In the grand scheme of things, it really wasn’t a big deal. And the more i think about it, it should not have been such a big deal to me either,.

But it was. Meant the world to me. Still won’t be able to express my feelings adequately here.

Last week, Steve and Maria Frailey invited Maureen and me to join them on their sailboat Saturday. With both of us having our second round of COVID vaccinations, we quickly accepted.

We arrived at the Southwestern Yacht Club in Point Loma almost exactly (now that’s oxymoronic but makes sense to me) at noon. We found the new berth, boarded their new boat, the Piccolina, and shortly afterward maneuvered out of the yacht basin. Steve offered me the chance to take the helm. i readily accepted.

Now, i have sailed a bit and know some basics. i crewed quite a bit with my buddy J.D. Waits in the early 80’s, but JD knew how to sail, and i learned from him. i was an apprentice. i have also sailed a few times with Alan Hicks and, of course, Steve.

On all of those occasions where i had the helm, i found myself, hesitant, a bit unsure. It was like my first several years conning Navy ships. Not confident enough to feel comfortable. This was a good thing during my time as a junior officer in that i was extremely conservative and would consult the captain when i was unsure of the situation. It served me well. Then, when i reported aboard the USS Luce (DLG-7) in 1972, somewhere in the middle of that Mediterranean deployment, i became a. good ship handler, not just a safe one.

We sailed out of San Diego Bay past Point Loma: the open sea. The winds had been predicted to be about ten knots. But past the point, they ranged from 15 to 20 and gusted to about 22. As a result, the seas were a bit rough and confused.

We passed the sea buoy and sailed about three miles before turning around. It was really a bit too rough to be enjoyable for everyone. Maureen was a bit queasy, but being a trouper, she sat in the catbird seat, looked at the horizon, and fared well.

Steve took the helm for the sail back in, but when we entered the channel, he gave me the helm once again. i sailed down into the bay, around North Island and to the the port’s marina adjacent to the Coast Guard station where Steve took over to maneuver through the marina and along the San Diego city shoreline to the Navy museum USS Midway.

Considering the time, Steve announced we should go to power to get back to the yacht club at a decent time. Once again, i had the helm. i kept it until we arrived back at the basin where Steve took us into the berth.

It was an incredibly beautiful sail. In decent weather, sailing around in the Southwest corner, it alway is. It was exhilarating to be with old friends once again.

But somewhere in the beginning of my taking the helm, i got that confidence back. Of course, i had one of the best mariners i’ve ever met to rely on. But i knew i could do it and even instinctively realized what he was doing with the sails and why.

There was this feeling of connecting with the sea, that beautiful, awesome, and sometimes frightening lady that i have loved for a great portion of my life.

Oh, i’m far from being a good sailor of a sailboat. Perhaps the feelings i had were just a connection to a memory of my days at sea.

Doesn’t matter. i felt like i haven’t felt in a long time. i was a mariner, a sea dog, and Saturday, i felt like i was again.

Thank you, Steve and Maria. It was a good feeling this old man got to revisit. Worth more than i can ever adequately express.

o’er the hill o’er there

i’ve done seen that demon coming
o’er the hill o’er there,
spitting fire and brimstone;
just hate, no justice there;
i’ve done heard the demon screaming,
the vile words that he yelled;
had i not known otherwise
i would think i’d gone to hell;
the screaming demon looked familiar;
the scowl and red faced anger
blurred the image of his face;
i wondered of whom he reminded me,
hoping my recollection was misplaced.
when i dismissed the fire and brimstone,
looking at the demon’s face,
i saw through the hate and anger,
seeing pure and simple fear
of what the demon had seen
o’er the hill o’er there.
i never feared the demon
nor fear what he had seen;
i had no need to scream
at what the demon had seen
o’er the hill o’er there;
i finally recognized the demon;
he was a friend of mine;
the demon was running
from the lies that trapped him in his fear
leading to his fire and brimstone
running from what lay beyond
o’er the hill o’er there;
i have no fear, no anger, no hate
for the demon and his fear
i just am greatly saddened
at my friend’s coming to his fate,
i will try quell his anger,
try to end his hate,
explain to him his fear
knowing i will fail;
sadly, i will leave him
while he spews his fire and brimstone;
i think i shall take a walk,
a look to see what might be there,
hopefully to calm whatever caused the fear
o’er the hill o’er there.

The repeat of hometown columns continue. A couple of people have asked me why my posts have been more infrequent. The second COVID vaccination (Moderna) laid me low. It wasn’t serious, but i sure as hell was not bright eyed and bushy tailed for about four days. The reactions were intermittent and varied, touching all of the potential reactions. It’s over and worth it. i am not as concerned as before, still concerned, but not as much.

However, the real reason for the cutback is i am working on my book. It is almost like having a job and has demonstrated i am a bit weird compared to most folks. Having a job gives me structure and makes me feel like i am accomplishing something. Gives me purpose. Seems like lots of people just want to have fun and to have things be easier. i find i still need a purpose (other than golf). So at least for a while my entries here will not be as frequent. i will keep posting these columns from the past.

Dave Carey remains one of my heroes and a great friend. i really enjoyed writing this column.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – This past Monday, I left the cleanup from the San Diego fires and flew to Lake Tahoe, Nevada. It was not an escape. It was work. I was co-facilitating a team building workshop for a California police department with my friend, Dave Carey. 

Dave is not your ordinary business associate. On August 31, 1967, Dave Carey’s A-4 was shot out from under him over North Vietnam. He spent five and a half years as a Prisoner of War (POW), most of the time in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.”

Dave and I met in 1985 at the Naval Amphibious School in Coronado. We worked together for just shy of a year as I transitioned into Dave’s position as the head of leadership training for the West Coast and Pacific Rim. Together, we help create a two-day workshop on leadership excellence for senior Navy officers.

Dave retired. Four years later in 1989, I followed suit. After my initial dive into my new job as Mister Mom, I soon started to look for ways to generate income in the quiet hours.

After some discussion, Dave and I agreed I would write a book about his POW experience, or more accurately, about his motivational speeches concerning his experience. After completing the draft, we decided it really should be written in first person. The original draft is on my office bookshelf.

Eight years later, Dave holed up for three weeks and completed The Ways We Choose: Lessons For Life From a POW’s Experience.

Part of my approach to writing was generated from conversations with Dave. He and I were driving to another workshop about fifteen years ago when I asked him about what outcome did he expect the audience to have when he gave a speech.

Dave said he had expectations initially, but discovered his listeners made their own connections. Early on, Dave had completed a luncheon speech when a huge Texan came up to him, put his big arm around Dave’s shoulder and drawled, “Can I talk with you Dave? I understood every word you said today. The fact of the matter is, in this life, we are all going to get shot down, and some of us more than once.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve managed to get shot down several times. Dave’s book and his ideas have been significant guides to me as I have wandered through living. The book not only applies to San Diego, Lake Tahoe, and Middle Tennessee; it worked in the Hanoi Hilton over 40 years ago. 

Dave’s book revolves around a question he is most frequently asked, which is, “How did you do that? How did you and the other POW’s get through that?” He maintains they did that in a similar way to how we get through our daily process of life and work.

Dave’s assessment of how he and his fellow POW’s made it through boils down to five factors:

• We did what we had to do
• We did our best
• We chose to grow
• We kept our sense of humor
• We kept the faith
  • In ourselves
  • In each other
  • In our country
  • In God.

His anecdotes relating to those factors are humorous, inspiring, and thought provoking. I have had the wonderful opportunity to discuss these things in depth with Dave. 

So I check myself against his factors almost daily. They have even become part of the value statements for my consulting group.

I will not ruin the book by parroting it here. However, I am particularly fond of Dave’s pointing out how the POW’s trusted each one of them would do the best they could, would resist the severe interrogations to their limit; recognizing each of them had their own limit levels. 

I now try to consider folks I work with are doing the best they can do. This puts a whole different shape to the way I work with these people. Fewer rocks are thrown; fewer lines are drawn in the sand; fewer chips are put on shoulders.

I would encourage everyone to read’s Dave’s book. Your connections should be yours, not mine, not Dave’s. I know folks in Middle Tennessee also get shot down every once in a while.

Note: Dave’s book may still be obtained on-line through the Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble; web sites, and Dave’s website, www.davecarey.com. You may also be able to order it from a Borders or Barnes and Noble bookstore.

i know many things and damn near all of them are worthless. i stole this statement and learned many worthless things (and a few that weren’t) from a legend.

i have told this story before. When i went back to refresh my memory, i realized my earlier memory was wrong as i had combined two, maybe three, of the Jimmy and JD parties in that earlier post. So the below is that story revised. i don’t care. i wished to revel in it and take a break when i began this post last night rather than continuing work on editing my manuscript.

Last night, i’m sure most of you, including my wife, could have found something that interested you on that big flat black screen hanging or propped up in your house where you spend most of your time. i couldn’t. Vanderbilt basketball’s team took a hit from Alabama and officiating in the morning, staying close to the end, again. That was my television for Saturday. Maureen is not into oaters, and i’m not into Victorian chick flicks although i would pretend to watch if she chose one for her watching pleasure — But then i surfed to find a movie for her when i came upon the documentary, Living with Lincoln. It was an incredible story. i connected. So all Television, or whatever you are supposed to call it today, isn’t all bad…

But this is about today and the legend. JD Waits catches up to me age-wise today. 77.

In case you missed it, JD and i ran wild in the Southwest corner for a bunch of years beginning in the early 80’s and have continued a milder and long-distance version ever since. The photo below is of “The Booze Brothers” in our formal attire for JD’s second marriage to Mary Lou — there was another marriage in between the two with Mary Lou.

This morning i called, wished him a happy birthday, and then laughed a lot, a usual part of my conversations with JD. Some of his stories related today i could tell here and may later. Some of them cannot be here because neither JD nor i should ever be considered politically correct (or grammerly correct either and certainly have a penchant for off-color, and that’s putting it mildly, for that matter). But without any thought of his birthday being today, i made our Southwestern chili yesterday. Maureen loves it.

And that, that is what made me want to revel in the first version of JD and Jimmy Rye Southwestern Chili:

It was a great party. i don’t know how the idea came about. There were a lot of ideas that came about in the two-story, two-bedroom, two-bath, two-Navy officer apartment at 8th and E in Coronado.

Somehow JD and i decided to have a chili party there for the wardroom of the USS Okinawa (LPH 3) and invited guests. i think the final count of attendees was around fifty, in and out for three or four hours, maybe more. We planned for that many and realized we needed a really big pot to cook the chili.

We were single Navy officers who do not ordinarily have big pots. So we found a discount store, now gone, off of Plaza Boulevard in National City, and bought a really big, really cheap big pot that could hold something over five gallons. i’m pretty sure it wasn’t tin, but it was close to tin.

Now JD, among his many other talents, knows how to cook, especially Texas cooking. After all, his parents owned a diner in Houston and his father was the cook. So as we walked the aisles of the North Island Commissary, i was surprised after we got the stew meat, the red beans, the onions, the cheese, and the condiments, JD picked up several boxes off a shelf. Even though he could have made it from scratch, he declared it was much easier and just as good to use Shelby Carroll’s Texas Chili fixings packet.

So being us, we collected all the ingredients and the big pot in the apartment kitchen, and began. JD, a master at getting me in trouble, oversaw the mixing and set the temperature on the range. i was in charge of stirring. JD took a nap. i had a beer. i may have had another but when i went back to stir the chili in the pot, the wooden spatula struck something on the bottom of the pot. i had not stirred soon enough. The elixir at the bottom had stuck to the magic pot. Not realizing what it was, i scraped it off the bottom with my big spatula. When i picked the spoon up, i realized what the charred goop on the spoon was.

i called JD. “i think i ruined the whole batch,” i lamented.

“No problem,” JD cooly calmed me, “Just stir it into the rest. We’ll tell ’em it’s Southwest chili. They will never know the difference.”

The next morning, we sat out a can of Hormel chili alongside bottles of Thunderbird and Night Train (“Serve Very Cold” for obvious reasons), a total outlay of six bucks. We placed them on the big liberty ship hatch cover i had converted into a large coffee table sitting in the middle of the living room.  When folks expressed dismay, we assured them the Hormel can was just a joke. King Deutch, JD’s boss on Okinawa, showed up with his model wife, Jeannie. She insisted on having a glass of the Night Train. After tasting her wine, she assessed, “Quite elegant with a nice finish.” She laughed.

Everyone loved the chili. They thought Southwest chili was incredibly good.

Now, i don’t burn the bottom of the pan. The pan itself is cast iron and much. Some people even think it’s award-winning, which it is…to my way of thinking. And yes, it is cheating, but i don’t care. It’s good.

Thank you, Carroll Shelby.

And Happy Birthday, JD.