Everyone gather round and pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup, and let’s give the world a few minutes to settle down. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, Now they look like they are here to stay. Oh I believe in yesterday.
It is over. Go home.
Suddenly! Folks, the voting is over. The counting and the talking may take a little longer. The talking, I suspect, could outlive several of us.
But this morning, the coffee still expected me to make it.
Otis still has his priorities. Breakfast remains a matter of considerable importance. And somewhere in this house is something I put away so carefully that neither Steve nor I will ever find it again.
There is something reassuring about an ordinary morning.
After weeks of being told everything we ought to fear, resent, or be furious about, I believe we could use one.
I found myself remembering an old eight-track tape my brother used to have. John Wayne was on it, talking over music in that unmistakable voice of his. You didn’t need to see him. You knew who was speaking.
As I remember the story, he comes upon an old man living out in the desert. The sun is beating down, the place looks worn, and life there appears to offer considerably more hardship than comfort.
He asks why the old man doesn’t sell the place and move somewhere easier.
The answer has stayed with me all these years.
Mis Raíces Están Aquí
The old man’s roots were buried there.
When I was younger, I might have thought a moving truck could solve that problem.
These days, I understand him a little better.
A person can look at a place and see dry ground, an old house, and a fence that needs fixing. The person living there might see where his children played. Where somebody he loved planted flowers. Where he worked for years to make a life.
You can put a price on the property. The rest is harder to figure.
I have lived in Arizona for many years now, but there are pieces of Oklahoma that have never loosened their hold on me. Family. Old roads. Horse sales with Dad that lasted long after I thought we ought to have gone home.
Some of those places have changed. Some of the people are gone. Still, I can visit them in my mind without stopping for gas.
Those are roots, too.
And I think about what roots do beneath ground that looks bare. They hold on. With some care, a little rain, and time, they can send up something green again.
Of course, anybody who has worked the land knows you generally have to do more than stand there wishing for a crop.
There is watering to do. Weeds to pull. Something always needs tending.
The same is true around home.
We can call somebody we have been meaning to check on. Ask how they are doing and stay on the telephone long enough to hear the answer. Put something good in the oven. Start deciding who needs a place at the Thanksgiving table.
There are folks facing real worries this morning. I wouldn’t pretend a cup of coffee will settle them. But I can offer a chair and listen for a while.
Soon enough, we will be arguing about how early is too early to put up Christmas lights. Somebody will discover the turkey is still frozen. Steve may have to explain why a perfectly good Christmas decoration needs replacing.
I expect to have questions. But who doesn’t. Have a great day. And don’t worry. If we are lucky, we may have another election someday. Or, maybe we won’t.
If you have Election Day off and there is a little nip in the air, I hope you have found somewhere comfortable to enjoy your coffee.
He played a game called. Pinochle, whist, and euchre. Nobody to go his bail. The judge done said that he will pay the fine
Somebody suggested adding bay leaves to mine to put a spring in my step. I cannot vouch for that, for right now my spring is broken. With this leg and ankle, I would settle for replacement parts.
Meanwhile, the election machinery seems to be running at full speed. Mine requires a little more coffee.
Across our nation today, good people will be doing good work. Checking registrations, handing out ballots, answering the same questions repeatedly, and helping their neighbors exercise a right that deserves our attention.
They deserve our patience, too.
I expect we will also encounter some ugliness. We usually do. Somebody will mistake being loud for being right. Somebody will forget that the person standing in front of them is a human being.
We can decide how we respond. I hope we give those working at the polls a reason to remember our kindness.
I have strong feelings about this election. You probably do, too. The cost of living, our rights, our freedoms, and the direction of this country are personal matters. They affect what happens in our homes long after the campaign signs come down.
That is why I hope you will vote if you are eligible and have not already done so.
If you are unsure about your registration or polling place, check with your state or local election office. Some states offer same-day registration, but the requirements and locations vary. Start at vote.gov for your state’s official information.
And when you have cast your ballot, give yourself permission to take a breath.
You do not have to spend every remaining hour watching somebody point at a television map. Supper will still need making. The dog will still expect attention. Somebody you love might appreciate hearing your voice discussing something besides the election.
Soon enough, we will have Thanksgiving preparations, Christmas shopping, and the annual discovery that the string of lights worked perfectly when we put it away.
I would like us to have enough energy left to enjoy some of that.
For today, be present. Be heard. Be decent to the people sharing the line with you.
And if those bay leaves actually repair a broken spring, let me know.
Steve would probably appreciate getting me out of this chair.
I had more to say. But. Our Broadcast and standards and practices (S&P) executive suggested I not. So this is where I say, don’t worry how things turn out. All we can do is hear about it tomorrow at this point. There may very well be hope. Then again there may not.
I will leave you folks today with a quick story about the Bandit Bob, who used to steal, gamble and rob. He thought he was the smartest guy in town. But I found out last Monday. That Bob got locked up Sunday, Yep they’ve got him in the jailhouse way downtown.
I told him once or twice. To quit playin’ cards and shootin’ dice.He’s in the jailhouse now.He played a game called poker. He’s in the jailhouse now!
In a time long, long ago—before your telephone could give you directions and then criticize you for missing the turn—people installed radios in their vehicles so they could talk to other people driving down the highway.
Imagine that. Strangers talking to strangers. On purpose.
They were called CB radios. You picked yourself a handle, mounted an antenna, and suddenly you had company all the way across Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or any place you wanted to go.
You could find out about an accident ahead, ask where to get a decent hamburger, or learn that a highway patrolman was sitting just beyond the next hill.
Naturally, that last piece of information was provided strictly in the interest of public safety.
We were supposed to be driving fifty-five miles per hour. During the energy crisis, the federal government pushed the country toward a national fifty-five-mile-per-hour limit to conserve fuel.
Everyone was pitching in. Whether they wanted to or not.
Some days, gasoline lines stretched for blocks. You could spend a considerable amount of your afternoon waiting to buy the fuel you needed to get somewhere you were already late arriving.
And those places selling gasoline were called service stations.
That word “service” meant something.
An attendant came out to your car, pumped your gasoline, washed the windshield, and often checked the oil. Someone might notice a low tire or something under the hood that needed attention before it left you stranded twenty miles outside town.
Then came the growing spread of self-service.
Somehow, we were persuaded that getting out in the wind, rain, or summer heat to do the work ourselves was an improvement.
I still have questions about that arrangement.
The attendant disappeared. The windshield stayed dirty. And that little problem under the hood became your problem somewhere down the road.
Of course, things change. I understand that.
What troubles me is how easily we seem to have accepted a similar disappearance of everyday courtesy.
I remember waving at people as we drove through town. Sometimes you knew them. Sometimes you didn’t. A hand came up from the steering wheel, and another hand answered.
Nobody needed your voting history before returning the greeting.
If someone was stopped beside the road with the hood raised, other drivers would pull over. Somebody might have jumper cables. Somebody else knew enough about engines to be useful. Another person would stand back and wave traffic around.
There was usually at least one fellow offering advice nobody had asked for.
But he had stopped, too.
I know there are still people doing those things. I would hate to overlook them while complaining about everybody else. Good people stop to help every day, and plenty of folks still wave back.
I just wish their example got as much attention as the anger.
Turn on the television during election season and you would think the entire country was populated by dangerous strangers, crooked neighbors, and people whose greatest ambition was to destroy your way of life.
Apparently, some of them also want to be county commissioner.
Now, political mudslinging certainly wasn’t invented yesterday. We had ugly campaigns long before any of us were born. And the America I grew up in had serious injustices that a friendly wave did nothing to erase.
I remember those things, too.
But I also remember an expectation that you ought to know how to conduct yourself around other people. A person could disagree with you and still deserve a chair at the table.
An election could end, and the next morning you still had to live together.
You bought groceries at the same store. Your children attended the same school. You might need that neighbor’s help getting a truck out of the mud before the week was over.
Calling him an enemy on Tuesday could become inconvenient by Thursday.
These days, suspicion seems to arrive before the introduction.
The little old lady you have seen at the drugstore for twenty years volunteers to work an election, and suddenly somebody wants you to believe she belongs to a secret organization capable of manipulating the entire country.
That is quite a promotion for a woman who mostly wanted to help her community and get home before dark.
Elections deserve scrutiny. Mistakes deserve correction. Actual wrongdoing deserves investigation.
But an accusation needs evidence. Hearing it repeated until we can recite it in our sleep does not make it true.
And a neighbor who voted differently has not automatically become a threat.
I hear people say their small town still looks after its own. I am glad when that is true.
But what happens when someone unfamiliar comes through?
Someone with a different accent? A different skin color? A husband where you expected a wife? A political bumper sticker you wouldn’t put on your own car?
That seems like a fair measure of a community’s hospitality.
It is easy to be pleasant to someone who reminds you of yourself. A stranger gives us a chance to find out just how far our good manners extend.
The same goes for the people who come here hoping to work and build a life. We can discuss immigration laws without pretending to know every person’s motives by looking at them. We can uphold voting requirements without treating an accent as evidence of a crime.
Surely we can manage that much.
I do not believe every ounce of American civility has disappeared. I have received too much kindness to say that honestly.
But I think we have allowed contempt to become far too comfortable in our daily lives. We hear it, repeat it, laugh at it, and eventually carry it out the front door with us.
Maybe we ought to pay closer attention to what we are carrying.
Those old CB radios could be noisy. People interrupted each other. Some talked too much. Others had no business singing into a microphone.
Still, somewhere beyond the hood of your car was another person traveling the same stretch of highway.
You might never learn their real name. You might never meet them.
But they could tell you about trouble ahead. You could do the same for them. And for a few miles, the road felt a little less lonely.
I miss that.
So if you see me waving, go ahead and wave back.
I am not conducting a political survey.
I am saying good morning.
And if you know a place ahead that still serves a decent cup of coffee, I am listening.
One thing about a broken ankle: it gives you plenty of time to sit and think. Unfortunately, it does not guarantee you will have anything sensible to think about.
Left to Right: Ben, Steve and SashaBreakfast Christina’s Wild Berry Restaurant.
I had pictured a quiet recovery. Drinks, Steve, Otis, me, and the occasional trip from one room to another that requires about as much preparation as a small expedition.
Then we had company.
A friend needed somewhere to stay while working through a rough patch at life. I’ll leave the particulars to the people involved. Around here, we were providing a place to sleep, someone to listen, and whatever wisdom two older men could offer from their recliners.
We have seen situations like this many times.
Usually on television. But we felt reasonably qualified.
Otis disagreed.
OTIS K-9 Canis familiaris
Our Jack Russell Terrier believes visitors should stay approximately fifteen minutes. That gives them time to admire him, explain their business, and leave before becoming part of the household.
Our guest had exceeded his allotted time considerably.
Otis began monitoring him.
If he shifted in his chair, Otis noticed. If he crossed his legs, Otis had a comment. If he attempted to stand, the entire security department came to attention.
Our friend already had enough on his mind without having to negotiate permission to use the bathroom.
“Otis, leave him alone,” became one of the most frequently spoken sentences in the house.
I would have intervened more effectively, but I am currently operating with one good leg and a scooter. By the time I arrive at a disturbance, everybody has had time to develop a different account of what happened.
There is something especially frustrating about needing help when you are accustomed to doing things yourself. You spot something across the room and think, I’ll just get that.
Then you remember.
There is no “just” right now.
Getting dressed is a project. Getting out the door is a coordinated event. Something as ordinary as going to breakfast requires Steve to manage the dog, me to manage the scooter, and everyone to remain clear of whichever direction I’m pointed.
Still, after more than a month away from our favorite restaurant, I was ready.
I missed the familiar faces. I missed our usual breakfast. I missed going somewhere for a reason that did not involve somebody examining a part of me.
So we gathered ourselves up and headed out, leaving Otis at home to review his complaints.
I expected questions about my ankle. I was prepared to explain the fall, the pain, the surgery, and how quickly an ordinary day can turn into a story you will be telling for the rest of your life.
But the folks at the restaurant already knew most of that.
Facebook had handled the preliminary reporting.
There were warm welcomes and well wishes, and it felt good to be back. For a little while, I could sit at a restaurant table instead of in my recovery chair and enjoy something familiar.
Of course, our guest attracted some interest, too.
I had been missing in action for weeks, returned on a scooter, and somehow there was still newer news at the table.
That is the trouble with trying to make a comeback. Somebody else arrives with a developing story.
Between the coffee and breakfast, it occurred to me that all three of us needed the outing for different reasons. I needed a break from being home with my ankle. Steve needed a break from helping me do all the things I usually do myself. Our friend needed a little time when his troubles weren’t the only thing in the room.
We couldn’t settle everything over breakfast. But we could eat, talk, and give the worrying a rest.
Sometimes that is about what you have to offer someone. A chair. A meal. A place to stay while they figure out what comes next.
I’m learning to accept that kind of help myself. I appreciate it more than I probably manage to say, even when I get frustrated with how much of it I need.
Otis, meanwhile, would appreciate a firm checkout date.
And I still don’t know how the restaurant heard we had a houseguest.
Now as I turn life a page To the land of the great Osage In those Oklahoma hills where I was born, While the black oil it rolls and flows And the snow-white cotton grows In those Oklahoma hills where I was born.
There is an old song called Oklahoma Hills that can carry me home before I have finished my first cup of coffee. It brings back the oak and blackjack trees, the open country, and that prairie breeze.
Although whoever called it a breeze must have been standing indoors.
I remember that Oklahoma wind well. I wore enough of it on my face to develop chapped lips, and I carried enough of the countryside home in my clothes that somebody probably should have checked me for property taxes.
Some of my strongest memories come from working in the peanut fields as a teenager. But the work began long before that. By eleven, I was helping my dad, driving either a tractor or a truck. When you weren’t in school, there was usually something that needed doing.
Looking back, that was a lot of responsibility for a boy that age. At the time, though, we didn’t spend much time discussing it. It took all of us to make it, and everybody had a part.
When I wasn’t helping Dad, I might be with my brother-in-law, moving irrigation pipe in the summer, feeding cattle, or sacking peanuts in the fall. When I first started filling those sacks, a full one nearly weighed as much as I did.
And it was dirty work.
The wind blew across those fields as though somebody had left a gate open clear up to Kansas. By ten in the morning, it seemed we could depend on a thirty-mile-an-hour breeze. By afternoon, forty or more.
At least that is how I remember it. I was the one standing out there getting sandblasted.
I tried everything I could think of to get out of that wind. I would use the tractor to move the peanut bins around so they would give me a little protection from the southwest. About the time I got settled, the wind would swing around and come straight out of the west.
So I would move things again.
Then it would blow from the south.
I began to suspect it was watching me.
If you have ever driven through western Oklahoma, you may have noticed trees that look as though they have spent their entire lives trying to get to the northeast. The southwest wind had worked on some of ours for so long that they simply grew that way.
Even the trees had learned there wasn’t much point arguing.
I would come home at night with grit in my mouth, dirt in my hair, and sand in places that had been fully covered all day. Sometimes getting clean required two baths.
The first was to rinse off the field.
The second was to take a bath in water that didn’t have the field floating in it.
Somewhere between moving those peanut bins and emptying that bathtub, I swore I would someday find a way out of that wind.
It took Steve and me several years after we met, but eventually we did move away. Family remained back home, so there were still reasons to return. Leaving a place doesn’t mean you stop belonging to the people there.
Besides, there was an airline out of Texas called Southwest. I always figured the Oklahoma wind had blown it down there.
I have traveled many miles since those days. The houses we once called home are gone now. I can still picture them, though, and remember what it felt like to arrive at the end of a long, dirty day.
I wanted out of those fields badly enough when I was young. I won’t pretend I was standing there admiring the scenery while the wind filled my mouth with sand. I was probably wondering how much longer we had to work.
But I remember my dad. I remember working alongside my brother-in-law. I remember being small enough that a sack of peanuts was a serious opponent, yet old enough to be counted on to help.
And I’m glad I can still remember.
That old song brings all of it back—the people, the work, the homes that are no longer standing, and a boy who was certain there had to be somewhere the wind didn’t blow quite so hard.
What a time it was, growing up in those Oklahoma hills.
Now, pass the coffee. If I’m going to sit here remembering those peanut fields, I’ll need something to wash the grit out of my mouth. Wait a minute, that might have been a peanut.
Tomorrow is Halloween, and I imagine some of you are ready for the scary movies to disappear from the television schedule. We have had enough haunted houses, rattling chains, and people investigating strange noises in basements they had no business entering.
Personally, I would have put the house up for sale during the opening credits.
But even after the Halloween movies retreat into storage, we will still have those political advertisements.
Apparently, some horrors have a larger advertising budget.
We are four days away from the United States midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3. Four more days of ominous music, unflattering photographs, and a voice warning us that somebody running for office intends to destroy everything we hold dear.
By now, I am surprised the candidates have not been accused of stealing Halloween candy directly from the mouths of children.
Give it another commercial break.
Before we get to Tuesday, though, there is another observance I try to acknowledge every year. Halloween, October 31, is All Hallows’ Eve—the evening before All Saints’ Day on November 1.
Beyond the costumes and candy, there is room in this season for remembrance. For thinking about those who came before us, the lives they lived, and what they left in our care.
I think about that responsibility when I consider what we are leaving for the people coming after us.
What will they learn from watching us? How to disagree? How to recognize the truth? How to accept an outcome we did not want?
Or simply how to shout louder?
One of my frustrations with political advertising is how much responsibility falls on the person sitting at home trying to sort through it. The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees truth in much commercial advertising, does not have jurisdiction over political advertisements. The FCC does not verify the accuracy of political claims before they air, either.
That does not make every accusation legally consequence-free. But it certainly leaves voters with a considerable amount of homework.
And most of us were only trying to watch a movie.
You hear an accusation. Then a denial. Then another advertisement explaining why the denial cannot be trusted. Somewhere in the middle, an actual voting record or statement may be buried beneath enough dramatic music to launch a horror franchise.
Sometimes the words are real, but the context has disappeared. Sometimes a vote against a bill becomes an accusation that someone opposed every worthwhile thing tucked inside it.
And sometimes a candidate says something troubling in plain language, only for supporters to spend the next week explaining why we should not believe our own ears.
Meanwhile, an unsupported accusation about the opponent travels around the neighborhood before the correction has its shoes on.
That is what wears people down. Eventually, some folks stop asking what is true and settle for whatever sounds right coming from their side.
I understand being tired. I am tired, too. But exhaustion is a poor reason to hand somebody else the responsibility for deciding what we believe.
My worry is that Tuesday will bring relief from the advertisements without bringing relief from the accusations.
I expect that if Democrats win close races, we will hear familiar claims from some Republicans that the election was stolen. That is my expectation, not a result we can know in advance. But I have grown weary of the suggestion that an election is trustworthy only when it produces the preferred winner.
A close race may warrant a recount under the applicable rules. An allegation of wrongdoing deserves examination when there is evidence behind it.
Disappointment alone proves nothing.
And counting ballots carefully takes time. We may go to bed Tuesday without knowing the outcome of every race. I would rather wait for an accurate count than demand a hurried answer simply because the television panel has run out of things to say.
So, as we move from Halloween into All Saints’ Day and then toward Election Day, perhaps we could give a little thought to what deserves our fear—and what deserves our attention.
Remember those who helped shape your life. Enjoy the children in their costumes. Save a little candy for yourself.
Then take your vote seriously enough to look beyond the commercial.
I am ready for the scary movies to end and the political advertisements to follow them out the door.
After that, I would appreciate one quiet morning when the most alarming thing on television is the price of a new refrigerator.
For me, one of those voices belonged to Roy Rodrick, calling horses through an auction ring long after most sensible people would have gone home to bed.
My dad wasn’t one of those sensible people.
Neither was I, apparently. I was usually sitting beside him.
Colonel Roy Leon Rodrick, known affectionately as “Dutch,” passed away October 26, 2026, in Lawton, Oklahoma. He was 95.
Reading about his passing brought back the sale barns in Anadarko and Mountain View, the familiar faces in the seats, and those long nights when Dad insisted we stay until the very last horse came through.
There was always the possibility that the next one would be the horse he had been waiting for.
And you certainly couldn’t leave before finding out.
Roy was born April 28, 1931, in Hobart, Oklahoma, to Harold and Mattie Rodrick. He grew up in the Carnegie area and attended Prairie Vale Public School. Over the years, he worked at several occupations, but auctioneering was the work that became his calling.
He spent more than fifty years at it.
That is a lot of horses, a lot of bidders, and a remarkable amount of talking.
Roy had the voice for it—and the staying power.
Dad and I bought many a head of horses at Anadarko and Mountain View. During the years Roy and Lois operated the Mountain View horse sale, Saturday nights meant a gathering of people who came to buy, sell, visit, or simply see what might come through the ring.
Dad generally managed to do all four.
He would bring a collection of friends along, settle into his seat, and make himself comfortable. We might be there until nearly sunrise, but if horses were still coming through, we were still watching.
And Roy was still calling.
I can remember being tired enough to wonder whether morning would arrive before we got home. Dad, meanwhile, seemed perfectly willing to wait out the whole business.
Somewhere among the horses still waiting their turn might be a good mare, a promising cutting horse, or a bargain he couldn’t reasonably be expected to leave behind.
At least that was the general philosophy.
Those nights became part of my education. I watched the horses, listened to the bids, and paid attention to the people who knew what they were looking at. There was plenty to learn if a boy could sit still long enough to notice.
I found some of the best mares and cutting horses I ever owned at those sales.
And if Roy gave his word from the auction ring that a horse was sound, you could count on it.
His word meant something to us. When you were spending money on a horse you expected to ride, work, or bring home to your family, that mattered.
Roy understood horses. He also understood the people buying them.
He traveled throughout Oklahoma and Texas, buying, selling, and trading. From the accounts of those who knew him, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t consider trading for, and he rarely passed up an opportunity to make a deal.
I suspect Dad appreciated that about him.
The two of them certainly shared an interest in seeing what might be available.
One Christmas, Dad and I left a family gathering in Sentinel and somehow ended up in Mountain View looking at horses.
I cannot tell you exactly how a Christmas visit turned into a horse-shopping expedition. With Dad, those changes in direction didn’t require much explanation.
Roy came out and showed the horses to us.
That simple visit has stayed with me all these years. I remember being there with Dad, looking at horses, and Roy taking the time to show them.
Looking back, I’m grateful for those ordinary hours. At the time, I had no reason to think I would still be remembering them more than half a century later.
On June 27, 1978, Roy married Minnie Lois McLemore in Wichita Falls, Texas. Together, they shared many years, operated the Mountain View horse sale, and eventually made their home in Cordell.
Lois was related to my father through the McLemore family. In our part of Oklahoma, family connections had a way of turning up wherever you went. Follow a name far enough, and somebody would explain how you were related.
Sometimes the explanation took longer than the drive home.
Roy also enjoyed visiting and telling stories. His family’s remembrance describes a man who could strike up a conversation with just about anyone, whether they had known him for years or had only just met him.
That seems fitting for someone who spent so much of his life bringing people together around an auction ring.
People came for the horses, but they came back for the company, too. Over time, those Saturday nights became a regular part of their lives. You knew where you were going, who you might see, and whose voice would be waiting when you got there.
For many of us, that voice was Roy’s.
He leaves behind a large family, including children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, along with the many people who knew him through his years in the horse business.
Each will have a different story to tell.
Mine includes a pickup ride with Dad, a seat at the sale barn, and a long night watching horses come through the ring.
Roy Rodrick kept calling.
Dad kept watching.
And I was fortunate enough to be there beside him.
Rest well, Roy. Thank you for the good horses, the time you gave us, and the memories that have lasted all these years.
Find stories about horse sales by Benjamin and how they affected his life by searching here…some may truly surprise. At the auction barn Dutch was calling most of the sales!
As I began this morning’s edition, a notice came in warning about young people and cigarette smoking. It got me thinking about the strange appeal of anything somebody tells you not to do.
Every generation tests the boundaries. Put up a fence, and somebody wants to see what’s on the other side. Put up a sign saying “Keep Out,” and now you’ve given them somewhere to go Saturday night.
Sometimes I wonder whether we’ve been approaching things backward. Tell young people not to eat anything healthy, and perhaps they’ll sneak off somewhere with a salad. Tell them they’re forbidden to come home before midnight, and they might be sitting on the couch by ten.
I wouldn’t build a parenting manual around that theory. But I have seen worse ideas put into practice.
I had five older siblings. All of them had curfews. Usually, they broke them. And usually, there were consequences severe enough that you would have thought the next one might learn something.
Apparently, each preferred to conduct an independent investigation.
By the time I reached the age when my siblings had begun campaigning for their freedom, my parents didn’t set a curfew for me.
The people most upset about this were my adult siblings.
They didn’t think it was fair.
I explained that I wasn’t out doing the things they had been doing.
That did very little to improve their attitude toward my freedom.
To this day, I don’t know why my parents were more relaxed with me. Maybe they trusted me. Maybe they were tired. Maybe, after raising the first five, they looked at the sixth and thought, “What’s the use?”
I preferred the trust explanation. My siblings probably had other theories.
There was another little difference between my childhood and theirs. I had been an uncle since I was five years old. My parents were already grandparents while they still had a young child of their own to raise.
That family arithmetic entertained me considerably.
As I got older, I enjoyed reminding them that, depending on how quickly the next generations got started, they could conceivably become great-great-grandparents before I turned twenty-five.
I thought that was a remarkable possibility, deserving of thoughtful discussion.
After leaving home my greatest Halloween – Trick or Treat, was getting Steven. But I never tell him that. Forty four years later, I still want him to think he got me…
Forty-Four Years Later, He’s Still Sitting Next to Me
Forty-four years ago, Steve and I sat in a movie theater together for the first time, not knowing that someday we would be sitting next to one another in Phoenix, Arizona, listening to a doctor tell us we needed to balance our A1C.
Back then, we were more concerned about surviving the movie.
It was Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and it was new. So were we, although we weren’t actually a “we” just yet.
Being a bit of a rube, I screamed at things that probably wouldn’t interrupt our hound dog’s nap today. But what the movie lacked in lasting terror, I apparently supplied for the folks sitting in front of us. My sudden outbursts sent them scrambling out of their seats.
They had paid to be frightened by something on the screen. I was providing additional services from behind.
Steve says that was when he fell in love with me.
He didn’t anything about me yet. Apparently, the screaming made an impression. Some people catch someone’s eye across a crowded room. I startled an entire section of a theater. Because of that. And, the laughter it created, Steve and I meandered back to our hotel talking about how I wasn’t prepared for the shows gimmicks.
Then hours later, it was Joan Rivers with The Tonight Show on television. In a full sized single bed at a Holiday Inn off Interstate 40 and Meridian in Oklahoma City. That was where the fellow from the theater became someone, who had come to see if the haunting of the theater was over? And if I needed somone to protect me? I being naturally curious as an investigator. I had to decide, if it is someone I wanted to know better? Which I had already decided it was.
Forty-four years later, I suppose you could say that worked out.
I begin here because this is the story folks ask us about around Halloween. Most couples have a romantic song that takes them back to the beginning. Something tender. Something you could slow dance to without anyone questioning your judgment.
Somewhere, there are couples celebrating their beginnings with candlelight and a beautiful love song. We hear that little Halloween tune, and I remember frightening strangers while my future husband apparently decided I had possibilities.
It does explain a few things about us.
Which brings us to the Halloween photograph accompanying this story. A pumpkin stretched across the garage door seems appropriate for a household whose love story began with Halloween III. Other folks can put out a tasteful wreath. We have a history to live up to.
Besides, after forty-four years, Halloween has some competition in the frightening department. There are medical appointments, lab results, and conversations about whether something has too much sugar in it.
We have reached the age when the candy comes with a discussion.
Still, there is something wonderful about looking at the person sitting beside you and remembering him when all of this was ahead of you. Before you knew the ordinary routines you would share. Before the moves, the dogs, the laughter, and the difficult days when having someone beside you would matter more than you could have understood in that theater.
I couldn’t have imagined our life in Arizona. I certainly wasn’t thinking about A1C.
I was trying to get through the movie.
And Steve, for reasons he has had forty-four years to reconsider, wanted to meet the fellow doing all that screaming.
I’m glad he did.
Happy Halloween, folks. If you hear a scream coming from our direction, it could be another scary movie.
Two people can share a home, a life, and a deep love without sharing every opinion. Making room for honest disagreement—and listening when it gets uncomfortable—can help us understand the person sitting across the kitchen table. Or not!
Good morning, coffee drinkers, orange juice squeezers, and milk lovers! Whatever is in your cup, pull up a chair. This morning, we might disagree about something.
And that might be perfectly all right.
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com. “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart…I Couldn’t If I Tried…”
I have long believed that a loving relationship needs room for a civilized argument now and then. Two people can love each other deeply and still look at the same situation and wonder how on earth the other person arrived at that conclusion.
You share a home. You share a life. That doesn’t mean you share a brain.
One of you sees an opportunity. The other sees a bill coming. One thinks a decision is perfectly reasonable. The other would have appreciated hearing about it before it became a decision.
Then come those familiar words:
“You did what?”
Suddenly, whatever was on television has lost its audience.
Sometimes it starts with an innocent mistake. Something forgotten. A message misunderstood. An errand that somehow required three explanations and still came home wrong.
Other times, the matter is serious. Money spent without discussion. A promise broken. A decision made by one person that affects both.
Whatever started it, there comes a moment when the conversation can go in several directions. We can explain ourselves. We can listen. Or we can begin preparing a declaration of war over the kitchen counter.
It is remarkably easy to choose that last one when our feelings are hurt.
We stop discussing what happened and begin presenting evidence about the person who did it. “You forgot”
“You forgot”
becomes “You never think about anybody but yourself.”
“You never think about anybody but yourself.”
Before long, an incident from years ago has been called to testify.
Now we have two arguments going: the one about the original problem and the one about what we just said to each other.
I think this is where the civilized part takes some work.
Being angry doesn’t excuse being cruel. And loving someone doesn’t require agreeing with everything they say. There ought to be room to say, “That hurt me,” or “I think you made a mistake,”
“That hurt me,” or “I think you made a mistake,”
without either person having to wonder whether the whole relationship is about to be put on trial.
There also has to be room for an answer.
That can be the difficult part. We may be so busy defending what we meant that we never hear what the other person experienced.
“I didn’t mean it that way”
“I didn’t mean it that way” might be true. So might “Well, that is how it felt.”
“Well, that is how it felt.”
Both deserve a hearing.
An innocent mistake may need an explanation, an apology, and a little grace. A serious breach of trust may require changed behavior and time. We cannot settle every disagreement by deciding that nobody meant any harm and putting another pot of coffee on.
But we cannot settle much if nobody is allowed to speak, either.
A quiet house can be peaceful. It can also hold two people who have given up trying to be heard. Sometimes the subject we keep avoiding is the very conversation we need to have.
Perhaps we need to say,
“I am too upset to talk about this properly right now. Let’s come back to it after supper.”
Then we need to come back after supper.
That pause ought to give us time to find our words, with enough care left in them to remember who will be listening.
I don’t believe couples need to manufacture arguments to keep a relationship healthy. Life supplies enough differences without our help. I do believe we need to be able to disagree honestly when those differences arrive.
Sometimes that means admitting we were wrong. Sometimes it means accepting that the other person has a point we would rather they hadn’t thought of.
And sometimes, even after a good conversation, we still see things differently. At least now we understand a little more about why.
When Steve and I moved to Arizona, we were fairly certain we had left most of the crazy weather behind us.
After Oklahoma and Kansas, sunshine and desert scenery sounded like a reasonable trade. I knew Arizona had its own weather problems. But somewhere in my thinking was the comforting notion that tornado country was now behind us.
More than two decades later, watching reports from Heber-Overgaard, that comfort has taken a considerable beating.
The community suffered substantial damage during a suspected tornado Wednesday evening, October 21. Reports described damaged buildings, fallen trees, downed power lines, and residents suddenly facing the work of putting their lives back together.
For those folks, the storm is already much more than a question waiting for an official answer.
During my years in law enforcement, I watched storms develop over the Oklahoma prairie. I have seen threatening clouds begin to rotate, watched funnels descend, and seen what happens when that circulation reaches the ground and starts tearing the daylights out of whatever stands in its way.
Those experiences stay with you.
When I look at storm damage now, I look for a story in what was left behind. Where did the debris travel? Which direction did the trees fall? Does the destruction follow a narrow track? Why did one building suffer so much while another nearby escaped?
Those questions matter. But experience also means recognizing that the first explanation is not always the complete explanation.
Powerful downbursts can produce damage that resembles tornado damage. Survey teams examine the broader pattern, including debris direction, structural damage, radar records, and witness accounts, to determine what happened. That work establishes both the cause and the strength of the winds.
Waiting for that determination can be frustrating, especially when the pictures look convincing. Still, the survey involves more than deciding whether to attach an EF1 or EF2 rating to an obvious tornado.
There is another distinction worth making. A tornado does not destroy a house simply by creating a vacuum. Violent winds, flying debris, and the failure of parts of a building cause the destruction. A collapsed roof, by itself, cannot settle the question of what kind of wind struck it.
Radar has its own limits. A hook echo can indicate a rotating storm with conditions favorable for tornado development. It does not, by itself, establish that a tornado is on the ground.
That does not make the danger any less real. It means the evidence deserves careful interpretation.
I also had to reconsider something about my adopted home: tornadoes are unusual here, but they are not new. The National Weather Service describes the October 2010 outbreak as the largest in Arizona history. We had already been living here for years when it happened.
Apparently, moving away from tornado country did not come with the guarantee I thought it did.
Climate change belongs in the larger conversation, too. But connecting a particular tornado to global warming requires more than pointing to an unusual storm.
45/47 TREETOPLER We*The RADARX With cutbacks by the Trump Administration weather forecasting may see budget reduced to primative restrictions.
NOAA identificatioin continuing is still a uncertainty about how climate change affects tornado activity. We can take a warming world seriously while being precise about what any single event tells us.
What concerns me most is how easily unfamiliar weather becomes weather we dismiss.
Folks prepare for what they remember. When a threat seems to belong somewhere else, it is easy to believe there must be some mistake when it arrives at your door.
I understand that thinking. I brought a little of it to Arizona myself.
The families cleaning up in Heber-Overgaard deserve answers, assistance, and time to recover. Their experience also deserves our attention long after the storm footage disappears from television.
We can choose where we live. We can decide which weather we prefer.
The weather, unfortunately, has never agreed to honor the arrangement. In recent day the National Weather Service has confirmed the storm that hit Heber-Overgaard did produce a EF-1 Tornado resulting in the areas damage to property. The report states it was rated an EF1. The tornado touched down and stayed on the ground for 9.25 miles and 11 minutes. This tornado was about 350 yards wide. Officials said one person was injured. That wasn’t the conclusion of the report.
On Wednesday morning at 7:32 a.m., officials said an EF1 tornado touched down near Prescott with max winds of 105 mph. It stayed on the ground for 8 miles and 14 minutes. It was about 300 yards wide. No injuries were reported.
Based on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale, which rates tornadoes by estimated wind speed on a 0-5 scale, both tornadoes were rated EF1.
Arizona recorded at least 15 tornado warnings this week, according to the National Weather Service.
“That’s a large number for Arizona,” said meteorologist Mark O’Malley with the National Weather Service’s Phoenix office.
On Wednesday, it was the first time two tornados had touched down doing significant damage in two Arizona communities ever on the same day, in the history of weather record keeping. That is concerning to officials studying the changing effects on weather patterns in Arizona.
The damage reports may continue to be reviewed. But it appears that Arizona may not have seen the last of its unwelcome weather.
Does anyone have any information about the weather year round in Costa Rica?
Go-go boots, a stack of 45s, and a living room turned dance floor. My sisters did the dancing. I kept the records spinning. Who knew “It’s My Party” would give me a philosophy to carry through life? Pour a cup, folks. There’s another record waiting to drop.
Good morning, coffee drinkers! Have you ever heard an old song and suddenly remembered an entire room?
Not just the music. The furniture. The people. Even what they were wearing.
For me, it’s my sisters in their go-go boots, dancing across the living room like they had landed a spot on one of those groovy television shows. Meanwhile, I had an important job: keeping the records playing.
Our record player lived inside a gigantic piece of furniture that also housed the speakers and an AM-FM radio. It took up enough room that you might have expected it to sleep overnight guests.
It played three speeds—33⅓, 45, and 78—but the numbers weren’t what interested me. I wanted to load the automatic changer and watch it work. One record finished, another dropped into place, and the show continued.
There were records belonging to my parents and an uncle who lived with us. I never knew exactly whose were whose. Once the grown-ups were gone and we were home from school, ownership became less important than what we wanted to hear next.
My sisters provided the dancing. I provided the entertainment. Whether they appreciated my musical judgment is another story.
There was “L.A. International Airport,” with those big jet engines, and “Galveston” when the mood settled down a little. “Judy’s Turn to Cry” and “Runaway” had their turns, too.
But the one that stuck with me was “It’s My Party.”
I wasn’t particularly concerned with the romantic trouble unfolding in the song. I liked the declaration: it was your party, and if you wanted to cry, you could.
That sounded like a useful policy.
Even as a kid, I could imagine occasions when somebody might really tick me off and I would need to explain that my feelings were my own business. Here was a record doing the explaining for me. All I had to do was put it on.
Of course, childhood gives you only a small preview of the occasions when you might want to invoke that rule.
Life eventually supplies the rest.
Plans fall apart. People disappoint you. Something you thought would last forever ends before you’re ready. And sometimes you’re simply having a rotten afternoon without the energy to pretend otherwise.
On those days, that old song still makes a reasonable argument.
You can have your cry. You can let the record play through. Nobody says you have to be ready to dance just because everybody else is.
What stays with me most, though, is that living room: my sisters dancing, another record waiting to drop, and me enjoying my position as the person in charge of what came next.
I couldn’t have known how often those songs would follow me through life—or how differently I would hear them later.
Fortunately, my Johnny always came back to me.
But now I’m getting into “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” and that’s another record altogether.
Have another sip, folks. I’ll see what’s next on the stack.
Good morning, coffee drinkers! Have you ever lost something that mattered to you? Or screwed up so badly that even your dog wanted a little distance? And if you’re a cat person, did your cat refuse to look at you for a whole week?
Of course, with cats, it can be hard to tell whether you’ve disappointed them or they’re just keeping regular office hours.
Perhaps it was someone you loved, a friendship you depended on, or work you believed would carry you into the future. Sometimes a loss leaves an empty place where certainty used to be.
We encounter these moments at different stages of life, often before we feel prepared for them. A child losing a dear friend discovers something no child should have to learn so soon. The unexpected death of a grandparent can change the familiar comfort of childhood. Years later, losing a parent may bring grief that takes longer to understand than we first realize.
Over time, we may become more familiar with loss. Familiarity does not make it easy, but experience can help us find our footing. We begin to understand that making peace with an absence does not mean forgetting what someone meant to us.
Other losses are harder to name. There may be no funeral, no farewell, and no clear moment when everyone recognizes that something has ended. A career changes direction. A purpose is interrupted. Work we believed mattered remains unfinished, along with questions that may never be answered.
Those endings can be difficult to accept because their consequences may reach beyond the person who experienced them. Others may have depended on that work or benefited from what it might have accomplished. We cannot know everything that would have followed, but we can recognize the value of giving worthwhile efforts a fair chance.
Perhaps part of finding peace is accepting that some chapters will remain unfinished. We can acknowledge what was lost, remember why it mattered, and carry that sense of purpose into whatever we still have the opportunity to do.
Good morning Coffee Drinkers. And if you are grandchildren, or children of pipe smoking folks, or maybe fathers and grandfathers. I had a flashback the other day. And it is a great way to start the day. It takes me back to the 1960s and early 1970s.
I was having a difficult time getting past writer’s block until The Other, the 1972 movie, came on. I’ve seen it numerous times, though I’m not exactly sure why. Usually, I’m doing something else while it plays in the background. Yet here it was again—and today, a familiar sound caught my attention.
The rattle of a Prince Albert tobacco can.
That sound took me straight back to childhood. My grandfather would hand me his empty cans, and I would fill them with all the necessities a child could find. Treasures, mostly. Then I’d run across the yard carrying them, announcing every step.
You could not sneak up on a sibling, a friend hiding from you, or the family pet. A Prince Albert can gave you away every time.
It wasn’t much help when you were hiding from your parents after some disastrous deed, either. Mom or Dad could follow that rattle as though they had sonar. Especially if you were trying to sit perfectly still but were shaking, scared to death.
Those cans had a scent all their own. The tobacco aroma faded over time, leaving the smell of an old tin, but you never quite stopped lifting the flap and poking your nose inside for another whiff. And somewhere along the way, you wondered just what Albert had done to become a prince.
An empty can could keep you occupied for hours. When you were little, it helped keep you out of trouble. As you got older, Prince Albert offered another opportunity.
Prank phone calls.
I couldn’t tell you how many times we called the local grocer and asked,
“Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Well, you’d better let him out! He’s going to suffocate!”
Then we’d hang up, convinced we had pulled off something brilliant.
There was no caller ID to announce which kid was responsible. Looking back, the grocer probably heard that same joke ten times a day and patiently humored every one of us. We thought we were fooling him. I suspect he knew more than we gave him credit for.
That was about the extent of the mischief in my little world. No threats. No settling scores. Just a familiar joke, a patient grocer, and children who could find an afternoon’s entertainment in an empty tobacco can.
I hope others were lucky enough to know something like it.
And today, all these years later, that little can found one more use: it rattled a memory loose and gave me something to write about.
For the record Prince Albert was born a prince as the second son of Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (in Germany), and later received his formal British title of Prince Consort when Queen Victoria formally designated him as such in 1857.Prince Albert tobacco ended up on a can because R.J. Reynolds named the brand after Edward VII, who was known as Prince Albert before he became King of the United Kingdom.
Good morning, coffee drinkers. Pour yourself a cup and take a breath. This morning, I’m thinking about change—the kind that begins within us, sometimes with the uncomfortable realization that we might have something wrong.
One of the biggest misconceptions we carry through life is that other people must see the world as we do—especially when it comes to the subjects that divide us most.
Someone once told me, “Everyone else has to believe as I do, or the whole world is screwed.” I was just out of high school and impressionable. That thought stayed with me—a little too well.
I wouldn’t say I fully embraced it, but I had firm ideas about right and wrong. In those days, the world looked pretty black and white to me. I hadn’t yet learned how much could exist between the two. Apparently, I thought I had life figured out before I had done much living.
Life has a way of correcting that.
Over the years, I have learned that no one has to agree with me for the world to be okay. People arrive at their beliefs through experiences I may never have had, just as my experiences have shaped me. Sometimes, we are looking at the same situation from very different places.
That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring about right and wrong. Some things deserve a firm stand. But being certain and being right are not always the same thing, and listening can teach us more than insisting ever will.
There is more gray in life than I once allowed myself to see. Not every question has a simple yes-or-no answer. Sometimes, what seems obvious becomes less so when we learn what we didn’t know—or finally hear someone we hadn’t bothered to understand.
My perspectives have grown. I have not mastered them. I still catch myself reconsidering situations I thought I had settled in my mind. An old opinion will come marching out, full of confidence, and I have to stop and ask whether it still deserves the floor.
I’m not perfect. That is probably the most useful thing I can admit over this morning’s coffee.
Folks, we can give ourselves a little room to breathe. We can take a belief we’ve held tightly and loosen our grip long enough to examine it. Where did it come from? What supports it? Have we learned anything that ought to change it? Are we holding on because it still makes sense, or because we’ve held it so long that letting go feels uncomfortable?
If it holds up, keep it. If it needs adjusting, adjust it. And if it no longer holds up, we can let it go without treating every year we believed it as something we must defend.
I have done that, and it has made me a happier person. I spend less energy needing agreement and more time trying to understand. I hope that makes life a little easier for the people around me, too.
We cannot make everyone change. But we can start with the person holding our coffee cup.
Not every Western needs John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, Lorne Greene as Ben Cartwright, or Roy Rogers and Dale Evans riding into the sunset. Some, like Virginia City, are so loaded with familiar faces you could shake the cast like a family tree and still wonder who might fall out next.
Good morning, coffee drinkers! Pull up a chair and bring your cup. I already have my chair—and lately, I have been getting considerably more use out of it than I intended.
Another unexpected gift from this bum leg arrived this week when Virginia City showed up on my television screen. My traveling remains limited, but Hollywood graciously arranged a trip out West without requiring me to get up.
And what a traveling party they provided.
This 1940 Western, directed by Michael Curtiz, serves up a whole salad of old-school movie stars: Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, and Humphrey Bogart as the bandit John Murrell. Alan Hale and Guinn “Big Boy” Williams add even more familiar faces to the company.
Bogart even comes with a mustache. That alone might make you set down your coffee and take a second look.
The story follows a Union officer, played by Flynn, who escapes from a Confederate prison and becomes involved in stopping a shipment of five million dollars in gold intended to help keep the Confederacy fighting. Scott plays his former prison commander, who is working to get that gold through. Naturally, other people have their own ideas about where five million dollars ought to go.
You can imagine how peacefully everyone settles their differences.
There is enough action here to shake a stick at twice, provided nobody shoots the stick out of your hand first. A prison escape, stagecoach excitement, robbery, and competing loyalties keep things moving. Just when you think someone might have a quiet moment to explain themselves, another complication comes along.
But the cast is what held my attention.
Watching this collection of performers, I kept wondering how one movie could accommodate so many personalities. Any one of them could command a scene. Put them together, and you find yourself watching the exchanges as closely as the action.
A look. A pause. A line delivered with just enough bite. Somebody standing perfectly still while another actor does the talking—and somehow remaining just as interesting.
That is a pleasure I find in these older movies. I enjoy watching actors work off one another, letting the tension build through their voices, expressions, and timing. The stars may draw you in, but the way they play a scene together keeps you there.
And yes, there are some handsome faces in this picture. Errol Flynn was hardly hired because he looked like somebody’s weather-beaten fence post. But the appeal goes well beyond appearances. These folks know how to hold your attention.
Virginia City gave me more than another afternoon of cowboys riding across the television. It gave me a chance to appreciate familiar performers in different company, especially Bogart, whose presence in this Western kept catching my eye.
Do not expect me to spend the morning swooning over a Southern belle and waiting for a “Frankly, my dear” farewell. I was too busy wondering who would get the gold, who could be trusted, and who would make it through the next scrape. There are other suggestions on how men settle their rage in the wild west.
That is one small consolation of being temporarily parked in a chair. You have time to let a movie unfold. You notice a supporting player. You pay attention to an exchange you might otherwise have missed while heading into the kitchen.
I would still prefer a working leg. Let us be clear about that.
But this week, the television delivered a little adventure and a whole gathering of familiar faces. For a while, I stopped thinking about what I could not get up and do.
So, folks, if Virginia City wanders across your screen, give it a little of your time. Pour another cup and settle in.
I managed a trip out West without leaving my chair. Considering my current transportation arrangements, that is a pretty good morning.
One of my favorite bloggers, WrookieSchU, shared his answers to four questions this week. His posts always give me something to enjoy or think about. Take a look at his profile when you have a moment. I’ll share his responses following this post, but first, I thought I’d offer my own.
Apparently, borrowing a conversation starter is something we older folks do. I heard that at an AARP meeting. Well, it wasn’t an official AARP meeting. It was a bunch of neighbors sitting around drinking coffee. There were enough of us eligible for membership that I figured it counted.
1. What is your favorite season?
At our age, every season is our favorite. After sixty, getting to the next one starts to feel like a milestone. You look forward to the next solstice with the same anticipation you once reserved for your senior prom—with more sensible shoes and considerably less concern about who’s taking you.
2. Would you like to live by the seaside or in the country?
Yes. Either would be fine. The important word in that question is live.
The seaside sounds lovely, provided I’m far enough from the water to stay dry. I can’t run as fast—or as straight—as I used to. If the ocean decides to move into the living room, I’d like sufficient notice.
The country would be fine, too, as long as I don’t wander off and get lost. I prefer trails that make a circle and bring me back to where I started. Ideally, near a chair and a fresh pot of coffee.
3. When was the last time you used the bus?
It must have been the early nineties, coming down from Aspen toward Glenwood Springs around two in the morning, after the bars had closed.
I couldn’t help it. I had to!
Enough time has passed that I feel comfortable admitting it. Let’s leave it there before this turns into an entirely different Morning Coffee.
4. If you took a walk, would it be in the woods, to the shops, with the dog, to a park, or somewhere else?
Right now, if I took a walk, there’s a fair chance I’d fall down. I have one good leg, and I’m trying to keep it that way.
Once both legs are back in business, that’s another story. I’ve walked enough places in my life that a destination needs to make a pretty convincing case before I put my shoes on.
But honestly, with everything the world is facing today, I’d like my steps to do some good. Whether that means helping a neighbor, standing up for someone, or simply showing up when I’m needed, that would be a walk worth taking.
Gratitude
This morning, I’m grateful for folks who give us something to think about, neighbors who keep the coffee conversation going, and Steve, who has kept dinner coming while I offer instructions from my chair.
He still isn’t listening. Judging by dinner, he may be onto something.
Below are the questions as answered by WrookieShu. Click on his name to view his site or click here!
I used to love summer in Ireland as it was a real novelty to have some sort of sunshine. If we had 2 weeks of summer a year, we were doing really well. Now in Sydney, summer is way too hot and humid so I will say spring is my favourite season. You’re happy for the cold to leave and warmer weather to have arrived. However, I do appreciate all seasons for various reasons and I feel lucky to experience all of them, whether it be in Ireland or here in Australia.
2. Would you like to live by the seaside or in the country?
I would love to live by the sea for the beautiful beach walks. I really enjoy hearing the waves, it’s just so therapeutic. I have experienced both, living by the sea and in the country and have really enjoyed both.
We used to live near Bronte beach and I would take the walk along here on a near daily basis We also lived in a country village where we would walk the forest park at least once a day
3. When was the last time you used the bus?
I never really take a bus unless the trains aren’t working and they have replacement buses. Sadly this was pretty frequent when living in the Shire as the trains were always having track work. I think they said there has been 11 weekends so far this year where there was track work. It becomes very frustrating and I guess that was one reason we moved closer to the city. So I will say maybe a couple of months ago I was on a bus.
4. If you took a walk, would it be in the woods, to the shops, walk the dog, to a park, or somewhere else?
Into the woods sounds good, as long as it’s during the day!!!
Pour a cup, folks. Today’s Morning Coffee is about what happens when life makes you sit down while the world keeps moving. What is one small thing that made you smile recently?
Apparently, the world does not stop just because you break your leg. I find that inconsiderate.
Good morning, coffee drinkers! Pull up a chair. I already have mine, and lately we have become inseparable.
Steve made dinner Monday evening using a recipe he found online. I never use recipes, but I have to admit—his turned out delightful. He’s been doing the cooking ever since I broke my ankle and leg. I’ve been supervising from my chair and offering helpful instructions. He hasn’t been listening. Apparently, dinner is coming along just fine anyway.
With a cast on my leg, I have had plenty of time to observe life from a seated position. My television provides the entertainment. My MacBook provides the distractions. My phone provides distractions from those distractions.
Then my Apple Watch tells when me to stand. Sometimes, I even pay attention to it.
There ought to be a button that says, “Please discuss this with my surgeon.”
Meanwhile, Otis, our Jack Russell Terrier, continues racing through the house as though someone has announced that squirrels are taking over the government. Steve keeps things moving, and I supervise from my chair—a position for which I have discovered considerable natural talent.
But somewhere between the television, the notifications, and watching Otis break the household land-speed record, a thought occurred to me.
How much of our lives do we spend feeling behind?
Otis Guarding The House
Behind on the bills. Behind on the housework. Behind on returning messages. Behind on whatever we meant to accomplish before lunch, before Friday, or before we turned a certain age.
Even sitting still can feel like something we ought to be doing more efficiently.
Watch a movie? Certainly. But answer three messages, check the news, and figure out dinner while you are at it.
By the time the credits roll, we need someone to explain the movie we just watched.
I suspect some of you know exactly what I mean.
Somewhere today, somebody is drinking coffee before a shift they would rather not work. Somebody is caring for a person they love. Somebody is looking at an empty chair. Somebody is starting over, quietly, without an audience to applaud the effort.
And somebody is simply trying to get through their version of a Monday. Without saying something that requires an apology on a Tuesday. Or a Wednesday, or a Thursday. Or whatever day of the week it may be.
There is room for all of you at this table.
You do not need an impressive story to belong here. Tell me about the dog who stole your breakfast. The person you miss. The song that took you back forty years before your coffee had time to cool.
Those are the things I enjoy hearing. They give us something to recognize in one another.
My broken leg has certainly rearranged my days. I would have preferred a less dramatic reason to sit down. But since I am here, I might as well pay attention.
There is coffee to enjoy. There are old movies to revisit. There is Steve to talk with and Otis to watch—preferably before he launches himself across the furniture.
Otis and Benjamin
And there are folks on the other side of this screen, living lives I would like to hear about.
What is one small thing that made you smile recently?
Tell me in the comments. It does not have to be extraordinary. Around here, a good story can begin with a cup of coffee and a dog behaving badly.
With a cast on my leg, I have been glued to my chair. Naturally, that has left me glued to the television while also glued to the screen of my Apple MacBook Pro, swiping through my iPhone, and tapping my Apple Watch to see what it has to tell me.
Usually, it tells me something the other two devices have already announced.
I have an entire electronic staff keeping me informed, and apparently none of them communicate well enough to realize the position has already been filled.
My watch reminds me to stand. My leg reminds me that we need to discuss that first.
Somewhere between notifications, I remember to change the television channel, arrange a trip to the bathroom, and remind Steve that dinner will eventually be necessary. He may prepare it or call it in. His choice. I am trying to be an agreeable patient.
You would have to ask him how that is going.
Meanwhile, Otis, our Jack Russell Terror—excuse me, Terrier—is tearing through the house with enough energy to power all these devices. Doppler radar would struggle to track him. By the time it registered his location, he would have completed another lap and accused somebody of sitting in his chair.
If you know, you know.
One unexpected benefit of this enforced sitting has been a fresh look at movies I have watched many times before.
During some of those earlier viewings, I rolled my eyes. I knew the dialogue, the entrances, the misunderstandings, and what was coming next. Quite often, I was watching alongside a sick relative during the final stretch of their life. Those familiar movies seemed to offer comfort, and we let them play.
At the time, I thought I was simply keeping somebody company.
Looking back, there was more to it. A familiar voice on the television. A story that asked very little of us. The quiet reassurance of another person sitting nearby.
Now Steve is beside me while I recover, and there is something familiar about that arrangement. Thankfully, I expect to get out of this chair eventually. Steve probably expects that even more enthusiastically.
For now, I have a cast on my leg and have developed a renewed appreciation for the cast on the screen.
Today’s selection was Arsenic and Old Lace, with Cary Grant, whom I have long admired. He was quite a catch then. As far as I am concerned, he would be quite a catch today.
Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic whose outspoken objections to marriage have become somewhat inconvenient: he has just married Elaine, played by Priscilla Lane.
That should be enough excitement for one afternoon. Unfortunately, he has relatives.
His aunts, Abby and Martha, played by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, are sweet, gracious, and devoted to making lonely gentlemen comfortable.
A little too permanently comfortable.
Their hospitality involves elderberry wine with ingredients you would not want included in the family cookbook.
Then there is Mortimer’s brother Teddy, played by John Alexander, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt. Most families have somebody who dominates a gathering. The Brewsters have somebody prepared to lead a charge through it.
And just when Mortimer’s afternoon seems sufficiently complicated, his brother Jonathan arrives, played by Raymond Massey, accompanied by Peter Lorre as Dr. Einstein.
Jonathan is the sort of relative whose arrival makes you wish you had left for your honeymoon several hours earlier.
The whole thing is wonderfully frantic and ghoulishly delightful, especially this time of year. Cary Grant spends much of it trying to bring reason into a household where reason apparently moved out years ago.
Watching it again, I found myself enjoying the expressions, the timing, and the sheer absurdity of it all. Knowing what happens next gives you time to notice how beautifully they get you there.
Perhaps that is part of the pleasure of returning to an old movie. We bring a different day, a different mood, and a few more years of living to the same familiar story.
This time, I brought a cast, several opinionated Apple devices, a husband on dinner duty, and a dog traveling at the speed of poor judgment.
The Brewster household suddenly seemed almost manageable.
So pour yourself another cup, folks. There is still plenty of enjoyment to be found in an old picture and the company beside you.
But if somebody offers you homemade elderberry wine, you might ask to see the recipe.
I’ll stick with coffee.
The taglines as posted from reviews in newspapers in the 1940s read:
She Passed Out On Cary ! No Wonder . . . She’s just discovered his favorite aunts have poisoned their 13th gentleman friend !
I’ll knock your block off, you big stiff! You’re a bum!
Strike. You’re out!
WARNER SHOW OF THE YEAR! BEATS THE STAGE PLAY BY 500 LAUGHS AND 5000 SHIVERS! (Print Ad- New York Sun, ((New York, NY)) 31 August 1944)
HERE IS A LAFF RIOT IF EVER THERE WAS ONE (Print Ad- Philadelphia Inquirer, ((Philadelphia, Penna.)) 28 January 1945)
YOU Don’t SCREAM You Just ROAR! (Print Ad- Evening Recorder, ((Amsterdam, NY)) 1 December 1944)
Something Screwy IS GOING ON! Cary and Priscilla are aghast when Aunts Abby and Martha prepare to slip arsenic into the wine of their 13th victim! (Print Ad-Warsaw Daily Union, ((Warsaw, Ind.)) 24 February 1945)
Now if reviews on my own content would just measure up!
When news of Dolly Parton’s death began circulating, Steve was at a client’s place of business. He called me and asked, “Have you heard the news about Dolly?”
I didn’t want to believe what he was about to tell me. Friends had called him with the news, but I wanted confirmation before accepting it. Then came the recorded announcement from her nephew.
When Steve and I spoke again, I said, “Well, let the family fights begin.”
Steve believed she would have arranged her affairs carefully enough to prevent that.
“They’re human,” I told him.
That was a cynical response, I admit. But I’ve lived long enough to know that careful planning and peaceful agreement are two different things.
In the weeks afterward, reports emerged of a legal dispute between the company managing Dolly’s business interests and her nephew. That does not establish that the whole family was fighting over an inheritance. It did, however, bring me back to a subject that reaches far beyond famous people and fortunes: what happens when grief meets money.
Some families come together after a death. They comfort one another, honor the person they’ve lost, and handle what remains with care. Others discover that the funeral flowers have barely wilted before someone starts keeping score.
Who got the watch? Who was promised the car? Who has the keys to the house? And why did somebody else receive more?
Suddenly, years of family history are being entered into evidence over a dining room table.
“I was always there.”
“You already got your share.”
“Mother told me I could have that.”
Mother, unfortunately, is no longer available to clarify the conversation.
And it doesn’t take a fortune. A modest bank account, a house on the edge of town, or an old piece of furniture can become the center of a battle that costs more—in money and relationships—than the thing itself is worth.
Sometimes the object matters because it holds a memory. I understand that. A watch can carry the memory of the hand that wore it. A chair can remind you of someone who sat there every evening. Those feelings deserve tenderness.
But tenderness can disappear quickly when “I would love to have that” becomes “That belongs to me.”
A will or a trust may provide instructions, but paperwork cannot guarantee good behavior. Nor does a disagreement automatically mean someone is greedy. There can be honest questions, mistakes, or genuine concerns about how an estate is handled.
Still, there is a difference between seeking an answer and refusing to accept any answer that doesn’t favor you.
That is the part that troubles me. At the very time people should be grieving and helping one another heal, they can become consumed with winning. The person who died gets pushed into the background while everyone argues over what that person left behind.
I was taught a simple rule: “If you didn’t earn it, it’s not yours.”
I think of that as a lesson in entitlement. An inheritance may become yours through someone’s wishes, but their possessions were never yours to demand while they were living. Their work, their savings, and their decisions belonged to them.
If they leave you something, receive it with gratitude. If they don’t, disappointment does not have to become a declaration of war.
I would rather remember someone for the life we shared than spend the rest of mine fighting over what was in their garage.
Drink your coffee, folks. And if someone leaves you the coffee pot, try to remember who used to fill it.
This morning’s coffee takes us back to a time long ago. If you remember it, good for you. For most of us, there are a few parts missing.
It was a time when the rules were more of a suggestion, and the law was applied with a light touch. I know. I was the one applying it.
So pour yourself a cup, folks. We’re going back to the Habana—where the drinks were strong, the characters were unforgettable, and the details sometimes depended on who was doing the remembering.
It was the early 1980s, and another celebration was underway at the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City. Around that place, it sometimes seemed as though there was something to celebrate every day.
Then came a bomb threat.
Calls went to the hotel and the police and fire departments. The caller provided enough detail to raise serious concerns, and the decision was made to evacuate the property. Shows were taking place that afternoon, and drag queens were everywhere. Hotel employees began directing guests toward a parking lot across from the northeast corner of the hotel.
The manager was a short, feisty man whose name I can no longer recall. He was of retirement age, and he expected people to listen when he spoke. That afternoon, he made his way around the property telling everyone to leave.
Behind the hotel, near the back swimming pool, he encountered a drag queen who wasn’t inclined to follow his instructions.
He explained that there had been a bomb threat and that she needed to evacuate. She refused. They exchanged words. Then the manager pulled out a can of mace and sprayed her.
Her makeup began running down her face, and her reaction left little doubt about how badly it burned. But she wasn’t backing down. She pulled off a high-heeled shoe and took off after him.
Across the street, KOCO-TV had a camera crew filming the evacuation for the evening news. Suddenly, through the hotel’s front entrance came the manager, running for all he was worth. Behind him came the drag queen, makeup ruined, shoe raised overhead, screaming and cussing.
The folks gathered across the street had plenty to say about that unexpected addition to the afternoon’s entertainment. I don’t remember every remark, but the scene hardly needed commentary.
As I recall, a group of bartenders from the Pipeline—which later became the Finish Line—intercepted her and helped the manager reach safety.
For those who witnessed it, that chase became one of the Habana stories that never quite faded. Among those still around to tell it, I imagine it remains as vivid as ever.
But the laughter is only one part of what I remember.
The manager continued working and living at the Habana until he was found dead one morning in Penthouse B, near the back swimming pool.
Questions circulated afterward. Had someone been with him? Had he suffered a heart attack? Had anything else contributed to his death? People offered theories, but I never learned a confirmed explanation.
His would not be the only death I came to associate with that room.
One of the others was a man I knew well: Larry. I keep the last name to preserve the privacy for the family.
Larry was a bail bondsman, a reserve deputy with the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, and the owner of a pawnshop in Del City. You would have been hard-pressed to meet a nicer man.
He also struggled with the distance between who he was and who he believed the world expected him to be. We talked about that. From what I saw, liquor and drugs had become ways for him to cope.
Our friendship did not erase my responsibilities as a police officer. More than once, I told him plainly, “If I ever catch you with drugs, it’s going to be the slammer. I can’t look the other way.”
Then I would get off duty, and we would go browsing through secondhand stores, looking through other people’s discarded treasures.
I sat with him at the Finish Line and had drinks. I also visited him in Penthouse 7, directly above the nightclubs. When the crowds filled the Copa or the Finish Line, you could feel the music through the room: thump, thump, thump. The party downstairs made its presence known upstairs.
Later, Larry moved into Penthouse B.
That room already had a reputation. People said it was haunted, and I didn’t even like going near it. Between Larry’s struggles and my own uneasiness about that room, I feared something would happen. Looking back, that was fear—not knowledge of what lay ahead.
I had been away from the property for a few days. When I returned, the news was everywhere.
They had found Larry.
I was told it appeared he had died in his sleep. I never learned a confirmed cause.
When I think of him now, I remember the man who browsed secondhand stores with me, the conversations we shared, and the kindness that existed alongside his troubles.
There was much more to the Habana than its bars, parties, and penthouses.
Jungle Red was a novelty shop where you could buy gay merchandise, magazines, and items for more private interests. For people exploring a part of themselves they weren’t ready to discuss openly, it offered a place to browse without involving the U.S. Postal Service.
Up a few steps next to the Copa, was a dress shop. Apparently, every respectable gay establishment needed one, and this one offered some impressive selections. If something in the window caught your eye, you asked the attendant at Jungle Red.
Not everyone wanted the pounding music of a nightclub. For those who preferred a quieter evening, there was a martini and piano bar just off the front lobby. It was named the Ledo.
Beside it was a restaurant. Gusher’s. All relating to the Oklahoma Oil Boom. Not the activity taking place at the hotel. I remember the eatery as one of the finest around. On weekends, the place stayed packed well beyond its posted closing time, and it remained busy throughout the week.
A large plate-glass window in the dining room looked south toward the main swimming pool and the surrounding rooms. Guests could sit over a meal and watch people making their way along the walkways above and below.
Naturally, those walks acquired a name: “the walk of shame.”
At the Habana, people sometimes accused others of doing exactly what they had done themselves—at least once, and usually more than twice.
Love stories began there. Others ended there. Sometimes, both happened to the same couple.
It could also be the last place you expected to recognize the handsome athlete from your hometown, especially in circumstances he probably wouldn’t have wanted discussed back in Smallville.
People came out at the Habana. Some did so willingly. Others were recognized before they were ready.
Looking back, I remember the laughter, the music, the friendships, and the freedom people found within those walls. I also remember the loneliness some carried with them, even in the middle of a crowd.
For some, the Habana was a place to spend an evening. For others, it became a home.
And for a few, it was where their lives ended.
For many more, it was where they finally began living as themselves.
The Habana was known as the largest gay resort in the southwestern United States. Just off the property stood a bar originally called Saddle Tramps. Over the years, the name was shortened to Tramps, but I always preferred Saddle Tramps. You needed a saddle to ride out whatever you rounded up in there.
The drinks were usually liquor mixed with a drop of chaser. Ask for a whiskey and Coke, and you’d get three-quarters whiskey, a squirt of Coke, and then a little more whiskey—just in case the Coke had weakened it.
Within an hour and a half, every person in the joint was a ten.
The night wasn’t over. There was a dance club up the street called Angles where you could get your head cleared. Before going back to Saddle Tramps for another drink. Then you’d end the evening at the Finish Line or the Copa. At closing time everyone would spill over to the Lobby where they would either go to the restaurant or end up in the yard square and watch the walks of shame, if they were not walking it themselves. In all of this it was a peaceful event. If trouble makers showed up, a group of bears would take care of them. Escorting them off the property. Of course as security, we’d watch to make sure nothing got out of hand.
It was a different time and life was experiencing change. Today, the hotel has changed ownership. There is a book being written on this period. Which I have given written information about the times to the person writing it. I hope those memories live on. Because it was one hell of good time.
Documented errors & misleading claims in Republican advertising show why political loyalty should never replace verification.Yet, do Democratic advertisings fare any better?
An ominous voice. An unflattering photograph. A frightening accusation. Thirty seconds later, the commercial ends—and the impression remains.
But what happens when the photograph shows the wrong person? When an accusation leaves out the timeline? When the study cited in small print does not examine the policy the candidate actually supports?
Those questions deserve attention before the next campaign commercial tells us what to believe.
Who’s cheating whom? Who’s being true? The accusations fly, the crowd takes sides, and somewhere in the shouting, the truth gets drowned out. Folks, when we care more about who wins the argument than whether the accusation is true, we’re the ones being fooled.
Recent reporting by KJZZ and FactCheck.org documents factual errors and misleading presentations in Republican and Republican-aligned advertising across several states. Some involve outright inaccuracies. Others take genuine statements or events and leave out facts necessary to understand them.
These examples do not establish what candidates privately expected voters to believe or whether they anticipated voters checking their claims. My interpretation is that this kind of advertising gains an advantage when viewers accept its message without examining the evidence.
That is a temptation we should recognize in ourselves. When an accusation fits what we already believe about the other party, it can feel convincing before we have checked a single fact.
In Arizona, an attack ad supporting Republican Rep. Eli Crane targeted Democratic challenger Jonathan Nez. Yet the No Going Back PAC commercial twice displayed photographs of Myron Lizer, Nez’s former vice president—not Nez himself. Lizer is a Republican and Trump supporter.
KJZZ reported the error on October 10 and noted that the images were corrected. That correction matters. So does the fact that an advertisement seeking to discredit a candidate initially failed to identify him correctly. This reporting establishes the photograph error; it does not independently resolve the ad’s underlying spending allegation.
In North Carolina, No Going Back PAC accused Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper of allowing approximately 16,000 rape kits to remain untested.
The backlog was real. The presentation of responsibility was misleading.
FactCheck.org reported that the kits were held by hundreds of local law enforcement agencies and had not been submitted to the state laboratory Cooper oversaw as attorney general. A later statewide inventory established the extent of the problem. That leaves room to question whether officials at multiple levels should have done more. It does not justify presenting the evidence as though Cooper personally controlled thousands of kits awaiting testing.
The same advertisement connected Cooper’s pandemic prison settlement to a convicted sex offender who later committed murder. But Jimmie Speight Jr. had completed his prison term before the settlement. His subsequent reinstatement to post-release supervision counted under the agreement, explaining his appearance on its list.
That distinction changes the story. An advertisement about public safety owes voters an accurate timeline, especially when it uses a horrifying crime to assign political blame.
In Pennsylvania and Texas, hospital-closure warnings provided another example.
Congressional Leadership Fund attacked Democrat Janelle Stelson in Pennsylvania’s 10th District with a claim involving up to 25 rural hospital closures. MAGA Inc. attacked Texas Senate candidate James Talarico with a warning involving 30 hospitals.
Both relied on a study assuming a public insurance option would reimburse hospitals at existing Medicare rates. FactCheck.org found that neither candidate had proposed that specific design; Talarico expressly supported higher reimbursement rates.
A study can be real while its use in an advertisement is misleading. Citing research does not establish that its assumptions match the candidate’s proposal.
In Michigan, an NRSC advertisement alleged that Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed had advocated abolishing prisons. FactCheck.org found that he had not.
Other attacks drew on genuine earlier statements about shifting police resources and reviewing prison sentences. Those positions are legitimate subjects for scrutiny. But voters also deserve their context and an accurate account of his current platform, which includes investment in law enforcement recruitment, retention and retirement.
These are specific failures by identifiable advertisers. Several ads came from outside political groups, so responsibility should be assigned to the sponsors rather than automatically to the candidates who benefited.
The criticism is straightforward: get the person right, preserve the timeline, represent the proposal accurately, and let the evidence support the accusation.
A party label cannot do that work.
Folks, the commercial that deserves our closest attention may be the one we find easiest to believe. Before repeating it, ask who paid for it, whether the original source says what the advertiser claims, and what information disappeared between the source and the screen.
We do not have to abandon our political convictions to demand honest advertising. We have to insist that those convictions survive contact with the facts.
The Fact Check Cannot Stop at Democratic Party
Democratic campaign advertising deserves the same scrutiny as Republican advertising—and recent examples show why.
It is easy to spot a questionable campaign commercial when it attacks someone we support. The harder test comes when it attacks someone we oppose.
The Fact Checkers Never Stop
That is when a frightening accusation can feel like confirmation. We recognize the party label, agree with the message, and move on without checking what was left out.
But an advertisement does not become accurate because it comes from our preferred side.
Recent investigations by FactCheck.org and PolitiFact identify false or misleading claims in advertisements from Democratic candidates and Democratic-aligned organizations in Maine, Iowa, Georgia, Texas and Ohio. The problems vary: an accusation contradicted by the record, a quotation stripped of context, a procedural vote presented without a later substantive vote, or a projection delivered without its qualifications.
These examples do not tell us what candidates privately expected voters to believe. My interpretation is that such advertising benefits when viewers accept a message that fits their political loyalties without examining its evidence.
In Maine, WinSenate, a super PAC supporting Democratic Senate candidates, accused Republican Sen. Susan Collins of helping conceal the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Collins did oppose an amendment attached to a defense bill. That is a real vote and a legitimate subject for criticism. But she subsequently supported the standalone disclosure legislation that passed the Senate by unanimous consent in November 2025.
FactCheck.org found that the advertisements misleadingly presented her record by leaving out that later support.
One ad also characterized a major donor to a pro-Collins super PAC as Epstein’s business partner. Its basis was that Stephen Schwarzman and Epstein were among the founding members of the same private club. That does not, by itself, establish the close business relationship the description suggests.
An advertiser owes voters more than an alarming name and an insinuation.
A separate Maine advertisement from Majority Forward claimed Collins did not believe insider trading should be illegal.
FactCheck.org found that claim false. Collins helped write and pass the 2012 STOCK Act, which affirmed that members of Congress are subject to insider-trading prohibitions.
She opposed a complete congressional stock-trading ban. Critics can challenge that position and the adequacy of existing enforcement. But opposing a blanket trading ban is different from supporting illegal insider trading.
The advertisement blurred that distinction to turn a policy disagreement into a more damaging accusation.
In Iowa, WinSenate attacked Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson over the Epstein files.
Hinson had opposed procedural efforts related to disclosure. Yet she voted for the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025, when it passed the House 427–1.
PolitiFact rated the claim that she voted against releasing the files Mostly False because the advertisement omitted her later vote for release.
The advertising also emphasized donors whose names appeared in the files. A name appearing in those records does not, on its own, demonstrate wrongdoing or a close relationship with Epstein.
Voters deserve the complete voting record and evidence proportionate to the accusation.
In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s television ads used a shortened recording of Republican challenger Mike Collins discussing Social Security and returning to the workforce.
The advertisements framed his remarks as a threat to retirees. But PolitiFact found that the full interview concerned making work more financially advantageous through lower taxes. Collins had not instructed retirees to surrender their benefits and get jobs.
There are substantive reasons to examine his policies: he supported measures that experts warned could threaten future benefits. Those concerns deserve accurate discussion.
They do not justify editing a quotation into a message its speaker did not deliver. PolitiFact rated the advertisement’s combined claim Mostly False.
In Texas, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico’s campaign said Republican Ken Paxton voted to protect puppy abusers.
The underlying vote concerned a 2011 bill increasing the bond required when someone appealed a civil court’s finding of animal cruelty. The measure did not increase penalties for animal abuse itself.
Paxton did not explain his opposition. Other opponents raised concerns about procedural fairness and the cost of appeals.
PolitiFact rated Talarico’s claim Mostly False. A vote about appeal requirements can be criticized on its merits. It does not establish that the lawmaker intended to protect animal abusers.
Ohio supplies a more qualified example.
Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown’s advertisement said Republican Sen. Jon Husted voted to remove 490,000 Ohioans from their healthcare coverage.
PolitiFact found the number broadly consistent with credible estimates of losses from Medicaid changes and the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. But it was a projection over ten years, subject to implementation and other uncertainties—not a completed count of people already losing insurance.
Husted’s record also included a later proposal to extend the subsidies.
The claim received a Half True rating. It should not be lumped together with an invented accusation. The criticism here concerns missing qualifications and the presentation of uncertainty.
These findings establish specific advertising failures. They do not measure which party misleads more often, and they do not make every claim equally wrong.
Responsibility also matters. Ads purchased by WinSenate or Majority Forward should be attributed to those organizations rather than automatically to the Democratic candidates who might benefit.
The standard should remain consistent: preserve the context, explain the vote, distinguish estimates from established results, and support accusations with evidence.
Folks, our own side should not receive a discount on truth.
Before sharing the commercial that confirms everything we already believe, we should check the original statement, the complete record and the sponsor’s supporting evidence.
Our political convictions may guide our vote. They should never decide which facts we are willing to see.
Well, if you survived Monday, pour yourself a cup. Depending on your calendar and community, you may have called it Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, or Native American Day.
Whatever name you used, it got me thinking about the Oklahoma of my childhood.
When we played Cowboys and Indians on the playground, we had the real McCoys on both sides—kids from cowboy families and kids from Native families.
Sadly, the cowboys always seemed to win, and our Native friends went along with it. That was simply how we played. I don’t remember anyone questioning why the ending had already been decided.
Now that I am older, I realize how sad that was. Truly sad. Even in a childhood game, we were repeating the story we had been taught: who got to be the hero, who was expected to lose, and whose side of the story hardly mattered.
Had I understood then what I understand now, I would have wanted more victories for my friends—and a chance for them to tell the story their way.
But we had been programmed. Before we were old enough to question the script, we already knew our parts.
Growing up, we commonly used the word “Indian.” We also watched television westerns where Indians fought cowboys, and the script usually told us whom to cheer for before anyone fired a shot.
Looking back, television was doing a fair amount of our thinking for us.
I still have Native friends who call themselves Indians. That is their choice, and I respect it. People deserve to tell us who they are, rather than have the rest of us decide for them.
The Oklahoma I remember has changed. Tribal businesses and casinos became increasingly visible over the years, especially after I moved away. Places I associated with one chapter of my childhood began to look very different.
But seeing a changing landscape and understanding its history are two different things.
For years, I wondered how land purchased by a tribe became tribal land. I also confused that question with whether the land was sacred. Those are different matters: sacredness concerns religious and cultural significance, while trust status involves a legal process through which the federal government holds land for a tribe or an individual Native person.
Still, understanding that distinction leaves me with a larger question: How did we arrive at a place where Native nations sometimes have to buy back portions of the lands they lost?
That question stays with me longer than the explanations about deeds and boundaries.
What might this country look like if settlers and the governments that followed them had respected Native nations’ right to govern themselves? If agreements had been honored? If families had not been forced from their homes?
What if there had been no Trail of Tears?
Would we be better off today? Would our relationships with one another be different? What knowledge, traditions, and possibilities might have survived that were instead disrupted or lost?
I am not looking for an argument over my morning coffee. I am wondering about the distance between the history we inherited and the history we might have made.
We cannot know exactly how that other America would have turned out. But uncertainty about what might have been does not erase what actually happened.
Perhaps that is what this day brings to my table: a reason to look beyond the television westerns of my childhood and listen to the people whose histories those scripts so often pushed aside.
My coffee cannot change yesterday. But I can still learn something today.
The reference to forced removal and the Trail of Tears is supported by the National Park Service’s historical account. nps.gov
“They keep building the border wall. If nothing else, it gives politicians something to crow about. Though these days, you have to wonder whether anyone’s still asking for directions to get here.”
— Imagining Will Rogers weighing in from the grave…
A dispute over border wall construction in southern Arizona has become a disagreement over law enforcement responsibilities, public safety, and the resources available to a county sheriff’s office.
In an October 9 open letter, the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association raised concerns about allegedly unanswered requests for assistance during protests in Santa Cruz County. The association said federal and state officials had reported incidents involving alleged violence, threats, and property damage. It called for those allegations to be documented and investigated.
The letter also attributed to Sheriff David Hathaway a policy limiting deputies’ responses to protest-related calls to incidents involving violence. Whether particular requests involved criminal conduct, and how his office handled them, requires further examination. According to Arizona’s Family’s report, the sheriff’s office had not responded to the station’s request for comment.
The dispute follows an October 5 federal operation at a protest encampment near Lochiel. Arizona’s Family reported that video showed a protester being removed from a cottonwood tree using a cherry picker before the tree was cut down. Activists had occupied the site to oppose construction of a second border barrier. That confrontation is described here.
The public safety questions deserve attention. So does the capacity of the local agency being asked to respond.
Santa Cruz County covers approximately 1,236 square miles of land and had an estimated population of 50,020 in July 2025. The Border Sheriffs directory lists 39 sworn officers for its sheriff’s office, although that listing does not establish current staffing or the number available for patrol on any particular shift.
America has long welcomed people who came to do business—or simply escape winter for a little sunshine. This year, some businesses in those sunny destinations say fewer visitors are returning, and trade has slowed to a crawl. The sunshine is still here. The customers, it seems, are checking the forecast for more than the weather.
From my experience in law enforcement, an agency’s total sworn strength can give a misleading impression of its available manpower. Days off, training, leave, investigations, supervision, and other assignments affect how many officers can answer calls. A fair assessment should examine actual deployment and workload before drawing conclusions about available resources.
Staffing constraints do not erase a sheriff’s responsibilities. Arizona law requires sheriffs to preserve the peace and address public offenses and disturbances. Whether those duties were fulfilled here should be evaluated through dispatch records, incident reports, requests for assistance, and the sheriff’s explanation.
Federal agencies should also explain how they planned to manage demonstrations and coordinate with local authorities. Construction that draws sustained opposition requires clear arrangements for emergency response, protection of lawful protest, and investigation of alleged crimes.
The association has offered available assistance through the Arizona Department of Public Safety if requested. That offers a possible route toward cooperation while preserving the county sheriff’s independent authority.
My concern is whether the agencies involved have established a workable plan that protects residents, protesters, workers, and officers without leaving routine county services short of personnel. Answering that question requires documented facts, an opportunity for all sides to respond, and a realistic accounting of resources.
The National Weather Service has issued winter storm warnings for parts of the state through Monday morning. An earlier forecast called for 10 to 20 inches of snow in some areas, with isolated totals approaching 30 inches in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Thirty inches. That is considerably more wilderness than I require.
NBC Montana also reported that the Beartooth Highway’s closure was moved up to Friday because of the approaching winter weather. When even the highway is closing early, I consider that a fairly clear invitation to stay home.
Some folks see that forecast and think, “How beautiful! Let’s pack up and spend the winter there.”
I admire their enthusiasm. From Arizona.
Desert living suits Steve and me just fine. Give me a wide horizon, a warm afternoon, and a winter wardrobe that doesn’t require instructions.
Somewhere in my head, the Green Acres theme is playing while I compose my own little tribute to staying warm. Steve has probably heard enough of it already.
I have gone north in November. I was younger then. I didn’t know what I know now.
The sky would turn gray, and the weather forecaster would assure us that we were expecting wind and cold. Then we would wake up to waist-deep snow.
Apparently, the snow had neglected to attend the briefing.
I remember drifts deep enough for cattle to walk over barbed-wire fences and wander miles from where they belonged. Across that stretch of country—Texas, the Oklahoma Panhandle, southwestern Kansas, and into Colorado—winter could make a fence seem more like a suggestion.
The cattle weren’t respecting property lines. They were looking for somewhere better to stand.
I understood their position.
I have also gone into Wyoming in December, when the forecast called for “a dusting.”
A foot of snow later, I began to suspect that Wyoming used a different measuring system.
I was young enough to tolerate it then. Or at least young enough to claim I could. There may also have been a few questionable concoctions involved that improved my opinion of the situation without improving the weather.
They didn’t melt the snow. They merely made being trapped indoors seem briefly like something I had agreed to.
Meanwhile, the snow kept piling up outside, and the roofline began looking uncomfortably close to ground level.
These are experiences that build character. I believe I have accumulated enough character to remain in Mesa.
So, no, I won’t be meeting anyone in Montana on Monday. Not for snow, a sick moose, or a lost tourist. Send photographs. I will study them from a comfortable chair and express the appropriate concern.
I moved to the desert to stay warm, and that decision continues to hold up beautifully.
If I get too warm, I can daydream about lounging beside the pool, with my broken leg propped safely out of the proceedings. Otis will be looking at me as though I’m the household misfit.
This from a dog who considers running through the house at aircraft speed a reasonable afternoon activity.
In my version of the pool scene, he eventually joins me, dog-paddles back to his float, and settles beside a water bottle with a little umbrella attached.
He has no job, pays no bills, and somehow ends up on the better vacation.
That is life around here, folks.
Monday, October 12, 2026. I checked. It is Monday.
Mesa may have a few showers in the forecast, but nobody is predicting that I’ll need to shovel my way to breakfast.
This morning’s coffee comes with an eye-opener. I hadn’t planned to start the day this way, but the idea landed in my lap last week while I was lying around with a broken right ankle and leg. And—poof!—on came a flick I’ve seen so many times I can practically recite the dialogue: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Apparently, a broken leg wasn’t enough to keep me uncomfortable. Bette Davis had to drop by and finish the job. I can tell you I know “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane!”
Joan Crawford as Blanche (left) Bette Davis as Baby Jane (right)
I have watched What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? so many times that I can almost recite the dialogue along with the actors.
I first discovered it late one night while caring for my ailing mother-in-law. I watched it again when my own mother was in similar circumstances, and recently returned to it while recovering from a broken leg. Somehow, this wonderfully unsettling film keeps finding me when I’m already confined to one spot.
Bette Davis plays Baby Jane to perfection. Her performance gets under my skin every time. Joan Crawford, as her sister Blanche, makes you feel the helplessness of being trapped upstairs and dependent on someone increasingly cruel and unpredictable. From the moment Jane claims Blanche’s bird has escaped through the window, you know something is terribly wrong. Before long, you’re worrying that anyone who gets too close—including the neighbors—might meet the same fate as the housekeeper, Elvira.
Then there is the singing. Davis’s strained, childlike rendition of “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy” makes my skin crawl, yet I still want to hear it. For me, it has the same unsettling, irresistible quality as the Silver Shamrock jingle in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (which, by the way, is our anniversary song—Steve’s and mine) Once it gets into your head, it settles in and refuses to leave.
Although the story includes murder, its final scene relies on something more haunting than a bloody spectacle. That is part of what keeps bringing me back: the performances, the dread, and the feeling that even familiar scenes can still unsettle me.
But I’m left with one thoroughly impractical question: whatever happened to the Baby Jane doll? Can I get one—and, more importantly, will it sing that tune? Apparently, watching the film repeatedly hasn’t disturbed me quite enough.
I say bring it back for this years Christmas sales! Why not reconcile with a symbol of pure craziness. It is in style today. Isn’t it?
I was looking at the map showing where visits to benandsteve.com have come from, and something struck me: my words have been getting out more than I have.
Here I am in Arizona, putting together a few thoughts over coffee, while something I’ve written turns up halfway around the world.
Apparently, my stories don’t need a passport. They don’t even have to take their shoes off at the airport.
When I begin a piece, I usually have something fairly close to home in mind. A memory from Oklahoma. Something Steve said. An ordinary object that carries an extraordinary amount of history. Or a passing thought that refuses to leave until I give it a paragraph of its own.
I don’t generally sit down thinking, “I wonder how this will go over in Tanzania.”
Perhaps I should start.
In the recent figures I reviewed, approximately 45% of the recorded views came from China, while nearly 42% came from the United States. Canada accounted for about 5%, followed by the United Kingdom at roughly 2.5%.
The remaining views came from India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tanzania, Tunisia, and the Netherlands. Together, those countries represented about 6% of the views in this snapshot.
That is quite a bit of traveling for thoughts that began here at home.
Visits to benandsteve.com from around the world
The shaded countries on the map made that reach visible in a way a column of figures never quite could. I found myself looking at places I hadn’t expected to appear and wondering how something I wrote had found its way there.
Of course, a map cannot tell me the whole story. It doesn’t tell me who stopped by, what brought them, or whether they stayed long enough to finish their coffee. But it does show recorded activity from parts of the world I never imagined would have any connection to my little corner of the internet.
And that gives me something to think about.
I grew up in a small Oklahoma town where you usually knew who was listening. Sometimes you knew their parents, their grandparents, and precisely who would hear about what you said before you made it home.
Writing online is a different experience. You put a story out there, and its next stop may be somewhere you’ve never been.
A recollection from my childhood might turn up in Canada. A bit of dry humor might make its way to the United Kingdom. Something about family, kindness, loss, or simply getting through the day might reach a place whose name I’ve known all my life without ever expecting my writing to arrive there.
I like that possibility.
So much of what I write begins with ordinary life. The details belong to me, but the feelings may be familiar to someone much farther away: missing a parent, remembering an old home, laughing at an aggravation, or finding comfort in a daily routine.
I cannot say what any particular visitor takes away. I can only hope that somewhere in these pages, they find something worth pausing over.
This map has reminded me that the circle around benandsteve.com may be wider than I realized. My stories are beginning to show up in regions I never expected them to reach, and I’m curious to see where they go next.
Wherever you happen to be reading this, thank you for stopping by.
Pull up a chair. There’s always room for another cup.
And if my words make it to your part of the world before I do, please tell them to behave themselves. I have a reputation to consider.
I read the other day that the First Dude had died. I stopped and looked at that headline twice.
The First Dude?
Was he somebody’s husband? A fellow who insisted on being first in line everywhere he went? Or one of those rascals who walks into a room as though he owns the place?
Was he one of the president’s kids? A former president’s brother? No, neither seemed quite right for a name like First Dude. I thought briefly of Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband. He carried himself with enough quiet confidence to pull it off, but he already had a title: Second Gentleman.
The more I read, the more I thought I had him figured out. He was a Florida fellow with a remarkable social life. He had been quite the catch in his younger days and, from all appearances, remained popular for years. His family was enormous. There were 538 youngsters of racing age on the books, though I doubt he remembered every name.
And talk about a family making something of itself: 302 of them became winners. Together, his offspring earned nearly $30 million. That would give anybody at the coffee table something to brag about.
But the First Dude had earned his own reputation long before his children came along. He was a competitor who kept showing up among the best. In 2010, he finished second in the Preakness Stakes and third in the Belmont Stakes. He earned more than $1.4 million during his own racing career.
By now, you may have caught on. The First Dude was a horse.
First Dude, to give him his proper name, was a racehorse and later a stallion at Double Diamond Farm in Florida. He was named Florida Stallion of the Year in both 2017 and 2018. He died at 19.
First Dude was a Stud! A Horse’s, Horse!
I began reading with a chuckle over his name. I finished thinking about what it means to leave a mark. First Dude ran his own races, and then a whole new generation carried something of him onto the track.
So raise your coffee cup to the First Dude. He was quite a fellow. And, yes, he really did own a little piece of the place.
Based on reporting by Horse Racing Nation. Photo: Bob Mayberger / Eclipse Sportswire.
I thought I would bring you up to date on how I’m doing socially and professionally. Despite doing absolutely nothing, I continue to climb the ladder of success.
For years, I had cousins in Oklahoma and Arkansas, with a few sprinkled across Texas. I was the adventurous one who made it to Colorado, Wyoming, and Arizona. But now a cousin of mine has moved from Kansas City to Chicago. Technically, he’s my cousin’s son, but he’s only ten years younger than I am, so we’ve never bothered with the fine print.
He lives about twenty floors up. That is a level of upward mobility I could never achieve without an elevator. When I pass through Chicago, I plan to announce that I’m stopping by the penthouse. Whether he actually lives in a penthouse is a detail I’ll leave out.
Did I mention he’s a doctor? Around the café, that earns me another badge of distinction, even though I didn’t attend a single one of his classes.
I’m having fun with it, of course. My cousin’s accomplishments belong to him. But people borrow the shine from someone else’s success all the time. Sometimes it’s harmless bragging over coffee. Sometimes that borrowed shine is used to convince us to trust someone or accept a deal we haven’t looked at closely.
That brings me to a habit I learned as a law enforcement officer, one that has helped me many times since: question what you’re told.
If a story sounds convincing, ask what supports it. If someone claims an impressive connection, find out what that connection actually means. If an offer sounds too good to pass up, take the time to read the terms. You don’t have to be suspicious of everyone. You can simply give yourself room to check the facts before you decide.
Sometimes the evidence confirms the story. Other times, it shows you something quite different.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my coffee and call my cousin. I have to find out whether I can honestly keep saying “penthouse.”
In their day, coffee was hot. It was waiting on the breakfast table, offered to anyone who stopped by, or kept brewing when someone had to stay awake all night. You took it black, with sugar, with cream, or with both. That was about the extent of the menu.
If my grandparents—or even my dad—could pull up to a coffee shop today, I think the menu would stop them in their tracks. Iced coffee? Coffee with foam? A drive-thru where people wait in line just to order a cup?
And then there was the ceremony of opening a fresh can of ground coffee. Someone would work the can opener around the lid and get the first breath of that rich aroma. If you were nearby, you leaned in for your turn. There was nothing quite like it. I’d recommend experiencing it once in your life, but once probably won’t be enough.
At home, we made coffee by the pot. You put the grounds in the maker, waited for the water to work its way through, and poured a cup when it was ready. I learned that when it was ready was an important part of the process. Pulling the carafe out too early could leave you cleaning up the counter before you’d had your first sip.
I still like sugar in mine. You may take yours black or with enough cream to change its color entirely. These days, you can have it poured over ice and topped with just about anything. My dad might have looked at that cup and asked when the coffee was coming.
But the part I remember best had little to do with how anyone ordered it. I remember waking to the sound of my parents or grandparents talking at the breakfast table while the smell of fresh coffee drifted through the house. Before I could make out what they were saying, I knew they were there and the day had begun.
That aroma can still take me back. Maybe you have a coffee memory like that, too. If you do, I hope your next cup brings it along for a visit.
By now, I expect to be in surgery or recovering afterward, possibly deeply sedated. Either way, someone else will be making the rounds this morning.
You see, I’ve done it again.
Somehow, I keep finding ways to get myself scheduled for repairs. Several times a year, somebody decides I need another adjustment. I’m beginning to think I should come with a maintenance manual.
This particular visit, however, was unplanned.
On Sunday, I was innocently walking across the den when my lights went out. No warning. No dramatic announcement. Just a sudden goodnight—and down I went.
In the process, I managed to break my leg and ankle and dislocate another bone in the ankle.
All of that, simply crossing the floor.
I didn’t trip over anything. I didn’t tumble down a staircase. I wasn’t attempting one of those athletic maneuvers that begins with “Watch this!” I fainted. Apparently, my landing had ambitions of its own.
Thanks to good insurance and the people arranging my care, I’m having surgery this morning to put things back where they belong.
Personally, I would have been happy with a Popsicle. The medical team felt a more substantial response was warranted.
The surgeon even postponed a trip out of town so he could stay and take care of me. That means a great deal. Knowing someone rearranged his own plans to help put me back together gives me something to be grateful for amid all this unexpected excitement.
I’m also grateful to having Steve there. He immediatedly heard me fall. Then notices something wasn’t right. My body was bent in a weird fold. He was my advocate in between my screaming. Then the rescuers who arrived at our home and carried me out. When your ordinary Sunday suddenly becomes an emergency, those folks become the most welcome people you’ve ever seen.
What still leaves me dumbfounded is how I managed so much damage in such a small space. I’ve had people demonstrate how they think I fell, and nobody else has come away with a broken leg or ankle.
I seem to have added something to the performance that cannot be reproduced.
In preparation for my absence, I’ve scheduled several weeks of Morning Coffee. There will still be a thought or two waiting here to help you begin your day, even while I’m busy following instructions about keeping my leg elevated.
During recovery, I plan to catch up on old episodes of South Park. I mean, educational programming about South America. We’ll see how convincing I sound after the medication wears off.
This was me in the Emergency Room Sunday night. I kept telling everyone “my eyes are up here!” They tried to reset it. Under full sedation, while unconscious, I screamed bloody murder. People could hear me out in the hallways adjacent to the emergency room. Patients who had been waiting for hours, got up and left. I was asked I could come back next week.
I do feel I owe you more. Perhaps a chance to sign my cast, if I get one. Or footage of the fire trucks and ambulance arriving. Some photographic evidence of this latest production would have been nice.
So far, I have only a photo of me in the emergency room. A photo of my foot.
All I can offer is the mystery of how a fellow walks across his own den, trips over absolutely nothing, and winds up needing surgical repairs.
Keep the coffee going, folks. I’m looking forward to updating you on the other side of surgery.
And next time somebody offers me a Popsicle, I’m taking it before the situation escalates.
I thought I’d throw a little English banter into today’s chatter. It seemed fitting while I sat here with a cup of coffee and a recording of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds playing in the background.
I record shows when they air and watch them when life gives me a moment. This morning, while the Enterprise traveled through space, my mind wandered back to the days when I was a young chap watching cowboys ride across the television screen.
There was Rawhide, Hopalong Cassidy, and Gene Autry singing his way through the West. I enjoyed them all. But even as a boy, I thought some of those fellows had an easy time of it. The cowboy I knew best had horses to feed, cattle to tend, and work waiting for him whether the cameras were rolling or not.
That cowboy was my dad.
I watched him care for our animals day after day. He was tough, capable, and steady. To me, he was the real thing. He was my hero from the beginning.
What I don’t know is whether I ever told him that clearly enough.
We sometimes assume the people we love already know what they mean to us. Maybe they do. But hearing it from us can still make a difference. A few honest words can stay with someone long after the morning is over.
So while you have your coffee today, think of someone who matters to you. Tell them what you admire about them. Thank them for something they taught you. Let them know that the ordinary things they do have never looked ordinary to you.
You don’t need a grand speech. You just need to say it while they’re here to hear it.
My dad never rode across a television screen. But after all these years, he is still the cowboy I remember best.
I don’t know whether it was an Oklahoma City thing or whether listeners elsewhere heard it, too. In the mid-1980s, I kept my patrol radio tuned to KATT, The Rock 1000. One of my favorite parts of the morning was a voice that came on with a greeting something like, “Hello, babysitters. This is Clarence, and this is the All My Children update.”
Clarence had a deep voice and a gift for recapping the previous day’s soap opera. He would run through the latest goings-on, slipping into impressions of the characters along the way. I could be miles into a patrol shift, carrying whatever the night had handed me, and that voice would give me a few minutes to laugh.
I needed those minutes. Some of the officers I worked with used enough starch in their underwear to stand at attention without getting out of the patrol car.
Around the station, I was known as the Lone Eagle. I worked the south district, and when I headed south, I soared. Some nights brought felony arrests. Other nights, I found a way to upset an elected city official who probably thought the hour made him unreachable.
Then there was Mildred.
Her husband was a city councilman, and the chief had agreed to put her on the reserve police force. How that arrangement came about, I couldn’t say. What I knew was that Mildred talked through an entire eight-hour shift without seeming to draw a breath. Riding with her was like attending a farm auction where the auctioneer never stopped and the hog never sold. Every so often, the hog would snort, and the bidding would begin again.
Somehow, no matter how the schedule was arranged, Mildred ended up in my unit. The other officers wouldn’t take her. I was the least senior officer on those nights, so I got the assignment.
One night, I lost my patience.
I asked Mildred if she had ever wondered why she always rode with me. She said she thought it was because I liked having her along. I told her that wasn’t it. I said it more harshly than I should have.
She looked genuinely surprised. She hadn’t noticed that other reserve officers got different assignments while she kept getting mine. I told her the others complained about riding with her. When she thought I was making it up, I played a mini-cassette recording of officers saying just that.
Mildred listened. Then she said, “Oh, Ben, you ought to hear what they say about you before you get to the station to pick me up.”
“I know,” I told her. “You don’t think this is the only tape I have, do you?”
I didn’t stop there. I said things about her husband and why I thought he wanted her out of the house. I had no proof of that. I was angry, and I wanted my words to land. I also told her what I expected to happen next: she would go home upset, her husband would complain to the chief, and sooner or later something would happen to me at work.
I drove back to police headquarters and gave her one sentence she could repeat.
“Get the hell out of my unit.”
That night may sound like a scene Clarence could have recapped the next morning: a councilman’s wife, a tape recorder, a patrol officer who finally said too much, and trouble waiting at the station. But there was nothing funny about what followed. Two matters did arise that left me feeling exposed and unable to defend myself as I might have at another time.
My father had died, and I was still crushed by it. I feared a public fight would hurt my family. A year later, I believe I would have fought with everything I had. At that moment, I pulled back.
When I think about those patrol mornings now, I still hear Clarence’s voice cutting through the radio. For a few minutes, his account of somebody else’s drama gave me room to breathe. I had no idea how much I would miss that little break when the drama became my own.
In the months that followed, a series of events unfolded. I’ve written about some of them. Others I’ve never told publicly. That changes in October, when I’ll share what happened and why it sent shock waves through our community and local law enforcement. Watch for the first installment of October Surprises.
Before I get too far into this story, I should tell you where I began retelling it: in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room.
The driver asked what had happened. I told him I had apparently performed the Groff Tenkiller Stunt again, nearly forty years after the original. Naturally, he asked what that meant. It was a fair question. He had no way of knowing that the answer involved a lake in Oklahoma, a cliff, a cooler of beer, and a group of friends operating under names like Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, and Red Foley.
There were seven or eight of us at Lake Tenkiller that weekend, depending on who you ask. Finest people you’ll ever meet, I told the driver. Depending on who you ask about that, too. We had escaped the cities for a little relief from our busy lives. Between our aliases, we sounded like the Sex Pistols had rented a boat with the cast of Gilligan’s Island. I must have been the slinger, because I spent much of that weekend slinging my body around.
I remember a rough night before our trip to the cliffs. At one point we were laughing about a helicopter landing so close to our camp that it might ruin our efforts to keep our identities mysterious. Then came word that Merle Haggard would be in nearby Muskogee. I announced that we ought to go. Surely Merle would let us in wherever he was. We hatched a plan, though calling it a plan gives it more credit than it deserves.
While that was taking shape, we took some beer to a cliff near the dam. The warnings against jumping were clear. We were young enough to believe we had plenty of time to worry about warnings later. My friends started diving. I watched from above, because I have always had a terrible fear of heights.
Then someone shouted that we were out of beer. I could help with that. Rob came with me to get another cooler from the truck. Somewhere along the path, I stepped off a rock that turned out to be more cliff than rock and injured my right ankle. I poured the only alcohol I had over it: beer. It was a poor attempt at first aid, but I was young and convinced I knew what I was doing.
As I limped back toward the water, I met a group of women carrying their own cooler. I invited them to join us and told them we were a rock-and-roll band enjoying a day off. Soon I was leading what I understood to be cheerleaders from the Muskogee area down to the cliffs.
My friends came up out of the water, shook out their ears, and stared. I had left to get beer and returned with an audience. I made one intentional cliff jump that afternoon and received a hero’s applause for bringing the party with me. I felt like Barney Fife after solving a crime.
The ankle was less impressed. Between the fall, my beer treatment, and the afternoon in the lake, it became badly infected. By the time I got home, I couldn’t get my uniform boot on. My doctor put me on antibiotics and pain medication and took me off duty for two weeks. As it happened, I had enough accumulated time from overtime that taking the leave kept me from eventually losing it.
That was the first Groff Tenkiller Stunt.
Nearly forty years later, on a Sunday afternoon in Arizona, I was walking from our bedroom toward the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. Something went dark. I turned, missed whatever I was trying to see, turned back, and tripped over myself. I blacked out and broke my leg and ankle in two places.
When I tried to stand, I fell forward. Steve came out of his recliner and told me not to move. I tried anyway. I went down like a dead mackerel.
I looked at my ankle, thought it was out of place, moved it, and told Steve, “See? That’s all it needed.” Then I tried to stand again. The pain proved my diagnosis was lacking. I screamed loudly enough to bring Otis to my side. He looked at me as though someone had tried to kill me.
“Good boy,”
I told him.
We tried the neighbors. Nobody was home. We even looked around our 55-plus community for a wheelchair someone might have left on a patio. No luck. I suggested I could scoot to the car. I made it about a cheek and a half before everything started going dark again.
It was four in the afternoon, but I felt as though night was closing in. Steve checked my blood pressure: 80 over 50, with a pulse around 90. I finally said what neither of us had wanted to say.
“I think this is the time we actually call 911.”
When the fire crew arrived, I was glad to see them, though I tried to keep a little dignity about it. Soon I was in the ambulance explaining the Groff Tenkiller Stunt to a driver who had only asked a simple question.
That’s how an old memory turned into a patrol story. Once I started talking about Oklahoma, I remembered the mornings I spent driving my district with KATT on the radio, waiting for Clarence and his All My Children update. For a few minutes each day, he could make somebody else’s troubles sound entertaining.
And then I remembered Mildred, the wife of a city councilman. Neither of us knew it yet, but we were about to change the course of each other’s lives.
I know. Some of you were getting along just fine until I reminded you.
Before we face the week, let’s settle an important matter: I like calling you folks. It’s a warm word. It leaves room for the people I know well, the people I’ve just met, and the person standing behind me at the coffee shop who can see that I still haven’t decided what I want.
“Friend” is different. Friendship takes time. We might get there, but if we’ve never met, please don’t greet me with “Hello, my friend” while reaching for my wallet or trying to sell me a new roof. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.
“Folks,” though? That works. It sounds like someone pulling out an extra chair at the table. No promises required. You can sit down, have a cup, and tell me how your weekend went. If Monday has already tested your patience, you can tell me that, too.
So good morning, folks. Pour the coffee. Find your shoes. Check that you have your keys before you close the door. We’ll get this Monday started together.
And if we become friends along the way, I’ll be glad to call you one.
Maybe you’re reading this over your first cup of coffee.
Maybe you’re on your way to work, letting someone’s voice read it aloud to you. I have no idea what I sound like on your end. Jimmy Stewart? Hank Hill? Cousin Itt? Perhaps Thing from The Addams Family is signing along. If it’s Bart Simpson?, please don’t let him drive.
Whatever voice you’ve given me, let me tell you about two fellows I saw at a convenience store.
The first was studying a basket of muffins. He leaned toward his friend and said,
“I could nab two of those, and nobody would even see me. I’m that quick.”
His friend said nothing. He just watched as the man slipped a muffin into each coat pocket.
I saw it. His friend saw it. The clerk did not.
Then the friend smiled.
“I can do better than that.”
He walked to the counter and asked the clerk,
“Would you like to see me make two of your freshest muffins disappear and then reappear?”
The clerk, curious now, handed him two muffins.
The man ate them both.
“Well,”
the clerk said,
“you made them disappear. How are you going to make them reappear?”
The man pointed across the store.
“Look in my friend’s coat pockets.”
I don’t know which of those two men walked out feeling cleverer. I do know the clerk ended up with quite a story to tell.
So take a sip of coffee, put a little spring in your step, and enjoy the start of your day. And if someone at the convenience store offers to show you a muffin trick, check your pockets first.
Some people need a cup of coffee to wake up. Others need a Loch Ness Monster.
Changing perspectives…
I heard a joke about a man who set out across Loch Ness to prove there was no monster. He was an atheist, too, and quite sure he knew what he would find: a lake, some water, and a good story somebody had made up.
Then his boat reached the middle of the lake. The sky darkened. The shoreline disappeared. And out of the water rose a creature towering over his boat.
“God, help me!” the man cried.
A voice came down from above. “That’s interesting. Five minutes ago, you didn’t believe in me.”
The man looked up and shouted, “Five minutes ago, I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster, either!”
I have to give him that one. If a monster rose beside my boat, I would reconsider several things at once. I might even develop a sudden appreciation for life jackets, fast motors, and staying home.
Changing your mind when the facts change makes sense. But I have watched people change their views without a monster, a fact, or even a decent explanation in sight. An idea is terrible at breakfast, then brilliant by lunch because someone they admire said it out loud. The evidence hasn’t changed. The company has.
I suppose we have all done a little of that. Before the first cup of coffee, I can be certain I don’t need a second. Five minutes later, the pot starts looking mighty persuasive.
So today, if someone’s opinion changes in an instant, I may ask myself what appeared: new evidence, a new audience, or a creature rising out of the lake?
If it’s the creature, I’m changing my mind, too. And I’m taking my coffee to go.
The day may arrive all at once, but we can only live it one moment at a time. Begin with the coffee, take the next good step, and let the rest of the morning wait its turn.
I haven’t even placed my feet on the floor, yet my mind is standing beside the bed with a clipboard.
There are messages to answer, bills to remember, appointments to keep, stories to write, and several little things I promised myself I would do yesterday. Before I have poured my first cup of coffee, my brain has scheduled enough work to exhaust three people—and at least one of them should be younger than I am.
Just start counting the stress away 1…2…3…4…
That is the trouble with mornings. The day arrives all at once, even though we can only live it one moment at a time.
Coffee understands this.
It doesn’t leap from the container into the cup fully prepared. The water must heat. The grounds must be measured. The coffee must brew. Then comes the cream, sugar, or whatever little ceremony makes the cup your own.
Nobody stands beside the coffee maker shouting, “Hurry up! We have an entire day to finish!”
Well, perhaps somebody does. But that person should probably be sent back to bed.
Coffee takes the time coffee takes.
Maybe we should grant ourselves the same kindness.
We do not have to solve every problem before breakfast. We do not have to know how the entire day will unfold. We don’t even have to feel particularly enthusiastic about it. Sometimes our first accomplishment is simply getting out of bed. The next may be finding our glasses and remembering why we walked into the kitchen.
Progress is still progress, even when it arrives wearing slippers.
I have discovered that a day becomes much less intimidating when I stop carrying all twenty-four hours at once. I only need to carry this moment.
Drink the coffee.
Answer one message.
Make one decision.
Do the next decent thing.
Then do another.
Some days will still become tangled. Plans will change. Someone will call just as we sit down. Something we carefully placed where we would remember it will disappear into that mysterious dimension occupied by missing socks, reading glasses, and important pieces of paper.
That does not mean the day has been lost.
There is still time to do some Fall Cleaning. Remember -– This is the first week of Autumn and Fall cleaning is not only for closets and cupboards. Sometimes our memories need to be taken down, dusted off, and placed where we can see them again.
A good day does not have to be a perfect day. It only needs a few honest moments: a kindness offered, a responsibility met, a laugh we didn’t expect, or the decision to begin again after something went wrong.
So, if this morning already feels too heavy, set part of it down.
You were never expected to carry the entire day before breakfast.
Begin with the coffee. Let it warm your hands. Take a breath and allow the world to turn without your supervision for a minute or two.
The day will still be waiting.
But perhaps, after that first cup, it won’t look quite so large.
Go ahead get a another cup, and enjoy your morning!
Are you exhausted before your feet even reach the floor? Today’s Morning Coffee is a reminder that you don’t have to carry all twenty-four hours at once—and progress still counts when it arrives wearing slippers.
Motivation does not always arrive before the work begins. Sometimes we must take one small step, interrupt the stillness, and give it a chance to catch up with us.
Motivation has a habit of arriving after the work begins.
Good morning, folks.
There are mornings when determination charges through the front door, throws open the curtains, and announces, “Let’s get something done!”
Then there are mornings when determination apparently has the day off.
The coffee is brewing. The sun is rising. The clock is moving. But we are sitting there waiting for some grand burst of motivation to lift us from the chair and carry us into the day.
Unfortunately, motivation can be terribly unreliable.
If we wait until we feel completely prepared, confident, rested, organized, and inspired, we may still be sitting beside the coffee pot when lunchtime arrives.
Sometimes we must begin before we feel ready.
Put on the shoes.
Make the telephone call.
Write the first sentence.
Wash the first dish.
Open the door and step outside.
Sometimes when Fall arrives it seems that time is off. That the moment we are in is all backwards. The evening is offset. The clock is moving slower than it should. Then all of the sudden it is later than it should be. That is what happens when time Falls back. Whether the time changes or not. The sun sets earlier, comes up sooner, or moves across the sky at a different pace. Autumn begins to change the way you move.
The first movement may be small, but small movements have a way of waking up the rest of us. One completed task leads to another. Before long, the day that seemed determined to go nowhere has discovered a destination.
I have learned that life rarely sends a marching band to announce the proper moment to begin. There may be no drumroll, perfect weather, or encouraging voice from the heavens. Most beginnings arrive quietly, disguised as an ordinary decision:
“I suppose I had better get started.”
That sentence has launched more accomplishments than we will ever know.
You do not need to conquer the entire day before breakfast. You only need to interrupt the stillness. Give yourself one honest reason to rise, move forward, and show the world you have not surrendered your place in it.
The coffee cannot do everything.
It can warm your hands, clear a little fog from your mind, and perhaps make other people safer to be around. But eventually, you must set down the cup and take the first step.
So begin before you feel ready.
Motivation may be running late—but once it sees you moving, it usually hurries to catch up.
Until tomorrow, may your coffee stay warm, your memories stay close, and your hope stay strong…
—Benjamin Groff II Morning Coffee at benandsteve.com
Before the telephone rings, the messages arrive, and the world begins making its demands, the morning gives us a few quiet moments to gather ourselves. We should not hurry past them.
There is a small stretch of time each morning before the day begins asking things of us.
Before the telephone rings. Before the messages arrive. Before the headlines tell us what we should fear, question, or become angry about. For a few precious moments, there is only the sound of coffee pouring into a cup and the quiet promise of another day.
We often hurry through that silence without realizing how valuable it is. We begin making lists in our minds. We remember what we forgot yesterday and worry about what might go wrong today. Before our feet have carried us very far, our thoughts have already run several miles ahead.
But perhaps the morning was never meant to be a starting gun.
Perhaps it was given to us as a gentle place to gather ourselves—to sit quietly, take a breath, and remember that we are more than our obligations. We are more than the chores waiting in the next room, the appointments written on the calendar, or the problems we have not yet solved.
The world will make its demands soon enough. It always does. But it can wait long enough for us to finish one warm cup of coffee.
So, this morning, give yourself permission to remain still for another moment. Notice the light coming through the window. Listen for the familiar sounds of home. Think of someone who has made your life better simply by being part of it.
You do not have to accomplish anything during these few quiet minutes. You only have to be present for them.
Before the day asks something of you, allow the morning to give something to you: a little peace, a little strength, and another reason to be grateful you are here.
Until tomorrow, may your coffee stay warm, your memories stay close, and your hope stay strong. The coffee will be waiting again tomorrow, and I hope you’ll be here to share it with me.
The world will begin asking things of you soon enough. But before it does, sit quietly, take another sip, and allow the morning to give something back. Today’s Morning Coffee is waiting.
