Memorial Day 2021

Saipan June 1944:

“It was the worst time of my life. We lost some of ours.”

—–Norman Roscoe Byrd, Sgt., 295 JASCO

The Old Man’s Great Gift: Part VI (Beaches)

In Chapter 17 of The Old Man and The Boy, the Boy remembers.

“The Old Man was fairly grumpy through the summer months, because the beaches were crowed with summer people. . . . ‘Labor Day,’ the Old Man said, ‘is the best holiday of the year, because after it’s over all the city people go home and leave the water to the professionals. A professional’–the Old Man grinned–‘is the kind of damn fool who actually fishes when he goes fishin’. He don’t turn it into a whisky party or an excuse to play poker, . . .'”

Growing up on the shoulder of the Gulf of Mexico I loved beaches. The sand was refined sugar white; the water was emerald green in the summer; the surf broke in a symphony of variations between pianissimo and forte‘. The horizon promised an unknown place in space and time. The tidal pools were always fascinating varietal leftovers from the previous lunar episode. My Dad had a rather different take on beaches. He tended to prefer the bays which the “city people” were unlikely to discover. The salt water was for the “professionals” and alcohol was never present. Sun bathing was a ludicrous exercise for the vain. He ALWAYS wore a long sleeved shirt and a wide brim hat on fishing trips. Swimming in the Gulf was a waste of energy in a dangerous environment. I was often reminded, “Don’t mess with the Gulf.”

Yet, we spent some time fishing the Gulf. This was an educational exercise cloaked in fun. Surf fishing required a stretch of beach sun bathers had never discovered. Thus, a four wheeled drive vehicle was de rigueur. The enterprise required close attention to the tide tables so rising at 4:00 am was often necessary, especially if one wished to avoid the microwave that post-sunrise Gulf beaches become somewhere around 9:00 am. Rods and reels we used for bass in lakes and rivers never found their way to the beach–their more specialized relatives came down from the racks.

When you are very young, as the Boy notes, the adult males in your life are “Giants” so what they believe and espouse you believe and espouse (at least until you become a teenager). Consequently, while I came to love the Gulf more than my Dad did, I also came to share his views about it. Eventually bays also became prized features of the coastal world.

Labor Day is still the pivotal moment when the “yahoos” return home and the emptiness of the white hallways between surf and sand dunes resonates with the power of natural peace. Even though population growth and commercial development have savaged the possibilities for the old beachcombers to find the relics of sixteenth century Spanish disasters, the true believers can still summon them in their imagination. The September holiday also marks the beginning of the final phase of hurricane season. Fear for many, but respect from the “professionals”. With any luck the big storms will stay away from one’s personal slice of what should have been paradise. But they will venture close enough for the green sky with its accompanying calm.

Of course the sky is never actually green, rather it is an optical trick played by water and temperature bending the sun’s light into a narrow band of the spectrum for a few minutes. Yet, when it comes my Dad’s words ring again, “Don’t mess with the Gulf”. So I have not. Neither have I forgotten the pure moments of connection with my Dad while standing on the shore with a rod and reel in hand. The most spectacular of these was the day he hooked a Manta Ray, and we watched as it broke the emerald surface with its wings flaring, crashed in and was gone. Power and glory and love in one place at the same time. Yet, another gift I have never forgotten.

50 Years of Waiting for Godot

“Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now”

———Bob Dylan, “My Back Pages”

Kent State Monday, May 4, 1970, I was not there. Montgomery, Alabama is far, far away. Freshman year of college was rapidly dwindling into summer. I had never been to Ohio, and would only cross the river forming the old boundary between slavery and freedom into the state forty-nine years later. Even then Kent State was not on the itinerary. Yet, life began to take a radical turn that week fifty years in the past.

The country was in an uproar that even the Deep South felt. Vietnam was no longer a cancer in the Republic’s collective body, it had become a suppurating wound whose odor could not be ignored, even in Alabama. Student protests had reached Tuscaloosa and other colleges even as the majority of the “good people” south of the Ohio River remained staunchly entrenched in the world of 1945 if not 1865. One was supposed to live by Stephen Decatur’s words: “Our country – In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, and always successful, right or wrong.” And so, even a callow 18 year-old freshman at a small Methodist liberal arts college believed on May 3, 1970.

Memory is a blessed cursed creature. It is often femmenin giving us refuge in a place in time that feels like shelter from the storm, and just as frequently bullish allowing us to ignore the ugly dragon of reality that must give us pause. My memory is that by Friday, May 8, 1970, I was utterly confused. “Why”, I wanted to know, “was the National Guard, that was supposed to be protecting us, killing people like me?”

I sought the answer from the wisest person I knew, my father. He had fought in the Pacific War; survived Death Valley on Saipan; and was a staunch conservative, patriotic, southern male. Sitting on the green grass fired by bright sunshine on that Friday, I wrote him a letter. Taciturn to a fault and adverse to telephones his shocking response came in the form of a phone call a few days later. I have never forgotten his first words: “Are you alright?” In that moment he revealed my apolitical father, regardless of what he thought.

Our conversation was loving and calming, but being human he had few of the kind of answers that time would expose I sought. Yet, unbeknownst to either of us it launched my journey to an inner life of my own. Where I discovered that an old path and a new path are different, but neither is guaranteed to answer some of life’s questions.

Has anyone seen, Godot? I’m waiting–probably at the crossroads listening to Robert Johnson.

The First Hard Christmas

The arrival was not expected, but should not have been a surprise. Anyone who sails the waters of life without encountering strong tides, high waves, and big storms is surely bundled in an illusion sans windows. After decades of running with the tides, under full sails, with 80 feet at the waterline, the storms of life’s autumn slammed the beam, rolled the ship to 45 degrees, and shredded a sail or two.

Christmas came and the joy did not descend. Instead the dark squalls that had always been on a far horizon were no longer in the distance. The memories of my Dad and the things he loved washed over the bow. At the launch of the Christmas season, he would always perk up when he heard “Silver Bells” often indulging in his own rendition. While his voice reminded no one of Caruso, it was filled with authentic joy. My memory and deep seated bias believes it was his favorite secular expression of the holiday.

With the bow plunging under these old heavy waves, the wind shifted and began to howl from the reality of how far from familiar shores we sailed in retirement. Friends who had long helped tack the vessel to avoid or escape foul weather were no longer near. The tapping of a modern e-mail S.O.S. was not producing the usual results. Distance seemed to stymie their rescue cutters. Try as they might; the gale spun from deep sources; reduced steerage. The sky darkened.

Then, the rogue wave that all mariners fear slammed the beam. The reality that health is not guaranteed, and some illnesses have no cure sent captain and equipment skimming across the deck. Hanging on the port rail with a view of the Deep that no voyager cares to explore the season seemed to fade into the gray-black of the storm. Doubts about Christmas in Davey Jones’ locker took the sound of creaking rigging.

Yet, a key to successful open water navigation is to understand the difference between cyclonic storms and squalls. Squalls can be handled with the agility of hope, and by rallying all hands on deck to man the pumps and shift cargo to right the ship. And so it was with the first hard Christmas. The S.O.S.’s were answered with hope. The season is not the whole voyage, and love repairs the sails and all other damage.

One nasty squall does not define the voyage. Gracias, mi Amour, y mis amigos y amigas. (December 2018)

July Is The Hardest Beautiful Month

Once July was the glorious middle of summer. Spectacular days of heat and humidity offset by baseball, then tennis, then bicycle racing. Baseball held first place for decades. Green grass, red clay, uniforms much too hot for the Gulf Coast humidity all meshed to make the world a wonderful place. The environmental cocktail was stirred into great sweetness by time with my Dad. He loved the game. He knew the game. A sacrifice bunt was more important than a strikeout trying to hit a homerun. Hitting behind the runner was a blessed skill, not a mark of shame because the launch angle was low. Pitching was a skill; throwing was a genetic gift. Even as the Alzheimer’s ate his cognition he watched and loved the game. July 1, 2015, ended his season forever.

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club opens its doors to “The Championships” in July. White clothes on lawns of green, white cream on red strawberries, and brilliant tennis. The sound of compressed pneumatic spheres rifling through the hushed whispers of the worshiping spectators. Tennis became the silver medalist of July affections. My mother tried to help me play. She had sweet memories of the PE teacher in a rural school who introduced her to the game, but work and funding were insurmountable obstacles. Not until college did our joint efforts bear fruit. She presented me with my first racquet and my first set of real tennis clothes. She always asked about my game even though she never had the opportunity to see me compete. July 5, 2019, ended her chances, but she had come to know how much I the game.

Twenty plus years into what some would consider a misspent sojourn through extended degrees in history the Tour de France exploded into my being. Unfettered by most societal expectations while on a bicycle blasting through open spaces, enduring the pain of climbs cleansed body, mind, and soul. Watching those whose pain, endurance, and speed was greater by a quantum factor brought an exotic element into a mundane existence. July 2019, the cleansing pain is no more, just the pain. Handfuls of pills rather than pedal strokes mark the miles.

The mind and soul still revel in the old pursuits. The grass is still sweet; reverberations of balls against wood and strings still stir the soul; and grimaces on the ascent of the Alp d’Huez still generate awe and empathy. Yet, the context is altered. Casey has struck out; the serve is out; and the tire is flat. What remains are the beautiful memories of how my parents gave me a world in which the variety of July will always be glorious. For each tinge of pain that comes with loss and aging is a translucent window into a moment with one or both of my parents.

July is now the hardest month, but it is still the glorious moment of life every year.

The Old Man’s Great Gift: Part 5 (“It’s funny. . . .”)

Father’s Day 2019

In The Old Man and The Boy the Boy said: “It’s funny the things you remember, isn’t it?”

There were bowling trophies all over the house I grew up in–too many for a little boy to bother trying to count. My Dad’s closet protected (concealed?) a row of extravagantly if not weird colored shirts. Each one a tangible reminder of the sponsors of the teams that he bowled with one per week. My favorite was a satin turquoise number with a VERY large image of a classically cut diamond embroidered on the back. No one doubted that one of the premier jewelry shops in town was their sponsor that year.

There was the old dresser with a marble insert and a top drawer filled with leather working accoutrement. Memories of Dad bent over a marble slab tooling intricate designs into belts and women’s handbags have never faded. Once a small boy sought a western two holster rig for his dual cap pistols, and my Dad delivered. I still have those holsters even as the pistols have disappeared into lost memories.

There was the day he informed me that I would replace the water pump on my mother’s Ford station wagon.

“You drive your mother’s car a lot don’t you?”

“Well, as much as she allows.”

“O.K., it needs a new water pump. Here’s the money. Go to (I do not remember where) pick up a new one and have it on the car when I get home from work.”

Thus I learned the cost of being obsessed with cars and engines and the freedom that came with driving.

There was the evening we spent together on the Navy’s Site 8 helicopter field testing my first contest free flight airplane. Watching the sun illuminate every spar and rib as it filtered through the translucent wing covering. He said “It’s pretty isn’t it?” I had to agree. Deep down I have come to realize that my Dad was a bit of a romantic. Without a doubt the Great Depression and World War II drove that instinct deep into the recesses of his daily life and entombed it under the weight of pragmatic survival.

There were the nascent tears the day he finally agreed to tell me about his survival in Death Valley on Saipan. I had never seen his tears until that day, and I came to understand that survival often requires compartmentalizing life’s experiences so as not to destroy those you love.

There was that day in July when we all stood around his bed and witnessed his final journey. He left his home and family draped in the flag that he defended in Death Valley, Saipan in June, 1944. The Old Boy, first into his world was the last to see him driven away,

The Old Man’s Great Gift: Part 4 (Dad, Me, & Hank)

Chapter 5 in The Old Man and The Boy is titled “September Song”. In it the Boy relates his memories of surf fishing as autumn began to usher winter in off the Atlantic. The song he describes is the stuff of nature and memory. My Dad and I had a similar song, but he also taught me a more traditional approach to the muse.

We used to sit in the old, gray family Ford and listen to the radio as my Mom was doing something or other when we were out together. The station was always playing country music. Most of the “crooners” have long since slipped into his eternity and my senility. Yet, two are frozen crystals in my memory. The two Hanks, Snow and Williams forever remind me of the long road toward understanding the lessons my Dad handed me.

Hank Snow was fun. His voice and rapid tempo music is hard to forget. I’m Movin’ On always brings a smile when the radio spills those chords and words into the air. The image of a old eight-wheel steam engine driving a train at high speed reminds me of traveling with my Dad and dreams of exiting the past quickly.

In between the Hanks, Dad taught me the words to Ghost Riders In The Sky. The moment I realized the eternal ramifications of those lyrics is lost in the fog of memory, but I can still sing along when my ears hear the first notes. Over the years I have come to appreciate the evocative imagery created by Stan Jones, the songwriter. Eventually I would be drawn into the world of imagery through poetry and lyrics.

The lyrics that began to lure me across the frontiers of awareness came in a form my Dad could never appreciate: the imagine driven Bob Dylan. Yet, the trail to the borderland began deep in the work of the second Hank. The sounds of Your Cheatin’ Heart almost always brought my Dad out of his natural taciturn state. I am relatively certain that it was either the first or second song he taught me to sing. (Ghost Riders might have come first)

Growing older but less wise I spent some time distancing myself from most country music. Just as my Dad never appreciated rock and roll, I failed to appreciate Hank Williams. As Dylan wrote, “I was so much older then” until I began to delve into the depths of music’s root ball.

The reality is that I never really escaped Hank Williams’ music; I simply failed to recognize its influence. The intensely personal yet universal emotional foundation of his lyrics and his delivery were things I found appealing in Dylan’s work. His use of traditional imagery touched the historian’s nerve in my being even as I failed to make the connection. Hank’s themes were all over Dylan, but I could not “see the light.”

Eventually I became fascinated by the influences and origins of Dylan’s work. Then in the immortal words of Hank, “I saw the light.” Slotted into a biographical piece on Dylan was his statement that he believed Hank Williams to be the greatest American songwriter. Synapses fired, connections were made. Hank Williams was the great American white bluesman. He and Dylan were voicing many (but not all) of the deep seated forces confronted by the great American black blues artists.

Yes, black blues was never a form my father favored or even listened to as far as I know. That issue misses the point. My father with or without intent introduced me to a form of human expression that touches the soul and spirit at the deepest level. He and Hank taught me to hear and feel things in a manner seldom available in mere conversation.

Now as I literally enter the autumn life my Dad and Hank have paved the way for me to have my own “September Song.” They gave me the desire to find it in whatever form reached to my deepest senses. When I am “so lonesome I could cry” Dylan gives me Shelter from the Storm.” I never thought I would miss that old gray Ford.

The Old Man’s Great Gift: Part 3 (Day of the Gun)

Chapter 1 of The Old Man And The Boy opens with the Old Man teaching the Boy about hunting quail and the many collateral issues that attend to the practice. One of the most important lessons revolves around the Boy’s first shotgun.

The Old Man: “You always got to remember that when a gun is loaded it makes a potential killer out of the man that’s handling it. Don’t you ever forget it.”

The Boy noted, “I said I wouldn’t forget it. I never did forget it.”

I cannot remember the day, month, or year that I first saw it. I was no more than nine years old, and my Dad was working a second job, part-time, at a tackle shop in my home town. In those days in the Panhandle of Florida the term “tackle shop” meant only one thing–a store where hunting and fishing gear was sold. I loved going there with him because I felt like an insider and was going to have an outsized percentage of my curiosities fed. It stood in a rack of guns behind the counter. Most of its neighbors and relatives were dressed in walnut or similar wooden stocks ranging from dark chestnut to light blond in color. However, the apple of my young eye was a Harrington & Richardson .410 gauge single shot breach loading shotgun furnished with a fire engine red stock. Unusual, but with irresistible appeal. Time has destroyed my memory as to the day and occasion that the red H&R became mine. Yet, the purpose, protocols of use, language, and love that came with the gun are indelible. My father refused to allow any of his children to own a BB gun. His intransigence on this point was based on simple logic. He did not want his sons (my sister had no interest in hunting) running around the neighbor hood developing bad habits with guns. Each appeal for a BB gun was met with, “When you are old enough to own and use a real gun properly we’ll see about getting you one.”

So even before the desire for a gun found specific expression, the lessons of patience and listening were seeded. Listening and observing over time were key because hunting and guns were part of who and what my family did in the fall and winter. As the Old Man told the Boy, a gun is dangerous.

Lesson one: Every gun is loaded until you personally physically check that it isn’t. This rule was intended to be followed literally. I could stand next to my father as he removed his 16 gauge from the closet checked the breach and found it empty then closed the breach. If he handed me the gun in the same motion that had closed the breach I was expected to open the breach again and examine the chamber. Even now I do it, as does my brother.

Lesson two: Safety was and is priority one when using a firearm. Bird hunting meant either doves or quail. Each activity had general as well as very specific protocols for handling the shotguns. Quail required a dog as well as a good deal of walking and waiting on the sudden explosion of targets spreading out in an unpredictably wide high speed arc. Most of the old men would not allow a third party on a quail hunt. When the dog flushed the birds one shooter took birds flying right and the other took birds flying left. A third hunter increased the risk that a gun would be fired in the direction of one of the others and increase the risk of a human casualty. My dad and his father would take me along but with strict rules about where I aimed when the covey rose. We never had an accident.

Doves involved different logistics and rules of firing geometry. Since the hunters were stationed around the perimeter of corn or millet fields it was not unusual that one man’s field of fire would be directly across from another’s. In other words, hunters could easily shoot someone on the other side of the field. Thus, the vertical firing angle was as important as the horizontal.

In addition, both quail and dove hunting often required crossing streams, working one’s way through difficult brush, or crossing fences. Fences were particularly important in the realm of gun safety. Guns had to have the chamber unloaded, then placed on the ground pointing away from where the hunters were crossing. The weapons were retrieved after crossing and then reloaded. Early in my career failure to adhere to this procedure cost me the use of my gun and thus meaningful inclusion on the next hunting trip. My father’s word was his bond. Breaking rules had consequences.

Lesson three: You never point a loaded gun at anything unless you intend to fire at it. Guns were/are not forms of play, threats, or intimidation. Loaded guns were always pointed at the ground in front of the hunters or at the sky away from all the hunters. Thus, any unintentional discharge would not result in a casualty. We never had a gun tragedy in my family.

Lesson four: If you shoot it you dress and eat it. My father never countenanced the idea of hunting for trophies. Hunting required killing and killing was to obtain food, NOT to hang something on the wall. Thus, when early in my gun life I wanted shoot a cardinal or jaybird (memory fails me as to the exact species) my father relented. Once the deed was done, he reminded me that I must dress the small victims, have my grandmother cook them, and then I had to consume them. They were small, tough, and about as tasty as the leather from the masts of Magellan’s ship. Lesson learned.

Eventually my Dad gave me a Winchester .22 hammerless lever action rifle and later added a scope. Respecting guns and the attending rules was the path to a more varied set of hunting tools. I shared many days in the woods with my Dad and grandfather. I came to appreciate that well made tools appropriately applied to their intended purpose were to be admired, but never misused. A respect for animals and their habitat was the other integral piece of my education with guns.

Through guns and hunting my Dad and the old men in my family taught me that life is to be respected; that life is finite; and that death is part of living. My Dad is gone now, but he left me his Marlin .22 calibre lever action rifle. I never pull it from its faux alligator leather case without remembering him and the deep respect for life that he taught me.

The Old Man’s Great Gift: Part 2 (The Boat)

Fishing. Freshwater fishing. In The Old Man and the Boy the Old Man uses fishing to teach the Boy about some of the important things in life. Ruark leaves the reader with the impression that everything the Old Man did was calculated to teach the Boy. Undoubtedly the episodes the Boy recounts were thus spawned. Yet, many lessons from the old man were secondary and even unintentional in their conception.

My father loved fishing, but freshwater fishing, especially bass fishing  in the North Florida Panhandle, was much more rewarding if done from a boat. The working class world of my youth was not a place where such things were purchased as the cash was not “growing on trees”. In fact one of the trees in my backyard was a Catawba tree which attracted certain creatures that laid eggs which hatched worms that we used for fish bait. The tree had no other purpose in my world.

So my father saved and employed one of his great gifts, patience, to build a boat. What did he intend the impact of this project to have on me? I cannot say, but. . . . Ruark’s Old Man tells the boy, “You can also learn  a whole lot about yourself. Ain’t nothing like a boat to teach a man the worth of quiet contemplation.” While I cannot vouch for any memories of deep contemplation I do have a few vivid memories of the work and the end product.  In the first instance there were the materials and tools needed to float my father’s dream.

I learned about the difference between “plywood” and “marine plywood”. The latter specifically designed to withstand its connubial contact with water. Most of the wood working tools were already in my mechanic father’s green metal chest. Yet, saw horses were required, and they were built not bought. Thank the muses there was no Home Depot or Lowes in those days because a home built saw horse is an interesting creature.

For an alleged equine creature it is “flat out ugly” and it does not move, much less run. Indeed, it is created to stand still. A good one requires at least one 2 x 4 as well as material for the legs, probably more 2 x 4 if it is to bear much weight. Cutting an inclined plane on the top ends of the four leg pieces and then nailing them to the  spine takes time. Lesson number two: quality construction requires solid preparation. Oh, lesson number one: NEVER EVER use a tool for a task it was not designed to execute. (Young boys often believe a screwdriver is  interchangeable with a wood chisel or that  pliers are capable of doing anything.)

So from the beginning the conversations revolved around learning correct nomenclature for tools as well as safety. These were wrapped around instructional moments that were saturated with analogies and metaphors. I am not certain my father knew much about either of these literary creatures, but  upon reflection I see them floating across time. For example: measure and then cut very slowly and carefully leaving the mark; it is easy to make a second cut if the joint does not fit, but you cannot put the material back if you rush to cut too much too soon.  Holding on to the cautionary example would have certainly made life easier further down my road. I have erased too many marks with impatient cuts.

Saw horses made from studs standing like the most impotent of stallions in a inanimate paddock meant it was time to move on to laying the keel. Given that this was to be a real fishing boat, the keel was destined to be the backbone of the vessel rather than a deep water guide. I never embraced the blunt nose flat bottomed river boats that my maternal grandfather built. They were functional, easier to build than a keel and sharp prow, but they were ugly. For whatever reasons my father chose my aesthetic vision for his boat. Living in town meant the curve of the prow would have to be manufactured not found after a long search for a naturally curved piece. Out came the small hand held bottled gas blow torch. The process demanded patience, care with hazardous tools, and imagination as my Dad carved, heated, and bent the wood. I was in awe that one could use heat to shape wood. Watch and learn.

Slowly, never with a set of plans, but always with a plan, the keel sprouted ribs; bottom, sides and stern covered them. Here I learned what would eventually prove to be a powerful lesson. As the Boy notes, “once we stuck her in the water and let her seams swell, she never leaked another drop.” When constructing something that will encounter the vagaries of the real world always allow for the changes in your vessel. If the structure is too tight the swelling will produce a rupture, if it is too loose it will sink. Bulding a “tight ship” does not necessarily perfect.

At last sealing and painting were the final steps. Here my father yielded to my desires; the vessel would be dark green. Epoxy paint gave the wood a hard shining green shield. When things, such as cosmetics, are not necessary generosity is an important virtue to practice.

The boat was to be powered by an outboard motor. So many questions still remained. What brand?  How much horsepower? Testosterone was beginning to drip inside my adolescent body. We needed a brand with cache. We needed serious power. How else could we carve the water with wind in our hair and spray flying? One more lesson. The boat has its purpose; the motor is part of that purpose. Fish don’t care about brands nor how fast you arrived or how fast you leave. The motor was a Wizard 7.5 horsepower purchased at Western Auto. No aquatic speed records were ever threatened. Lesson: image is never the starting point for an important decision. Match resources to purpose.

“I’m gonna build me a boat
With these two hands
It’ll be a fair curve
From a noble plan”

 Guy Clark / Verlon Thompson, “Boats To Build”

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July 1 Again: For NRB (My Dad)

“Hear that lonesome whippoorwill

He sounds too blue to fly

The midnight train is whining low

I’m so lonesome I could cry”

—-Hank Williams, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”