Old Man and the Sea

The year I graduated from college, 1952, Ernest Hemingway wrote one of his greatest novels, The Old Man and the Sea. I had promised myself, as a hard-working student, years before, that eventually I would own a house on my favorite beach, Wrightsville Beach, NC. So, in my real estate adventures and misadventures, in which, thank God, I have managed to make more money than I have lost, and now have a nice income from rentals, I own a nice home on the beach. And, like Hemingway, I feel like an old man by the sea.

I was not always an old man and I did enjoy the beach when I was younger and more energetic. I would walk at least three miles on the beach each day. But, as the beaches changed, and as the people who are on the beach have drastically changed, it is no longer safe for a totally blind, disabled person to navigate the beach anymore. Young people, these days, will run over you and not even say one thing. Thanks to Doctor Spock, political correctness, and atheist teachers and leaders, the youth of today, and I hate to say parents of tomorrow, are callous in their attitudes and actions. One former school teacher told me recently that the third time she was hit by a student, she had had enough. In the socialist society in which we are living, it will become as difficult to hire school teachers, as well as healthcare caregivers, including doctors.

The greatest problem with blindness is that the general public thinks that you have not only lost your eyes, but your brain. I hear more, than most people will ever see. A few years ago, I had walked out to the beach just a few yards, and on returning to my house, went under my house instead of up the steps and I heard some drug activity which I felt should be reported to the authorities. A male, which later turned out to be a police officer, was instructing a female in transporting some illegal drugs to the town of Jacksonville, where the Marine base is located. She was evidently transporting the drugs in a “cooler,” which is used by the fishermen. He told her the drugs were in the bottom of the cooler, that fish and ice were on top of the drugs, so that if she was stopped by law authorities, she had been fishing and she had the fishing equipment and the fish in the cooler.

I knew there was much activity going on in that particular house. I actually was concerned enough and stupid enough that I took one of my very small cameras, which could hardly be seen in my hand, and who notices an old blind man with a cane wandering around a house anyway? I made pictures of the license numbers on cars coming to that house and actually went to the expense of having them developed. I sent the pictures to the police department and told them what was going on. I further told them that I had been told that uniformed police officers frequented that house. Once before, when I had made such a report concerning officers, my tires had been slashed, so I rode to my beach house by cab for a few weeks. Nothing whatsoever was done about this situation.

Sometime before that, I owned a large nightclub building on Oleander Avenue, and I received word from several sources that my building was being used as a “drugstore”--that much illegal drug activity was going on in the building (now I have told this on the radio, so I am not disclosing anything new). Since I had keys to the building, I always have the same security code on all the buildings I own, including both residential houses, I had called the club ahead of time and there was no answer, but I knew the employees went to the gym in the afternoon.

My driver was hesitant to take me out on this mission, but he was not scared enough to want to lose his job, so we drove to the back of the building, I unlocked the back door, I turned off the alarm, I unlocked the office in which my furniture, my desk, etc. were located. I owned every nail in the building; I had a right to be in the building. The middle top drawer of the desk was full of money. The side drawers were full of packets of dope. At least this non-dope user assumed that. I knew the combination to the safe and a blind man can open a safe. All the cash register drawers were in the safe. I told my driver to bring me two garbage bags from the kitchen. I put all the money from the top desk drawer in one garbage bag. I put all the packets in another garbage bag. I closed up the office, armed the security system again, locked the door, and had him drive home a different way. He helped me count out all the money on my return, which I later put in my lock box at the bank. I put the bag of dope in a dumpster at another building. And then I went down to visit the head of Vice, who is now the sheriff of the county.

I told this man that I did not want anyone in the room except the two of us. I told him I had reason to believe that illegal drug activity was going on in the nightclub, in this building which I owned on Oleander Avenue. He said, “Oh, Dr. Morris. There’s nothing going on at your building.” I told him nothing else, but the manager and other employees were terminated.

Now, unless the sighted people of the world cannot become concerned enough and bring enough pressure on law enforcement, the illegal drug activity, which is taking over this country and has already filled the prisons, will only get worse. I am totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected veteran. I thought enough of my country to go to a war, I love my country enough to support it with my tax dollars, warts and all. Gilbert Holland, American poet, wrote a poem some years ago, which goes as follows:
 
GOD, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.

Manhood is more than physical plumbing. God always called a man, not a committee. In this day of corrupt politicians, pansy preachers, and spineless fathers, it will take a real man or group of men, not only to alert, but to avert the complete destruction of this nation by illegal drug activity.

New Day

Ernest Hemingway's greatest novel and his first (a first edition of this novel, if you have one, is worth much money), The Sun Also Rises, finds its title in the book of all books, God's Word.

"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." (Ecclesiastes 1:5 )

I never knew my father not to get up and go to work in the morning; no matter how bad things developed, he always faced the new day with optimism. Even the morning after the barn burned the night before, he got up and went to work. Even when the crops were drowning because of too much water, even when the crops were drying up due to lack of water, he got up and went to work. And, to this day, I get up early every morning for work.

Recently, a young man of limited acquaintance came to me, (an old man) seeking advice because in this depressive, regressive, economic environment, his business was failing, his wife had left to return to another state with his two children, he was having trouble paying the mortgage on his home, and amid all his other debts and obligations, he was having some medical problems. He said, “What am I going to do?” I said, “You will get up tomorrow morning, put on your socks one at the time, get ready for work as usual, and then go to work!” I told him about the first public poem I ever gave, to a Sunday School convention, at the age of 4. The title of the poem was Keep on Keeping On. One of my aunts, before she died, never stopped reminding me of her pride in my performance that day and since. She said I had on a white suit with short pants and red bow-tie. She said, “I knew then you would be a marvelous speaker.”

Many has been the time when I just wanted to stay in bed and forget the challenges awaiting me on the other side of the door. School tests, licensing boards, divorce, sick and dying parents, critical surgery, and later, for the past 40 years, the challenge of life as a totally blind person. Often times, when I hear a person give a resounding “AMEN” for a sermon or song in church, I wonder if they truly know the meaning of the word. It means, “I would stake my life on what you just said.” Talk is cheap. Until you get knocked down, until you even have a 'sucker punch', you do not know of what you are made.

After the most recent severe hurricane here on the North Carolina coast, thank God, my beach house was not damaged, even though just 2 houses from the ocean. But much sand had washed up, deposited under the house and in the driveway (it is a house on stilts). My housekeeper said, “You are going to have to get someone to get that sand out from under that house so we will be able to park your car.” I said, “I will move it.” and she said, “How?” “The way my entire life has been lived, one shovel at the time.”

It is an unusual life that does not have valleys as well as mountain peaks. We go from day to day, but few things last forever.

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You,
Whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
They make it a spring;
The rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
Each one appears before God in Zion.
(Psalm 84 5-7)

I will never understand how those who lived before us, those who planted the flowers which we now pick, lived the lives which they lived, usually without any complaint. One man, who I knew quite well, was married to an invalid wife, totally crippled, in a wheelchair or on a hospital bed all the time. Yet, he got up every day, prepared food for his children, who left for school in a school bus, went to work at a business in town so he could take home a paycheck each week, went home at the end of the day to take care of a wife who would never get any better, children who had all the needs of normal children in and out of school, did the laundry, cleaned the house, and persevered with an attitude of love and consideration toward everyone.

One of my father's brothers was in a severe accident from which he never recovered and was house-bound and bed-ridden for many years until he died. His wife, Aunt Louetta, would leave her responsible job as Dietician at a children's hospital and spend her lunch hour each day caring for him and making sure he was comfortable.

Recently, I had a discharged sailor and a discharged Marine working for me. Both had served overseas and both thought they were really tough, but they do not know what toughness is until faced with the challenges of the terminal illness of loved ones. Both, when things were not exactly pleasant at their work for me, just got up and walked out. You can not walk away from the responsibilities of those whose very day depends on you.

This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Most of today's young people are too spoiled to work, they just want everything handed to them. I said to a young man recently, “I will teach you everything I know about real estate and the stock market, but you will have to read the books and do some studying on your own.” He said, “I would just like to get a check every month.” (referring to the fact that Congress retired me with a check for my years of service as an Army officer) I reminded him, I still work, in spite of everything, I have never given up. When you see an urn full of my cremated ashes, you will know that I have quit.


Keep On Keepin' On
If the day looks kinder gloomy
And your chances kinder slim,
If the situation's puzzlin'
And the prospect's awful grim,
If perplexities keep pressin'
Till hope is nearly gone,
Just bristle up and grit your teeth
And keep on keepin' on.
Frettin' never wins a fight
And fumin' never pays;
There ain't no use in broodin'
In these pessimistic ways;
Smile just kinder cheerfully
Though hope is nearly gone,
And bristle up and grit your teeth
And keep on keepin' on.
There ain't no use in growlin'
And grumblin' all the time,
When music's ringin' everywhere
And everything's a rhyme.
Just keep on smilin' cheerfully
If hope is nearly gone,
And bristle up and grit your teeth
And keep on keepin' on.