters, a son-in-law, a grandson, and friends i cannot leave…and golf, of course, my terrible golf. So i’ll stay but leave as much of this hate and demonization to those not civilized.

When i was playing baseball three nights a week and on Sunday afternoon (oh, about seventy years ago), and playing fast pitch softball another two nights in those summer months quite a while ago, the bat i chose to use was a Louisville Slugger Nellie Fox model, 32 inch length. It had a thick handle, comfortable for me but likely keeping me from hitting for power. i was fine with that as i hit well for the level of my competition.

Nellie was a hero of mine. i wanted to be the greatest third baseman in the history of the game, but second base is where i should have played, which i finally did when i was 46 in the over-30 ADABA (American Adult Baseball Association) when a shoulder injury made me a liability at third or behind the plate. Bill Mazeroski will always be an all time hero for me because of his dramatic home run that beat the Yanks in the ’60 World Series, wheen even though i worshipped Roberto Clemente, Don Hoak at third was my  favorite Pirate.

Then there was Joe Morgan. There is a different level. Tim Kurkjian in an ESPN post, pretty well covered the greatness of Joe Morgan:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30100937/baseball-keeps-losing-legends-2020-joe-morgan-the-smallest-mightiest-allb 

Rest in Peace, Joe.

It is nigh on ten in the evening.

The predicted hot weather didn’t quite live up to the weather guessers’ hype in the Southwest corner, but nor has the marine layer taken over the coastal fringe where we live. So the skies are clear. i should be in bed. I’m old. Maureen, who is young compared to me has retired to read a bit and then fall asleep in a lovely repose.

But the skies are clear.

i have moved out to one of my favorite places at night, the little sitting area, which would be a gazebo except there is no top other than the umbrella. The neighborhood is quiet. The night residents of owls, coyotes, bobcats have not begun their hunts. It is quiet.

And i can see stars.

i sit with my computer and my usual rambling of thoughts. Sarah’s dog, Billie Holiday is with me because Sarah is out with friends. It is an updated version of Norman Rockwell painting conflicting with this new world of negativity where everyone seems to be consumed by what they hate rather that what is good, and the crazy, still unknown degree of calamitous infection weighs upon us all even if all of our interpretations of the effects and the method of resolution do not agree.

So what the hell?

i have my music on. Nellie McKay is first in line. i would have never known of her had not Blythe given me her CD. One of the more intriguing and talented artists I’ve heard in a long time. She’s followed by Betty Carter with Ray Bryant, Benny Carter, Ray Charles, Flatt and Scruggs, and John Lee Hooker.  My music tastes are pretty eclectic, and I’m glad. i have found i share this wide range of appreciation with my daughters, although their knowledge and appreciation are deeper than mine. That too makes me feel good about the world.

A point past my properly lit flag atop our hill to the southwest Jupiter and Saturn are rolling to the east. Above them Altair stands poised in the night sky. She was one of our constant reliables for shooting the stars and obtaining navigational fixes before the electronic gurus saturated these heavens with satellites to tell us where we are and remain my preferred way of finding my way if only they would let me go to sea again.

And i wonder what the ancients would think if some time vehicle could bring them to the chair beside me as a border patrol helicopter whirls noisily over head and out of earshot. i know it’s the agent passing over his home on the way back to base and alerting his family he is on the way home.

When i try to think of some way we could resolve our differences, i know the answer isn’t hate and confrontational posturing, but the real answer evades me and trying to come up with a resolution makes my heard hurt.

So i take a sip of the good port my neighbor Spud Mumby makes and graciously provides me. i look past the flag and up and up at Altair and speak to the ancients.

i listen to Nancy Wilson sing “Here’s That Rainy Day,” and realize in this fire alert conditioned Southwest corner, that “rainy day” is really here, just not wet.

Then the magic “shuffle” on my music plays The Pozo Seco Singers’ “Time.”

i think that pretty much captures my thoughts tonight:

Some people run, some people crawl
Some people don’t even move at all
Some roads lead forward, some roads lead back
Some roads are bathed in light, some wrapped in fearful black

Time, oh time, where did you go?
Time, oh good, good time, where did you go?

Some people never get, some never give
Some people never die, and some never live
Some folks treat me mean, some treat me kind
Most folks just go their way, don’t pay me any mind

Time, oh time, where did you go?
Time, oh good, good time, where did you go?

Sometimes I’m satisfied, sometimes I’m not
Sometimes my face is cold, sometimes it’s hot
Sunset, i laugh
Sunrise, i cry
At midnight, I’m in between and wondering why

Time, oh time, where did you go?
Time, oh good, good time, where did you go?

Good night, Altair.

In a world long ago in a little town, a naive and believing-in-goodness country boy dreamed of becoming a national star in football, basketball, and baseball before becoming a movie star succeeding Bob Steele in oaters, for even though he thought he could sing as well as Gene and Roy, he could not play the guitar well enough. Then, he finally figured out it wasn’t going to happen. No way, no how. Reality struck hard and left the little guy without a clue as to what he really wanted to do for the rest of his life, but a friend (Mike Dixon) who was a class ahead of him and played basketball with him almost every day after classes and sports practices, became the sports editor of The Cavalier, Castle Heights Military Academy’s national award winning bi-weekly high school newspaper.

The reality-stricken boy followed and became one of the newspaper’s sports reporters, and  the following year followed Mike as the sports editor. That’s when this giant among teachers of journalism, then a major in the school’s ranking system, became oh so much more than just a major and a family friend with two beautiful daughters and two rambunctious sons who attended the same church as the boy and his family and lived behind the boy’s aunt and uncle on a neighborhood abounding with children who played outside almost everyday and swapped houses for their playgrounds. The journalism advisor became so much more than just a mere advisor to the boy, just as he had become so much more for many of the cadets. JB Leftwich became the boy’s sponsor, his critic, his supporter, his friend — and eventually, although they were good friends throughout, the boy’s father and JB became closest friends as all of their other buddies had gone on to another world.

The boy, since he first learned to really read  in Mrs. Eskew’s first grade class at McClain School (they didn’t have to add “elementary” back then ’cause folks knew what it was, and there were only three such schools in the town and several more in the surrounding country like Flat Rock (one of my favorite names for a community) had read Fred Russell’s daily sport column “Sidelines” in the Nashville Banner every afternoon (except Sunday of course, ’cause they didn’t publish on Sundays, the purview of the morning paper, The Nashville Tennessean). The boy read Fred because of the sports, not the writer. But when reality bashed him in the head (the boy, not Fred), he decided he would write about sports.

His mentor JB who was from the time the boy began writing sports until forever was “Coach,” taught him the laws of journalism: First paragraph, 25 words or less and passing along the information of who, what, when, where, and how, no exceptions, with all the remaining paragraphs arranged in priority of importance — so if the makeup men in the back couldn’t get all of the metal lines of linotype into the metal frame, they could toss the bottom paragraphs without losing more important ones (Of course, our jingoistic journalism moguls and their employees are more interested in money and fame than good reporting have long abandoned such practices).

Then after his last hope of extending his sports career, football in fact was dashed when the college (Centre) could not offer enough of an academic scholarship to allow him to play for them rather than taking a full-boat ride of an NROTC scholarship elsewhere, the career-lacking boy decided he wanted to be a sports writer.

Now the boy reasoned (a rare, rare thing for an 18-year old goofy guy) sports writing would allow him a lot more poetic license in writing than straight news reporting did. It would also give him access to sports events, which he loved dearly. Imagine, to be able to follow your passion from the sideline if not on the field. He was all in.

There were many detours in his pursuit of sports writing, but for a short time, his second dream was realized way up in the north part of New York State when another impressive journalist, his friend from Vanderbilt offered the boy a job to write sports and succeed as sports editor of The Watertown Daily Times. He did and, even if he says so himself, was pretty good at it. But it was short lived as he had obligations to meet and another detour in the road came upon him.

Years and years and years passed and the world changed until one morning in this strange new world (this upside down world this morning) he read an article on the web that caught his eye about a young woman becoming the first Polish champion of a tennis major championship when she took the pandemic altered French Open. Iga Swiatek is her name. What a great name.

But what really knocked out the former naive and believing-in-goodness country boy (who somehow has retained his naiveté and believing in the good of folks) was the writing. Sports Writing. The way it should be.

Now he likes tennis but he is not a real big fan. Yet this story was so beautifully written, he read until the end. As he read, he thought, “Coach Leftwich would love this. Wish i could share it with him.” Ironically, it was on the weekend the alumni of his old, defunct school were having the abbreviated informal celebration of its annual “Homecoming” in a place far away.

And the county boy, now old, really no-kidding old, aka moi, is subscribing to The Guardian, the publisher of this piece of superb sports journalism. If you would like to read some really good, enjoyable stuff and even get into a tennis match, here is is:

aN https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/10/iga-swiatek-beats-sofia-kenin-french-open-final-history