The Other Woman

This was my Grandfather’s Secretary, the woman he was convicted of killing.

All of the evidence indicates he was having an adulterous affair with her, went to Fort Smith, Arkansas to buy booze, pulled over on the side of the road in dry Oklahoma to have a romantic assignation, and when they quarrelled in the federal government vehicle, a pistol was produced and she was mortally wounded.

The result of this tawdry and tragic episode was that my Grandmother Nola left Oklahoma to be with her family near Pacific Grove, California, which is how my father ended up caddying for Bing Crosby at Pebble Beach.

Regardless, this is the woman. I’d searched high and low for a photograph of her, but to no avail.

Eventually, I spent about $250 in copying fees from the U.S. Department of Interior to obtain his employment file (which they’d miraculously recorded), whereupon I finally was able to view a photo of the woman he’d killed.

I know where she is buried. Or at least, I know the cemetery in which her remains lie. Apparently her grave is unmarked.

Regardless, one day I will visit it, present her with some flowers, and ask her forgiveness.

My Grandfather

I never met him.

He was born in 1905 and died in 1952.

I don’t think I saw a picture of him until I was in my 40s.

He was involved in the deaths of at least two women. The first one during a traffic accident near Norman, Oklahoma in the 1920s and the last one involving a drunken episode with his young secretary and shots fired from a .38 caliber pistol inside of a federal government vehicle on an unpaved Oklahoma road back in 1947.

From my relatively recent research, I’ve determined that he apparently died of TB inside of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, though I am not certain.

This is his federal government photograph.

He looks to be quite the handsome man.

I see the resemblance to my own father.

Grandfather (or whatever he would have been called) was 1/2 Cherokee. My own Dad, his son, is 1/4 Cherokee.

There are a million stories out there. And each man lives a life of quiet desperation.

Paratrooping

I was in the 82nd Airborne from June 1994 to April 1997. (I had a month of leave stored up so I actually got out in May 1997.)

Our job was to jump into a hostile enemy airfield, secure it by utilizing maximum force, and provide heavy weapons and anti-tank support to our fellow paratroopers.

The majority of my 32 jumps were “Mass Tac” (thousands of paratroopers in a multitude of airplanes, primarily C-130s or C-141s), with equipment (read: heavy) and at night.

This picture is a good representation of what those jumps were like, except nobody was setting off any flashbulbs inside of the aircraft.

It was pitch black, except a red light and the long awaited green light…

Romans

This is a vase my parents gave me since I liked it so much.

On one side is a beautiful blonde maiden.

On the other is this tired Roman soldier.

Vases like this were quite popular back in the day and I think you can buy one for about $50 as the figures are actually just pasted on.

Regardless, it has been in my family as long as I have memory and it is an heirloom I treasure and proudly display in my own home.

North Charleston, South Carolina (2020)

Sturgill Simpson wailing on his Gibson Les Paul taken off the stadium’s giant TV monitors.

I just listened to “Sound & Fury” on vinyl in its entirety.

It’s one of those albums that I’d like to take mushrooms or CDB gummies to.

After I fully retire…

Paratrooping

Vienna, Virginia (2010)

From FB:

“Last night I dreamt I was attending some type of function and was inappropriately dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. When I borrowed my friend’s old Lincoln to go home and change clothes, I was surrounded in a barn by aggressive clowns. I watched a lobster creature clinging to the wall snip the tail off of a scorpion with his pincers. Then the zombies came. Dennis Hopper was there, too. Analyze that.”

Major George Lowrey

My Great x 5 Grandfather. My patronymic surname family line comes from the area around Dumfriesshire, Scotland:

“During the 1760s and ’70s, marriages of Cherokees and other southeastern Indians with Scots, English, Germans, and Irish became increasingly common… George Lowrey married Nannie of the Holly Clan, and their son George, born about 1770, figured prominently in the affairs of the Cherokee nation until his death in 1852. Mary Adir, widow of the Pawnee Samuel Horse Chief, has stated, ‘Although we have been Cherokee Nation citizens for generations, we remember our Scots heritage.'”

– “How the Irish and Scots Became Indians: Colonial Traders and Agents and the Southeastern Tribes,” New Hibernia Review, Autumn 1999

Richmond, Virginia (1987)

From FB:

“Newgate Prison, 900 block of W. Grace St, Richmond, VA.

I spent many a night here in high school with Chip and Dave in the mosh pit at the heavy metal shows. A rough fun place.

If Mom and Dad only knew…”