Where there is peace on earth

"Peace, from war," today's #watercolor

In a season that is supposed to celebrate peace on earth, it's best to remember that humans rarely know peace, with wars and misery raging even today, for years at a time.
There is one place I know that seems to bring peace, though 77 years ago today it was just the opposite.
If you visit the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, you approach and enter with silence and whispers and awe, standing over the tomb of 1,000 sailors in Pearl Harbor from that violent morning.
Here you can appreciate the cost of war, and the value of peace, waves gently lapping over the rusting remains of the battleship, oil still oozing from the depths.

Veterans' day memories

The Flag at Santa Fe Cemetery

Six years ago today, I spoke the eulogy at the funeral for my fav uncle, Michael Henry Clark, at the National Cemetery in Santa Fe, with full military honors for this WWII and Korean Navy combat veteran. 
He and I go way back, and it only occurred to me in recent years that the reason my middle name comes from him is that he was my Dad's favorite brother, the middle of five boys from dirt poor Depression Oklahoma, all of whom escaped. 
Rest in peace sailor, thank you, and salute.

From six years ago:
Reflections on a Final Port of Call 
A Sailor's Final Port

Many years ago at the Grand Canyon, Mom, Jerry, Mike and I

A few years ago, with Susan and Mike in the bar at La Fonda, Santa Fe, and Cuba Libres

Another Navy veteran who influenced me

Dr. Ray Tassin, who founded the journalism department at what is now UCO, was my reporting teacher years ago. He served for years as chair until health and retirement forced changes. Ironically, I returned to chair that same department, But that's another story.
Tassin, was well,"Tassin," as graduates and friends would say. A WWII Navy vet, he'd laugh about shooting Japanese ships out of the water. He always had change in his pocket which he constantly jangled, while lecturing. He wrote some fiction, which as an undergraduate I read. An English major at the time, before I repented, I was taking journalism to qualify my teaching certificate, but he and Reba Collins changed my direction in life, though it would take years to come into journalism as a career. (I earned only a "B" in Tassin's class.)
But Tassin had the guts and gumption not to care much about what others thought of him. Part of that came from having his son die before him. I think that teaches you what isn't important, and much of higher education's pretentiousness isn't important. Tassin had no patience with it, and managed to alienate a lot of people on campus. He didn't care. There was no political correctness in him. He was an unabashed conservative and constantly criticized and dug at liberals. One I remember, said in public, was something like, "I'm not a liberal. I know who my parents are." Still one of his best friends was colleague Dennie Hall, an unabashed liberal. I'm so glad there are still such characters as Tassin in this world. We need more of them.

All of it was punctuated with profanity. In fact, I think the saying," Cuss like a sailor," may have been invented because of Tassin. One of the last times  I saw him in his wood refinishing shop, I asked him how he was doing. "Too old to do almost anything but cuss," he said. 
The last time I saw him was at the 40th anniversary of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, in April 2011 where we moved it into new quarters and rededicated it. I'm so pleased he could see how far it had come. He cut the ribbon.
 Ironically, I now direct the outfit. Forty years earlier he had founded it. Later that year, he died. His funeral  in Memorial Park Cemetery not far from here, was with military honors. The US Navy crest was on his casket.
  Home is the sailor, home from the sea. A Memorial Day salute, veteran!

Ray Tassin, in brown, cutting the ribbon at the Journalism Hall of Fame, with Dennie Hall in dark sport coat assisting, along
 with the other inductees , April 2011. shortly before his death

The veteran I knew best--Memorial Day thoughts

Because my Dad lost his leg jumping a freight train in Tucumcari in 1932, he did not serve in World War II. But three of his brothers did. Rex, Mike and Champ. Rex and Champ were in the Army, Rex in England, and Champ in the Aleutians. Mike joined the Navy.
It's uncle Mike who became my favorite uncle, me carrying his name as my middle name. He was the bachelor, the traveler. He sent me a balsawood, battery operated PT boat from Japan while he was serving in Korea. He taught me how to kick a football in Fort Worth. From me, he caught the mumps when we lived in Albuquerque. He showed slides of his travels to Machu Picchu and other places, working for the state department teaching English in Ecuador, Libya, Iran, Mali, Tunisia. He settled in Santa Fe, teaching at the famed Institute of American Indian Arts until retirement, making friends on all of the pueblos. Then as the years passed, we lost touch, until about 15 years ago  when I needed him most, his Santa Fe home becoming a place of refuge. 

Uncle Mike, Susan and I at La Fonda a few years ago

From him I learned much about my Dad and uncles I'd never known, in our long talks at the foot of the Sangre de Christo Mountains as the setting sun turned them purple and red, viewed from his porch. Sailor's tales of WWII and Korea added to my knowledge of history and family. We'd "run up the rooster," as he would say. A former signalman, the semaphore flag for cocktail hour was a rooster. Rum and coke, "Cuba Libre," would add to the flavor of the evenings.
Now his ashes are buried in Santa Fe National Cemetery. We buried him Nov. 10, 2011 in the place he had called home for 30 some years, just across the highway from his home, and within sight of the Sangre de Cristos.
I know this about veterans on this Memorial Day...all of them have rich stories, all of them affect more lives than they ever know. Saludos a los todos veteranos. Muchas Gracias!

Mike's view of the Sangre de Christos

UCO in the Persian Gulf

Former student, Lt. Cdr. Steve Curry, in shades and UCO T-Shirt.

Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, 5K run on the flight deck in the Persian Gulf.
I was aboard almost a year ago. Go Navy!

Michael Henry Clark

Funeral services for Michael Henry Clark, 89, will be at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 10 in Santa Fe National Cemetery with military honors. His nephew Terry M. Clark will officiate.

 A long-time teacher at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, he died Oct. 24 in a Colorado veterans home at Walsenburg. Well-known in many of the pueblos of New Mexico, he lived in Santa Fe until November last year when age forced his move.

A world traveler, he was born in Comanche, OK, Sept. 4, 1922. He was the fourth of five sons of Erle T. and Cuba Jon Miller Clark of Comanche.

Before joining the U.S. Navy in WWII, he ran away from home with friends hoping to get a job in Washington, D.C. and Richmond during the Depression. In the War he served as a signalman, Petty Officer second class on PC1212 on anti-submarine patrol in the Caribbean.

After the war he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English and history from the University of Colorado. Reactivated during the Korean War, he served on LST 975 that was in the first invasion wave of landings on the beach at Inchon. He was transferred to Gen. MacArthur’s flagship, the USS Mt. McKinley, as the “best signalman in the Navy.”

He later taught high school English, history and other subjects at Espanola. He also taught at Casper, Wyo., and in Oregon. He was hired by the U.S. Information Agency to teach English to university students for five straight years in Ecuador, Libya, Iran and Mali.

He returned to the U.S. as a teacher of many subjects at the Institute of America Indian Arts in 1965. He was a member of the Santa Fe VFW and American Legion. and served in the Oklahoma National Guard as a youth.

He was preceded in death by his parents and four brothers—Terrence Miller, Lewis Watts, Rex Thweatt and Champ.  He is survived by many nieces and nephews. Rogers Funeral Home at Alamosa is handling arrangements.