There are about a half dozen draft posts hanging around my computer and the cloud. Been in a funk. Not quite some things i’m ready to talk about. Not depressed. Just inert. Tonight, i, as an electronically, cloud challenged Neanderthal, i wrestled with about a gazillion duplications of my files on my computer, my portable hard drive (not working right of course), Google, and Apple, i ran across some of my early Democrat columns. i decided to actually post something, and for now, delete the copy i found. This column, reedited here, was the thirty second one for the Democrat back in 2008.

SAN DIEGO – This is a sea story about sea sickness. It is not for the squeamish.

Before 1963, my experience with motion sickness was limited to Wilson County Fair rides with Mike Dixon and George Thomas and fishing quests with my father, my cousin Maxwell Martin, and Henry Harding.

The fair rides didn’t faze me. The closest to my having motion sickness was those fishing outings. When we got back on dry land, my legs would wobble for a while.

Then in June 1963, my parents drove me to Nashville to catch a Trailways Bus to Newport, Rhode Island for my NROTC training cruise.

I had opted for a bus ride rather than the Navy scheduling my flight, even though it would have been my first plane ride. I reasoned I could make a few bucks for my own use. i didn’t save a dime.

The bus left noon on Saturday. I arrived in Newport 43 hours later, 7:00 a.m. on Monday with a perceptible aroma of travel.

As an ensign and driver hustled me and other midshipmen into a van. I discovered my sea bag had not arrrived. Trailways said it was on the next bus and would be delivered before my ship, the U.S.S. Lloyd Thomas (DD 764), got underway.

It didn’t.

It did get to a ship departing later and finally got to me three weeks later.

When I reported aboard I was escorted to the hedgehog deck (hedgehog was a short-lived anti-submarine weapon) with 20 other midshipmen  just below the bridge.

We were put in formation to stand out of the harbor.

As we passed Newport’s beautiful“Ocean Drive,” I learned the cruelty of sailors to landlubbers.

Paper sacks, or “barf bags,” were strategically in handrails around the ship. A seasoned chief took one to the chief’s mess and crushed graham crackers into milk, pouring the concoction into the bag.

Then he walked out on the hedgehog deck under the bridge wing where he could not be seen from above. With the curious midshipmen watching, he announced he always became ill when the ship got underway.

Saying that, he leaned over and made noises as if he was vomiting into the bag. After a sigh, he announced, “And there is only one way I can cure it.”

With that, he put the bag to his mouth and began to gulp the mixture with a large amount spilling down his chin and onto his uniform.

Within seconds, all but three of the midshipmen were at the lifelines, attaining a level of seasickness which could only be described as epic.

We weren’t even out of Narragansett Bay.

I was one of the three left standing in the puny formation remaining.

The sailors were not satisfied. At the evening meal on the mess decks, they served greasy pork chops and several old salts tied sardines (canned) to strings and walked through the mess decks swallowing them and then pulling them back up with the string.

The midshipmen were reeling.

Somehow, I remained okay.

My first assignment was the mid-watch (from midnight until 4:00 a.m.) in combat information center (CIC), a darkened space aft of the bridge. With no seabag, i was reeking of three days travel aroma.

The radarmen were determined to initiate me into the ways of the sea. I was assigned a radar scope and placed where I rolled with the ship, the worst position for motion sickness. For four hours, I sat staring at the dark round scope, rolling side to side. The watch section sensed I was near the anticipated moment. They lit cigars and took turns walking by me, stopping to check while blowing cigar smoke into my slightly green face.

Their effort to make me sick brought out my stubbornness. Even though I was beyond nausea, I refused to give them their laugh on me. I swallowed back my sickness.

I never came close to being sea sick again. I have been in sea state five oceans. I have encountered the worst possible conditions for inducing that terrible illness, but have been unfazed. There is no doubt in my mind, that first day at sea in 1963 was one reason, but also partially due to my stubbornness and a bunch of fishing trips to Center Hill and Old Hickory Lakes.

Post script: The next today, the radar gang found a sailor who had clothes to fit me. He gave me a couple of enlisted uniforms, including very smelly camel leather boots he had purchased in Israel. A midshipman gave me one of his “Dixie Cup” hats. I filled my locker, took a shower, and finally felt human again, although my feet smelled like camel for almost three weeks.

This photo of the book cover accompanied the column in the paper addition of the paper (hmm…i have to think about that statement).

As per my usual modus operendi, i didn’t go back and check and therefore didn’t include the other books on that shelf: No Longer Hangs the Fluted Shade: Random Observations in Verse, Paul Wooten’s poetry book; Castle Heights Military Academy 100th Anniversary  Alumni Directory;  Grand Ole Saturday Nights, Margaret Britton Vaughn; Discovering Tennessee, Mary U. Rothrock; Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History, John Allison; Tennessee: The Volunteer State, Mary French Caldwell; Landmarks  of Tennessee History, edited by William T. Alderson and Robert M. McBride; Remembering Wilson County, published by Wilson County Bank & Trust; and Haunting Memories: Echoes and Images of Tennessee’s Past, photos by Christine P. Patterson and text by Wilma Dykeman.

And although William Faulkner was as Mississippi as Mississippi can be, his works bring me back to home. Faulkner’s County: Yoknapatawpha, a photographic essay of Jackson, Mississippi and the surrounding area accompanied by quotes from Faulkner’s novels evoke feelings, real powerful feelings, and i include the book in my list.

i have found the information about the books and their authors, editors, and publishers are almost as interesting as the books themselves.

i keep trying to imagine Major Wooten bending over his desk, writing his poetry by hand in his classroom (wasn’t it in the McFadden basement, Heightsmen of my time?) after the cadets had gone to short order drill on the drill field; the track team had rendezvoused on what is now known as Stroud Gwynn Field and will soon become history so Wilson County Bank and Trust can build a headquarters building (sometimes progress isn’t) and played Jimmy Reed’s album of blues over the press box speaker system, the baseball team had ambled down to the diamond on hill street east of the drill field to smack out hits and field grounders and lazy fly balls. And then i try to picture the erstwhile major taking them home and clacking out the poems on his typewriter into the late evening.

Lillian, his wife, compiled and edited them. i have a copy signed by Lillian, dated the year the book was published, 1994. i ‘m sure my mother and father bought the book for me. Lillian wrote, “Jim, Enjoy a chat with Mr. Wooten through this book of verse.”

i have had chats with the Major on numerous occasions.

His poetry is more poetic than mine. His is classic poetry. And it rhymes. It is thoughtful, deep, light, meaningful, humorous, and most of all, it touches my soul. Yet it seems we both have had this passion for writing, not necessarily for others to read, but something that drives us from within to put things down on paper, except now it’s on this infernal computer screen. Of course, it is pleasing to know people read what i write and like it. i’m sure Major Wooten felt the same when his works were published.

There are times when i chastise myself for missing him. He was always there on the hilltop in his Army greens, but i never had him for class. i think we would have connected. i remember him as being a nice man who seemed professional, a teacher. i had already started to write poems, mostly as an outlet and all pretty bad. i have never rhymed very much and keep trying to categorize what i write because “poetry” seems like an exaggerated compliment. But Paul Wooten’s verses are poetry, pure poetry.

In the introduction, Lillian writes when April rolls in, she will honor his request to “Look out the window once, for me.”

And in April, i will look out the window, pull No Longer Hangs the Fluted Shade down from the bookshelf and have another chat with the major.

This column was published in The Lebanon Democrat this past Tuesday. i think it is one of my better ones. However, my editing was bad. You see, i fried my laptop last Thursday week with a full glass of water on the keyboard. It is in the process of being repaired or the data being retrieved, but it has put me in a quandary and going back to a PC and Windows, rather than the Mac, has thrown me for a loop. Even passwords, especially to my own web site has been a problem.i hope the below revision has been edited properly.  With the help of Walker Hicks, the game is back on.

SAN DIEGO – Two events, similar but different, occurred this past week.

Muhammad Ali, nee Cassius Marcellus Clay, in case you have been sequestered, died Friday after an extended battle with Parkinson’s disease. The world has extolled Ali’s virtues and celebrated his life.

Thursday night, Donny Everett, a Vanderbilt freshman pitcher from Clarksville, drowned in Normandy Lake. Donny’s accident was broadcast widely in sports media, and the Commodores were lauded for honoring their fallen teammate while losing to Xavier and Washington and being eliminated from the NCAA.

Both were athletes a cut above the norm and both were honored after their deaths.

Ali’s claim as “The Greatest” was not without merit. He was meteor with a mouth rising to fame when I was in high school and college. I covered his bouts from a distance while working in sports journalism. He eclipsed the magnetism of boxing champions who preceded him and was, in my mind, the last great champion of the “sport of kings.”

Donny Everett, 19, was a gifted pitcher who remained loyal to his commitment to play for Vanderbilt even after being selected as Tennessee’s Gatorade Player of the Year and projected to be a first-round pick in the Major League Baseball draft after his senior season for Clarksville in 2015. He was praised for his 99-mph fastball and his ability to eat up innings. This season at Vandy, he recorded a 1.5 ERA with 13 strikeouts in 12 innings.

Yet there were differences between the two.

Ali was two years older than me. Donny was young enough to be my grandson.

Ali took me through a gamut of feelings about him.

I considered him our country’s hero when he won the light heavyweight Olympic gold medal in 1960.

In February 1964, I listened to the Clay-Liston championship fight on my small radio in my Vanderbilt dorm room. I was mesmerized. While many sports writers and fans found his antics and braggadocio unattractive, I thought he was marvelous.

When he changed his name to Muhammad Ali after joining the Nation of Islam shortly after winning the championship, I questioned him and his new religion. I was on an NROTC scholarship. Ali’s conversion seemed to me as an affront to my religious views and patriotism.

As I was nearing graduation in 1967 and pursuing Navy OCS after being declared 1-A for the draft, Ali declared he was a “conscientious objector,” beginning four years of legal battles before the Supreme Court overturned his conviction for avoiding the draft. Since I had committed to serving my country, it was hard for me to understand Ali’s motives.

As the years progressed, I learned more of Ali’s reasoning for his religious conversion and how he was passionate about equality. I again became an admirer of his views and his boxing prowess. When news of his contracting Parkinson’s disease, most likely due to the many blows while boxing, I was saddened. When he lit the torch at the 1996 opening ceremony for the Atlanta Olympics, I was thrilled.

I knew little of Donny Everett. I saw him pitch a scoreless inning in the SEC playoffs. That was it. But as I read about the person and the athlete, I could not help but draw comparisons to Ali. Donny’s time on earth and his passing will certainly not have the lasting impact Ali has had on the world. Everett’s potential, his conviviality, and his loyalty are gone. He could have been a champion in American sports. He could have had a positive impact on the world as an athletic hero. We will never know.

I believe Ali’s words about how he would like to be remembered would be shared by Donny had the young man had the chance to think about it:

“I would like to be remembered as a man who won the heavyweight title three times, who was humorous, and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him, and who helped as many people as he could. As a man who stood up for his beliefs no matter what. As a man who tried to unite all humankind through faith and love. And if all that’s too much, then I guess I’d settle for being remembered only as a great boxer who became a leader and champion of his people. And I wouldn’t even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.”

For the past two days, i have been considering writing my Democrat column for next Tuesday about Pattaya Beach, Thailand. It was a great liberty port with an interesting way to get to shore. I was even going to submit the column two to four days earlier, hopefully pleasing Editor Jared Felkins.

This evening, as i prepared to write and while copying a photo to run with the column, something was nagging me. So i did a search of back columns and found the one below i wrote in 2009. My old memory has some holes but occasionally nagging thoughts serve me well.

Since i can’t use this for The Democrat, i decided you might enjoy reading about our exploits in 1981. It is the cleaned up version.

SAN DIEGO – In the Southwest corner, there is some historic land bordering San Diego Bay.

“Historic” is in the eye of the beholder. Many consider this land historic because it was in several scenes in “Top Gun,” the Tom Cruise blockbuster.

An aside: my cousin Angelyn Jewell, was the inspiration for Kelly McGillis’ character. Angelyn, born to Wesley and Barbara Compton Jewell after they moved from Lebanon to Oroville, CA, received her doctorate in mathematics and flew in F-14s in her work on fire control radars for the Center for Naval Analyses. She and her husband, Scott Berg, now live and work in Washington, D.C.

But from 1923 to 1997, the 361 acres at the base of Point Loma was the Navy Training Center. The Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) decreed its 1997 demise. Now it is called Liberty Station, a hodge podge of housing development, commercial areas, parks, and some Navy historic edifices.

The name could have been derived from “liberty” as in Patrick Henry’s quote, “Give me liberty or give me death!” in his speech to Virginia’s House of Burgesses in 1775.

But I don’t think so. To mariners, Navy “liberty” is getting off the ship in a port without taking leave. My most glorious adventures and craziest moments occurred during such liberty on deployments.

Reduced deployment time and the new Navy with ship crew swaps and heavy operating tempo in the Indian Ocean have greatly decreased port visits. With women now an integral part of Navy ship crews, the wild times of earlier liberty has been greatly tempered.

It ain’t what it used to be and that ain’t necessarily bad.

In my days, sailors would go to extremes to go on liberty and be extreme while there.

In 1981, I had one of my best years on liberty. I spent ten out of 12 months in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean on the staff of Amphibious Squadron Five and later joining the U.S.S. Okinawa as Weapons Officer.

During that summer, the USS Belleau Wood, the squadron’s flag ship went to Pattaya Beach, Thailand. Originally, Pattaya Beach was a small fishing village at the southeastern side of the Bay of Bangkok.

In the 1960s in part due to the U.S. Air Force and the Vietnam conflict, it became a popular location for rest and relaxation (R&R) for U.S. military personnel. It is now a resort destination for that part of the world.

For a large Navy ship, there were some problems going to Pattaya Beach. Due to the shallow gradient, the USS Belleau Wood anchored five miles from the beach. Large pontoon boats loaded about fifty of the liberty party onto each boat and carried them to about a mile from shore.

The pontoon boats would lie to while “longtails” would come alongside for the passengers. The “longtails” were narrow, wooden canoe-like boats which could carry about 15 people. The boats got their name from the shaft of the outboard motor. The shafts were roughly twenty feet long, sticking out astern. This allowed the propellers to be in deep enough water to drive the boats as close to shore as possible before going aground.

With the shallow gradient, even this was not enough to get the “longtails” ashore at low tide, which of course was the condition when I went ashore. Passengers took off their shoes and socks, rolled up their pants to above their knees, stepped over the side and waded about 100 yards to the shore.

I felt like McArthur returning to the Philippines except for the numerous para-sailing tourists zooming over my head.

In 1981, Pattaya Beach surpassed even Subic Bay on Luzon in the Philippines for wild and wooly liberty. Yet it also had high end resort hotels and fine restaurants. Even though I was single, stories of the dangers kept me out of the bars and “off-limit” areas. I had some fine meals with fellow officers, enjoyed the scenery, and shopped for exquisite jewels at ridiculously low prices. I bought my mother a gift.

For a change, I was a good boy and did not cut a wide swath through Pattaya Beach liberty. However, many friends did, and the stories were astounding but too risqué to relate here.

But when I think of liberty, I think of Pattaya Beach, not a development in downtown San Diego.