Editor’s Note: This piece fits in the back of the book; not the end, though the dinner it describes certainly was a real ending. It is sort of in keeping with my mood this morning. The dinner was an affirmation of a grand life lived in perilous times, and with honor and courage. I have had a bit of a rocky week, health-wise, and have spent most of it in bed, thankful that there were no plaintive emergency calls from the office to interfere with being flat on my back, looking up. It did make me consider how the world can diminish in scope from its global sprawl to the bedside-light of a single room.

There is much else to discuss, but having been in confinement, it is entirely possible that it is all fiction and fake news, though whether from the right or the left scarcely seems to matter. The traditional media have always manufactured the news, after all, fitting things into an agreed framework of what is Correct and Important to provide it to their faithful listeners and readers. Heck, I supported NPR for years and still do. But only the Classical radio station these days, since the societies and politics that generated that grand soaring music are safely a couple centuries away and can’t hurt us.

Social Media is becoming an issue to those in favor and against the results of the recent election. After the gut-wrenching disappointment of the Michigan loss to the Buckeyes in Double Overtime yesterday afternoon, I needed to rest my eyes. Walking back to get prone, I had one of those equilibrium events. Nothing catastrophic, thankfully, but back in bed seemed to be the wisest course of action, regardless if the sun still hung in the sky. There wasn’t anything else to do, so I picked up the iPad and did what many of us do when bored, frightened or apprehensive: I went to Facebook. There were a couple “notifications” in red, and being a good Pavlovian consumer of Mr. Zuckerburg’s technology, I clicked on them. In the course of this appalling campaign, I have taken a policy of not responding to the political rants of either side. I don’t think kicking people in the shins is grand fun. But combined with how bad I was feeling, the frustration of the Michigan loss, and my long-held contempt for the former dictator of Cuba, I actually responded to a rant about an alleged Trump tweet on Fidel’s long overdue passing.

According to the writer, apparently a ‘friend,’ (for no discernible reason that I can recall), the tweet represented a sickening message from the president-elect validated the writer’s opinion of his appalling foreign policy, and his jackbooted, homophobic, Islamophobic and racist nature.

Like I said, I mostly ignore this stuff, and have quit Twitter altogether. But I had to respond to that one, based on it’s intrinsic idiocy. The offending message, quoted in full in the post above the rant?

“Fidel Castro is Dead!”

I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t resist. I commented on this post:

I typed: “It was four words, and all of them are verifiably true.”

I thought it was succinct, on point and accurate. The author of the post was not deterred, and responded that it was the exclamation point that revealed the secret agenda.

I made one more comment, politely, citing the unspeakable horror of aggression by punctuation, clearly a manifestation of Patriarchal Privilege, or whatever, and asked to be ‘unfriended.’

So that is where we have come since I was lucky enough to meet Mac Showers almost twenty years ago, and to feebly attempt to collect the stories of his remarkable life. At the time of this vignette, he was no longer with us. The dinner to mark his passing was filled with love. I think I like that approach a lot better than anyone’s tweet, or their Facebook status.

– Vic

Dinner With Family

Mac was with family last night, a late October night in 2012. I was still a bit foggy, and honored to be there. I had traveled from Colorado, via Fort Worth, deep in the heart of Texas, where I had been visiting when Mac was hospitalized. I was watching some cool equestrian things when my cell phone went off at the barn and I got the news about his departure: cool, deliberate and intentional with family all around. The quacks told him he was too old to have much success with surgery on his ticker. He considered his options, and having already decided on a sort of gentle Hospice care, made his decision to go. He was lucid and with the clan all the way.

He left in exactly the way he wanted, and if not at the time of his choosing, he got a vote.

I kicked myself for not having been able to say and managed to dump my bags and slide into Mac’s usual stool at Willow with minutes to spare.

The clan had gathered from all the points of the compass: His three children: Donna Lynn (Tom) of Kalamazoo, MI; Donald M., Jr ., “Mike” (Valerie) of Ashburn, VA; David V. (Suzanne) of Arlington, VA, and six grandchildren: Ashleigh Webb, Courtney Showers of Arlington,

His family was going to get together at Willow that night, and kindly extended an invitation to share stories and reminisce. I have never seen a commercial establishment display an outpouring of affection for a patron. Jasper was behind the bar with Liz-S, and she came around the bar to give me a hug. Liz was a special lady in Mac’s life- by turns bubbly and solicitous, and the woman who penned the chit granting Mac “free beer” for as long as he cared to have one.

(Liz-with-an-S and Brett my web designer and bartender at Willow).

Jasper shares the name of Jasper Holmes, the great submariner and code-breaker who saved Mac’s life by preventing him from boarding the fleet submarine USS Wahoo for Mush Morton’s last combat patrol. Jasper is from Guam, too, and there was a special kinship with Mac, since he had served on Nimitz Hill at the forward Headquarters, and Jasper is proud of his heritage, which included the merry man on the civilian side of the bar.

Mac’s family gathered at the very spot at the bar where Mac used to hold court. He always dressed up to go to Willow- the Admiral had his standards, and they were high ones.

Owner and executive chef Tracy O’Grady sent out a couple orders of the delicious Gruyere gluten-free cheese puffs, and Bell’s lager, with Anchor Steam one of the Admiral’s favorites, flowed right up until the party ambled back to the private room in the back of the dining area.

Mac’s portrait went along, of course. It had occupied the place in front of the empty chair at the private table at the Peking Gourmet the night before, the evening of the last day of his remarkable life.

That is the same excellent restaurant the Iranians wanted to blow up- and a hangout for Mac’s clan all their lives in Washington.

Willow permitted a corkage for a special vintage of red wine: remember an America that as not nearly as sophisticated as it is now? This bottle would not make the exotic wine list of today’s fine dining establishment. The stories flowed with the Gallo jug-wine that Mac and his beloved Billie use to have on the family table- and those dinners would last until the last of the guests were ready to wobble off.

It was a remarkable evening. Sorrow could not penetrate for long. There was too much love in the place. It was just the Mac would have liked it.

Rest in Peace, Admiral. See you for Liberty Call at the big Fleet Landing on the other shore.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com