You might have read some of this stuff from me before. i don’t care.

Monday. Again, i awoke way too early, even for me. Don’t know why unless it’s become ingrained from my near ten years of Lebanon Democrat column deadlines. Of course, the sea, oh, the marvelous sea, is also ingrained even though my last time on a ship at sea was thirty-three years ago. That morning watch, the 04-08 where i would be awakened by a boatswainmate, the messenger of the watch at 0315 so i could get to the bridge and relieve the OOD by 0345 and feel the day stirring and smell the coffee and bacon and eggs aroma wafting up from the galley to the starboard bridge wing, and hearing the radio communications among the squadron ships begin the chatter, and seeing first light creep up on the horizon, and the pinkness and the freshness of the new day dawning, and the captain coming out to sit in his oversized and raised chair on the starboard side for his first cup of coffee of the morning and swapping hellos because there wasn’t much usually going on at 0600 in the morning and how the oncoming watch came up early, 0700, to relieve me so i get the last breakfast in the wardroom before officer’s call and quarters and the beginning of the work day when i would start to fade around 1000 waiting until the midday mess to skip and hit the rack for a NORP.

Oh yeh, this early stuff is still with me.

***

Regardless, once again this Monday early morning, my brain started in low gear and was rumbling in third. I couldn’t find the clutch before four in the morning. This oft abused brain refused to shift back to idle. Like my Mazda 3 hatchback, my brain has six forward gears, straight transmission…er, standard. Okay my car buff buddies, keep me straight here. It may be okay to write this early, but it damn sure ain’t okay to do research for a faulty memory. It’s Monday morning for Christ’s sake, too early to look stuff up.

 *   *   *

One thought, which has occurred before is i am one hell of a lucky man. I have had a really good life. Oh yeah, there have been some surprises, some downturns i wasn’t expecting. In fact, there are a couple still smacking at me today. That ain’t right, by the way; ain’t right someone at seventy-three should still have downturns. After all, dealing with all of the growing old, dealing with all the…i was going to be polite and say “stuff,” but no: dealing with all the other shit is right on. Old age illnesses, parts breaking down, stiffness, going to one doc or another what seems like at least every week. Watch friends grow old faster, have worse things go wrong. Like dying. Still don’t know how my parents made it to their late nineties, not because of their health. My father was an incredible specimen of good health. My mother had some serious problems for almost forty years. But they were troopers. The thing about them i find amazing is their dealing with all of their generation of family and friends leaving them behind. Man, that is tough. i must get better at that if i am going to be one of those outlasting the others.

*   *   *

Lying there this morning, i was reassessing what i’ve done. i do that often. Need to let it go. Move on. You know. It started with thinking about what a bad golfer i am, especially considering how much i play. Shouldn’t complain considering my age and the occasional good hole i have. Still do it, like all of the others…except maybe for Peter Thomas, the best golfer i’ve ever played with. He’s the one who taught me i shouldn’t bitch about my play, instantaneously or long-term unless i hit some 300 golf balls a day, every day, for more than a decade. Then i can bitch. Got a long way to go.

 *   *   *

Nah, i really haven’t done much. i had the potential somewhere back in the dark ages. Then i didn’t grow up. I remained just shy of five-seven. Stopped the vertical thing around junior high. Kept expecting to be six-two, 180. Didn’t happen. As most of you know, i have not grown up in other ways as well. Still, in spite of a checkered career for assessment, i made it to commander, and as i love to repeat, my last operational CO, Captain Frank Boyle on USS Yosemite gave me what i consider the ultimate compliment, calling me, not a seaman, not a sailor, but a mariner, something he and i knew at that stage of our time on ships was the real compliment (He was too, a mariner). Got to spend 14 out of 22 years on ships, nine or eleven, depending on the way you count ’em. i’ll take that even though i would go again if they still had steam ships without all of the GPS and computers they have today.

And i was a good sports editor at The Watertown (NY) Daily Times before that gig was cut short because of the need to take care of my family financially. Don’t regret it, but i did love it while i was in it.

Hadn’t made a lot of money. Don’t miss it, although i would like to make Maureen feel more secure and there are a bunch of people i would like to go and see. Maureen would like to go see places not seen before. i would like to go to old places (that aren’t gone or drastically changed) or to old friends, but money is a little to tight to cover all of those dreams. Still okay.

  *   *   *

i admit i’m a goofy guy, even brag about it. i really don’t do too many more goofy things than most folks, but i don’t mind my goofy antics being broadcast and am pretty honest about my goofiness. Don’t believe in fooling folks.

i don’t know where it comes from. My parents were great parents but they certainly weren’t goofy. Probably the depression and the war and religion of the time kept ’em straighter, non-goofy. Daddy loved to tell stories, even some on himself, but that was about it.

Perhaps, just perhaps, i might get my goofiness from my Uncle Bill Prichard, my mother’s youngest sibling and only boy. He could be real goofy, but man did he have a laugh. Like him, i might have become a  pilot for a war. Uncle Bill, he flew mustangs out of England. Man!

In Navy OCS, those aviators enticed me to join them in the air (SEALS did too; why, i don’t know), but i was a passable swimmer, not a real good one, and i wasn’t sure i could get through that requirement, so i demurred. But i also had had that at-sea moment, and the decision to go surface really wasn’t that difficult.

*   *   *

So i went to sea. If you don’t know, i am trying to write a book about that last operational tour. It’s about the first women as officers or enlisted to spend extended out of port time as members of a ship’s crew or wardroom. And of course, it’s about me. You see — and i may have told you this before as well — i loved the sea from the get-go. In the book, i included a letter i wrote to my wife of a month, Maureen, which began shortly after we left Mayport, Florida for an eight-month deployment to the Indian Ocean. The letter concluded about ten days later in the early morning of the day we stood into Rota, Spain. i bragged about communicating with the sea. Yeh, “bragged” is the right term. After all, i loved my new wife with absolute gusto (still do) and i wanted to impress her.

But yes, i did feel that incredible old lady, the sea, and i communicated. Perhaps that’s a little to mystical or hokey for many. But in 1963 on my third class midshipman cruise on the USS Lloyd Thomas (DD 764) (in the NROTC scholarship program from which i unceremoniously but no less dramatically left like a rock the next spring), i walked to the port life-lines amidships on the ASROC deck between the forward and after stacks. It was 2210 or thereabouts, after taps because the crew’s movie in the DASH hanger had been a long one. The wind was off the port beam and blowing the roar of the boilers from the stacks away from me. i could see the white foam rolling down the side of the ship. The bow wave was lapping at the sides. The sea was dark, the deepest dark blue that exists. The moon was on the port side. i stood there. To this day, i swear that lady, the sea, floated out and grabbed me, down deep in my gut, and i could feel her talking to me. i was hooked, even though i was too goofy to know it.

*   *   *

So i think yes, i have had a good lucky life and can deal with the bumps in the road when they keep coming even though i’m registered old and they shouldn’t hit me now. But you know what? That’s life. It ain’t, as my friend Dave Carey once told a group of senior officers in our seminar, it  ain’t easy. Life isn’t supposed to be easy. It would be damn boring if all went smoothly, everything went our way. We are supposed to deal with problems cause humans, in case you haven’t noticed, all of them, cause problems. It’s an adventure. Deal with it. Laugh at it.

So now, i ain’t working…well, i ain’t formally got a job. So what am i supposed to be doing? i think giving back is my job. i want to tell those younger than me what happened, what was different, and how we/me dealt with it right or wrong, so perhaps, just perhaps, they can learn from my good moments and my bad. Listen to my views of the world and what it has been and what it should be and what it hasn’t been, what it is, and what it shouldn’t be.

But it seems i’m over the hill. Those younger dudes don’t listen to me. Too old. Oh, they nod their heads like they heard me. But they weren’t listening really. They just keep on their way, probably mumbling about that crazy, goofy old man rambling about the good ole days, even some of those good ole days were pretty damn lousy, just like theirs will be. Sort of feel patronized in a way. Oh, many folks my age or near it, they read and agree…as long as it doesn’t cross their locked and loaded, lines in the sand, refusing to budge views of the world and all of their opponents, demons really.

So i’ll just do my thing and hope, not optimistically, but hope a few folks might learn a few things from my ramblings and modify their way of doing things just a little bit for the better.

*   *   *

One sort of political comment, or cultural, or something. This must be prefaced by noting i don’t consider myself a racist or a bigot or prejudiced at all. There may be people who choose to think i am because of the color of my skin, where i come from, the way i talk. i know i cannot write anything here that even hints of disagreement with any political, religious opinion that won’t get slammed. i will point out when attending Vanderbilt basketball games from 1962 to 1964, which i did with amazing loyalty, every home game, without fail except that part about not studying on those nights and flunking out (one F, 14 D’s in four semesters, a record i think), but to the point, the pep band would play “Dixie” and the student body would stand and sing as almost one because there would be a half-dozen or so of me and my brothers who would remain seated, and when berated and denigrated by those highbrow rednecks around us, we would proclaim we didn’t root for losers.

But i do feel the need to make an observation about this take down the statue thing. To leave them there and recognize it was a much different time in history. There were many things wrong and we couldn’t do it right so we had this awful war among brothers, white and black as folks call us i think wrongly and killed each other with abandon. We started on a path of improved but not perfect equality. There were clowns then and clowns now who were too damn selfish to admit equality was just that. But doesn’t destroying statues, taking down crosses, defiling others symbols of belief, all of that kind of thing, seem just a bit like ISIS, Al Qaeda, even Hitler, destroying history. i mean, it really doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. i’ve got my sea i can see from my hilltop or dip my feet in if i drive about 15 miles or my memories, oh my memories. i’m probably not going to miss those statues in the South, but it does seem we are incapable of dealing with each other reasonably. It’s my way or the highway, it seems. Well, i don’t think anyone is going to take my highway. Navy steam ships are gone. Sportswriting the way i lived it is gone too. Religion, that ole time religion, good ole Methodist stuff, seems to be gone also. Tolerance, understanding, communicating, compassion is only on one side of the line or the other. Seems like that golden rule, you know “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is passé, or even obsolete.

Sad.

Cowboy on a tricycle. Now that’ better than golf because the good guys (in the white hat) always win.

We had had a hard day and he remains the best partner i ever had, golfers included.

i often mention i’m playing golf.

i play golf twice a week nearly every week. Often, i play three times a week. i have been known to play six times a week.

i like golf.

i don’t know why.

First off, nearly everyone seems to be better than me.

Second, when i start improving, i think i can make my goal of being a ten handicap. i have gotten as close as a 14. Then i back slide. i default to all of my bad habits. i play much better on the driving range, chipping area, and putting green than i do on the course. i am a mental wreck.

Thirdly, the game teases me. i used to think i was a decent athlete, not top tier, but pretty good in the sports i undertook: football, baseball, basketball, tennis, racquetball, bowling. Not really good mind you, but somewhat of a shade over decent. i now believe i was a figment of my imagination because of golf. The good shots, the lower scores, all are just pure luck: the golf gods teasing me. i know, know i’m not a good golfer.

My example? i was down to a 14 handicap at the end of last year. i was getting better. i was hitting the purest shots i’ve ever hit. i had found what i thought was the best grip, stance, etc. to putting. i had learned to chip better. Matt Brumbaugh, the pro at Sea ‘n Air, the North Island Naval Air Station course, had helped me immensely. Talking about the game with Pete Toennies, who unfortunately plays a lot like me, only a bit better, helped my mental attitude.

i was going to get to at least a 12 handicap, perhaps even lower.

It all went south. Big time. i’m back up to an 18, pretty much where i have been all of my life.

And then Friday, i proved it.

Sea ‘n Air. Perfect weather. Beautiful vistas. Great friends. By the third hole, i almost quit and walked off. “Why i am playing this game?” i asked, “Why put myself in such depression?” A couple of bogies, along with doubles and triples, no pars through seven holes. Depressing. Then i birdie eight and nine.

i think, “Oh man, it came back in spades. i’m going to tear up the back.” Nope. A couple of bogies, one triple, no pars. Oh yes, i birdied fifteen and seventeen. Four great holes amidst disaster, chaos.

Go figure.

So i keep telling myself i’ve played golf for almost sixty years. I’ve only played in a foursome with someone i did not like two or three times max. If i don’t think about my game, it’s damn enjoyable.

And

About twenty-five years ago, we were in the lobby of our time-share in Park City, waiting for transportation back home after  week of skiing. Several others were also waiting, and two men, both just past middle age, began talking.

“Where you from,” one asked.

“San Diego,” was the reply.

“San Diego,” the other mused, “You must play golf.”

“Yep,” the San Diegan confirmed.

“What’s your handicap?”

“Fourteen; what’s yours?”

“Eight.”

“Eight! Wow,” the San Diegan admired, “I’d give anything to be an eight. If I were an eight, I would be perfectly happy.”

“No you wouldn’t,” the other golfer answered.

He’s right, and that is why golf is the most frustrating sport in the world.

And why this post is labeled “jewell in the Rough.” That’s where i spend most of my time.

Time to get some blood a’boiling.

i have a complaint.

i am almost positive it will upset most who read it. It will also produce some outrage, disagreement, and maybe exception from those who misinterpret my concern and use my thoughts incorrectly to support something like racial inequality, prejudice, etc., which is exactly opposite of what i intend to convey.

But what the heck. i’m going for it.

Why does a group of people who don’t like some collective label, or someone else in an effort to be politically correct and helpful, come up with something that is inaccurate? The government even got into the act, changing the names  for “race?” (or dancing around even that on their forms). What does it matter? Oh, i know: data.

Among several other terms i won’t mention here, i’m talking about the term “people of color.”

What the hell does that mean?

It seems it was meant to mean any person who is not caucasian.

i think it means i don’t have any color. i beg to differ. i’ve got more color than almost anyone. My arms, due to exposure to the sun most of my life, and the thin skin older folks acquire bringing about frequent cuts, blood, and scabs gives me more color than most. My body has gone from baby paleness to Tennessee summer brown except for the shorts-hidden area and now with a myriad of colors, including the baby paleness returning to the sun screen protection required of old age. My face, and especially my practically bald head is blotched. My neck is…well, i guess you could call it “red,” but i think it’s more rust colored: lots of golf sun, you know, but still “redneck.”

To tell the truth, it doesn’t bother me when someone calls me “paleface” or “redneck.” They are being relatively accurate.

But “people of color” takes inaccuracy to new heights.  And i would add i am definitely not “white.” i don’t look like a sheet. i don’t think i’ve actually ever seen a “black” person either except for this one in Papua New Guinea. But that doesn’t count. One of the marriage rituals for the cannibal tribes at the time was for the bride to paint her entire body in black pigment (i have a postcard with a photo of a bride like the one i say, but that’s a different story and not one to be told here).

i think we need to quit messing around with this stuff. And why do we have to differentiate? There are so many variations of racial mixing, we really don’t know anymore. For example, Barack Obama is the only person of whom i am aware who is really an “African-American.” Folks don’t call me “European-American.” i did meet some “European-Africans” when i was in Africa over thirty years ago.

If your family has been here for more than 100 years, then i think we should just cut all that out and call you an American. Of course, we could start  calling all  folks by their country or continent or both. So i should be labeled “European-British-American-Southern-Californian” or something. Some bright and lazy crown could turn it into an acronym (EBASOC).

Now don’t get me wrong, i think we should all honor our heritages and not denigrate other races, heritages, home of our ancestors, etc. But i’m getting a little tired of people getting wrapped around the axle because someone called them a name they didn’t like.

i acknowledge and accept previous comments by my dear friend, Dr. Kathy McMahon Klosterman about being aware of others’ sensitivity (or perhaps “sensibility” is a better term here). She’s right. Furthermore, i have not experienced the degradation, the debasement, the injustice, and all of the other things i don’t know about because i haven’t experienced them.

Perhaps i’m just too simple to grasp the concept.

But to be perfectly honest, i wish we would just drop all of that “color,” “race,” and all other means of separating us.

How about calling us “souls?”

i took a walk this morning (Tuesday). Yippee ki yay. It was the first time i’ve done any real physical activity in exactly three weeks. Hip hip hooray. The doc said i could walk if i didn’t overdo it. Glory hallelujah. It was glorious. Hoorah. And to top it off, i got this view about half-way through the one and half mile circuit:

i appreciate everyone’s concern and well wishes, but to be honest, other than some breathing issues, coughing, lots of phlegm, laryngitis, fitful short sleep, and enough meds to choke a horse, it really wasn’t all that bad except, excuse my French, i’m really tired of this shit of not doing anything.

But compared to others i know and care about, this has been a piece of cake. i am not complaining, just a little whine with my lunch.

i think…no, i hope it’s nearly over. The wave has crested. I am fairly confident i can now claim i am on my way to recovering from the crud. The doc says i should be good to go by the end of next weekend, about four weeks. FOUR WEEKS.

Man, that’s a long time. i know now.

Really, i was okay. i was just uncomfortable. It was a virus, coupled with sinusitis that morphed into “asthmatic bronchitis.” i knew i was going to pull out of it.

The worst thing was doing NOTHING. i never get a lot done because i keep hopping from one project to another and spend one hell of a lot of time procrastinating, but this was so not me, this just sitting around. When i asked if i could play golf, the doc damn near went epileptic on me. “Rest!” he said, “Rest is a major factor in getting you well. Stressing your breathing before you are recovered is the worst thing.”

So i have been sitting on my a…, ah well, you know. i didn’t have the energy or concentration to write or read, so i slept…sort of. i slept as much as i could, not much but a lot of time in bed trying . i watched more television than i have in the last ten years. And i generally don’t like watching television unless it’s a sports contest with some personal interest.

i am not complaining. There are so many people of my generation who are in much worse condition, dealing with terrible health issues, facing death with nobility, and quite a few already are sadly gone.

i really wasn’t worried…almost. It’s that time. I’m seventy-three. As Gayle Marks Byrnes said to me, “We are survivors.” That’s not bad. It could be worse. The Social Security Administration has a web page stating  “A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 84.3.” When i ran their individual assessment, it predicted 13 more years and my lasting until i am 86.3. My parents lived to just shy of 97 and 99. i’ve got a good chance to keep on ticking for a while.

Still, i’ve had a long pause. The situation led me to think and reflect. You see, when the doc said “asthmatic bronchitis,” some bells rang. When he ordered x-rays to ensure it wasn’t pneumonia, i became more concerned. My mother suffered significant allergies leading to asthma and other physical problems for most of her latter life. My maternal grandfather died early from what everyone now believes was asthma. My father-in-law died from esophagus cancer, and my father, after a life of incredible health, was done in by pneumonia.

My concerns, at least for now, have been put out to pasture.

But who knows? It’s gonna be what’s it’s gonna be, and i don’t think i have a lot of say about it. i’m fine with that.

i am a very lucky man. i have had a wonderful, exciting, groovy, successful, happy, an interesting life. But i don’t think it’s all that different from most people’s lives. And i rest now knowing i always tried to do what’s right. Yeh, i failed a couple of times but without the intention of doing anything that wasn’t right. Bad judgement. i have some people who don’t particularly think much of me. Their choice, not mine. It’s okay. i don’t blame them. i’m not in their shoes, don’t wish to waste my time thinking why. i don’t like them any less.

Whenever i do go, i can go satisfied about what i’ve done and what i’ve not done.

That’s one of the things i resolved while sitting around reflecting for three weeks.

i also wondered if other folks spend a lot of time thinking about things like this. i wondered if it was a good thing or not. i remembered Dave Carey telling me and others how the POW’s had a lot of time to talk to each other about things they thought and felt, much more than all of us who didn’t spend that time as prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton. When they did talk about sensitive, private things, they found out they had similar thoughts about many deep things.

i thought i would share this just in case there are some other old farts who have considered the end of all this like me. They might like to know there are others who spend time thinking on similar lines. Hmm, maybe there aren’t any who think about this stuff.

i know i have committed to writing. What kind of writing and how much is up in the air, to be determined. That’s the underlying purpose in my two-week writing retreat to Flagstaff next month.

This piece initially was about four times longer than it will be when i finish. This crud gave me a lot of time to reflect upon a lot of things. But i cut a lot out. i was…well, i was rambling. i won’t make any promises because i have committed to change before only to rationalize myself out of it shortly afterward.

The bottom line: all of my reflection has led me to a couple of conclusions. i hope to spend the rest of my life unafraid, continue to always try to do the right thing, write in a manner that is consistent with those two objectives, and not worry about what others think.

And have fun. At my age, life is too short to fool with all that other stuff.