Strange Days

I'm feeling contemplative, philosophical even, as I sit in the living room of the Florida Avenue house I am quickly growing to love, as I sip a glass of red wine and listen to my favorite R.E.M. song, Gardening at Night.  

Since the death of my high school classmate, David Easterling, last fall I can't listen to R.E.M. without thinking of him.  He was on R.E.M. early, before anyone else in our group.  If fact, I named this Spotify playlist "Dave's Driver 8," in his honor.  

Sometimes, when I stop to think about it, it's unfathomable how different life is now compared to 25 years ago, when I was 34.  At age 34, I would have laughed in your fact if you had told me what life would be like when I was 59.  We take so many things for granted, today, that it's easy to forget how different, and in many ways, easier, or lives are today than in the past. 

For better or worse, almost everything I need I can hold in the palm of my hand when my iPhone is in it.  I can call anyone in the world.  I can surf the internet.  I can look at photographs I've taken over the past 15 years.  I can find the answer to, quite literally, any question that pops in my head.  I can send messages or photographs to my family, friends, and clients. 

Not only can I pay for anything I buy with my iPhone, courtesy of the Covid-19 pandemic, I can order virtually anything and, often times, it will arrive within hours, courtesy of Amazon.  I have refused to cross the rubicon and order food from my iPhone but I might be the last remaining holdout.  

Right now, I'm typing on a laptop that's connected to the internet in a house I booked online, person-to-person, through Airbnb.  I'm listening to music that I'm streaming from Spotify on my iPhone, which is connected by Bluetooth to a portable speaker across the room.  Quite literally, I have a jukebox in my hand, one I pay a monthly subscription for (Spotify) yet, somehow, it pays artists next to nothing when their songs are played by people like me.  

Earlier, I was reading a Walter Mosley book on my iPad.  I purchased it, online from Amazon, and magical dowloaded to the Kindle App on my iPad.  It's in my Kindle library, along with close to 150 other titles.  Oh, and by the way, I turn the pages of the Walter Mosley book, which doesn't exist in any physical form, my moving my fingertips across the screen of my iPad.  

Don't forget, too, that I can place a bet on almost any game, sporting event, or proposition by using the FanDuel App on, what else, my iPhone.  

I could go on and on and on.

I mean, really, what in the hell would 34 year old Phil Newman think about all of this?!?

And don't get me started on AI, which its own thing.  

Strange days indeed.

Contentment

I'm sitting in a Yurt in Pelham, Tennessee, sipping a bourbon on a big rock - Calumet Farm 15, of course - listening to Drive-By Truckers and about to read a little Garrison Keillor (Boom Town, A Lake Wobegon Novel).  In a little while, I'll walk up a lighted trail through the woods to the Caverns, so I can watch Deer Tick, followed by Drive-By Truckers.  In a cave.

My friend and former client, Todd Mayo, owns the Caverns.  After I texted him to thank him for getting me tickets, he called and asked if I wanted to stand in the Pit, up close, where he will be.  Of course I do.  

I don't think I've been content, and happier, than I am at this exact moment in a very, very long time.  

Sometimes I think that you grind through life, through all of the ups and downs, all of the mundanity, in search of those moments like this one that are so precious, so few and far between.  The pearls of a lifetime.  The perfect yet fleeting moments that are so hard to find and even harder to hold onto.  So few in number but so incredibly significant.  

I was so comfortable working from the house on Florida Avenue in Sewanee yesterday and today.  I almost didn't make the 25 minute drive down the Mountain to the Caverns.  Seeing the Truckers in the Caverns was my whole reason for coming up here when I reached out to Todd about tickets months ago and booked a night in a Yurt, in The Yurt Village.  I'm so damn glad I'm here.  

I don't want this moment, this very one, to ever end.  

I'm so blessed.  The best family.  A wife and sons I love with my whole heart.  In-laws that are like my own parents.  Friends.  A job that provides for my family and challenges me intellectually.  The respect of my colleagues and peers.  Clients that depend on me.  Books to read.  The ability to run.  Relatively good health, all things considered at 59.  God is so good.  

This is what contentment feels like.  So elusive but so very special when you find it, even if it's just for a stolen moment or two.

   

Back on the Mountain

The Mountain restores my soul.

It sounds overly dramatic and maybe it is.  Still, as I sit outside on the porch at Stirling's Coffee House at 8 a.m., temperature in the high 60's, sipping my coffee, it's absolutely the way I feel.  In spite of the fact that I have a full day of remote work ahead of me back at the house on Florida Avenue, I feel relaxed.  At peace, as I listen to a couple of women sitting around the corner, talking quietly and drinking coffee.  Thanks to the open service window, I can hear the Sewanee students working in the kitchen at Stirling's, talking and laughing. 

It's so peaceful, here, watching the birds and gazing out at the trees surrounding the porch at Stirling's.  Sewanee is just now waking up, it seems, on a sleepy, late summer day on campus.  Fall semester doesn't start for a couple of weeks, so campus is relatively deserted, at least compared to what it will look like when all of the students arrive.  I love it up here this time of year.  Actually, I love it up here every time of year. 

A pleasant, early morning breeze tickles my skin, reminding me, perhaps, that fall is within sight, so though still quite a distance away.  It doesn't feel like early August this morning, which is part of the reason I am here.  The bells are ringing at All Saints' Chapel for reasons unbeknownst to me.  Maybe they're welcoming me back . . . home.  I could sit here forever.

I worked all afternoon yesterday at the house, as it rained outside.  For no apparent reason, I listen to Springsteens' "Born to Run" (1975).  Poetry set to music.  A little after 5 p.m., I went for a run, past the football field, the baseball field, the equestrian complex, and back to the house.  I didn't feel great and the run was a struggle but I got it done.  That seems to be the pattern for me this year as it relates to running.  Get the three miles in, a little slower than in the past, but get it in.

The house on Florida Avenue is very short walk away from the football field and the Fowler Center, which the boys would love.  I hadn't realized that when I arrived yesterday because I drove from the other end of Florida Avenue.  It's also the same short walk to the trailhead for Abbo's Alley, which Jude would love.  It's one of her favorite, easy nature walks.  It runs right through the heart of campus.  I might even walk it later.  

After a glass or two of a fabulous red wine that I hadn't run across in a while - Hamel Family Wines - I drove a few through Sewanee Village to Judith Tavern for a late dinner.  I read the New Yorker on my iPad while I ate, which was a perfect way for me to unwind.  When I got back to the house, I finished reading "Think Twice" on my iPad.  It's the latest Harlen Coben plot driven thriller from the Myron Bolitor series.  One of my old favorites.  

And, I guess, that's what this weekend is about for me.  A chance to unwind.  To recharge my batteries.  To regain my sense of perspective about work, about family, about . . . life.  I need to get re-centered.  I plan to go to church on Sunday at All Saints' Chapel so, hopefully, that will help.  Losing Lance Jennings knocked off my equilibrium.  I knew he was going to die but when it happened, suddenly, it jilted my sensibilities in a way.  For what I hope will be a short time, I lost my sense of perspective.  

To quote John Mellencamp's album (1980), "Nothin' Matters and What if it Did?"  That's kind of the way I've felt the last couple of weeks.  

Now, I'm watching a middle aged couple across from me who have set up shop, waiting for their coffee.  They've pulled two circular tables together, opened up their laptops, and are engrossed in a conversation about . . . what?  Funding and operating a non-profit, maybe?  Him, stickers on his laptop, baseball cap, beard, and tattoos, wearing flip-flops.  Her, hiking boots, but off denim shorts, and a Carley Meade style bottle of water, undoubtedly filled from her tap at home.  

People at Sewanee are interesting.  Students, professors, locals, visitors.  They just are.  

It's almost 9 a.m. now.  Time to get up, make the two minute drive back to the house, and get to work.  After all, I'm an Attorney in Residence, at least for yesterday and today.  

Tomorrow and Sunday are for me.

Away

Today, I am driving to Sewanee, where I have booked a house on campus for a long weekend.  I missed my trip to Bonnaroo for the second year in a row, which usually is my getaway.  I realized I need this time away, desperately, so I am going to take it.  I am burned out and generally down, and I think a change of scenery will help.  I hope it will, anyway.

Work is chaotic.  My assistant, Rachel,. is leaving the end of the month to move to Minneapolis.  That's going to be a huge loss.  Once again, I spend a year or more training someone only to have them leave, as a result of which someone else gets the benefit of the time I put in with them.  C'est la vie.  

To her credit, Rachel has handled her departure well by giving me three months notice that she really, really wanted to get out of Nashville.  I am not sure she is running to something as much as running away from something but it is not my decision to a make, obviously.  Plus, she's 30, single, so there is no time like now to try something different.  I am proud of her, very much so, for taking a chance.  I want it to go well for her and, most importantly, I want her to have a happy and fulfilling life.  

I have a new associate starting next week.  I need the help, of course, but training someone will slow me down for sure.  That's just part of it, though.  I also enjoy the mentoring part of practicing law, too.  A lot, actually.  My concern, of course, is getting a new legal assistant hired, and having her start, at the same time a new associate is starting.  I am not sure how I am going to pull that off.  

My plan is not to take today and tomorrow off from work.  Rather, I am going to work from Sewanee.  I already was going to be at the Caverns, in Pelham, Tennessee, just down the road from Sewanee, on Friday night.  I have tickets to see Deer Tick and Drive By Truckers play Friday night, which I am incredibly excited about.  My friend and former client, Todd Mayo, owns the Caverns, and he set me up with tickets several months ago when the show was announced.  

So, my plan is to work, read, run on the Mountain Goat Trail, have coffee at Stirling's on campus, eat dinner at Judith one night, hopefully, and breathe in the Monteagle Mountain air.  Perhaps I will have a bourbon or glass of wine, too.  What I really want is a little quietude and some time alone.  A few days . . . away. 

The Simple Things

I live in a world where Jude and I work extremely hard, in often stressful jobs, so we can send our boys to the best schools; play too expensive travel sports; get lessons and private coaching; travel; and got out to eat or pick up take out food (too much).  We're not rich, not by a long shot, but I guess we're comfortable.

Still, what is amazing, and fun, is that often time, it's the simple things that bring us the most joy.

Recently, for no particular reason, Joe and I started playing Fruit Ninja on my iPad again.  It's a simple - there's that word again - game that's been around forever.  You hold the iPad and fruit flies up from the bottom of the screen.  With your finger actions a Samurai sword of sorts, you slice the fruit.  What you cannot do is mistakenly slice a bomb when it flies up, because if you do, it's game over. 

We've played this game in the past but suddenly, at the end of the last real summer of Joe's childhood, he and I started playing it again.  Sure enough, Jude soon joined us, as did JP.  The past week or so, many nights at bedtime, all four of us lay on our bed, taking turns playing Fruit Ninja.  It's silly and it's simple.  

And it's beautiful.  

All of us compete for the high score.  Joe and I compete against each other left handed.  In fact, he broke my all time scoring record, last night, playing left handed.  Bragging rights for the night!  

In a way, it reminds me of the halcyon days early in the pandemic when Jude and I competed against JP and Joe, in a variety of events, in the Family Olympics.  Jude kept score on the white board in our den, the one she uses, now, to detail all of the scheduled family activities each week.  Connect Four, Around the World, etc.

Even better, on Saturday morning after a rare night as empty nesters, Jude and I were laying in bed, talking.  We started laughing about how she and I used to play a pinball game on my iPad in the old house, before (we thought) JP was born.  I knew the pinball game had a Wild West, cowboy theme.  I looked for it in Apple's App Store and, sure enough, there it was!  I downloaded it on to my current iPad and we were off to the races.  

Jude quickly outscored me.  I seemed to remember she was better at the pinball game then me.  By Sunday, Joe was playing it, and JP, too!  All of us competing against each other.  All of us laying in our bed together, playing pinball.  

And, by the way, I have the current high score at 3,000,000 +.  

One Too Many

Where to begin?

My longtime friend, Lance Jennings, died this week of pancreatic cancer.  I'm absolutely gutted.  This one really, really hurts.  I went to visitation yesterday morning in Murfreesboro and spoke briefly to his wife, Pam.  Tears in my eyes, I told her how sorry I was, that I had been praying for Lance and their family, and that I would continue to do so.  I hugged her, then left with the heaviest of hearts.

Lance and his company, ICS, have handled all of our IT (Information Technology) work at the office for more than 25 years.  As a result, Lance has been part of the fabric of my professional life.  An important part, really, because in this day and age, our server, computers, network, etc. are critically important parts of our office.  I might go weeks without seeing or talking to Lance until there was a problem.  Like magic, he would materialize at the office with a solution as soon as I called.  Smiling.  Always smiling.

20 + years ago, when my partners and I bought the building that houses our law practice, Lance (and ICS) wired it, purchased all of our equipment, set up our server and network, and installed our desktops and docking stations for those of us using laptops.  It was a huge - and very important - project for Mark, Chas, and me, and Lance was there with us, in the trenches, every step of the way.  

Over the years, he was our Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction).  Whenever we had a computer-related problem at the office, I made a telephone call, and Lance was on-site within hours.  Quickly, he found a solution or a workaround that kept our office running, sometimes until he could find a permanent solution.  

Once I was at the office over a weekend, working, probably getting ready for a trial.  While walking to get coffee at Frothy Monkey behind our office in downtown Franklin, I set my backpack down in the alley while I made a quick telephone call.  Somehow, with my back turned, a car clipped my backpack and smashed my laptop to the point it was inoperable.  Later, when I realized what hap happened, I was panic stricken.  How could I work the rest of weekend?

I called Lance and very quickly, he had a solution.  On a Saturday evening, he drove from Murfreesboro to our office, brought me a loaner laptop, connected it to our network, and I was off to the races.  Smiling.  Always smiling.  Who does that?  

A friend, that's who.  A dear friend who cares about you and your professional success.  A friend who wants to relieve stress in your life and make things easier for you.  A friend who wants to make you smile.  

I could probably recount at least 10 more stories just like that one, more if I polled the office.  But that's not what I am going to miss with Lance's passing.

What I am going to miss, most of all, is his friendship.  For me, Lance was one of those rare people in my life who, when I interacted with him at work, I always ended up smiling, happier, and in a better mood that I was before I saw him.  For example, if I was walking down the hall in the office after a difficult client meeting, lost in thought, and I ran into Lance, working on site, I immediately started smiling.  Just like that, whatever I was worrying about was gone, as Lance and I fell into our comfortable routine of joking with each other, talking politics, etc.  Smiling, both of us, the entire time.  Always smiling.  

I think that's what I will miss the most.  Those unplanned, unexpected interludes during a hectic and often stressful workday, when I turn around and, like magic, Lance is there.  Smiling.  Always smiling.  

Lance was very private about his illness.  The last time I talked with him on the telephone was shortly after his diagnosis.  After that, when I called, he didn't answer, so I texted him.  He almost always immediately responded to text messages with one of his own.  And that was fine.  As I told him, he didn't owe me anything.  He needed to handle his illness the way he needed to handle.  I just wanted him to know I was thinking about him and praying for him, every day.  And he knew that.  

Not too long after his diagnosis and beginning of treatment, he texted me a photograph of him parachuting.  A tandem jump.  "I did a thing," the message said.  In the photo, Lance was smiling, which is how I will remember him.  Smiling.  Always smiling.

A couple of months ago, I was working at the office on a Saturday morning.  I was in the front conference room when I heard the back door of the office open and close.  Weird, I thought, because I was the only only in the office.  I walked down the hall and opened up the back door.  There, parked behind the office, was Lance in his Tesla.  I knocked on the driver's side window, which startled him, I think.

Lance got out of the car and came back inside to sit down in my office.  For the last time, we sat and talked, probably for 45 minutes or so.  Unlike most of our conversations, this one, at times, was more serious.  We talked candidly about his illness.  We talked about his family and mine.  He loved his family and absolutely hated the pain his illness caused them, especially his wife, Pam.  We talked about life.  We smiled and laughed, too, although not as much as we normally would when we are together.   

Most of all, we said goodbye to each other.  I knew it was the last time I would see him.  He knew it, too, although we left it unspoken.  When he got up to leave, I hugged him and told him I loved him.  It was the kind of poignant, intimate moment with my friend I'll treasure for the rest of may life.  I was saying goodbye to my friend.

Seeing Lance that day in my office was a blessing for me.  A gift from God.  I believe that.  I got to tell guy friend thank you, that I loved him, that I was praying for him.  I got to tell him goodbye.  

Life is so damn hard and unfair sometimes.  Lance left behind Pam, a wife he loved, four children, and by my count, 11 grandchildren.  He was only 55 years old.  This one hurts so badly.  

Godspeed, Lance.  I will miss you, my friend.        

Forever Young

Ryne Sandberg died this week, too young, at age 65.  Prostate cancer.  So sad and so hard to believe.

Hall of Fame MLB player (2005).  10 time MLB All-Star, 9 time Gold Glove winner at second base, and 8 time Silver Slugger award winner.  Without question, one of the best second baseman of all time.  A stellar defensive second baseman with surprising power at the late.  He won an MVP award in 1984.  

Always a quiet, unassuming player, Sandberg was the consummate Chicago Cub during his 15 season with the club (1982 - 1987).  In 1984, the year he won the MVP he led the Cubs to the playoffs for the first time since 1945, he hit .314 with 200 hits, 19 home runs, 84 RBI, 19 triples, and 32 stolen bases.  At the time, it was one of the best offensive seasons ever for a second baseman.

For me, Ryne Sandberg was forever young.  I feel like I lost part of my youth with his dying.  Why?  I'll explain.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, Because there was no internet, no smart phones, and no MLB Network, a true baseball fan like me got all of his baseball news from the box scores int he Tennessean or the Nashville Banner, my weekly issue of The Sporting News or, to a lesser extent, Sports Illustrated.  There was very little baseball on television other than the Game of the Week.  For highlights, there was This Week in Baseball.  

I'm not sure when we got cable television in our house, but I'm guessing it was 1979 or 1980.  Suddenly, I could watch the Atlanta Braves on TBS, the New York Mets on WOR, or the Chicago Cubs on WGN.  For a baseball nut like me, this was heaven on earth.  Best of all, the Cubs played only day games, so every day in the summer, I could watch them early and mid-afternoons.  It was perfect.

Ryne Sandberg arrived in Chicago from the Phillies in 1982 in one of the most lopsided MLB trades of all time.  Ryne Sandberg and Larry Bowa for Ivan DeJesus.  Sandberg was young, tall, ruggedly handsome, and quickly became a superstar for the Cubs.  Batting second in the lineup, behind center fielder Bobby Dernier, he became part of "the Daily Double," a moniker invented by the Cubs' iconic announcer, Harry Caray.

Everything came together in the spring and summer of 1984, as the Cubs streaked to the division title it the National League East.  They finished 96 - 65 and I swear, it seems like I watched everyone of their games on television.  The Dodgers were still my team but I fell in love with that Cubs' squad in large part because I was able to watch them every day on WGN.  

So many of the Cubs' players, like Ryne Sandberg were young.  I was, too, as I turned 18 years old that summer.  Everything was so new.  Baseball games on cable television every day?!?  The Cubs on the way to their first division title in 39 years.  It was all so exciting. 

Anything was possible.  For the Cubs and, of course, for me.

In many ways, it was an endless summer, the last one for me.  I was working the night shift at Wal-Mart, partly because it allowed me to sleep in and wake up in time to watch the Cubs' home games on television.  17 years old and working the night shift?  Why not? 

Everything changed, of course, as my friends started to drift off to college at the end of the summer.  Neil to Vanderbilt.  Jay to University of Virginia.  Doug to Auburn.  Me, and so many other, to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  I didn't know it then but things would never be as simple, as innocent, as they were in the summer of 1984. 

It seems like every time I watched a Cubs' game that summer that Ryne Sandberg was getting an extra base hit in a key situation.  A home run or a triple.  Or turning a key double play, as Harry Caray shouted "Cubs Win!  Cubs Win!" It was, to be sure, a magical summer for the Cubs.  

As summer ended, I packed for college.  My mom and my next door neighbor, Warren Gilley, moved me to Knoxville.  He was like a second father to me, gone so many years now.  Later, he told me buy mom cried all the way back to Cookeville after they dropped me off and helped me unload my belongings into my room on the ground floor of Reese Hall.  

As I began going to classes on the Hill and adjusted to life on my own for the first time, the Cubs kept winning.  They clinched the division and played the San Diego Padres in the first round of the National League Playoffs.  No doubt, this was the year the Cubs were going to break the curse and win their first World Series title since 1908.  It was going to happen.

The Cubs took a 2 - 0 lead in the best of five game series.  I still remember, like yesterday, that someone in Reese Hall made a sign out of making tape in their dorm room window after the second game of the division series.  

"GO CUBS!  WIN ONE MORE!"

As any Cubs' fan knows, the Padres swept the Cubs in the last three games of the division series, then lost in the World Series to Kirk Gibson and the Detroit Tiger, in five games.  

The guys in the dorm room left that damn sign up all year long.  By winter time, the making tape had faded but it was still there, sadly.  As I trudge through the Presidential Courtyard on my way to class in the bitter cold, I would look up and see the sign, a reminder of what could have been.  A reminder of what should have been.  

For me, Ryne Sandberg always has remained frozen in time. 24 years old in the summer of 1984.  He had his whole life ahead of him.  I had my whole life ahead of me.  Nothing could stop him, or me.  Certainly not age or illness.  Ryne Sandberg and I were going to live forever.  

Now, so many years later, I've learned that nothing lasts forever.  

I'm older, obviously.  My mom has been gone more than five years.  I've lost friends and colleagues, too.  

And this week, I lost a part of my youth, and innocence - maybe the last part - when Ryne Sandberg died at age 65.  

Farewell, Ryno.