One Life

Sundown in zion

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sunday morning: Still visiting with the victim's family

            “Give us ten,” Eli said. He stood and walked to the door of a small bathroom in a corner of the shop. He closed the door and the sound of water running drifted through door. Moments later, the door opened and he returned to the table, his face bright from the washing and a smile returning to it. “We flyboys aren’t as tough as you bad-assed swabbies,” he said.

            “Mr. Stubblefield, it’s far easier to train men to be tough than it is to train them to respect humanity.”

            Eli seemed for a second on the verge of another breakdown but he took a breath, looked away, and said, “Thanks.” Then he added, “Please call me Eli.”

            “This is a nice shop,” Nelson said. “Did you build it yourself?”

            Eli said, “I call it the ‘War Room.’ The girls allowed me to put all my combat pay into a special account for it. I pulled four tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.” He paused. “It added up.”

            Nelson said, “Isn’t it funny what war does to a man?” Eli knitted his eyebrows. “I’ll use mine to go to college,” Nelson said, “my war money.” He smiled.

            “I want to thank you for both of us for helping,” Eli said. “You’ll never know.”

            “Don’t thank me too soon. I’m not a trained investigator.”

            “Martin said you did pretty well in Armistead County.”

            Nelson shrugged. “I got lucky,” he said.

            “I didn’t think you guys believed in luck.”

            Nelson laughed. “A person hears a lot about the teams,” he said. “Some of it, not all though, may even be true.”

            Someone knocked on the door and Eli stood up quickly and walked toward it. He opened the door for Martha who eased by him carrying a tray with coffee cups, a carafe, and a platter of muffins. “Snack time,” she said, placing the tray on the table before Nelson. She took two cups and poured coffee for Eli and Nelson, then placed the platter before them. After seeing that they were served, she poured coffee for herself and sat opposite them. “Now you two better enjoy those muffins,” she said. “I made them myself.”

            “Best obey,” Eli said. “She is the commanding officer here.” He placed muffins on two plates and handed one, along with a napkin, to Nelson. “You don’t want to know the penalty for ignoring orders.”

            Nelson smiled and took a bite of his muffin. He followed it with a sip of coffee. “Delicious,” he said.

            “Now,” Martha said, nibbling at a muffin, “tell us what you know about Abbey.”

            Nelson shrugged. “Not much,” he said. “She sounds like quite an individual.”

            “We thought so,” Martha said.

            “I went to the church in Connorville,” Nelson said. “Nobody claims to remember her.”

            “An African-American child attending a church in Connorville?” Martha smiled. “Who would notice that?”

            “I didn’t expect much,” Nelson said. “That town’s reputation exceeds itself.”

            “They haven’t released the medical examiner’ report,” Eli said.

            “That was going to be one of the things I checked on,” Nelson said. “Is there a problem?”

            Martha leaned forward and spoke. “There appears to be a jurisdictional dispute.”

            “A what?” Nelson turned his full attention to her.

            “Seems,” Martha said, “from what we can dredge out of them, that the police chief is now claiming the place where they found the body is not in the city.”

            Nelson drew a deep breath. “I would think it either is or isn’t.”

            “Not that simple,” Eli said. “We found that out when we were redrawing our flight zones at the Air Base. Apparently, there are no standards in the state for preparing descriptions of city limits lines. So the quality varies, and that is an understatement. Most of the cities in the state have no idea where their corporate limits are.”

            “They are arguing over the spot where your daughter’s body was found?”

            Martha said, “They apparently don’t want to admit that a person of color—that’s not exactly what they call us—was in town after dark, even if they were dead.”

            The three sat in silence for a minute. Nelson broke it. “I may have to ask you some tough questions if we are to get underway with this.”

            Eli said, “Such as?”

            Nelson composed himself. “Is there any chance Abbey may have fallen in with any bad influences?”

            Martha stiffened. “Why do you ask that?” she said.

            “I hate to,” Nelson said, “but there will be some claims arise that she may have been the victim of gang violence.”

            “I wish you could have known her,” Martha said.

            Nelson said nothing.

            “Then you would have known how baseless that is,” Martha said, “wherever it comes from.”

             “I just needed to get that out of the way,” Nelson said. “Nobody who knew her seems to disagree with you.”

            “She could be strong-headed,” Eli said. “She was particularly good at controlling me.” He smiled.

            “When she wanted to con him, she would call him ‘Daddykins’ to soften him up,” Martha said. “By the time she got around to whatever it was she wanted, he would be like putty.”

            “She never asked for anything that I wouldn’t have wanted her to have anyway,” Eli said.

            “Remember the time she wanted a new microscope?” Martha said, looking at Eli.

            He laughed, “Oh do I?” He turned to Nelson. “She found these old glasses, probably at a flea-market, with these half-inch thick lenses—made her look like a teen-aged girl version of Mr. McGoo. She walked around for several days wearing them and bumping into things.” He stopped to savor the memory. “She’d say, ‘Daddykins, I just can’t see what I need to see,’ and then she’d pretend to trip over something. She finally asked for the microscope and what could I say?”

            “She must have been fun to have around,” Nelson said.

            “You’ll never know,” Eli said, “how much I resent now those overseas deployments that took me away from her.”

            Martha patted his arm. “Now honey,” she said, “the Air Force gave us a good life and you were faithful to it.” She looked at Nelson and said, “Did he happen to tell you that he was in the running for Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force?”

            Nelson drew in a sharp breath. “No,” he said. “I was already impressed. Now I’m in awe.”

            “Problem was,” Eli said, “they insisted that I sign up for four more years. I chose to spend them with Abbey instead.”

            “You made the right decision,” Martha said. “We had some good days.”

            The room became quiet. Sounds from the street filtered through the walls and mixed with the fine dust leftover from the woodworking. Nelson said, “Was Abbey religious?”

            “No,” Eli said. “We weren’t. No apologies. You would have to understand growing up poor and black. Martha goes now just to fill time on Sunday mornings.”

            “I don’t practice the art of judging,” Nelson said. “I just wonder why she began attending church during the last weeks of her life.”

            Martha looked at Eli and he looked at his coffee cup. She waited and he finally raised his eyes to hers and nodded. She said, “We need to be honest with you.” Nelson waited. “Abbey did change after her friend Bridgette had her problems. Not enough to make her go bad. She just …”

            “She changed, that’s all,” Eli said. “It was like her childhood went away and some new personality moved into its place.”

            “She could be moody,” Martha said. Eli nodded. She said, “She could be testy. I thought it was just part of growing up. You know …when the bear cubs start fighting with the momma.”

            “Disrespectful?” Nelson said.

            “Oh no,” Eli said. “Just secretive and quieter than normal. She even made a “B plus” on an exam. That’s when we were sure she was behaving a little differently.”

            “This Bridgette,” Nelson said, “tell me about her.”

            “A white girl,” Eli said, “and that was a little different because most of Abbey’s friends over the years hadn’t been white.”

            “I don’t think she thought about it in terms of color,” Martha said. “She tended to focus so much on learning that she didn’t venture much into strong friendships, and then it was with kids much like her in terms of background.”

            “Until she met Bridgette,” Eli said.

            “Until she met Bridgett,” Martha said. “They were in the swimming club together and began hanging out, as they called it. Before long, they were inseparable. Mostly they hung out at our house because Bridgett was, you know, from Connorville,” She paused. “and because the swim club was located here.

            “Both good athletes,” Eli said, “although Bridgette was never quite the swimmer that Abbey was.” He paused. “Abbey seemed to have been born part fish … and Bridgette was just a blink of an eye slower,” he said. “And that’s what caused the problem.”

            Nelson said, “What problem?”

            “The problem with drugs,” Eli said. When the others waited, he said, “Bridgette was extremely competitive. You never saw a more determined person. She had the strength and determination of Hercules when she set a goal.”

            “Let me guess,” Nelson said, “steroids.”

            “Oh no,” Martha said. “She would never resort to that.”

            “No,” Eli said, “she was so determined to match Abbey that she overdid the practicing and strained some muscles. That led to pain medication and that is what led to the drugs.”

            “It devastated Abbey,” Martha said, “to see her best friend in trouble and because of her, the competitive obsession and all. They were very close but Abbey wasn’t able to help her.”

            “Then she disappeared,” Eli said, “Bridgette did.”

            “Into the drug culture?” Nelson said.

            “Oh no,” Eli said. “She was working on getting over the drugs, it seems.”

            Nelson appeared confused but didn’t respond.

            “He’s jumping ahead,” Martha said. “He’s apt to do that because his mind works so fast.” She smiled and patted Eli’s arm. “When Bridgette’s mom realized there was a drug problem, she got her some help. Lord knows how she afforded it. According to another young girl who was in treatment with her, Bridgette was responding and was going to be released from treatment soon. According to the girl, Bridgette had been a model patient. She had even started an exercise class for the others.”

            Eli said, “That’s an example of how strong she could be when she put her mind to it.”

            “Abbey was so excited,” Martha said. “She was planning a big party when Bridgette got home.”

            “You can imagine how disappointed she was when Bridgette disappeared,” Eli said.

            Nelson leaned forward. “Relapse?”

            “Don’t know,” Eli said. “Nobody knows.”

            Nelson said, “What happened?”

            “She just disappeared,” Martha said. “Ran away.”

            “Nobody has seen her since,” Martha said.

            Nelson said, “You mean she was responding to drug rehab and then just ran away?”

            “That’s how is seems,” Eli said, “although Abbey didn’t believe it happened that way.”

            “Why not?”

            “She had talked to Bridgette and, according to Abbey, Bridgette was making all sorts of plans for the future. She had even had athletic scholarship offers from a couple of schools.”

            “Not any as prestigious as Miami U, though,” Eli said.

            “No,” Martha said, “Not like our Abbey. Did you know the swim coach called us personally when he heard?”

            “Does Bridgette’s mother have any idea where she may have gone?” Nelson said.

            “Not a clue,” Eli said. “And the folks at the center haven’t been much help. They just kept saying that they have girls run away from time to time and it isn’t their responsibility to find them. They can only treat them while they are on campus.”

            “On campus?”

            “At the Ransom Center.”

            Nelson’s had been looking away as he listened. His head jerked around. “Did you say the Ransom Center?”

Forethought

I’m listening to a German violinist, Lisa Batiashvili, perform the a violin concerto as I work on an overdue project. I stopped to watch her for a moment and a thought struck me. We tend to become lost in a musical piece, listening to the melody, the flow, the tempo, the phrasing and all the senses that music evokes. We can’t help ourselves. Notes performed without flaw captivate us and take us wherever our emotions will follow.

The composer, though—in this case Brahms—wrote each individual note after what may have been a great deal of thought, agony, and anguish. Before he put pen to paper, he had given much consideration to what he was about to do. In doing so, he employed all his talent as well as the knowledge, compassion, restraint, enthusiasm, and knowledge accumulated throughout his life (45 years at this point).

His care in presenting his thoughts allows someone to understand and translate his notes with a sublime and coherent presentation. The audience receives a gift of pure unalloyed joy. The world becomes a better place from the shared experience.

What, I wondered, would happen if we put only a smattering of thought into the words we say and write. What if we put each word on trial? Will it fit the situation? Will it not offend unintentionally? Will it add to, or detract from, the grandeur of life? Will it bring comfort to the afflicted? Will it teach us and not diminish us? Most of all, have we followed the teaching of writer Francine Prose and put “every word on trial for its life?”

It might be better if we did so, don’t you think?

Day Off

Out earning today. Will just leave you with a simple thought.

I'm a victim of Reverse Jimmy Buffett/Ernest Hemingway Syndrome. Yes, that's the syndrome exemplified by the entrenched belief that, no matter where on the planet you are, you are the only American that the natives love.

The natives always hated me. So did the in-country folks, I believe.

I was never chosen for a sports team.

No girl ever danced with me when I asked.

Teachers didn't learn my name until the semester was over.

I was the "Marty" (Remember the movie? One of my all time hits.) of my world, except the woman who finally did pay attention was knock-down gorgeous.

Oh, I guess I had, still do, some extraordinary friends.

Well, there were some bosses that paid me well and taught me things.

I've always had good neighbors.

Some great musicians have befriended me.

Come to think about it, I've been pretty darn lucky.

Have a good day.

Adrift on strange waters.

 A great tragedy has befallen our state and it must trouble any thinking person. It occurs at a time when the powers that govern us believe less in progressive policy than at any time in my adult life. Education is scorned. Science lies abandoned. The belief that government can be a positive force for humankind is denigrated as a doctrine.

But the floodwaters keep rising. And the rain keeps coming. And government grows less able to meet the dangers each day. We now find that running from them isn’t the answer. Mother Nature can find us even in homogeneous communities where everyone thinks and looks like us. She follows a Biblical paradigm and spreads her waters on the just and unjust alike.

Things are changing. They will continue to change. Who knows how that will affect Americans? I know change scares us. Americans seem to spend a great deal of time and resources protecting themselves and their children from change, strangers, and the different. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.

There was a time when I thought I had it made. I was young, educated, healthy, and living in the most exciting city in America at the time, San Francisco, California. A mass exodus of the young and ambitious from my state resulted in quite a band of expatriates living there, so I lacked not for friends.

I was invincible, bulletproof, and untouchable. Each day was a new adventure and each night a new discovery. Nothing could spoil this blessed life.

The Draft Board though, was like Mother Nature. It followed the sage teachings of the country hymn, “There’s no hiding place down here.”

A year after finishing a long ordeal of working my way through college, and setting forth to reap the rewards in this wonderful place, things changed. I found myself sitting, instead of “on a dock of the Bay,” atop a bunker outside Da Nang, South Vietnam, cradling an M-16 assault rifle on loan from the United States Navy.

Stuff happens. Things change. Life veers from its course. We find ourselves facing a world so different from what we expected, that we don’t recognize it. We find ourselves adrift on a sea upon which we never expected to sail. We can be “helicopter parents,” or “bulldozer parents," neither nature nor fate cares. Trust me.

In one of the wisest decisions of my life, I made the situation into a blessing. One morning, I took a long walk around Monterey Bay and contemplated my current orders. Looking out on the Great Tide Pool, I decided that, from that moment on, I would not base my happiness upon where I lived, who my neighbors were, or how protected I was from life’s vicissitudes. I would strive, each day, to make the most of what “little postage stamp of native soil,” I happened to stand. (Apologies to William Faulkner.)

I survived the war, survived a storm at sea, and survived a tepid, sometimes chilly reception from my fellow Americans, best expressed by a personnel officer of the telephone company in my home town. He informed me that there were no jobs in his organization that fit my qualifications, but did offer the suggestion that, in future applications to other employers, I keep my military service to myself.

Many friends and fellow Arkansans now face a ship of life on which the anchor finds no bottom. To be adrift upon a cruel and heartless sea is a lonely life, one whose only solace lies not in the promise of a distant harbor, but upon peace within our own heart.

Sailing on. ... not always easy.

Learning about life ...

Some of my life’s best learnings came through adversity, or what seemed to me at the time adversity. Bear with me while I elucidate. Elucidation is a minor talent I possess that, itself, grew from adversity.

Early in my career as an urban planner, I ran afoul of one of the most mean-spirited people ever to emigrate to our state. His name is Paul Greenberg and, at the time, he was the editor of the Pine Bluff Commercial, my hometown newspaper. Because of an innocuous issue, he developed a hatred for our firm, which was doing some work for the city. To adapt a phrase that J. Edgar Hoover used for Bobby Kennedy, nobody hates like Paul Greenberg. Just ask Bill Clinton.

As a result of a year-long series of sometimes personal attacks in his editorials, attacks that tickled my aunts to death and mortified Sainted Mother, I developed a talent when writing. “What talent?” one might ask. It’s not a talent as much as a cautionary instinct, which is to think before I write. I imagine that Paul Greenberg, all full of venom, is watching every word I write. Let’s just say that it helps me proceed with care aforethought.

Adversities related to sports took awhile longer to teach me. But after a series of humiliating experiences, experiences that still contribute to my 3:00 a.m. insomnia attacks, I decided that I would never excel at anything requiring manual dexterity, speed, strength, visual acuity, good reflexes, or basic coordination. It took time, but I even found a girl to date who didn’t regard those traits highly. She was seeing a basketball coach at the time, and I think that the experience of watching a few games while sitting on a hard bench, may have convinced hear that a boring sloth whose main dream was to learn to play the banjo wasn’t the worst deal around.

That brings us to my military service, an issue that I never expected I would have to face. I had suffered asthma as a child and it was well known around Pine Bluff High and Maxine’s Tap Room in Fayetteville, that asthma was the best “no-service” guarantee around. There was this clinic in West Memphis that still held my records, and when LBJ and General William “The Unsuspecting” Westmoreland came for my body, all I had to do was present those records. I was in a nice place, surrounded by friends, and set for the future. “Get your fodder somewhere else, boys.”

Imagine my surprise when I learned that the clinic had since suffered a fire that destroyed many of the records and was run by the son of the original doctor. Imagine my further discomfiture on learning that said son believed that military service was next to spiritual salvation and that any male with a body large enough to receive a bullet who desired to avoid such service deserved to be imprisoned.

No sweat, I’ll join the Navy, avoid combat, see the world, and spend ample amounts of time in the company of beautiful South Pacific ladies wearing Bougainville ear-blossoms and mouthing my name like a Trump moans “money.”

“So long you draftee suckers.”

Well we all know how that turned out. But you know what? I learned a lot in the Navy, some of it even legal. The greatest thing I ever learned was that it is very important that one be happy wherever one is. There is no guarantee that things won’t change, as Baptist preachers like to say, “in the twinkling of an eye.”

It sure did for me, and, when they saw me in uniform, you should have seen all my “friends” scatter like cockroaches in the light. Know what? I’ve been better off without them. It’s just a matter of learning from adversity.

Are you coming or not?
Yeah, I went.

Humility ... fault or blessing?

Came in from a meeting last evening and was confronted by a sort of loudmouthed woman on TV who was maybe the 100^th person announcing for President of the United States. She had a voice that would peel wallpaper and seemed to be saying that her only fault was too much humility.

Ah well, I understand that. Humility has been heaped on me like sugar on a pudding lately. I even got a good dose of it at the meeting I attended. Some fellows want to build a sports facility for a city where I work. We discussed it at length. Looks like a good plan and they seem to be honest, conscientious men. The city will profit from it. Still, it brought back some painful memories.

See, if you’ve ever played sports, you’ve probably been involved in the picking of sides.

If you’ve ever been involved in the picking of sides, where one team gets to pick a player and then the other does, you may remember it.

If you are athletically-challenged, you may remember the process with some degree of pain.

If you have ever been left standing, the only one not chosen, you may remember the process with a great deal of humility.

If you’ve ever been asked to be the spectator instead of a player, you may grow up to detest sports.

Ah well. I drown those pains with thoughts of a renewed friendship of late with a high school running-buddy.

Oops. There goes another heap of humility. Not only was he smarter and more academically gifted than I, he was a star athlete. Not only was he as star athlete, he bore a resemblance to Paul Newman. Yeah, the Paul Newman. The one who gave Southern girls a case of “the vapors.” A close relative still gets a tear in her eye if I mention his name, which I won’t here. It would embarrass him and erode any sense of humility he might harbor.

We’ve been swapping tidbits of the stories of our lives, and it’s quite an enjoyable pastime. Of course, we’re not in high school anymore, so our remanences are more diversified than they might have been back then, chatter among boys in high school being mostly confined to one topic. That topic wasn’t the writings of Kant on moral imperatives, if you can imagine. Oddly enough, we never mention the high school topic at all anymore. But we do mention the writings of Joseph Campbell from time to time. Isn’t it funny how one’s perspective changes with the passing of years?

Thank goodness for time and humility. One ripens us and the other keeps us earthbound. Together, they allow us to treasure things like old friends, decent wine, sweet memories, and the wisdom that grows with old age.

I never made the football team and I never dated the cheerleaders. Later in life, though, I learned to play the banjo. There’s a leveling of life that keeps us humble, rough-hewn though it may be.

I did marry a
beautiful girl, though.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 36 (Cont._2)

I opened one eye when someone hurled a bolt of fiery lightening through it. Then they did the other. Despite piercing pain, I opened both eyes wide. What I saw scared and confused me. I saw bright curtains of a flaming yellow background covered with pink flowers. A noxious serpent slid from my mouth, felt the heat, and crawled in again. I was on a bed, best I could figure, a short one. My foot hung over a foot from the end. Moving my head, I saw a dresser with a Southern Belle doll spread atop it. Was this Heaven or Hell?

Confusion reigned. A loud thundering in my head had awakened me as it slammed against nerve endings in what had to be what was left of my brain. I looked and saw that I was fully dressed. Then the thunder roared again and a voice echoed loudly enough to shatter my thoughts. “Hey lover boy. Coffee’s on.” I blinked and the movement shot pain through me like an electric shock. I had to figure this all out and it wasn’t going to be easy.

Rolling as gently as I could, I gained the edge of the bed and threw my legs over a spread festooned with clown heads. Normally, that would have frightened me, but I was beyond all that.

Then the door open and I saw Tom’s face. “Are we up?” it said.

I nodded, more from an attempt to escape further interrogation than to provide an informed reply.

“Are we okay?”

I said nothing.

“We thought you might ought not to drive, so I brought you home. I moved the girls into one room and let you have your own bunk for the night. Let’s have coffee and get you home.”

Home. Memory oozed into my mind like sewage flowing into a pond. Home. That’s where I had left from the night before, before I had met Tom and the others somewhere. Somewhere. That must be where my car was. That’s all I could recall.

“Remember? We played a game and you won,” Tom said.

“A game?”

“Yeah, one called, ‘weirder things I have ever done than getting married.’ Winner had to chug a beer each time. You tromped us, all of us, by fair voting.”

I said nothing. He said, “Was that one about setting your guard tower on fire really true?”

“The fireworks show?”

“Yeah. How much gunpowder did that take?”

“A bunch, but we had six hours to prepare,” I said, omitting the fact that it was actually Rick Beaton, and not I, who had overplayed his hand that night on the midwatch. I had performed well, albeit without the unfortunate after effects. But what’s a little prevarication from a condemned man? That’s what they kept calling me, “a condemned man.” A thought floated to the surface of my brain like a bit of matter rising in a septic tank. Wasn’t it John Steinbeck who said, “… a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen?”

“Come on, Champ,” Tom said.

He led me to a hall bathroom and waited. When I came out, he took me into his dining room and bade me sit for coffee. From there I could see into the kitchen where two young girls, all dressed for a day of excitement and fun at the country club pool sat at a breakfast table eating cereal. One was about seven years of age, and she looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and disdain that only those born for the manor can express so well. The other girl was younger, maybe five. Her look communicated pure disgust. It must have been her bedroom that I polluted. Tom’s wife never came out to greet us and I never asked why.

The ordeal didn’t last long. I refused a sweet roll and, as coffee began to roil in my stomach, I nodded that I was ready to leave. Tom drove me to my car. I rode in silence, concentrating on taming my stomach until we reached “the scene of the crime.” There sat the Green Angel with a disapproving look on her grill. As I emerged from his car, Tom said. “You only get married once … maybe twice … oh hell, who knows how many times? It’s good to have one good time before the shackles snap.” With that, he closed his window and off he drove. I stood on the parking lot with the rest of my life spread out before me, like a clown laughing from on a bedspread.

Good times? Multiple marriages? Multiple bachelor parties? Not for me. Anything requiring an event that made me feel the way I felt that morning was for one time and one time only.

What am I going to tell the girls?
Nothing, That's what.

My Redacted Life. 1

My military life ended when I told a boldfaced lie to a two-star admiral of the United States Navy. I didn’t think too much about it at the time. I was a Third Class Bosun’s Mate. That’s a highly respected position, one largely earned by bluster, bullying, deception, and prevarication. Since I only knew one admiral on a personal basis, I lacked perspective.

Here’s the deal. I read somewhere that each of us should write the story of our own life, redacted of course, omitting those parts that would threaten hard-earned reputations, marital harmony, or “free-world” status. Yesterday, someone egged me on.

I begin with my exit from the navy. That experience had begun in San Francisco, California when the Draft Board sent my Sainted Mother a letter that translated roughly as, “Tell him he cannot run from us any longer and that if he doesn’t report to the Oakland, California Induction Center by the date specified, the entire resources of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall be unleashed upon him. Along with this message, you might suggest to him that he have a will prepared, for his chances of a long life aren’t particularly promising.”

We respected our federal institutions in those days, and with a charming invitation like that, I sought a military solution that was more forgiving of negligent attitudes than the United States Army, or so I thought. There was also the prospect of carrying a rifle and slogging through the jungles of Southeast Asia.

So, I joined the United States Navy, and they first thing they did was to send me to the jungles of Southeast Asia and start me slogging around carrying a rifle. I still fail to understand the obsession that some have with those things (They don’t really make it larger. Trust me).

After that rather unpleasant experience, they sent me aboard the USS Hunley out of Charleston, South Carolina. That’s where I met my Admiral.

They, the Navy, had taught me to drive boats. We carried different varieties and sizes, from 50-foot wooden crafts, to officers’ vessels, to landing crafts left over from the Normandy Invasion. I drove them all.

After I had performed a year as naval coxswain without sinking a single boat, they told me that two jobs were open for which they, the Navy, felt I was eminently qualified. The first was a return to Southeast Asia, this time to drive boats on the rivers there. The second was as coxswain of the Admiral’s Barge (a nice swanky boat).

With a premonition of the dreadful manner in which the future Republican Party would treat those who drove boats in Vietnam, but with a twinge of adventurous patriotism, I went to the ship’s fo’c’sle late on a moonlight night, watched the flying fish guiding the ship, and pondered what would be a major life’s decision.

For almost 15 seconds.

That’s how I came to know my Admiral. As I say, he was a “two-star.” That’s where the Navy started them, admirals I mean. They saw no use for a BG equivalent so I began as coxswain for the equivalent of a major-general.

My duties varied from taking the Admiral’s wife and her friends to Fort Sumter to taking the Admiral out to meet a submarine returning from patrol. I had to move alongside the sub while we were both sailing along and let him jump from the barge to the sub. The experience chewed up the seats of my dress white trousers every time we did that, but I never dumped him.

Back to my last day of active duty. I was signing out, ready to say for the last time, “Request permission to go ashore, Sir,” when I was called to the phone in the Captain’s headquarters. The Admiral wanted to speak to me. “Come to my headquarters on the Main Base,” he said. “I have something for you.”

“Mary, Mother of Jesus,” I thought. Then my mind locked and loaded and went into attack gear. “Admiral,” I said, “I’m transferring out this morning, and I have three shipmates I promised to take to the airport on a tight schedule.” 

I imagine that may have been the first time anyone had told the “Old-Man” no in 20 years.

Anyway, after some wrangling, he agreed to have his aide mail it to me. It was a Naval Citation. I tried to trade it for a cup of coffee once, but they wanted money too.

Of course, there were no shipmates and no promises for transportation to the airport. I had lied. There was only freedom. I always regretted it a bit, but I’m sure the Admiral got over it. For me then, it was all, “Give me a fast car, for I intend to go in fun’s way.”

They, the Navy had paid me for travel all the way back to San Francisco, and I planned to take advantage of their offer. First, though, I planned a stop at my childhood home. I gave the stuck up, hateful, and military-loathing people of Charleston “the finger” as I drove through town.

It was “Goodbye Navy, hello Arkansas.”

One duty of a Coxswain, is too take
part in "Man Overboard" drills while at sea.
Look closely, I'm the one with my arm out.

Morning Thoughts

There are so many of life’s lessons to be learned from music that it’s hard to start. Maybe this: you have to work at it, music and life.

Now that may sound simple but consider a conversation I once had with a young man who wanted to learn to play guitar. I advised taking lessons from a pro. He said, “I don’t want to take no lessons, waste of time.”

Undeterred, I recommended learning chords and how to strum them in rhythm.

“I done tried that,” he said. “Chords is too hard.”

“Maybe scales?”

“I don’t need no scales or chords,” he said. “Just help me find the tabs to Stairway to Heaven.”

Rule One: You can’t be successful in your chosen endeavor by reading tabs. It takes a lot of getting dirty, getting tired, getting beaten up, getting persecuted, getting knocked down, and getting up.

Music teaches us that being best is only an illusion that the sports world has foisted on us. There may be a most lucky or proficient at a given moment, but we can only determine where a person's life stands on a scale of worst to best upon their last dying breath, long after the strength of youth has left them. Oh, did you hear that Stephen Hawking died last week?

Anyway, there’s a story that is most likely apocryphal—but as John Steinbeck once observed: “Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't true.” It’s about guitar legend Merle Travis, considered by many to be “the best” at what he did. Seems he had made up this song on the guitar but, to make it sound like he wanted it to, there was a lick he just couldn’t master. Then, along came multi-track recording.

“Aha.”

He had them overdub the stubborn lick and sent the song out for distribution. Years later, as the story goes, he attended a recital where a 13-year old boy announced he would play this particular Merle Travis song. Travis assumed he would simplify the passage, but was astounded when the kid played through it flawlessly, without the benefit of any mechanical help.

Rule Two: There’s always someone better at what you do. Cockiness can make the gods mischievous.

Music teaches us, or should, that life is hard, complicated, confusing, and demanding. This is especially true, for example, in governance, a fact totally lost on those who call themselves “Libertarians.” Oh, that life could be as simple as simple minds would have it. Just read the tabs Ayn Rand published and all is well.

A fine musician (and better entertainer) once told me that there was a definite, but unalterable sequence to be followed before performing a musical piece before an audience.

- First, learn your instrument,

- Next, learn the song,

- Next, learn to play the song flawlessly,

- Next, learn to play it in rhythm with others, and finally

- Work at it until you can make it look easy.

Rule Three: Don’t attempt difficult or demanding things until you are ready.

And we are out of time after only three lessons. Oh well, I’ll close and to see what messes our national leaders have gotten us into today. You know, Americans are pretty well decided by now that only females should govern our country. When that finally happens, I hope that a lot of them are musicians as well.

Well now, there does happen to be
a best tractor driver, after all.

Sunrise With Schubert: February 5, 2018

Last evening, we watched “Victoria” on PBS and then I looked to see if anything else of interest was on TV. Was it ever. I flipped channels immediately.

Yep, Turner Classic Movies was about to screen one of the classic films of all times, Zorba the Greek. Oh, what a flood of memories. Although some of the themes would be viewed as sexist today, the acting by Anthony Quinn, Lila Kedrova, and Irene Papas, with Alan Bates as their foil, rated another look. The movie didn’t purport to portray a perfect man, just a man full of passion for life. I worry that cell phones and TV “news” are sucking that from our souls these days.

In the movie, the Bates character, an uptight Englishman, awakens such passion in himself through his association with Zorba. I have friends—I’m sure we all do—who have that effect on me. It’s one of life’s blessings.

The movie took me all the way back to the Fayetteville, Arkansas of the mid-1960s. It was a quieter time there, not without its shortcomings, but a time offering a life of learning, new experiences, and the promise of raw adventure. It hadn’t been long since architect Edward D. Stone had described the Fayetteville he knew as “a hotbed of tranquility.” Things would change, that’s for sure. They always do, whether we want them to or not.

I couldn’t help recalling that I had once done a paper on the Nikos Kazantzakis novel, The Life and Times of Alexis Zorba, for the immortal Dr. Ben Kimpel of the U of A English Department. The “A” he so graciously awarded me is still one of my life’s great achievements.

The place of women in the world, as expressed by the character of Zorba, would certainly be suspect today. I haven’t the right to judge, only contemplate and try to learn. His views on life and the need to accommodate it, sometimes through anger, sometimes through laughter, sometimes by earthy sensuality, and finally through dancing, are timeless, though.

Perhaps the most contentious line in the movie occurs when Zorba bangs a table and says, “God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go. I know because a very wise old Turk told me.” As Zorba learned from the Greeks’ mortal enemies, the Turks, we can learn from others, even flawed ones.

In the book, he even pointed out that he had once self-amputated a finger because it prevented him from playing his beloved “santuri” as he wished. The man who taught him to play the santuri, incidentally, was a Turk, again, the deadly enemies of the Greeks. The lesson is that not only must one sacrifice for art, one must transcend societal hatreds as well.

Oh hell, enough of introspection and analysis. As Zorba would point out, if we can’t answer the questions to life’s most horrific questions, what’s the use of all our damn books?

Let’s all go out today, and take some of his advice to heart, and be willing to learn to dance.

Growing Up Southern: October 16, 2017

Have you ever lain in bed at three o’clock in the morning and thought about some horrifically embarrassing thing you’ve done? I have. There are so many for me to visit.

I even worry that one of these dreadful incidences will define me forever. Will I be the one, for example, who proved to the world one Saturday morning when he was nine years old that he was the worst athlete that ever tried out for Little League Baseball in the entire history of the sport?

Or would I be known as the boy whom the class sissy beat up in front of the entire fifth grade, an embarrassment resulting from not knowing that the other kid’s mother had paid for boxing lessons designed to protect him from bullies like me?

Would my bona fides also mention that I once published a planning report recommending that a city pay more attention to its “pubic” spaces?

Or that I once almost caused an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to fall overboard while docking my Admiral’s Barge against a particularly violent current on Charleston's Cooper River?

Or what my best buddy and I got caught at when we were in Jr. High School?

I could go on but it would make you despondent as well.

If such memories ever plague you, try thinking of Fred Snodgrass, who had achieved every young boy’s dream of playing major league baseball. It fulfilled a dream, that is, until that awful incident 105 years ago today. As reported on This Day In History this morning:

“On October 16, 1912, New York Giants outfielder Fred Snodgrass drops an easy pop-up in the 10th inning of the tie breaking eighth game of the World Series against the Red Sox. His error led to a two-run Boston rally and cost the Giants the championship.

“The error—dubbed “the $30,000 muff” because that’s how much money the Giants stood to win from a Series championship—stuck with Snodgrass for his whole life. After he retired from baseball, the hapless outfielder moved to California and became a banker. He bought a ranch. The citizens of Oxnard elected him mayor. But still, when he died in 1974—62 years after that fateful World Series game—the New York Times headline blared: “Fred Snodgrass, 86, Dead; Ball Player Muffed 1912 Fly.”

Well now, that’s having your entire life defined by only five seconds of it, isn’t it? I think I’ll just settle for being known as the young man who caught Brenda Cole’s eye one pleasant evening years ago in a lifetime far away.

A new day comes.

Morning Thoughts: October 10, 2017

When my sainted mother used to get really, really tired of us kids, she’d say, “I think I’ll just go live in the woods by myself.” Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it just puzzled us. How would she get back from out in the woods every day in time to cook our breakfast? There were sure to be problems in logistics, and we told her so. That didn't help.

The threat didn’t seem to upset our dad. He would just say, “Ya’ll would be satisfied then, wouldn’t you?"

I’m beginning to understand dear old mom a little better these days. If the world gets any more complicated, I may consider a little cabin somewhere out in the middle of nowhere.

Somewhere I don’t have to deal with the fact that, although I haven’t applied for a loan in nearly 15 years and don't expect to ever do so again, I find that something called my “credit score” has been hacked, and it’s probably going to end up costing me money.

Somewhere I don’t have to deal with a charge-card company that doesn’t list “replace a worn-out card with a new one” as a choice on its “press a number” phone service system.”

Somewhere I’m not required to think up ever increasingly complicated passwords only to find my account locked when I miss a word or symbol.

Somewhere I can eat supper without receiving 15 robo-calls.

Somewhere cell phones only allow you to phone someone and talk to them.

Somewhere the purchase of a new car doesn’t come with an offer to attend a Saturday seminar to learn how to operate it.

Somewhere there are grocery stores that offer a variety of goods instead of 400 different types of toothpaste and 300 types of toilet paper.

Somewhere both hyperbole and gratuitous exaggeration are outlawed.

Somewhere Halloween is pretty much just one night for kids and not a month-long decorating contest for adults.

Somewhere a teenager can be jailed for something called "Walking under the influence of a hand-held device" if there is collision involving injuries.

And finally …

Somewhere folks don’t elect goofballs to public office.

Don't get me started.