Steve and Ben

A mention of Stevie Nicks took me from an Oklahoma peanut field before sunrise to three Fleetwood Mac concerts with Steve. Funny what a song can bring back.

October 4, 2026

Good morning, folks!

Recently, I read a piece on KikiFikar’s blog about family, texting, and Fleetwood Mac. One mention of Stevie Nicks sent me somewhere I hadn’t expected to go: back to an Oklahoma peanut field before sunrise.

Weathered vintage car with a vinyl record on its hood beside a country road — **You Can Go Your Own Way…**

Memory is a curious thing. Some days, a word I need won’t come when I call for it. Someone can ask me about an event I was part of, and I’ll have trouble finding it in my head. Then a song comes along, opens a door, and there I am, riding out to work with my brother-in-law and KOMA playing on the radio.

They played Fleetwood Mac and Elton John. I especially remember “Bennie and the Jets.” At that hour, I thought the music was moving a lot faster than I was. The sun wasn’t up yet. Some mornings, it seemed the moon had barely finished its own shift.

We were headed to the peanut fields to move irrigation pipe. I mean the kind you picked up and carried, section by section, across the length of a field. And yes, fields is plural. We didn’t have farmhands, unless you counted the ones at the ends of our arms. Those hands also hauled hay, fed cattle, trained horses, and built fence.

When the temperature climbed past 100, those same hands became very interested in holding a fishing pole. We called it bottom fishing. Whether we caught anything or not, sitting near the water sounded better than moving pipe.

Years later, Fleetwood Mac found its way back into my life through Steve.

When we moved to Phoenix in 2002, I made the mistake of telling him I’d heard Stevie Nicks had been spotted filling her car near one of my offices. From then on, my commute came with an assignment: report any Stevie sightings.

After enough days of having nothing to report, I told him she probably wore disguises. I may have added that I’d heard she dressed like a witch. Steve did not appreciate my investigative work.

To make up for it, I accompanied him to three Fleetwood Mac concerts. One gave me such a migraine that we stopped on the way home and bought what felt like the convenience store’s entire supply of pain relievers. At another, we took my cousin, who had enjoyed himself quite a bit before the show began and made sure everyone around us knew he was there. I think I enjoyed that concert most of all.

The surprising part is that, years before Steve met me, he would have been standing outside a Stevie Nicks concert. His grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, and Steve took what he’d been taught seriously. As a young man, he believed Stevie was a witch and Fleetwood Mac was evil. He once went to the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman with a Bible and a sign to protest one of her concerts.

I still find it remarkable that the young man outside the venue grew into the man beside me, hoping I might spot Stevie at a gas station. When he tells that story now, it reminds me how much a person can change. By the time we met, he had already begun finding his own way. We’ve both kept at it ever since.

So KikiFikar’s piece gave me more than a Fleetwood Mac memory. It brought back a dark drive to the peanut fields, my brother-in-law’s radio, a concert migraine, my cousin having the time of his life, and a younger Steve I never knew.

If a song takes you somewhere this morning, let it play. You might remember a person you miss, a day you can laugh about now, or just how far you’ve come since you first heard it. I’ll raise my coffee to that—and to whatever song KOMA was playing while we carried that last piece of pipe.

Some places hold more than memories—they hold the names of people who helped make us who we are. This morning in Elk City, Oklahoma, Steve and I spend a little time with family, remember those who came before us, and reflect on the place where our story together began nearly forty-four years ago.

August 20, 2026

By Benjamin Groff II GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | ©2026

There is something different about having your morning coffee in a place that already knows so much of your story.

This morning, Steve and I should be waking up in Elk City, Oklahoma.

Couple walking with a cat past an Oklahoma farm at sunset — A couple walks home along a farm road as the sun sets over rural Oklahoma.

We thought yesterday’s miles would be behind us for a little while. Mom would have made the journey with us from Arizona, across New Mexico and Texas, and back into Oklahoma, with Otis faithfully carrying out his special assignment of watching over her along the way. Today, however, we aren’t quite there yet. We stopped in Tucumcari—the roadside signs finally got us. Tucumcari tonight! If you’ve ever traveled Route 66 or Interstate 40, you know what I am talking about. We thought we would give Mother one more night in a Best Western.

Today we will hurry on our way just as soon as Steve reloads the car so the weight is properly distributed. If you have seen those television advertisements about “becoming your parents,” they are so true—especially when I watch the things my husband does!

My sister Twila will be waiting for us, along with my niece Amanda, her son Trysen, and other family members and friends. I sent a message last night saying we were on our way, and that the reason for arriving a day behind schedule was “due to our late mother.” I don’t know if they picked up on the play on words. It was what my dad claimed anytime we were late to a family function, and I was hoping someone would catch it.

Some of these family members we haven’t seen in a while. There will undoubtedly be stories told that everyone has heard before—and hopefully a few that somebody has forgotten.

Those are usually the best ones.

Once we arrive, we will probably be escorted through local cemeteries. I know that might sound like a strange way to spend part of a day, but I have never thought of cemeteries as entirely sad places. There is sadness there, certainly. But there is also history.

There are names carved into stones that once belonged to voices. There are dates representing entire lifetimes squeezed between a beginning and an ending. Behind those names are people who worked, worried, laughed, argued, raised families, paid bills, celebrated birthdays, sat around kitchen tables—and probably drank their share of morning coffee.

Some of those names belong to people we loved.

Years ago, Steve and I began our life together here in Elk City. In October of 1982, neither of us could possibly have known just how long the road ahead would be. We couldn’t have imagined all the places it would take us, the people we would meet, the homes we would make, or the memories we would collect. Yet here we are, nearly forty-four years later, back where so much of our story began.

And someday, when our travels are finally finished, this is where we have arranged to return. Steve and I have made arrangements to be laid to rest here in Elk City, so while we’re in town, we’ll check on our cemetery plots and make sure everything is squared away with the cemetery authorities.

That isn’t something I find particularly gloomy. Actually, I find a certain peace in it.

There is something comforting about knowing where the road eventually leads—not because you’re anxious to reach the destination, but because it allows you to spend less time worrying about the ending and more time enjoying everything between here and there. And Steve and I still have plenty of road ahead of us.

For now, there are people to visit. There are stories to tell. There are graves where we may stand quietly for a moment and remember. And there is my mother, traveling with us toward the place where, in two days, she will finally be laid beside my father.

Perhaps that is what today is really about. Coming home. Mom is coming home.

Steve and I have come back to the town where our life together began, surrounded by generations of people whose lives helped make ours possible.

This morning, I’ll raise my coffee cup to all of them—the ones sitting around the table with us and the ones whose chairs have been empty for many years. Because family isn’t measured only by who can still answer when you call their name. Sometimes family is measured by the names we refuse to forget.

And maybe that’s one of the reasons we visit old cemeteries. We aren’t visiting death. We’re visiting lives.

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