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Happy 40 and 30: Celebrating the old, the older and the odd.

This year marks my 40th anniversary for graduating from high school. I could say the same for marking 40 years ago that I joined the Navy. On the other hand, I received my bachelor of arts in communication 30 years ago this year. That’s a lot of anniversaries for one year.

In a year that saw physical difficulty with a ba for a major portion of 2014, it sadly also saw two of my four brothers pass away within two months of each other. That is the way it goes sometimes, triumph and tragedy, or vice versa. The last time I saw my Dad was at my college graduation. I suppose that if there is a time when it is right for someone to last see one another, perhaps that time should be on the upswing.

But I sit here not to sound a melancholy note. Nor do I write here to praise one milestone as opposed to another.

The fact is I have been a bit more involved in the planning for my high school reunion than for that of my college reunion. The reasons include simple arithmetic. There were between 80-to-100 students in my high school graduating class. I wouldn’t venture a guess for the numbers who graduated with my college class. I do know that that during the spring semester of 1984, when I graduated from college, saw a record enrollment that has since been broken once or twice. About 11,800 enrolled during that semester at Stephen F. Austin State University. The college is tucked away among the “pine curtain” of East Texas. “Home of virgin pines and tall women,” we would joke.

I have a fairly simple role in my high school reunion next month. It is our entry in the parade. Yes, parade. Survivors of my class get to ride on a trailer of some sort pulled by some mean machine. My friends involved in the locomotion aspects are in the forest products industry and so the ride itself doesn’t seem like a difficult part to pull off. The hard part is to find out where we should meet our chariot and how should it be decorated. Oh well, it’s a small town. We will likely figure that all out by the time the parade actually takes place.

As for my college reunion, I have no immediate plans. The reasons for that is that my college friends seldom were in the same graduating classes. Most of these friends were younger than I was. I doubt many of my friends will attend festivities at SFA. There are varying reasons for that as well including wives, kids, and/or living in far away places like Tokyo.

My college days were not what you called traditional, to be honest. The fact that I was in the Navy for four years before going to college is a big factor. It wasn’t so much I was “an older guy.” I also got a job before starting school as a firefighter. All but two of my final semesters were spent working. I also didn’t worry much, if any, about finances. That was fairly odd for most of my college friends. Tuition was cheap back then. I received a stipend of around $200 a month from the GI Bill for those semesters I was enrolled. I didn’t do much in the way of summer semesters. It would have been too difficult to manage working and going to school every day, which basically entailed one’s day in summer school all five days of the week. I wasn’t a typical firefighter either, for that matter. Most guys got off work and would go to a second or perhaps even a third job. I worked one summer off-duty, before school had even started. It involved moving mobile homes and getting dirty, not exactly in that order. When I decided to take a week’s vacation, I recruited my best friend, Waldo. I finally left this part-time mess. Waldo, who wasn’t exactly working in his master’s in speech field, stayed on for a little while.

Even the days moving mobile homes was something to look back upon with, while not exactly fondness, amused memories.

All in all, I could not have asked for a better college experience. Oh, my final semester was sheer hedonism. I wasn’t working and we, as was the saying back then, partied like the proverbial big dog! There are lots of differences between looking backward at high school and taking the same long look at college. Especially when you come from a small town, school is literally growing up. It’s tribal. Although I haven’t seen some of my high school friends since we graduated 40 years ago, we are bonded by years, age and place.

But for college, it will always be about walking out into the field on a hazy, warm December morning and hearing Canned Tuna playing on the gigantic Klipsch stereo speakers a friend brought over for the weekend-long party. Or that girl who, no matter what happened between us, will always be your friend. And of course, throw in a couple of fires some that were to be celebrated and others to be extinguished …

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Will NCIS pull off the hat trick?

One never knows how a “TV franchise” will pan out. It isn’t that a group of similar shows with similar sounding-names and often sharing actors or producers is an invention of the Dick Wolf-produced Law and Order franchise, and his newest franchise Chicago Fire and Chicago PD. Not all of the Law and Order bunch were as successful as the original and Special Victim’s Unit. Criminal Intent only lasted 10 or so seasons.

I wondered if, as a fan of the Mark Harmon-starred NCIS, the program would die from over-exposure once its NCIS: Los Angeles previewed more than five seasons ago. Apparently not, as a third franchise vessel NCIS: New Orleans debuts tonight.

To put an exclamation point on the NCIS franchise, the original itself is the third most popular show on U.S. televisioin and the most-watched TV drama in the world.

For a show to have the popularity of NCIS it must have aspects that viewers share. I would say the show’s quirky humor is probably what I like the best about both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. I saw the pilot episodes of New Orleans and it will hopefully keep that funny groove that has made the other two shows very likable. I have long been a sucker for a successful ensemble cast, shows that made many of the 1960-80s-era memorable as a “second TV Golden Age,” such as Taxi, Barney Miller, Hill Street Blues, and yes, even Andy Griffith and the Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, clever writing helps.

The fact that NCIS has become such a hit is a bit of a wonder, even though it did spin off from the Navy lawyer drama JAG. Even though I am an ex-sailor I had no idea that NCIS, for Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was even called “NCIS” when the show premiered. I remember the 70s agency as “NIS” for Naval Investigative Service.

Sometimes when one experiences something in real life, there may often reign confusion when its portrayal is in fiction. So it was with NCIS. I had met a couple of idiots during my naval service who were NIS agents, so when I saw Mark Harmon and the others acting as Navy civilian agents, I wondered how was this action about to work? Likewise, I wondered about the title of the succeeding show based in Los Angeles. Even though there was still a Navy station in Long Beach long ago when I stayed there with my ship in drydock, LA didn’t seem like a big Navy (or even Marine) town. Why wasn’t the show NCIS: San Diego? Well, I guess the two largest cities in California aren’t all that far apart. And,  San Diego and Los Angeles really aren’t separated by much more that a jumble of city limit signs, for that matter.

Like the DC-based original NCIS, New Orleans actually is home to a NCIS field office. Back in my Navy days in the 1970s, when I spent a great deal of time in New Orleans, the city had two Navy stations: Naval Support Activity New Orleans and NAS Belle Chasse. New Orleans makes a great backdrop for a drama or many other types of fictional work. Let’s face it, New Orleans is an odd place as it is fun. Hopefully, the third program will be a charm for the NCIS franchise, not to mention charming.

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Three tacos and a flashback of a side of empathy

It is another rainy Southeast Texas day and I felt like wherever I ended up is where I should stop for lunch. As the work clock ticks down to about 10 minutes — I thought I was supposed to start at 3:30 p.m. but beginning time is instead 1:30 p.m. — I will have to quickly relate my lunch and flashback.

Where I ended up was Tia Juanita’s Fish Camp, 5555 Calder, Beaumont, next to the popular Willy Burger and their new pizza place. I have eaten at Willy’s a few times. It is usually crowded and though the place is aesthetically funky, and the food is good, it’s far from my fave local joints Chuck’s Sandwich Shop (486 Pearl St.) for its wonderful old cheeseburger basket, and Daddio’s, up the street on Calder at Lucas, with their wonderful buffalo burger and hand cut fries.

Tia Juanita’s has gone through quite a few incarnations of food places. But it still has the huge covered patio and a darkish inside setting. While it has a Spanish name and a Mexican owner, the place is, unsurprisingly, seafood-oriented. The menu includes fried fish and shrimp as well as poboys, gumbo and tacos of a different variety. When I say that I mean fish, shrimp and beef. You can order a three-taco plate with either or a combination of the three. One also has the choice of flour or corn tortillas. So I chose shrimp tacos on corn tortillas. The three tacos for $10 ($9.99)  comes with a small salsa cup with a great-tasting spice enough to last through about nine tacos. It’s hot yet very delicious. It likewise comes with an equally small cup of charro beans. I likewise got an industrial-sized glass of unsweet tea.

The tacos came with cooked and spicy salad-sized shrimp, cilantro and shredded red cabbage inside two small corn tortillas each. With the salsa it was delightfully spicy and a treat. Although I really didn’t leave hungry, I was a bit put off at the size of the bean amount. Of all that was served, the beans were certainly not made of gold so the serving could have been twice the size I received easily.

Also, I am unsure if chips and salsa are automatic or if they are an extra charge. The waiter asked if I wanted anything else, I suppose I should have asked her what else was there, without sounding like a smart ass.

While I felt I waited a bit longer than normal for my food, I didn’t mind it at all. A large screen with ESPN Sports Center was on as well as a rather loud stereo system playing a number of tunes from the 60s and 70s by Jerry Jeff Walker, James Taylor and even Burt Bacharach and Jimmy Buffett. The rain also played a steady, though not heavy, beat outside the fenced patio. It was watching the rain and hearing Loggins and Messina’s rather sugary but nonetheless pretty “Danny’s Song” that I had a flashback from my military days overseas.

This recall was not from war. It was from sitting inside a pizza joint in Olangapo outside the Subic Bay Naval Station. I chose to order a few cold beers inside the big picture windows of the Cork Room Cellar watching the goings on of a hot, dusty day on Magsaysay Drive. Passing by those large windows to the world would be the whores, the Philippine constabulary in their fatigues, boonie hats and M-16s slung around their shoulders, as well as those who did everything from selling cheap trinkets to picking pockets. Inside, listening to the same songs from the same Loggings and Messina’s albums I remember feeling such sadness for those who made their living from can to can’t. Maybe it was — at 21 years old — my first discovery of empathy for those I felt who were less fortunate than I. Perhaps not the first, but perhaps the first time as an outsider of a foreign land looking in. Or maybe it was just the cold San Miguel catching up with me. I don’t know. But today I remembered it as if it was earlier this week.

The tacos were great though. Were I not scheduled to work later, and had an icy San Miguel been around — doubtful, as you don’t see San Miguel around too often in these parts — I might just have stayed for awhile.

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A sick puppy speaks up

Sick and tired? Ever heard of being sick and tired of being sick and tired? That’s kind of how I feel right now.

I feel as if I have an old fashioned cold. I stopped having those in my middle 20s. Same went for “upper respiratory infections.”

Now, I seem to get an URI (Upper Respiratory Infection) about once a year. It starts off with a slight bit of congestion for a couple of months. It doesn’t seem worth it to bother the doctor when you can’t even see the phlegm. Then all of a sudden, you are stopped up like a 30-year-old pickup that wasn’t driven in the last 10 years.

Plus my back hurts. And I’m gassy.

It’s no wonder I feel sick and tired. Too much information? Too bad. But that’s it for today so consider yourself one lucky mutt.

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Forty years past. Ah, and a slow ride around the town square listening to Humble Pie.

This year marks some interesting anniversaries in my life as a scholar. I graduated from high school 40 years ago. And received my college degree 10 years later. It will be the high school anniversary I focus upon this year. There are several reasons why but mostly because it is the most distant year from the original date. A few of my high school cohorts — most I have known from as far back as the first grade — and I have kept in touch with Facebook. That shows perhaps that social media isn’t as bad as many portray it. A wider circle of classmates came together and we have put together some events for our 40th anniversary.

Our hometown is about 60 miles away so it shouldn’t be much difficulty to physically attend. However, I somehow mixed myself into the planning portion of this celebration. Although we come from a small town and school, we will not have just one event. We’ve got a brunch on the Saturday of Homecoming followed by a parade. Later that evening we will have dining and dancing. Plus there will likely be some private parties. There are other groups celebrating including my brother’s class who graduated 10 years ahead of us. I don’t know if the classes of ’84, ’94 or ’04 will get together. I have only been to a 10-year reunion and one, I suppose that was 36 years after our graduation, which was a small, improvised gathering. I have been selected as the “go-to” person for the parade this year. I do not know why.

I need to get this wrapped up so that I might call a classmate who supposedly is supplying a tractor-trailer for our parade “float.” I don’t know that for a fact. I suppose if worst comes to worst, we can hitch a trailer to my ’98 Tacoma pickup. If we can get some of my classmates occupied like in the old days they might not even know the difference.

I remember while practicing for our high school graduation on the football field, we inserted some of our eight-track tapes (yes, it was awhile ago) into the sound system including Humble Pie’s “30 Days In The Hole.” We can blast some music like that while riding around on our parade float. No one should know the difference.