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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
A memorial holds meaning beyond its concrete, marble, steel and glass. Its name tells future generations whom a nation chose to remember. Its halls preserve music, theater, ceremony and shared experience.
In my 63 years, America has traveled an extraordinary distance. Yet some shadows seem to follow us from one generation into another.
This mornings coffee is going to be layered. Get ready.
I was born in 1963, during the Kennedy presidency. His assassination belongs to the beginning of my life, even though it lies beyond my earliest memories. For Americans old enough to remember November 22 of that year, the news from Dallas became a dividing line: before, and after.
The Kennedy years had already brought their share of danger. In April 1961, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion—developed under the Eisenhower administration and authorized by Kennedy—became one of his earliest foreign-policy crises.
Then came Dallas.
Questions involving the Soviet Union quickly became part of the national conversation. Lee Harvey Oswald had lived there, married a Russian woman and visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City shortly before the assassination.
Those circumstances fed suspicion. Official investigations, however, did not establish Soviet involvement. The Warren Commission found no evidence that a foreign government had employed or encouraged Oswald to assassinate Kennedy. The House Select Committee on Assassinations later concluded, on the evidence available to it, that the Soviet government was not involved.
Still, the suspicion never entirely disappeared from the American imagination.
And America continued through a succession of moments that once seemed unimaginable.
On March 31, 1968, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced that he would neither seek nor accept his party’s nomination for another term. The Vietnam War consumed the nation, and political divisions continued to deepen.
That June, Robert Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Vietnam stretched across presidencies, taking American lives and leaving divisions that remained long after the troops came home.
Then came Watergate.
Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, as impeachment proceedings advanced against him. On September 8, President Gerald Ford granted him a pardon for federal offenses committed or potentially committed during his presidency.
The country moved forward, carrying another argument about power and accountability.
Then came the Iran hostage crisis.
Fifty-two Americans endured 444 days of captivity following the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Negotiations during the Carter administration produced the agreement securing their freedom. They were released on January 20, 1981, as Carter left office and Ronald Reagan became president.
During Reagan’s presidency came Iran-Contra: secret weapons sales to Iran and the diversion of proceeds to support the Contras in Nicaragua. Reagan initially denied trading arms for hostages, but later acknowledged that the initiative had deteriorated into precisely that.
Under George H. W. Bush, America went to war in the Persian Gulf after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
During the Clinton years, we witnessed the deadly conclusion of the Branch Davidian standoff near Waco, Texas.
Alfred P. Murrah Building Okc, Oklahoma.
Two years later, Timothy McVeigh, aided by Terry Nichols, carried out the Oklahoma City bombing. The attack killed 168 people, including 19 children. It remains the deadliest act of homegrown terrorism in American history.
Then came September 11, 2001.
During George W. Bush’s presidency, nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in attacks that changed the country and the world.
A decade later, during the Obama administration, U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden.
And still America continued.
Donald Trump became the 45th president. Joe Biden followed as the 46th. Trump returned as the 47th.
Russia again became entangled in an American presidency, under circumstances very different from the suspicions surrounding Kennedy’s assassination.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, an assessment upheld by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee. The Mueller investigation documented numerous campaign contacts involving Russia, but did not establish that Trump campaign members conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.
These episodes do not establish a common conspiracy. They show how questions of foreign influence, presidential power and public trust can echo across generations.
Then, on July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents have absolute criminal immunity for conduct within their exclusive constitutional authority and at least presumptive immunity for other official acts. Unofficial acts receive no presidential immunity. The decision reshaped the legal boundaries of presidential accountability.
Now we find ourselves back at the Kennedy name.
Congress designated the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as a living memorial in 1964. In September 2026, a federal judge again blocked efforts to add Trump’s name without congressional authorization. The board then voted for an extended renovation closure. Trump said repairs would depend on approval of the naming proposal.
Management separately cited structural safety concerns for a temporary closure, while the board’s renovation decision remained under court scrutiny.
The dispute widened further when a judge required advance notice before demolition and bipartisan lawmakers proposed legislation requiring congressional approval before a presidential memorial could be demolished. As of October 2, that proposal had not become law. These developments do not establish that demolition has begun, but they give the question of preservation immediate importance.
For me, that brings these years into an unsettling circle.
A presidency ended in Dallas. A cultural institution was later dedicated to keeping that president’s memory alive.
Nearly 63 years after his death, Americans are arguing over what can be done to that memorial, whose name it may carry and who has the authority to decide.
A memorial holds meaning beyond its concrete, marble, steel and glass. Its name tells future generations whom a nation chose to remember. Its halls preserve music, theater, ceremony and shared experience.
Repairs deserve careful attention. So do the laws and public responsibilities attached to the place being repaired.
Who decides what name a national memorial carries?
How much authority should a sitting president have to reshape an institution dedicated by Congress to another?
And when does renovation become reinvention?
Those questions reach beyond the Kennedy Center.
Across my lifetime, I have watched presidents come and go, wars begin and end, and scandals shake institutions that once seemed beyond question. The country has endured pressures that appeared capable of breaking it.
Survival, however, does not settle every question. We must still decide what we carry forward.
Some things belong to the American people across generations. Each administration inherits responsibility for them. Each generation receives something it did not build alone.
That inheritance asks something of us.
What parts are ours to change—and what parts have we been entrusted to preserve for those who come after us?
His name survived on schools, highways, airports, a space center and one of America’s most important cultural institutions.
That is why the argument over the Kennedy Center reaches beyond performance halls and construction plans. It concerns the care we give to a memory entrusted to us.
Kennedy’s coffin was closed nearly 63 years ago.
The more unsettling question is what we will preserve of the legacy that remained above ground.
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.”
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 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.
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.
Some of the most important people in our lives rarely receive a standing ovation.
A diverse group gathers for a thoughtful conversation among the library shelves.
They don’t make speeches.
They don’t arrive with trumpets sounding.
Most of the time, they simply show up.
They are the person who notices when your voice sounds different on the telephone.
The neighbor who brings your trash container back toward the house.
The friend who sends a message saying, “Just checking on you.”
The coworker who quietly finishes something because they know you’ve had a difficult day.
The family member who has heard the same story many times but listens again anyway.
These are not spectacular acts when measured individually.
But life is not held together entirely by spectacular acts.
It is held together by thousands of small ones.
We remember the people who were there when everything fell apart because their presence became part of the memory itself. Years later, we may forget exactly what they said, but we remember that they stayed.
There is tremendous comfort in knowing somebody stayed.
Sometimes that is all a person needs.
Not advice.
Not a solution.
Not someone trying to explain why everything will eventually be fine.
Just someone willing to sit beside them long enough for the world to become manageable again.
We often underestimate the value of our own presence for the same reason.
We think helping someone requires something remarkable.
Usually, it doesn’t.
A cup of coffee across the kitchen table can help.
A five-minute telephone call can help.
Remembering somebody’s birthday can help.
Asking, “How are you doing?” and actually waiting for the answer can help.
The ordinary kindnesses are rarely ordinary to the person who needed them.
So while you are having your coffee this morning, think about the people who quietly helped hold your world together at different times in your life.
Some may still be here.
Some may have already gone on.
Some may never have known how much their small kindness meant.
And then consider this:
You may be that person for somebody else today.
You might never know it.
That is the interesting thing about kindness. We rarely know how far it travels after it leaves our hands.
So make the call.
Send the message.
Hold the door.
Listen to the story.
Stay a few minutes longer.
The world has enough people trying to make grand impressions.
What it desperately needs are more people willing to make small differences.
It doesn’t always feel that way, of course. Monday has developed a reputation for being the day nobody particularly wants to see coming. The alarm seems louder, the bed feels more comfortable, and that first cup of coffee often carries considerably more responsibility than coffee should ever be expected to handle.
But perhaps Monday deserves another look.
Monday is another beginning.
Whatever went wrong last week has already happened. Whatever we didn’t finish is waiting for another attempt. The words we wish we had said differently cannot be pulled back, but the next words out of our mouths can be kinder.
Life gives us remarkably few opportunities to change yesterday.
It gives us countless opportunities to change today.
That is worth remembering as we sit with our coffee this morning.
Maybe you have been carrying something around that has become heavier than it needs to be. A disagreement. A disappointment. An unfinished task. Something you have been putting off because beginning it seems harder than continuing to avoid it.
Monday may be as good a day as any to set it down, straighten it out, or simply begin again.
You don’t have to repair your entire life before lunch.
Sometimes progress is nothing more dramatic than making the phone call, answering the message, washing the dishes, opening the curtains, or finally taking the first step toward something you have been thinking about for weeks.
Small beginnings still count.
We tend to celebrate the grand accomplishments because they are easy to see. But nearly every great accomplishment started somewhere very ordinary—with someone deciding, on an otherwise unremarkable morning, that today they would try.
Perhaps that is Monday’s real gift.
It arrives whether we are ready for it or not and quietly places another blank page in front of us.
So pour the coffee.
Take your time with the first few sips.
Then decide what deserves another chance today.
It might be a project.
It might be a relationship.
It might simply be you.
Whatever it is, remember this: starting over does not mean you failed.
Sometimes it simply means you learned enough from yesterday to approach today differently.
And that sounds like a pretty good reason to raise the coffee cup.
Have a wonderful Monday, and make something good out of the day in front of you.
Every morning gives us another opportunity to decide what we will carry into the day. We may not control everything that happens, but we can still choose kindness, patience and the small acts that make an ordinary day a little better.
The house may still be quiet. The day may not have completely decided what it intends to become. For a few minutes, there is only the warmth of the cup in our hands and the opportunity to decide what we are going to carry with us into the hours ahead.
And we do carry things.
We carry yesterday’s disappointments. We carry conversations we wish had gone differently. We carry worries about tomorrow, people we love, bills that need paying, decisions that need making, and questions for which we still have no answers.
But we also carry something else.
We carry kindness.
We carry the memory of someone who once helped us when they didn’t have to. We carry the laughter of people who have shared our table. We carry lessons taught to us by parents, grandparents, friends and sometimes complete strangers who crossed our path only briefly.
Perhaps one of the greatest choices we make every morning is deciding which of those things deserves the most room.
There will always be something to worry about. There will always be someone determined to spoil a perfectly good day. And there will always be circumstances beyond our control.
But we still get to decide what we contribute.
A wooden park sign shares a heartfelt reminder to treat others with kindness.
A kind word costs very little.
Holding a door takes only a moment.
Calling someone who has been on your mind might change their entire afternoon.
And sometimes simply listening to another person without trying to correct them, hurry them or outdo their story is one of the finest gifts we can give.
None of these things will make the evening news.
There won’t be a parade.
Nobody is likely to hand us a trophy for being decent to another human being.
But those small acts have a way of traveling farther than we ever realize.
So this morning, while the coffee is still warm, perhaps we can leave a little room in the day for something good.
We don’t have to change the whole world before lunchtime.
Changing one person’s moment might be enough.
And sometimes, without ever knowing it, that person may be us.
Have a great day from benandsteve.com — and may your coffee be warm, your worries be light, and the kindness you send into the world find its way back home.
Be kind to others, it is really the right thing to do.
Not every day needs to be extraordinary to be meaningful. Sometimes the moments we barely notice—a warm cup of coffee, a familiar voice, or a quiet morning at home—become the memories we treasure most.
Sunday coffee has a way of slowing the world down. Sometimes the best thing we can do before another week begins is sit quietly, sip slowly, and remember how much there still is to be thankful for.
I don’t know that there is anything scientific behind that statement. The beans are the same. The water comes from the same faucet. The coffee pot certainly hasn’t learned what day of the week it is.
But somehow, Sunday morning coffee knows.
It knows there is no reason to rush.
The coffee pot can sit there on the counter and quietly do its job while the rest of the house slowly decides whether it is ready to join the day.
There are mornings when coffee is practically a piece of emergency equipment. You pour it while looking at the clock, searching for your keys, wondering where you left your glasses, and trying to remember whatever important thing you promised yourself the night before that you absolutely would not forget.
Sunday coffee doesn’t seem interested in any of that.
Sunday coffee says, Sit down.
The world will still be there in ten minutes.
Maybe that is one of the little gifts we have forgotten how to appreciate.
I often find myself reflecting on the Sundays of my childhood, especially those quiet early mornings when only my father and I were awake.
The test pattern had just disappeared from our black-and-white television, and the first program of the morning was the children’s show Davey and Goliath. It was followed by a gospel music program featuring the Florida Boys. I enjoyed both, although the second one was certainly aimed more toward my dad’s age group than mine.
When the gospel program ended, Dad would usually look at me and say, “Let’s go.”
Most Sundays, he already had a few sacks of groceries packed and ready to deliver around the southwest part of town, where much of Binger’s Black community lived. We had chickens—hundreds of them, at least it seemed that way to me as a child—along with cattle and pigs. My father shared what we had with people he believed truly needed it.
As we made those rounds, he would sometimes give me one of his little lessons.
“You don’t see a single one of them getting commodities at City Hall when they’re handing them out,” he would say. “Nope. It’s all these fine-to-do white people.”
There was always just a little preaching mixed into his words.
Even at that young age, I understood what he was showing me. I had already begun to recognize the hypocrisy he was talking about—the difference between what people said about others and what was actually taking place right in front of us.
Once our morning deliveries were finished, we would stop and buy the Sunday newspaper from the sidewalk vending machine. Dad would toss it into the pickup, and then we would head for the only café in town open on Sunday morning.
That was where Dad gathered what I now jokingly call his weekly community intelligence.
He listened.
He visited.
He heard who was doing what, who was upset with whom, whose crops were doing well, whose family was having trouble, and whatever else happened to be making its way through town that morning. Then, during the following week, he could use that information to maneuver his way through conversations in the barbershop.
And I had my own use for it.
Come Monday morning, I could walk onto the school playground and tell my classmates what I had heard their neighbors talking about over Sunday breakfast.
For a kid with a speech impediment, having a little inside information turned out to be a surprisingly useful way to keep a conversation going.
We spend so much of our lives preparing for the next thing that we sometimes fail to notice the thing we are living right now.
The coffee pot understands none of this, of course.
It simply sits there.
A little steam rises.
The kitchen begins to smell familiar.
A cup gets filled.
And for a few moments, nothing else is required of us.
There was a time when Sundays seemed almost designed around slowing down. Stores opened later. Families gathered for dinner. Church bells rang. Newspapers were thicker. People sat on porches longer.
Even the telephone seemed to understand that Sunday morning was not the appropriate time to cause trouble.
Today, the world rarely takes a day off.
Our phones buzz.
The news keeps moving.
Someone somewhere desperately wants us to know about a sale ending at midnight.
But the old coffee pot still offers the same invitation it always has.
Stay awhile.
Listen to the quiet.
Think about the people you love.
Remember the ones who once sat across the table from you.
Be thankful for those who still do.
And maybe leave a little room in your day for absolutely nothing important at all.
Because sometimes doing nothing important is exactly what the soul needs.
So this Sunday morning, pour another cup.
Let the coffee pot keep warm whatever is left behind.
And before you hurry into another week, give yourself permission to sit quietly with the life you already have.
It may not be perfect.
It may not always be easy.
But somewhere between the first sip and the bottom of the cup, you might discover there is still quite a bit worth being thankful for.
Have a wonderful Sunday from benandsteve.com — and may your coffee be hot, your morning be peaceful, and nobody ask you to do anything important until at least the second cup.
Coming home after a long journey does not always mean our hearts have caught up with us. Sometimes the ordinary things waiting at home—a cup of coffee, a familiar chair, a loved one nearby—remind us just how precious everyday life really is.
There is something strange about coming home after a long journey.
You walk through the same door. You set your things down in familiar places. The coffee pot is sitting where you left it. The dog seems perfectly satisfied that everyone has finally returned to where they belong.
Everything looks normal.
But somehow, you aren’t quite the same person who walked out that door.
Over the past several days, Steve and I traveled roads filled with memories. We saw family, visited familiar places, said goodbye to my mother in Oklahoma, and then pointed ourselves west and began the long journey home.
Now the suitcases are being emptied.
The laundry is finding its way into the washing machine.
The mail is being sorted.
The refrigerator is reminding us that apparently groceries do not magically restock themselves while you’re gone.
And slowly, ordinary life begins again.
But I’ve been thinking about something this morning.
Maybe ordinary life doesn’t really begin again.
Maybe it simply waits for us.
The coffee cup waits in the cupboard.
The chair waits beside the table.
The neighbor still waves.
The morning sun still comes through the window at approximately the same angle it did before we left.
And somewhere in all those ordinary things is a quiet invitation:
Come back when you’re ready.
Grief and memory have their own timetable. They don’t care much about schedules, calendars, appointments, or the number of miles between Oklahoma and Arizona.
You can unpack the suitcase long before you’ve unpacked everything you carried home inside your heart.
And that’s all right.
There is no requirement that we immediately return to being exactly who we were before we left.
Life changes us.
Goodbyes change us.
Reunions change us.
Standing in a cemetery surrounded by people who cared enough to simply show up changes us.
And sometimes a long stretch of highway gives us enough quiet to realize just how much.
So this morning, I am not asking much from the day.
I have coffee.
I have Steve.
I have Otis nearby, undoubtedly supervising everything and making certain no suspicious delivery trucks invade the neighborhood.
And I have another morning.
For today, that is enough.
Perhaps that is one of the lessons we miss when life becomes too busy.
We spend so much time looking for the extraordinary that we forget how precious the ordinary really is.
A cup of coffee.
Someone sitting across the room.
A familiar voice.
A dog sleeping nearby.
A home waiting at the end of the road.
And another sunrise giving us one more opportunity to love the people around us a little better than we did yesterday.
The road has finally grown quiet.
And this morning, I think I’ll simply sit here for a while and listen to it.
Have a wonderful Friday, my friends.
Pour another cup if you need one.
Sometimes the best thing we can do after a long journey is remember how good it feels to be home.
Have a Great Day from benandsteve.com — and remember, sometimes the ordinary things waiting for us at home are among life’s greatest blessings.
Sometimes we convince ourselves that before we can move forward, everything has to be settled.
The house needs to be in order. The worries need to disappear. Yesterday’s problems need to be resolved, and tomorrow needs to make a little more sense.
Life rarely cooperates that neatly.
Most new beginnings happen while something else is still unfinished. We learn to take the next step while carrying a few unanswered questions with us.
Maybe that’s okay.
This morning doesn’t require you to have everything figured out. It only asks you to begin where you are—with the strength you have, the wisdom you’ve gained, and perhaps a warm cup of coffee in your hand.
Do one good thing. Say one kind word. Take one small step toward something that matters.
That is enough to get a day started.
You don’t need the whole road mapped out this morning. Just have faith enough to take the next step—the road will reveal itself as you go.
Until tomorrow, may your coffee stay warm, your memories stay close, and your hope stay strong.
— Benjamin Groff II Morning Coffee at benandsteve.com
