wandering afar
Been here a long Time, I keep taking notice that I'm now counting nineties in life - - ninety September Fifteenths, ninety Thanksgivings, ninety Christmases (Keep the Xpistos in Xmas), ninety New Years Eves, ninety New Years Days, ninety Twelfth Days of Christmas, ninety Epiphanies. This year, God willing, the Creek don't rise, and Jesus tarries, it'll just keep adding up - - Valentine's Day, May Day, Fourth of July, and right round again to completing ninety years of life and Time.
It has been, and continues, fun and good, including this morning's treat of my magic mug of hot & black with a cheese sandwich. This one's Italian taleggio cheese, getting down to the last bit of what I ordered before Thanksgiving from Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Why is Ann Arbor a place of the heart? Well, for a Southerner moving there direct from Florida, it certainly wasn't the weather, was it?! - - memory tells me that after a beautifully cool Michigan summer, to me reminiscent of chilly, windy summers in Newport, Rhode Island, our first snow in Ann Arbor was the middle of October and our last snow was the middle of May, and all that Time the skies were gray, the trees were black, and the ground was white. And I was walking a mile or two from where we lived to the UM campus, without galoshes. But
somewhere around here is a summerTime photograph that Linda snapped just outside our front door, Joe (he was two years old and Jody then, before he shed Jody for Joe) sitting atop our picnic table, under a shade tree, and me cutting his hair. I was twenty-six years old.
In Ann Arbor, I met two other young Navy lieutenants, one of whom expressed confidence that his being a Minority would help him in the Navy because, he said, "the Navy is a social welfare organization" and in fact Joe did make rear admiral and stayed in the Navy maybe thirty-two years.
The other, who was thirty-four at the Time and had just arrived from a tour of duty in the Gaza Strip, John made captain and stayed as long as he could, twenty eight or thirty years. John was one of two Navy officers who turned out to be a friend for life. John was from Boston, single, he had a twin brother who was a Navy submarine officer. John and I used to go to the Dunkin' Donuts place, buy and eat a dozen. Now and then we went out for lunch between morning and afternoon classes, and one Time we both decided we wanted to try a limburger cheese sandwich. At a little German cafe, we each ordered a beer and a limburger sandwich, with onion, on rye. When the sandwiches came, we both took one sniff and chickened out, finished our beers, and returned to campus.
Immersed in the automobile manufacturing center of the world, all three of us bought new cars while we were there - - Joe bought a Ford Country Squire, I bought a Chevrolet Biscayne station wagon, and John bought a Ford Falcon tudor (FoMoCo's cute designation along with fordor) sedan.
John retired and lived across the Potomac River in Alexandria the rest of his life. He never married, he and a sister looked after their mother all her life, and he drove from Virginia to Massachusetts most weekends to check on her and be of support to his sister. John died at ninety-something, in a care facility where, I read in his obituary, he kept the nurses and attendants entertained and they affectionally called him "The Captain."
He was a good guy. Growing up Roman Catholic, he attended Catholic schools in an era when, to parents at home, the nuns and fathers were always right. Yes, I'm rambling, I know. John told me that one Time the boy next to him was copying off his test paper. The father took both their test papers, swung back and slapped the other boy out of his chair onto the floor. John thought he'd escaped, when the father swung even farther back and knocked John across the room. John knew what to expect would happen next: by the Time he arrived home that day, the school had reported him to his parents. John told me that his father beat the living hell out of him.
It was John who, in a story I told here years ago, remembered that, while living in the Gaza Strip, every week he went to the same Palestinian barber shop for a haircut. As they did other clients, they always served John a little cup of strong black coffee. One Time, he took a couple of sips, then saw a horsefly, lying dead upside down, in the bottom of the cup. He first thought to himself, "Okay, I'll just go ahead and drink the rest of it." Then he realized that it was intentional, all eyes were on him, their contempt for an American, and he decided, "Well, why the hell should I?" and he set the cup aside and ignored it.
That was the early 1960s and John told me the story in 1962, my first knowledge of anything about the Gaza Strip.
John and Joe are both dead, Joe several years now, John just died last year or the year before.
When we lived in Japan, John used to mail me a package of the newest car brochures every fall. The last Time I saw him, John was in our Navy assignment office in WashingtonDC, and came to Newport, RI, where I was a student at the Naval War College, to tell me that my next tour of duty would be a ship home-ported in San Diego. That was 1969.
One year, on vacation, John drove to Apalachicola to surprise me. Unfortunately, Linda and I were out of town, so he visited with someone in the parish office and drove on. I'm still sad for missing that visit!
Ann Arbor: brilliant red orange yellow leaves, and the fragrance of apples in the fall of the year, and apple cider.
Nick lives close by. And his mom.
Ann Arbor: 23°F at the moment.
RSF&PTL for life and Time
T89&c