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.
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.
For those who have been around a time or two, you know where to find Steve and me on a weekend morning. For anyone just arriving, let me bring you up to speed.
Every weekend, usually Saturday or Sunday and sometimes both, we visit the same local restaurant. Our waitress looks for us. By the time we settle into a booth, she knows what I’m having, and our drinks are already on their way.
Three Sausage Patties, three eggs, wheat toast, hash browns, and a bowl of gravy. That is my order. Steve is more complicated. He studies the menu, makes a decision, changes his mind, and studies it again.
My order never changes. There’s comfort in that, especially at the end of a week when everything else seems to have demanded a decision.
I should explain the capital letters. Those Sausage Patties deserve them. They are, as we used to say when I was growing up, to die for. Back then, we said that about all sorts of things. These days, I’m happy just to get up on a weekend morning and go have breakfast.
I think fennel is part of what makes them so good. At least, that’s the word I intend to say. At the restaurant, Steve and I sometimes call it “fentanyl” by mistake. Then one of us catches it, and we both start laughing. Our waitress knows perfectly well what we mean, though I suspect she enjoys watching us try to get the word right.
The mix-up has become part of our weekend routine. I can forget the name of the seasoning halfway through a sentence, but I never forget how those patties taste. By midweek, I’m already looking forward to their return performance.
Of course, the sausage alone wouldn’t make this our place. Our waitress remembers us. Steve gets all the time he needs with the menu. I get to sit across from him while our breakfast arrives, knowing that for a little while, there is nowhere else we need to be.
It’s a simple pleasure. That may be why I keep coming back to it.
Next weekend, Steve will open the menu and consider his options. Our waitress will look at me, pick up her pen, and smile. She already knows. And if I happen to mention the wrong herb again, I know she’ll know what I mean. Her name? Christin-a.
Wednesday may only be the middle of the week—but perhaps the middle deserves more attention. Today’s Morning Coffee is about slowing down long enough to notice your life while you are living it.
Coffee is that wonderful drink that calms the soul—without calming you so much that you wake up the next morning with your best friend asking, “Do you remember what you did last night?”
Drink coffee. Lots of coffee. Your reputation may depend on it. ☕
And then there are mornings when you wrap both hands around the cup because you need something steady to hold.
This is one of those mornings.
Today, we are taking Mom home.
Before we reach Binger, I want her final journey to pass through some of the places that belong to our family’s story.
Marjorie Groff at the Homestead
We will travel near Sentinel, Oklahoma, past the country where her parents made their home in the 1930s.
Then we will continue toward Cordell.
That’s where I was born.
I find something deeply meaningful about carrying my mother past the place where she once carried me. While raising my sister. Along with other other siblings.
Then we will travel east toward Binger.
There, at Binger Murray Cemetery, my mother will finally be laid to rest beside my father, JD Groff.
For so many years, they traveled through life together. They raised a family. They worked. They struggled. They laughed. They disagreed. They grew older.
But their lives became part of ours, and whatever else can be said about the years behind us, one truth remains:
They were Mom and Dad.
Today, Steve will be beside me. Otis will have completed his special assignment. Family and friends will gather. Words will be spoken. Memories will be shared.
And eventually there will come a moment when there is nothing left for me to do except say goodbye.
Or perhaps not goodbye.
Maybe simply:
We got you here, Mom.
You’re home.
This morning’s coffee is for everyone who has ever had to make that final journey with someone they love.
Drink it slowly.
Remember them well.
And when the time comes, let them go with love.
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.
— Benjamin Groff II Morning Coffee at benandsteve.com
“We are remembering our mother over coffee this year. It is her first birthday since she has been gone—the first birthday we have not been able to celebrate with her. But we will celebrate her, remembering the life she lived and the memories she left behind.”
Yesterday, Steve and I carried my mother across the miles, with Otis faithfully keeping watch beside her. Somewhere along the way, the landscape began changing into something familiar.
Home.
It’s an interesting word, isn’t it?
We spend much of our lives deciding where home is. We move. We build lives elsewhere. We find people we love and create new homes with them. Yet there are places buried so deeply within us that merely seeing the countryside can awaken memories we didn’t realize were still there.
Today, Mom rests in Elk City.
It is a town woven into Steve’s and my story because this is where we met in 1982. We couldn’t have known then where the road ahead would take us.
And we certainly couldn’t have imagined that more than forty years later we would return together carrying my mother on the final miles of her journey.
Tomorrow will be different.
Tomorrow we will travel through country filled with family history.
We will take Mom near Sentinel, past the land where her parents made their home during the 1930s. We will continue toward Cordell, where my own story began, and then east toward Binger—the community where so much of our family’s life unfolded.
Tomorrow, my mother’s journey ends beside my father.
But not today.
Today is for remembering.
Today is for another cup of coffee, another Oklahoma morning, and the realization that sometimes going home isn’t about returning to a house.
Sometimes it is simply about returning to the people and places that made us who we are.
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.
— Benjamin Groff II Morning Coffee at benandsteve.com
Don’t decide how the day will end before it has even begun. This morning’s coffee is a reminder to move yesterday’s worries over and leave a little room at the table for something good.
Before our feet touch the floor, we are thinking about yesterday’s problems, today’s responsibilities, and tomorrow’s worries.
Then we pour the coffee and carry all of them to the table with us.
That is quite a crowd for so early in the morning.
I wonder how many good things we miss because we have already decided what kind of day we are going to have.
We tell ourselves the meeting will be difficult.
The person won’t call.
The answer will be no.
Traffic will be terrible.
Something will probably go wrong.
And sometimes we’re right.
But not always.
Every now and then, life surprises us.
The telephone rings, and it is someone we have been thinking about.
A stranger holds the door and smiles.
Someone says something kind when we need to hear it most.
A problem we have worried about for days works itself out with surprisingly little trouble.
Or maybe nothing dramatic happens at all.
Maybe the sun simply comes through the kitchen window at just the right angle, the coffee tastes especially good, and for a few minutes everything feels all right with the world.
Those little moments count too.
We cannot control everything waiting for us today. There will always be things we would rather avoid and circumstances we cannot change.
But we can leave a little room for the possibility that something good might happen.
Hope doesn’t require us to pretend that difficulties don’t exist.
It simply asks us not to decide the ending before the day has had a chance to begin.
So while you’re sitting there with your coffee this morning, move yesterday’s worries over just a little bit.
You don’t have to throw them away.
Just don’t give them the whole table.
Save an empty chair for something unexpected.
Leave a little room for laughter.
Leave a little room for kindness.
Leave a little room for somebody to surprise you.
And most of all, leave a little room for something good.
Because this day hasn’t happened before.
You don’t know everything it is bringing with it.
Don’t let yesterday convince you that you already know how today will end.
Now take another sip.
Morning has only just arrived.
Let’s give it a chance.
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.
— Benjamin Groff II Morning Coffee at benandsteve.com
Pour yourself a cup of coffee, settle into your favorite chair, and let’s spend a few quiet moments together.
Every day, we carry a little something forward from yesterday.
Sometimes it’s a worry we should have left behind. Sometimes it’s a wonderful memory we hope never to lose. And sometimes it’s something another person gave us without even realizing it—a kind word, a little encouragement, or simply the feeling that somebody cared.
We carry those things with us.
That’s worth remembering today because you may be the person who gives someone else something good to carry into tomorrow.
A smile costs nothing. Neither does listening for another minute when someone needs to talk. A few words of encouragement may seem small when we offer them, but to the person receiving them, they might be exactly what was needed.
So while you’re finishing your coffee this morning, think about what you’d like to leave behind when today is over.
Leave a little kindness.
Leave someone smiling.
Leave somebody feeling a little better because your paths happened to cross.
We don’t always get to choose what tomorrow brings, but we can choose what goodness we send ahead to meet it.
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.
— Benjamin Groff II Morning Coffee at benandsteve.com
– The Day The Music Died – These days… The coffee is often poured into insulated cups. The lids go on before the first sip. People carry it out the door. The kitchen grows quiet almost as quickly as it filled with the smell of fresh coffee. The coffee pot doesn’t mind traveling mugs. It simply misses the moments that stayed behind…
The familiar aroma still drifts through the kitchen.
Morning still arrives.
But the conversations…
They’ve become shorter.
There was a time when no one hurried to finish the first cup.
Neighbors stopped by “for just a minute.”
That minute often became an hour.
Someone would refill a mug without asking.
Another chair would be pulled up to the table.
No one seemed to mind.
The coffee pot certainly didn’t.
It knew another story was about to begin.
It remembers laughter that echoed through the kitchen.
Children interrupting grown-up conversations.
Grandparents telling stories for the hundredth time.
No one complained.
Someone always wanted to hear them again.
The coffee pot listened quietly.
It learned that stories weren’t really about yesterday.
They were gifts for tomorrow.
These days…
The coffee is often poured into insulated cups.
The lids go on before the first sip.
People carry it out the door.
The kitchen grows quiet almost as quickly as it filled with the smell of fresh coffee.
The coffee pot doesn’t mind traveling mugs.
It simply misses the moments that stayed behind.
It wonders…
When did we become too busy for one another?
A warm cup has never solved every problem.
But it has softened many difficult conversations.
It has welcomed strangers.
Comforted grieving friends.
Celebrated new beginnings.
And quietly reminded people that someone cared enough to sit down beside them.
Perhaps that was the real purpose of the coffee.
The coffee pot has discovered something after all these years.
People rarely remember how good the coffee tasted.
They remember who shared it with them.
Closing Thought
Life isn’t measured by how quickly we finish the cup.
It’s measured by who was sitting across the table.
Look around your home. Every ordinary thing has a story. Sometimes, it’s really about us.
