All's Well That Ends Well

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote because.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
You were the TV remote.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Remember when music sounded like this, Remember when social media
was truly social?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today? Well, this show is
all about you on the good die.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
This is fifty plus with Doug Pipe. Helpful information on
your finances, good health, and what to do for fun.
Fifty plus brought to you by the UT Health Houston
Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for a healthier, happier life,
and by New Promise Neuropathy Lose the Pain and Numbness,

(00:45):
Get your Life back, New Promise Neiropathy dot Com and
now fifty plus.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
With Doug Pipe. Welcome one and all to this Tuesday
edition of fifty plus, and thank you all for listening.
If you're wondering about the forecasts, it's pretty much the
same as it's been for a week at least, I
would say, and maybe even more. There's still a good
chance of some thunderstorms today here, there, and almost everywhere

(01:13):
or nowhere, depending on where you are. These things pop
up in the afternoons the way the atmosphere churns and
chugs and goes from one extreme to the other. But
we never really know what we're gonna get until we
get it. Sometimes it looks like it's gonna rain, it
threatens rain, there's thunder, there's lightning, dark clouds, and then

(01:35):
they just part and the sun pops back out. Other
times the sky looks really good, so you try to
go do a little fishing or maybe hit a few
golf balls, and as soon as you get there and
walk onto the range or step up to the lakeside,
it pours. That's more of a personal observation than a
general one, but you get my drift. The bottom line

(01:55):
this time of year really is that you just go
ahead and make your plans and unless you actually see
rain falling on your driveway and can confirm that it's
also raining at the place you want to go to
do something outside, and just go ahead and go. The
good news Now though, nowadays we've got the weather Channel,
we've got all these different radar apps that we can

(02:17):
check with to find out exactly what's happening wherever it
is we want to be, And that really has has
kept me from getting my head doused many times, or
on the flip side of that, it's kept me from
canceling plans. It might be raining, cats and dogs at
my house. But I'll look at the weather app and
see that where I want to go looks pretty dog

(02:38):
gone clear, and the trend is for it to stay
clear for at least another two hours, three hours, six hours,
whatever it is, depending on where I'm going. I've lived
in this area a very long time, decades, and I've
come to learn that if you don't like the weather
right here, right now in Houston, all you got to
do is wait fifteen twenty minutes and it's going to check.

(03:00):
It'll still be hot and humid. Don't worry about that changing,
but at least it might stop raining, or it might
start raining, depending on what the what the current conditions are.
I don't know of a whole lot of places on
the planet where you can have an absolutely clear sky
and walk out your back door to go to the
go to the car on the driveway and see water

(03:22):
on the on the ground on the concrete patio. I'm
thinking of my own house. There's water on the patio
from all of the condensation from the humidity in the
air that has gathered on the roof and gotten so
heavy that it tumbles as little droplets down the roof
and over the side and onto the patio. Not a

(03:43):
cloud in the sky, but it's wet all over the patio.
And that's that's enough about the weather. So stepping into
what's going on in Iran still is it's driving me crazy,
and I know it's driving most everybody in this country crazy,
up to and including the President of the United States.
That big, big surprise, Iran keeps backing off of all

(04:05):
the things that's promised it was gonna do and then
doing just the opposite. The ceasefire that we had in
place for a relatively well, relatively short time really has
fallen apart completely now, and all because of the aggressive
military actions that Iran's taking in the Persian Gulf. They
pinky swore that they were going to reopen that straight

(04:26):
of horror moves and not charge any tolls to go
through there, and then all of a sudden, you blink
once and they're firing missiles at ships going through the strait.
We retaliated, of course, and knocked out eighty something targets
when they did that, all military targets too. We're still
not not doing anything to their civilian infrastructure, and I'm

(04:47):
glad for that. I really am. I don't think the
people over there, when you see the video from over there,
all these people in the streets and chanting death to
America and whatnot, look at that as not necessarily the
majority of Iranians. And I hope I'm right, because I
believe that most of them would love for this war

(05:09):
to be over and for that entire regime to be
toppled and replaced. Iran hasn't been run by a bunch
of maniacs for a very long time, but the problem
is that they have instilled so much fear in the
Iranian people. And I would be scared too if I
looked up and saw people who have done relatively minor

(05:31):
things against their rules and they wind up being beheaded
or otherwise executed or put in prison for the rest
of their lives. It's just barbaric what these people do.
And I just can't help but believe that the majority
of Iranians, the majority of them, would rather return to
a very peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world.

(05:54):
A very enlightened viewpoint on what women can and cannot
do in public. It never ceases to stagger me that
some of the women here in our country are rooting
for the bad guys essentially over there, and totally ignoring
even when they're told what's being done to women in
that country. For the least little infractions, they get beat,

(06:18):
they get executed, and it's just it's horrific. But women
over here, lots of them, still think that we should
back out and leave them alone somehow, and that is
that's just not a good idea. You just can't trust
those people. You can't trust the leaders anyway. They're already
said to be rebuilding their nuclear enhancement capability, and that

(06:40):
I think will be will be the end of our
playing nice with them. The truce is over, and our
president has taken a very firm stance and let the
world know that he is going to protect American forces
and protect global trade routes with very decisive action. And
that action's coming up pretty fast on those Iran is,
whether they realize it or not. And I think this,

(07:02):
honestly is a very very necessary shift away from past
policies of appeasement that just never held Iran accountable to anything.
I'll take a deep breath now, let me just relax
a little bit, and I want to tell you about
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and there's another one that's gonna open. What that one's
actually up on student or airline, And there's going to

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(08:07):
to feeling better and being able to do things you've
always wanted to do but haven't been able to for years.
New Promised Neuropathy dot Com is the website New Promised
Neuropathy dot com. All right, welcome back to fifty plus
and thanks, as always for listening on this Tuesday afternoon.
I genuinely appreciate it, and feel free to email me

(08:29):
anytime you might have a new segment that you'd like
to hear about some subject that you don't think we've
ever discussed. There actually are more than a thousand podcast episodes.
You can scroll through sometime to see if we have
covered it, or you can just ask me to cover
it again. I'm glad to do that. Just let me
know what it is you want to hear about, and
then I'll try to help get that done. I have

(08:51):
good access to a lot of efforts, not efforts, a
lot of experts in a lot of fields, and I
am happy to tap those sources so that we can
get some solid interviews in here anytime you want. That
email address, by the way, is very simple, Dugpike at
iHeartMedia dot com. So this past week, a big bipartisan

(09:11):
housing bill became law despite President Trump's decision not to
sign it. The bill passed through both Houses of Congress
with very wide veto proof majorities, and that's kind of
reflective of a rare agreement really between Republicans and Democrats
on how to handle the country's housing supply shortages. Now

(09:31):
quick sidebar to that if any more of these socialists
get into power, I suspect that their idea of fair
and better housing affordability might be different than what's in
this bill. Meanwhile, White House officials called that bill a
historic step toward forward toward for American families, while the
President just he let it pass without his formal signature

(09:55):
and mostly because he still wants to get that Save
Act passed so we can get out our midterm elections
in November completed without a bunch of fraud and shenanigans
and fake votes. I just saw another story, I want
to say, a morning or two ago while I was
down here over the weekend, that talked about election officials
and enforcement people going into some of the homeless communities

(10:19):
around this country and learning how they were paid or
otherwise compensated for signatures on mail in ballots and other
ways that one side or the other, And I'll let
you guess which is trying to use to bolster their
candidates in this upcoming election. The DOJ has already let

(10:40):
it be known that any infractions, any tampering with this
upcoming election is going to be met with the full
force of the law, and there's going to be some
serious charges and prosecutions, And honestly, I don't know if
that's enough to stop them. So far, nothing that's been
done to safeguard our elections stopped anybody from doing anything.

(11:01):
It appears in many races, both state and federal. There's
really a lot more writing on that Save Act than
a lot of people want to talk about. And it's
just I think it's critical to having a fair election
in November. I really do. It's virtually impossible to conduct
a safe and secure election in which only American citizens

(11:23):
qualified to vote are voting. If nobody has to tell
you who they are, where they're from, or anything when
they walk in and want to cast a ballot, that's
just idiotic. I have to show a valid ID just
to go fishing, to get a phishing license in the
state of Texas. But the Left doesn't want anybody to
have to show any sort of photo ID or legitimate

(11:46):
identification to cast a vote for the president or the
senators of this Congress of ours or the representatives federal
elections deserve higher respect than that. So anyway, back to
the Housing Bills, A lot of people have mixed views
on this new legislation. On the one hand, the billing
includes important free market reforms like cutting bureaucratic red tape

(12:10):
and reducing local zoning barriers that prevent new home construction.
These changes really should encourage private developers to build more homes,
helping families achieve the American dream. That's what we're trying
to do. Really, people want to own their own homes.
I believe most of them do, and they're going to
get that through market competition, not from government handouts. Ditching

(12:32):
some of the regulatory roadblocks to that is a very
proven way to lower costs and spur economic growth in
communities all over this country of ours. On the other hand, though,
the law contains a lot of federal spending and subsidy
programs that are going to raise concerns about the national
debt and inflation. Nothing happens for free around here, especially

(12:53):
when the government gets involved. A lot of are especially
on the conservative side, worrying that pumping more federal money
into a housing market could just drive prices higher instead
of making homes more affordable. And President Trump's choice to
let the bill pass without his signature kind of highlights
this ongoing tension. It accepts the useful regulatory rollbacks passed

(13:16):
by Congress, but avoids a direct endorsement of more federal spending.
And for any American with half a brain, any reduction
we can get in federal spending, especially until we get
all this fraud stuff worked out, any reduction we can
get is going to be a boost to our economy.
My gut still tells me that once this fraud investigation finishes,

(13:39):
if it's allowed to completely finish, throughout the entire country,
we're going to be looking not at billions of dollars,
but possibly a trillion or more dollars that's been stolen
from the American taxpayers over the last just couple of years,
maybe three five years, somewhere in there. Every time they
turn over a rock, they find other fraud for a million,

(14:01):
ten million, fifty million, one hundred million. The FBI, for
heaven's sakes, has has issued a list of its most
wanted fraudsters, and to my tremendous frustration, many many politicians
on the left just keep wanting to turn a blind
eye to it. Keep wanting to stop the investigations into

(14:22):
certain people in politics and whatnot, all in the name
of protecting people who aren't even citizens of this country
in many cases. Moving forward to something I still think
is relevant and needs talking about is the preliminary hearing
for Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk,
that began last week in Utah. Prosecutors are seeking the

(14:45):
death penalty for Robinson, who is looking at a lot
of charges, really aggravated murder, witness tampering, and more, after
Kirk was shot outside Utah Valley University this past September.
The prosecutors have laid out pretty strong evidence, including DNA
found on the rifle, text messages where Robinson allegedly confessed
to the crime. The solemn proceedings, and they were solemn,

(15:09):
as you might imagine on both sides, really were attended
by Kirk's family and prominent conservative leaders, marking a very
difficult milestone in the push for justice in this case.
And it's a really tragic reminder I feel like about
the dangerous rhetoric that's aimed at some of these traditional
conservative voices. Charlie Kirk spent his life, defending free speech,

(15:33):
limited government, American values on college campuses, and the evidence
presented in court suggests it was a planned, politically motivated
attack designed to silence a prominent voice. The trials are
really crucial test for our justice system. It's going to
demonstrate which way we're going in this political violence that

(15:53):
is sometimes kind of being encouraged by people on the
left and very very prominent passeosicians in the media. And
one thing about this case that I really admire is
the resilience of the conservative community throughout it all, refusing
to be intimidated by threats or by violence. Leaders on
the right have unified around Kirk's family demand to demand

(16:17):
justice and defend the right to speak freely in our
country without fear of attack. That's what's under attack here,
and the left is having it play out as unfortunately,
the killing of a man who was all about free speech.
As the legal process moves forward, conservatives remain pretty focused,

(16:38):
I think, on protecting our constitutional rights and ensuring that
those of us who use violence to suppress free speech
face real consequences. If you want to see where free
speech can go if we don't take care of it,
go look at England now where you can be hauled
off to jail for saying some of the most innocuous

(16:58):
things that you and I would find and so meaningless
and irrelevant. But boy, if you hurt somebody's feelings over
there just with something you say, you're going to jail.
Kind of like, both sides of our aisle political isle
are supporting, very much supporting the Saved Act, Save Act.
Eighty percent of Americans are in support of that Democrat

(17:20):
Republican whatever they are. Eighty percent want it, but they're
not getting it because of the left. We need to
be equally vocal about our support on both sides of
free speech. The left is already dropping all kinds of
hints about wanting to stifle some types of speech, some
types of expression, and we simply cannot let that happen.

(17:41):
We can't be intimidated, we can't be bullied. We have
to stand up to all that garbage and just say no,
free speech is non negotiable. And wouldn't you know I've
you apped a little bit too long in my free speech.
Midway meat market out and Katie on Old Highway ninety
a wonderful place to get all your meat products. The
sauces and cheeses and spices, and twenty five flavors of

(18:04):
premium sausage and everything you can imagine to make your
metal time a little more exciting. They've been out there
fifty seven years and they've still maintained that country store
ara that was there when they started. Midways open seven
days a week, eight am to seven pm, and their
lunch counter is there. If you arrive hungry, I can

(18:24):
assure you you will not leave hungry. Go out there
and grab a couple of samples of their twenty five
flavors of sausage and take some of that home too.
Midwaymeatmarket dot Com is the website. Put it in your
GPS and go out there. Midwaymeatmarket dot Com. All right,
welcome back once again to fifty plus on this Tuesday afternoon.

(18:44):
I greatly appreciate you listening. Hope you're not getting any
thunderstorms or any of that stuff that we're usually gonna
get on the afternoon side of the clock. This time
of year. It should be a good day otherwise to
do about anything you want to do outside. If you
don't mind a little litle bit of warm weather, a
little bit of well know, a lot of humidity. We
just have to live with that. We always have. I

(19:06):
want to swing back to the Charlie Kirk thing for
just a second two and share that Kaylee Mcanany just
absolutely ripped the judge in that case earlier this or
later this past week. She's the host of out Numbered,
a co host anyway, and she went after Utah Judge
Tony Graff pretty hard for delaying a trial decision in

(19:27):
this Charlie Kirk murder preliminary hearing. He's delayed that decision
on whether or not there will even be a trial
until September. And she actually cites Utah code granting victims
the right to a speedy disposition, and she's pretty angry
that the justice is being denied nearly a year after

(19:49):
Kirk's assassination, despite frankly, a very low probable cause bar
and extensive evidence presented by prosecutors. Why this man did that,
I don't don't know. And you just never know anything
about what's going to go on with judges these days.
But Taylor mckinnanny just said enough's enough, and she spoke up,

(20:10):
and I don't blame her. I have to agree with her,
really that the evidence is there, and to delay this
any longer just makes it harder on everybody involved. And now,
as I carefully put on my tenfoil hat, I will
share that the Pentagon has released a fourth set of
files documenting Unidentified anomalous Phenomena UAPs, formerly known as UFOs.

(20:39):
The locations for the videos are approximate, such as Western
United States, Eastern United States, and so on. But the
videos are from things of things that are very unusual,
and again, as the acronym says, they're anomalous phenomena unidentified

(21:00):
anomaloust phenomena. Why we couldn't just stick with UFO is
beyond me. I don't know what that's about. Anyway, I
cannot help but believe, and I have no trouble working
my faith and my thoughts about life on other planets,
of intertwining them and letting them run parallel to each other.

(21:20):
I'm a god fearing Christian, I'm born and raised, and
I do believe what I believe. But I also understand
that it could be. It's extremely possible, and more probable really,
that somewhere out there amongst all the moons and all
the stars, and all the planets and all the galaxies.

(21:44):
In this universe in which we live billions upon trillions
of bodies just in space, there got to be something somewhere.
And if you study a lot of ancient history and
you look even go back in to, say, over into
the Middle East, where all these carvings are made on

(22:06):
walls and on all these different places, all these different
depictions of people people like creatures anyway, that if you
step back and look at them again, they don't really
appear to be wearing historically or equivalent garb. They're not
wearing clothing so much in a lot of cases, as

(22:29):
they appear to be wearing masks and suits that are
more suitable for taking inner galactic flights than for helping
to build a pyramid. When people with clearly open minds
look at a lot of these paintings, a lot of
these carvings, a lot of these depictions of what they

(22:52):
called their gods, they look very much like space travelers
to me, and I think they will to you again,
if you have an open mind. I've always been fascinated
by UFOs, I really have, and I actually thought I
saw one when I was very young, before I was
even ten years old. I just saw and I don't
know why. I guess it came up because my family
had very close friends at NASA, and so I was

(23:15):
very and I knew all of them very well. The
woman who was a close friend who worked out there,
had two older sons much older than me. They were
late teens, probably when I was seven eight nine years old,
and they would come over and play catch with me
in the backyard while my dad was at work and
couldn't do it. And anyway, the long and the short

(23:36):
of it is, I got introduced to space, and somehow
that translated into me believing in spacemen, probably from watching
I don't know what Outer limits, maybe on TV. Everybody
remembers that from my generation. Anyway, and from that early
age even I was fully convinced. I had no problem
time or making space life fit with my religion. I

(24:01):
still I don't to this day. I can. I can
believe both ways and justify it pretty easily. I don't
want to get into detail here, but yeah, there's something
out there, and if you break it into the simplest
of terms, it'd be very hard for there to be
absolutely nothing amongst trillions and trillions of legitimate chances for

(24:24):
there to be something, and it's really not unthinkable to
think that there may be forms of life out there
that have been evolving just like we have, but for thousands,
if not millions of more years, and would therefore be
very capable of It'd be like taking an uber to

(24:45):
Mars or taking an uber to another galaxy. There's nothing
that would stop them. With the technology that's going to
be available one hundred, two hundred, five hundred years from now,
if humanity still is around, which I thin I think
it will be, there's going to be a whole lot
of different stuff going on, starting with interplanetary and then

(25:07):
maybe perhaps even interstellar transport. I've talked to my son
a couple of times it's kind of funny about whether
he would like to be the first man on Mars,
and he just unequivocally says he just says, no, no,
I'm not going to space. I don't have any desire
to go to space, and I'm kind of with him
on that I'll never live long enough to be able

(25:28):
to space travel. I don't even really want to just
go up there and do the weightlessness thing that appeals
to me almost zero. But I do think one of
the things that we're going to have to figure out
is how to well, first of all, how to get
where we're going faster. At present, I think it would
take I don't know months, if not a year and
a half, two years, something like that, just to get

(25:50):
to Mars. That's the equivalent of walking to the mailbox
when you start talking in space terms. We've got to
be able to get there faster and along the way,
and once we get there, we have to be able
to survive. We're gonna have to have oxygen. We're gonna
have to have food, we're gonna have to have water.

(26:11):
And it's not like we can just pack up a
cooler full of snacks and a six pack of bottles
of water and take off from Mars. That's not gonna work.
I don't know, I haven't really thought this out. A
whole lot you could probably tell. But it's still fun
to talk about. Speaking of fun to talk about some
of these little things I trip over during any given week,

(26:33):
and this one is kind of a little bit of
food for thought. A truck driver in Connecticut was issued
a speeding ticket. The little story says after he crashed
his truck and spilled hundreds of cases of beer on
the road. That makes me wonder whether he was trying
to cover up the two empties on the floorboard. And
this one a little odd actually, as far as I'm concerned.

(26:54):
For those of you who are exfoliators, it says here
if you're still using a washcloth or a loop every day,
you might want to stop. It says here that your
hands are the best at getting you clean in the shower.
There are places I want cleaned that I can't reach
with my hands. I think I'll stick to the washcloth.
And just like that, Golly, it's time for another break.

(27:16):
On the way out here, I'm going to tell you
about Utch's Institute on Aging. It's been around for the
better part of twelve years or so, and it is
a collective of thousands of providers in this area, in
the greater Houston area who are devoted enough to us,
to seniors that they've gone back and gotten additional training
in how to apply their knowledge to seniors just to us.

(27:40):
They're mostly in the med center, as you might imagine,
but a lot of them also practice outside in outlying
communities and whatnot. So if you don't want to go
down there, you don't have to check out the website
and then when you're done, start your search for one
of these providers who can treat you with knowledge and
strategies just for US utch dot edu slam. That's ut

(28:01):
dot edu slash aging. All right, welcome back to fifty plus,
and of course thanks for listening on this sloppy, wet
Tuesday morning. Just sit right back and you're you're gonna
hear a tale. All right. I gotta tell you about
what happened to me yesterday, Monday, my only day off.
And it's gonna take a minute, but I think it's

(28:22):
a decent story anyway, something I might have written as
a column for the newspaper years ago. And for a change,
this particular story of Monday doesn't include a round of golf.
It was just too wet, and even in the driest
parts of town it was either damp or moist. Is
that still a cringe word? I don't know. So, so anyway,
here we are, and in this segment my Monday, okay,

(28:46):
golf was out for a couple of reasons. It was
too wet for one thing, all these thunderstorms for another.
And to complete the trifecta, there was a tournament out
where the Ogs and I usually play. Black Hawk Country
Club hosted Extreme Outdoors and Performance. I can't recall the cause,
but I know that Jordan and his crew raise a

(29:06):
lot of money for that thing. I heard late in
the day that Lightning actually had those folks on and
off the course three maybe four times before they finally
had to call it quits. On the plus side, though,
from what I saw when I went out there later
to work on my putting, a lot of those players
stuck around and helped take care of the folks they
were playing for. But I'm way ahead, already, way ahead
of the day. So back to the beginning of Monday,

(29:27):
and even before Monday, back to Sunday morning during my
outdoors show over on KBME. I really liked what I
saw on Saltwater Recon down at Surfside that morning. It's
a big, big pocket of pretty water against the rocks,
and I heard from Kevin Burns, guy who works down
that way with the Parks department down there, that there
was some trout being caught there and also some in

(29:47):
the surf down towards San Luis Pass, And of course
I had to go. I had to make some plan somehow,
but I wasn't tough enough. There's no way I was
going to be there at the crack of dawn, first
guy in the water or on on the rocks or whatever.
That's just not me right now. And that said, I
also know that while first light is a good time
to start fishing, there's no bad time to start fishing. So,

(30:11):
and this is an important and here, I also know
that I'll be satisfied with the quick run to those rocks.
Whether I catch fish or not. Every trip I make
is in education, no matter the results. So I was
going and if I caught a fish, great, if I
did not even care, and taking full advantage of my seniority,
I compromised with myself and set the alarm for a

(30:31):
far more gentlemanly hour eight am, which didn't really matter because,
as usual on every day but Saturday, when I get
up at five thirty, my eyeballs open wide at six thirty,
and so I just kind of hung out and killed
a few emails. I've got thousands, and I need to
kill a lot of them. So anyway, I'm up and
doing this, that and the other, and ended up actually

(30:54):
leaving the house at nine thirty, which is very late.
For a fishing trip by my old standards, but now
it's just I go whenever I can go. Swung by
Colachi Factory in the rain by the way, then started
that ninety or so minute drive to the rocks. Water
on the Gulf side when I got there wasn't quite
as good as it was on Sunday, but the channel,

(31:15):
even with the outgoing tide, the channel water actually would
look pretty good. In fact, it was a little cleaner
than the Gulf side. So I gather up my two
rods and backpack full of lures and line and plyers
and leader material and sunscreen and bug spray and a
water bottle and I start walking. I made a few
casts here and there on the way out under a

(31:37):
somewhat ominous but not really threatening sky at that point,
and the rocks actually were dry except for well, they
were mostly dry, but there were some lingering evidence of
a shower that had passed through there, I guess. While
I was driving down to the beach, I did hear
from two guys who were walking out that there were
trout being caught out at the end, which is really
a long walk under that threat of thunderstorm, and I

(31:59):
know places all the way out where the rocks are
what they are and they sometimes hold fish. But if
that's where I needed to be, that's where I was going.
As it turns out, the guys who'd been catching trout
out there apparently had also left. Only a handful of
people were out there at all, and by quick observation
based on about fifty years of studying, not a one

(32:23):
of those people was likely to catch anything. So anyway,
I set all my stuff down, grabbed a rod, and
started making some cash into the channel side where that
water really did look good out there. Saw some mullet,
but mostly a little bigger than I'd like, and you know,
at least there was life in the water, so I
hope springs eternal. And then came the rumbles from the sky.
I hadn't been out there fifteen minutes. Mostly this stuff

(32:45):
was inland, and you could see it building. There were
some pretty dark sky, really dark sky inshore and then offshore,
looking kind of south and west. It was about the same. Really,
it was a little bit better than what was inshore,
but nonetheless there was threatening weather all around us, and

(33:05):
with the sound of the waves hitting the rocks constantly,
you sometimes it's hard to tell which direction those rumbles
are coming from, so anyway, I hung around about another
fifteen minutes or so out there, but when I saw
a couple of lightning flashes back on shore, I started
what I know to be about a fifteen minute walk
at a brisk pace to the parking lot, and I

(33:26):
made it. I beat the rain, but not by much.
It actually started raining shortly after I got back right
to the parking lot. I had to hustle to get
the gear into the back of the Explorer. I punched
the button, it came up, I threw it all in,
and then scrambled, you know, pushed the button again and
scrambled through the driver's side door, and then just sat
there for a couple of minutes, very contemplative minutes. I

(33:49):
might add staying or leaving would have been an easier
decision that the sky just opened up and dump, but
it didn't. This was a drizzle, hardly enough to get
you wet, but enough to soak you if day out
in it for twenty minutes, which I know myself at
twenty minutes in a drizzle, if I catch a fish
is going to turn into an hour and a half.
So I just sat there trying to decide weather. Channel

(34:12):
said most of the heavy stuff was inshore, which meant
that if i'd left just then, I'd be driving in
hard rain almost all the way home. But if I stayed,
I'd have to stay a long time in the car
before I could get back out. So decision made. Homeward bound.
I'd rather drive in the rain toward a warm shower
and a nap than fish in a rain that showed
no sign of easing for several hours. So fast forward.

(34:34):
I get home. I go inside, shower, take a quick nap,
wake up, feeling pretty good too. Feeling pretty feeling pretty froggy,
felt like a perfect time for me to go practice
my putting out at the club. So I call find
out that the tournament was actually canceled. Those poor guys
got on the course and then we're run off by
lightning two or three times before they before they finally

(34:54):
pulled the plug. And at that point the range and
the putting green were open, and there was going to
be all almost nobody there. So I need to swap
out fishing gear for golf gear. And when I opened
the back of the Explorer, there's my backpack, full of tackle,
there's one rod, but there's a rod missing, And now
I'm freaking out thinking it had to have happened at

(35:17):
the jetty in the rain. And when I made that
move just from the back of the vehicle over to
the passenger door, somebody on the phone with somebody else
in that parking lot slipped in there, grabbed a rod
and pulled it out of there before the hatchback actually closed.
And if it wasn't there, maybe it was at Bucki's
when I stopped to get a barbecue sandwich. Maybe I

(35:39):
forgot to lock my car. Either way, I was missing
a really nice rod and reel and that bothered me.
And worst of all, it was a rod and reel
that belongs to my son, and for certain I was
going to have to replace it. So anyway, I get
all that gear taken out of the back and replaced
with golf gear, head out to the club now with
two bass rods back there, and wind up putting for

(36:01):
maybe I don't know, thirty forty minutes, and then there's
a little daylight left, so I'm gonna go catch some bass.
That's my idea at that point. And then a little
light came on in my head, Wait a minute, this
is my son's rod and reel. He wasn't home when
I got there, and he wasn't home when I left
to go to the club, so maybe he'd taken it.
So I called him, but he didn't answer, which is

(36:23):
par for the course for him. He's always off doing
stuff with his friends. So maybe, just maybe he and
some of his friends had concocted some fishing trip somewhere
and he'd gotten his rod and reel out of my vehicle.
So now I'm thinking that may be it, and I'm
hoping that may be it, and I'm feeling like going
ahead and staying and fishing a little wild and trying

(36:43):
to track down where my son is at that moment.
And I drive all the way to the back of
the club, all the way to the back to a
place that I'm pretty confident I can probably catch a
fish or two, but for some reason, they're really not
wanting to cooperate. So I decide, you know, I'm just
gonna go on home and see what's going on and
figure out this rod and real thing. I sat down

(37:04):
in the cart. I called my son one more time,
same thing, no answer, So I just put my phone
down and hit the gas on the cart. Only my
cart now has a dead battery. I watch says five
point fifty five. Pro Shop closes at six on sunny days.
I had one shot before I was gonna have to
walk home, and this was like a forty forty five

(37:26):
minute walk. I entered the number, I pushed a button
and prayed, black Hawk Pro Shop. This is Mia, Thank
you Lord. I explained to Mia what had happened and
where I was, And about five minutes later, the cavalry
crossed the horizon and brought me a new cart to
get me home. And on the way home, I get
a call from my son. Oh yeah, Dad, I forgot
to tell you were asleep. I didn't want to wake

(37:48):
you up. Yeah, I got that rod out of there.
I've been fishing with one of my buddies, full day,
full of anxiety and disappointment. If I weren't an optimist,
but I got to fish, I got to practice putting,
and I made it home safe from all of that.
Just as the red bear cliche goes, all's well, that ends. Well,
that's it for today. Thank you all for listening. Audios