A Significant Weekend (from 2008)

In case you haven’t noticed, i have not been very active on this website for quite a while. To be honest, i have been a bit down about a number of things and just haven’t been ready to do much of anything except enjoy my life, my family, my friends…er, my bad golf as much as i can. After all, i’m working hard on making it to 76, and regardless of how you cut it, that is old.

i have  considered just giving up on social media and writing because, regardless of my intent, there are people who find something wrong with it. That, of course, is the way life works. Humans have some bad gene or something that makes them want to find something wrong with others My friend and former POW Dave Carey used to describe such people as those who like “to throw rocks over the wall” with no regard to who might get hurt on the other side. i often have the urge to throw rocks, but try to restrain and find out who those other people are on the other side and where we might find common ground. Several years ago, i vowed not to manage relationships and if there was anyone in my life who required me to manage the relationship, i would not do so. No dislike here. That just is their choice, and if they require me to make the contact, do the queries, whatever, then it just wasn’t meant to be. 

About a week ago, i changed my mind about the writing (but not managing relationships). i am really going to finish my book about my XO tour with the beginning of the “Women at Sea” program. i am going to resume frequent posts about my thoughts on now, memories, and previous writings not published here — being old, it is quite possible i will forget i have posted some of these and post repeats — all with the intent of leaving a legacy for my grandson Sam. This is not some chest beating boasting of what i have done. To the contrary, i have made numerous mistakes in my life. i am in a good place because of good decisions and my mistakes. One of my many regrets, as i have mentioned here before, is both of my grandfathers died before i was born. i never knew them and i often wonder what they were like, who they really were. Hopefully, Sam will have all of this stuff here to have some idea who at least one grandfather was. and maybe use my experience to his advantage. That’s it. And that’s enough.

Over the life of this website, i have posted 43 of my 500 “Notes from the Southwest Corner” in The Lebanon Democrat here. The rest will be posted here on a frequent basis, along with many, if not all of my other Democrat column, “Minding Your Own Business,” but under the category, “Pretty Good Management,” which i prefer.

In short: i’m back.

A Significant Weekend

SAN DIEGO – This has been a difficult column to write. Numerous things from my perch in the Southwest corner and far away in Lebanon made my past of  weekend (January 18-20), poignant with significant personal events.

Working backwards, Sunday was moving day. Our daughter Sarah, after a semester of commuting to San Diego State University from our home, moved into a dormitory for her second semester. I once again experienced the difficult art of letting go.

Her departure was rough on the old man. While many have experienced a child leaving home, my role as the at-home parent, a.k.a mister mom, and at a substantially older age than most parents, made Sarah’s departure particularly emotional.

The day before, Saturday, January 19, I became an old man according to the Beatles. On their “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band,” album, McCartney sang “When I’m 64.” I reached that magic number. Robert E. Lee reached birthday 200.

Friday, the beginning of this significant weekend, the initiating event was sad. My mother, Estelle Jewell, called to inform me Erma Baird passed away.

Mrs. Baird, her husband Charlie, and their daughter, Sharry Baird Hager, have been a part of my life, literally since I was born. Sharry, Henry Harding, and I were baptized on the same Sunday at the Lebanon First Methodist Episcopal Church South on East Main in the late spring of 1944.

Erma is one of my wife’s favorite people in Lebanon.

On one trip to Lebanon, Charlie and Erma came to call while we visited my parents. Mischievously, Erma smiled and said, “I have something for you.” She gave Maureen pictures of a play the Methodist Youth Fellowship produced when I was fourteen. Many friends were co-stars but somehow I had been chosen to play Jesus as a young boy.

Maureen focused on this goofy looking guy at center stage, complete with a page boy wig, knee-length toga, and madras Bermuda shorts showing underneath as he sat spread-legged on a stool. I am not sure Maureen has ever completely recovered from laughing at the photo.

Erma, of course, loved the reaction.

The women of the “greatest” generation, as labeled by Tom Brokaw, were an incredible group of people. Their role through the Depression, World War II, and its aftermath was the synthesis for change. They balanced being a housewife and mother with pioneering equality in the workplace. They were strong; they were supportive; they were always busy.

Erma Baird had all the characteristics of the women of her generation. She was also one of the sweetest, loving women who ever walked the face of the earth. It seemed to me she loved everybody and could always find something good about any person or any situation.

She was that way when I can first remember her in my life, and she was that way when I visited her just before Christmas.

Even though, I am some 2,000 miles from Lebanon, the impact of losing Mrs. Baird hit me hard.

In the middle of all of these significant events, my daughter Blythe informs me my grandson Sam has spoken his first words, “Kitty Cat,” and is obviously connecting the word to the two felines who reside with him. It was a big day for the Jewell household. We are informed of Sam’s “firsts” almost daily, but a baby starting to talk is a giant step.

Years ago, a great deal of this weekend’s events would have washed over me. I would have kept on “chooglin’” along as Creedence Clearwater Revival exhorted me to do.

But late that Sunday evening, I sat before the fading embers in the family room fireplace and reflected: The world continues to change with significant events. Letting go of children, getting older, losing friends who have completed life’s cycle, and welcoming new friends into the cycle is constant. If all of us can deal with the cycle as have Erma and Charlie Baird, my parents, and many, others of that generation in Lebanon, we will be all right.

Note: i would have included the photo here in this edition of the column, but Maureen was adamant i should not.

2 thoughts on “A Significant Weekend (from 2008)

  1. I too never knew either of my grandfathers as they passed away before i was born. My paternal grandfather was born in 1877 and never knew his grandfather who passed in 1863 after being pursued by the confederate army from Oklahoma to Kansas in the dead of winter when he refused to fight, and i quote, “white man’s war” aka the Civil War. I would have loved to hear his story of the Trail of Tears.
    I also remember Mrs. Baird as best i can. I always thought she so pretty. I don’t know if she was a member of the Carol Community Home Demonstration Club, but my mother, Mrs. Lannom, and Mrs. Phillips were. It was a lively group out at Hunter’s Point.
    I wish i could remember you portraying Jesus, but i would have been 13 and my mother died when i had just turned 13. I don’t remember much that year at all except for the birth of my niece Liz at the end of my 13th year. Just tried to put one foot in front of the other.

  2. Hi, Jim,
    I always enjoy coming to your post and enjoying a good storytelling. Thanks for sharing. I really like the statement about throwing the rocks over the wall. Hugs

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