Happy Anniversary

On this very date Dec 23^rd1967, the eve of Christmas Eve, I remember being spoon-fed these words “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…” 

With youthful optimism I repeated the phrase.  At that time I did not truly grasp the true meaning of those words.  

Thank the Lord for fifty-seven years of better, fifty-seven years of richer, and fifty-seven years of health and thanksMiss Mary for all your patience, perseverance and pleasing personality.  Maybe the worse, the poorer and the sickness are yet to come.  But from this day forward I promise to love you and honor you all the days of my life.

Thank you Lord, for putting Miss Mary in my life. Thank you for such a wonderful blessing. 

 

Dear Lord, Jesus

 

It is you I thank for this marvelous life

It is you I thank for a wonderful wife

It is you I thank for all the years

Filled with joy and very few tears

 

And on this date I thank my mate

For she has made the journey great

Now I can see when looking back

You're the one that kept us on track 

 

There is no way I can repay

For the blessings you've sent my way

So on this day I do pray 

You hear this “Thank You” that I say

 

Amen.

 Dec 23, 1967-Dec 23, 2024

 

Turning My Nose Up

I‘ve never considered myself to be very sophisticated.  I’m more of the “wipe your nose on your sleeve” type of fellow.  But still I find the language on TV shows like “Yellowstone” or “Landman” a bit too rough for me.  

Believe me I know all the bad words and I’ve been guilty of using them in my younger years.  

 

But I wasn’t very good at cussing or cursing. It just didn’t roll off my tongue as it did with the other guys in the service.  They could use the “F” word in the same sentence numerous times and as numerous parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.  It was quite amazing. 

 

At the time my decision to quit wasn’t a morality thing but I felt it showed a lack of command of the English language and a dreadful deficiency in my vocabulary.

 

I’ve gradually come to believe that what comes out of my mouth shows the condition of my soul.

 

If you take the bible seriously it seems to indicate that what is spoken with the tongue comes from the heart...and there you have it.

 

I must be getting old and times must be changing. Now day’s women’s lexicon has become worse than any Marine I ever know.

 

Dear Lord, help us return to a more classy time with softer tongues and softer hearts.

 

Amen. 

Mom’s Ole Pan

 Tis the season to drag out the ole vintage two piece aluminum Ware-Ever fruit cake pan that collects dust in the dark reaches of the lower cupboard.  This is the same pan my mother used to bake that fascination of my childhood memory.  I’ve never found her recipe but each year I try to duplicate her masterpiece of candied fruits, raisins and spices. Unfortunately I’ve never quite achieved her level of perfection. Perhaps the secret lies in the meticulous process of seasoning. Each day for months she would remove said cake from the sealed tin and apply a dose of old #7 Tennessee sour mash to that ring of goodness. 

Come Christmas the aroma of “fruitcake” left one reeling in anticipation of each bite.  
So I’ll try again… remembering mom and all the love and care she put into all her endeavors.  

Today, June 11

 Today 58 years ago is the day I lost my parents and sister in a plane crash. Today would be Mom and Dad's 58th wedding anniversary. They were married for 27 years and I was present for some 20 of those years. They were a team that could not be separated. Although I try my childish best to play one against the other it never worked. My dad was a disciplinarian and I was a rebel. It is only as I look back in time that I appreciate my father.

Today’s Sunday Mass intentions were for the three souls of that plane crash. 

I love you Dad, Mom and Susan. 

 

PS. My Father’s sister’s birthday is also today. Happy 101st birthday Aunt Vivian. 

Mother’s Fruit Cake

Each year I search my mother’s old cookbooks in vain looking for that Christmas fruitcake recipe, a recipe lost in time. I remember as a child that once a year she would prepare this culinary delight that took a couple of months to properly season. Each day she would remove the round tin from it’s hiding place, pour a jigger of Jack Daniels best over the cup towel wrapped cake then return it to the closet’s top shelf, out of the reach of children.  

This year’s attempt at replicating her masterpiece again fell short of my expectations.  Maybe I have embellished my recollections or just perhaps it is missing the love and care mother bake into this special treat.

Merry Christmas, 

Mom 

Young Women and Classic Cars

 I find myself attracted to young women and classic cars with their timeless body style and stunning appearance. 

 

But then I have to remind myself that both are a source of unending problems.

 

Under that bonnet…that hood…looms a monumental amount of maintenance.

 

That’s when a grin creeps across my face and I realize that I’m perfectly content in the company of my older wife with her fantastic personality and my newer car with no personality.

 

And so it is…my on going battle with concupiscence.

 

Thank you Lord for all my blessings.  Especially the amazing Miss Mary you put in my life…not to mention a reliable vehicle.

  

Amen.

The Graph Of Knowledge vs. Ignorance

As I perused the sheets of my notebook tearing out pages, lots of pages, of incoherent thoughts, scribbling and half-baked ideas…I came across this musing.  

 

I have always considered myself a person of logic or at least tried to be. Everything should make sense.  There should be a formula or axiom explaining all phenomenon…like Newton’s law.  Proven axioms like the gravitational pull between two bodies. Rules like…for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Formulas like Einstein’s law of relativity. 

 

I like math.  Math has a set of rules that always remain the same. Two plus two is always four, now and forever. Liberal arts, language and history are all far too nebulous.  In my little OCD brain I want everything to be two plus two, no fuzzy math for me, thank you.  I just can’t handle that abstract stuff.  I believe that on the imaginary chart of knowledge versus stupidity there is a point where the lines cross and knowledge is equal to a big zero. 

 

Where knowing everything equals knowing nothing.  Where wisdom and foolishness equal the same thing.  

 

Perhaps this is where faith and hope come in. Where there is no real understanding of the principles involved.  I like to think I understand stuff like how airplanes fly.  But do I?  What is all that mumbo-jumbo about air moving faster over the top of the wing creating a low-pressure zone that sucks the wings up into the sky?  Really? I can’t see the air molecules or what ever it is doing whatever…but I know it works.  Why?  Why should I believe that gibberish?  I have proven that it works… many times I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.  I have no need of faith; I have the proof…even though I don’t understand how it works.        

 

I have decided to go with the belief in God.  I accept God and his Word…hook, line and sinker…all on blind faith...whether I understand or not.

 

Clearly, I don’t have to understand something for it to be true. 

 

  

High Flight   by  John Gillespie Magee Jr.

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings,
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

 

FLYING BACK IN TIME

Like a magnet attracts iron my eyes are pulled skyward when I hear the distant droning of an aircraft engine as it passes overhead.  My thoughts are drawn back into the past as I recall the trips, adventures and marvelous sights I experienced over my years as a pilot.  The challenge of planning flights, dealing with navigation, prognosticating the weather and communicating with ATC (Air Traffic Control) was a source of unexplainable euphoria.  

 

In the summer there is something about weaving your way through columns of cumulus clouds as you watch the warm moist air condense into snow-white cotton balls as it rises above the dew point.  

 

I can’t explain the peaceful joy of cruising the winter skies in flawless smooth air with the steely blue extending into outer space.   

 

There is nothing like the feeling of a silk smooth landing.  I always preferred to credit it to skill rather than luck. 

 

Flying was a hobby but a hobby like a cancer that I could not cure.  Getting the ratings: private, instrument, commercial, instructor, floatplane, multi-engine, and aircraft mechanic was all consuming.

 

The floatplane license in Alaska was an incredible experience.  I had a hard time concentrating on the flying for all the amazing scenery; crystal clear lakes rugged mountain cliffs and pristine forests cluttered with wild life.  

 

Moose Pass, Alaska

I enjoyed instructing students.  Getting the student to land the plane without killing us was the ultimate accomplishment.  The challenge of sitting on my hands and telling them what to do and when to do it was more fun than actually doing it myself.

 

They say flying is hours of mind numbing boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror.  Those moments, those “Never Again” lessons, those mistakes are learning experiences, but small mistakes can be fatal in aviation. The more I learned the more I realized how much I didn’t know.

 

I had the privilege of logging something north of 4000 hours without killing myself or anyone else.  I loved ever minute of it, all 240,000 minutes of it, but it was time to quit.

 

I’m old and gray, I look to the sky

Where eagles soar and angels fly

I have to thank the Lord above

Who kept me safe in all His Love.

Amen.

 

Nashville, TN

My 1st Airplane, C-150

Fort Yukon, Alaska

Traveling The Back Roads Of My Childhood Memories

  At the suggestion of my sister we decided to visit our soon to be one hundred year old aunt who had fallen and broken her hip.  In spite of the obvious statistical probability of a poor outcome…she came through the surgery fine. 

So, we set off on a trip to the land of my ancestors, Hessmer, Louisiana…the land of swamps, rice fields and bad roads.  Aunt Vivian, my father’s youngest sister, was so glad to see us, so gracious, so warm, so welcoming but she had no idea who we were.  Time had erased her memory.  Our visits were short as she tired quickly.  The fact that she had no clue who we were made it difficult to carry on a conversation.  Even a conversation of days gone by challenged Aunt V’s memory.  She could not remember her brother, my father, or even her own son.  But when we recited the Rosary she never missed one word…not one prayer did she forget.  

  Between several short visits we went about looking at the old houses of our grandparents, aunts and uncles recalling fond memories of the days of my childhood.  

  We poked around in the cemetery digging up recollections of all those relatives with all the different personalities, quirks and idiosyncrasies.

We wondered about the people and events of the past wishing we had asked more questions back then.  And now there is no one around to give us the answers.

  We had questions about Aunt “Zoe”, Uncle Dennis, Momma’s house and lots of questions about Papa.  Papa, my dad’s dad, my grandfather, Papa Sam the man we didn’t know and no one talked about.  I always wondered if he was some sort of government secret agent. And now we’ll never know.

  And then on to Crowley, LA, my mother’s side of the family, the home of Grandpa, Grandma and Aunt T.  For my entire childhood I thought her name was “T” only to find out they were saying “Auntie”.  Her real name was Ophelia. 

Anyway we toured the cemetery and checked out the headstones.  We drove past the old boarded up appliance store (214 2^ndSt) grandpa used to own and (2nd and N Ave) where Auntie's house used to be. Sadly her house had burned to the ground some years ago.  We meandered passed the Rice Hotel, no longer in operation, but the sign still announcing it’s existence.  Aunt Ophelia worked there as the switchboard operator as long as I can remember.

  Traveling the back roads of my childhood memories is always an introspective journey.  Now I’m the one approaching the end of the road and wondering if I should leave some sort of bread crumb trail, some documentation, something more than a patronizing tombstone epitaph. Possibly some of my descendants might have questions. 

Hessmer, LA

Papa 

Auntie

214 2nd Street

Grandma & Grandpa

The Other Side Of Maturity

I find myself regressing back to a child like state.  Both mentally and physically I am aging,  getting old, becoming elderly. 

I catch myself wondering if my fly is unzipped in the middle of church.  

 

My birthday count has exceeded my moronic IQ.  All my conversations are about aches and pains or my latest medical operation.

 

No matter how you put it…when your brown hair turns gray and your gray matter turns to a mushy brown substance you have to start wondering about what comes next.

 

I’m not really worried about leaving this world…as most of the items on my bucket list have been checked off.  I’ve never missed a meal…I’ve definitely been blessed.  But…my concern is “Judgment Day” and the all-just God.  I am not interested in receiving a just reward.  I am hoping that an all-merciful Jesus will step in and give me an undeserved reward.  

 

 

Selfishness is not the thing to do.

Of your rules I had no clue.

I wanted to have and eat my cake.

Finding true happiness far too late.

 

Forgive me, Lord, for what I messed up.

Give me courage to drink from the cup.

When I arrive on that big day.

Mercy is for what I pray.

 

Amen