December 19, 2025 • 39 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews author Chris Florance about his book "Culinary Journey Through Texas History".
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Because 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?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
This show is all about you one. This is fifty
plus with Doug Pike. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, here
we go another edition fifty plus cranks up right now,
and a lot a lot going on, really and a
lot to unpack. If you watch my Facebook stuff, you
know that we've got a good interview in about I
don't know about twenty answer. So I promised that yesterday,
(01:03):
and I hope when we get to it you enjoy
it as much as I think I will. I got
a word about I don't even want to talk about
that right now. Let's move on. I'm going to get
back to that. It's a book. It's a book review basically,
but I haven't seen the book yet, and I might
(01:25):
have to try to talk Chris Florence out of a
copy of that book. I probably I want one, and
I'm willing to pay for it. Actually, it's that good
a book, and it would look very handsome on my
bookshelf in my personal library at home. My wife and
I each have our own I guess, our own libraries,
if you will. And she more into fiction, me more nonfiction.
(01:50):
And as you might guess, the topics of most of
the titles of most of my books have to do
with the outdoors and or golf. Now I have some
other things in there, well, No, most of them are
tied to outdoors at golf. I'm not gonna lie. I'm
not gonna I'm looking all the way around my bookshelves
(02:13):
and I'm not seeing anything in my mind that is
is not Yeah, it's it's all. That's what I do,
that's what I love. I can't help it. I'm so
so well. I was gonna say I'm sorry, but I'm not.
That's just who I am. I'm I'll go into something. Yeah,
(02:34):
here's here's what happened. And I'm I'm a little bit
discombobulated because I came in here a few minutes late.
Will had to come grab me and and bring me
in I was wrestling with something at the desk. But
what I do want to do is kind of explain
as I I'm gonna be going on vacation next week,
so on the way out, kind of I guess I'm
gonna I'm gonna tell you a little bit about why
I do what I do and how I do what
(02:55):
I do, And it came up in conversation last night,
and I'll get to that in a minute. But what
I do with this show, and I hope it works,
and if it does, shoot me an email that says, yeah,
you got it. And if it doesn't, shoot me an
email to tell me why you want to change in
what you want change, and I'll certainly consider it. I'm
not closed minded at all. I'm not a one way street.
(03:20):
But what I try to do what I do is
I presume all of you are grown ups who know
right from wrong and good from bad, and give it
enough information to make you curious. You will go looking
for more and then use your unindoctrinated brains to form
your own opinions. That's how we were raised. I'll tell
(03:43):
you what I think, but that never means and I
hope you understand this. It's quite true. It never means
that I expect you to take my opinions as gospel
and jump on the wagon with me if that's not
the wagon you want to be on. It's just what
I think, and in a civil society, which I think
we're regaining, albeit in baby steps in some ways and
(04:08):
bigger strides than others, but nonetheless we're making progress away
from the foolishness that ran America for far too long,
and only because the conservatives among us kind of sat
on the sidelines and didn't want to ruffle feathers, didn't
want to didn't want to hurt feelings. Were tried, but
(04:29):
that didn't really work because no matter what we did,
it seemed to hurt somebody's feelings, and then they would
yell at us. In a civil society, my opinion is
of equal value to yours, Will and I disagree on
a lot of things, but I don't recall you ever
yelling at me, Will, and I hope you won't, and
(04:50):
I'm pretty sure I've never yelled at you and won't
over some opinion you have. That's just the way, that's you,
And that's half the country leans one way, half the
country leans the other. The trouble this country has is
that we created this perfect storm of younger people a
while back. Not Will Will, Will's one of the good ones.
(05:13):
A whole bunch of people from younger generations were told
from birth, do your own thing, You be you, and
if anybody gets in your way, you just tell them
you're being you, and that's all it is. But we
stopped short, I think of telling them that their own
thing didn't mean necessarily that everybody else had to subscribe
(05:34):
to their magazine. We had kids in our high schools
who were different. When we grew up, every one of
us did. There was always that kid, or those kids,
that group, or those groups that were different, who were different.
To be grammatically correct, every school had them. But back
then those kids knew they were different. They didn't run
(05:55):
from their difference. They didn't go screaming through the halls
or throwing punches people who weren't like them. They didn't
get in fights and gem knives or scissors. And the
kids who disagreed with the way they wore their hair,
or their clothes or their makeup, they dressed one way.
The rest of the kids dressed the other way, and
that was okay. In both directions. We didn't attack people
for being different, and I'm seeing a return. I returned
(06:20):
to that in lots of ways, and I'm hoping it continues.
There were a minute and a half I can do that.
That's such, that's almost complex. When I just glance up there,
I've got all these fingers flashing through the air, and
I have to absorb them and understand them. And I do,
Thank goodness, I will. It would be hard if I
(06:40):
didn't understand sign language. We didn't attack people for being different. Now, granted,
there were people who got teased. There were people who
got bullied, and I, for one don't like that. I
was never bullied, and I kind of I'll take that back.
(07:01):
There was one kid that gave me grief about something,
and fortunately for Fortunately for me, I was able to
just let it go and just realized that he was
just lashing out because he didn't have anything better to
do and didn't know how to express himself. It wasn't
my fault. I didn't do anything wrong, that's for sure.
In any event, I see this return, and I'm still
(07:24):
confident that most of the people in this country, no
matter what they look like or how they dress, I
don't care what color somebody's hair is. I don't care
how short or long a skirt they wear. I don't
care whether anything. I really don't care. As long as
you're not bothering anybody else or shoving some opinion of
yours down my throat. That's fine. You're entitled, you really are.
(07:46):
So I'm gonna end this segment with good people, and
then when we come back, I'm going to introduce you
to a good person who has something really cool to
share with this audience. His name's Chris. Florence. Will talk
to him next. On the way out, I'll tell you
about RV resort down there at the end at the
end of Tri City Betrode on Galveston Bay, right across
(08:07):
from Thompson's Bake Camp, all concrete slabs and roads. You
got free WiFi, you got water, sewer and electric hookups
at every site. And if you don't own an RV,
the kind owner Al Kibbi and his wife, Nancy, the
kind owner and his wife will rent you one. They'll
(08:29):
put it on a slab for you. You and your
family roll down there in the mini van, the sedan,
whatever it is you're driving, the truck, the SUV doesn't matter.
Just roll down there and say, hey, we're the ones
who wanted to rent the RV for the weekend, and
see what this whole life you're talking about is about.
And you'll get to sit in there and relax and
look out the window, and then you want to come
(08:49):
outside and you feel that nice ber. It's going to
be beautiful down there this next week. Holy cow, it's
gonna be warm. It's almost well, it's not summer like
warm where you're just sweating bullets, but it'll be comfortable warm.
Right there on the water. You can probably go catch
a little redfish women buy down the shoreline. If it's
big enough and you have a license, you can keep
(09:10):
it needed Cedar Covervresort dot com. They've even got a
little convenience store down there that sells frozen bait. But
if you want the good stuff, go across the street
to Tompkins Thompson's excuse me, Cedar Cove RV Resort. Once
you try that lifestyle, you're gonna find yourself. You're gonna blink,
and you're gonna be in the middle of an RV
show somewhere trying to figure out which one you and
(09:32):
the family want cedar Cove Rvresort dot com Cedarcovearvresort dot
Com Aged to perfection.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
This is fifty plus with Dougpike. Thanks for listening to
fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Certainly to appreciate that on this beautiful, beautiful morning or afternoon,
excuse me time every time I walk in here, it's
just like I'm walking through a time warp where I
go from morning to afternoon, just in the flick of
a wrist. So I promised yesterday, and I hope you
enjoyed this as much as I think I will. I
got worried about it. A very unique book that I'm
(10:07):
confident most of you will enjoy. I'm not going to
say would enjoy, because I think you will go looking
for this thing, or if not you, certainly someone you
know will. It was written and compiled by my next
guest and contains actual historic recipes that have direct ties
(10:28):
to forty two of our state's historic sites. And to
explain all of this the contents of a culinary journey
through Texas history. I'll welcome the man behind every page
of that cookbook, Chris Florence. What's cooking? Chris?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Hey, we are cooking Boy over one hundred and twenty recipes,
all taken or inspired by the Texas Historical Commissions, forty
two state historic sites all across the lone Star state,
and you have a you have the Sanjacental Sanjacento Monument
(11:04):
and Battleground right there in Laporte, right outside of Houston
is probably one of the better known state historic sites
we operate, and right there in your community. Many folks
have probably visited San Philip to Austin just out there
to the east, a little bit past Katie and sugar
Land in San Phillip, Texas. And then you have some
(11:27):
plantation houses in West Columbia and Brazos there and kind
of in the greater part of the metroplex, all of
our sites, from our prehistoric Native American sites right up
to some of our twentieth century sites like the Bush
Family Home and Midland, we have a representation of all
(11:50):
these recipes. Food being one of the great things that
every Texan has in common. We all like to eat,
and all the cultures that have made Texas such a success,
you know, have made their own mark all the way
from the earliest Native Americans right up to you know,
some of the German and Czech immigrants and any even
immigrants into the twentieth century here. So we just have
(12:11):
a really fantastic array of these historic recipes. Many of
them will be familiar to people, but they'll be surprised
when they open it up and read you know how
different the preparation of some of these favorites has been.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So so take us back, Chris, to the genesis of
this project. What prompted this gathering of recipe from history?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah, this well, and you know, I'd love to take
credit for all of it. This was really the brainchild
of the State Historic Site staff. We have about one
hundred and fifty or so employees, some here in Austin,
the rest spread out the interpreters and the educators at
those sites. They do different demonstrations of historic cooking. We
(12:56):
have some researchers and historians on the team. And this
was really a big collective in house effort by that
Historic Heights team. Employee by the name of Hal Simon,
who's retiring soon, actually was the one that pulled many
of these recipes together and we owe him a great
debt of thanks. You'll learn a little bit about how
(13:17):
if you get that book and see some photos of him,
and he has tested most of these recipes himself at
various demonstrations and things around our state historic sites. So
we either have tested all these things or we know
they have recently been tested. Many of them are from
classic cookbooks of the period, and then in some case
(13:38):
we've gotten recipes and stuff from like the wives of
some of the officers on the frontier forts in the
eighteen fifties, in the eighteen sixties, so there's a few
recipes in there, and also recipes that the soldiers created
Fort Griffin near Abilene. Fort Griffin had a bakery on
site that put out eight hundred loaves of bread a
(14:01):
day for the cavalry and the other soldiers on the base,
And so we've got a great regulation bread recipe in
there from Fort Griffin as well.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
About that, I hadn't really given much thought to what
pioneers and cowboys eight, what our ancestors here ate through
the depression, or what until I've heard about the book.
We've got you got recipes that covered all the way
from the Republic up through World War Two. Let's start
with something really old. One of the recipes I saw
that I think this audience might appreciate, is corn coffee?
(14:32):
How was that madeen? Who drank it? Boy?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Corn coffee was a staple, and you know, I'm sure
it arose from other drinks that we don't have recipes
for sure. You know, folks would take grain and make
various beverages, warm beverages from it. Corn coffee was you
would literally roast corn, get a pretty good char on it,
grind it up real fine like coffee, and then brew
(14:58):
it as you would brew coffee. And it was it
would you know, had nutritive value. You know you could
it would, it would give you a little nutrition boost,
but you didn't really get that kick of the caffeine.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
And they relied on that.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
You know, the front whether it was on the frontier
where folks you know, made do with what they had,
and then you know they tried to use as much
as they could because you know, you couldn't just run
down to the market and get coffee. But it also
came in handy then later in the Civil War. Uh
And and I don't know for sure if anybody resorted
to it in World War One or World War two.
(15:34):
Certainly there were many rationing and clever recipes that homemakers
would use to extend their ration coupons and their ingredients.
And we have a real interesting one in there called
economy loaf, and that is a meatless meat loaf, a
lot of breadcrumbs, a lot of potatoes, some peas in
(15:54):
there for a little bit of protein. If you had eggs,
you could hard boil the eggs and put them in there,
bake it in a pan, just like you would meet loaf.
And if you had some ketchup, you know, dig in
and enjoy and and you know, these things aren't bad.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Uh, it's it's real.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
It's fascinating to realize what people were willing to sacrifice
to come together, you know, especially in that World War
two period when everybody wanted to do their part and
and help the help the troops.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Corn corn coffee may have been the original declf Chris,
it's still very decaf. Let's talk about here's another one.
Here's another one I want to get to. I don't
want to run out of time here, okay, And I'm
trying to. I've got a whole page of questions I
would love to get to. Sure I saw a recipe
for possum and dressing, which is ever so close to
a traditional Thanksgiving favorite now but also kind of so
(16:49):
very far away. Those chuck Wagon cooks really had no choice.
They couldn't they couldn't just hack a cow down. That
would cost them money. But they may do with what
they imagine.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Can you imagine rolling that out at a Christmas dinner.
That's a real interesting recipe. We don't give you any
kind of preparation on how to, you know, prepare the
beast once you get it, but we do tell you
how to cook it. That's a that really, that's a
that's a possum and sweet potato. You make a gravy,
you make a nice stuffing out of the sweet potatoes.
(17:22):
I'd love to try it, but I don't think I'm
going to try to make it myself anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is there a particular recipe in that book that you've
tried and really pleasantly surprised you?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
You know, I have tried a couple of the very
simple ones that we've done at some of some of
the you know, some of the events and stuff at
our sides. One that I'm planning on making on Christmas
Eve is called I May butcher. The name of it,
it's called slam acouch okay, and it's it's a it
is a German based We identify it as an Alsatian
(17:58):
h recipe. And and this is basically, I think a
savory tart. Okay, you make a filling of onion and bacon.
That sounds good, right, yeah, and you just take you
can just take some of that tube dough pizza dough.
Obviously they didn't do that any kind of of pie
dough or pizza dough that you have, make a little
(18:20):
almost like a little tart, bacon in the oven, serve
them real quick. It's a classic dish and that comes
from the landmark in in Castroville, which is all of
Castroville has this wonderful Alsatian community, some great architecture and
events and things they do there in Castroville, right outside
of San Antonio.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Thank you, Chris, We are out of time, my friend.
Great gift for New Texa's history buff Where can they
get it? In about fifteen seconds.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Go to Texas History Gifts dot com. You may get
a Christmas miracle if you order now. But these are
great gifts year round and you can buy them at
any of our state historic.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Sites across outstanding. Chris Florence, thank you so very much.
It's a fascinating book. I'm gonna try and get my
hands on a copy. Thank you, yes, sir, very good. Hey,
thanks for having me on my pleasure. Brewster Law Firm
Alisa Brewster is out in Sugarland, been there quite some time.
Works every day with clients who are dealing with payer disputes, compliance,
(19:24):
healthcare transactions, reimbursement. She does business law as well and
works with seniors at be US who need advice protecting
their about protecting their wealth and drafting end of life documents,
which we all know as we get a little bit older,
comes up in conversation a little bit more. Office is
(19:44):
right off fifty nine in Sugarland. You can't miss it.
It's very easy and she is very professional. I've gotten
to know her a little bit and I really appreciate
what she does if you need legal help. Brewster LAWFIRMTX
dot com. Brewster Law Firm, TX dot com. Now they
sure don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
That's why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spray on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Right before I push that button to start this microphone up,
I was watching a video of some guy who had
immersed himself with a guy standing behind him now. But
he's immersed in a mud hole, a literal mud hole
in a riverbank, I mean, just dark, nasty mud. And
(20:34):
his buddy's talking about how he's gone in there to
get a turtle. I I'm not crawling into a muddy
hole for a pound of gold. I don't think it
looked like the guy was about halfway ready to drown.
He started kicking his legs and his buddy grabs him
by the blue jeans that aren't blue anymore. They're completely
covered in mud. Everything on this guy's covered in mud.
(20:57):
Yank him out of there. And he's got a turtle
not much bigger than a dinner plate. That's that's not
worth it. If he'd come out with one about the
size of a garbage can lid, I might have. I
might have been impressed, But to go rooting around up
to his waist, literally in the river bank, up to
(21:20):
his waist. He's reaching around in there. You can see
his upper body movement and that's all he came out with.
I would have to call that despite actually bringing a
turtle out of there. I guess because there was no catfish.
Catfishing that way is called noodling. I wonder if there's
(21:41):
a different word for it when you're in and don't
say turtling. That's low hanging fruit. There's got to be
a name for it that's equally obscure and not. It
just doesn't go along with what you've pulled out of there. Anyway.
I didn't take a look at the weather at all.
I'll do it really quickly. Today cool today, and tonight,
(22:01):
then southerly wind and high pressure sit down on us again.
That's gonna make it feel like, well, you can't really
name a season here because all four seasons we have
down here have their own little temperature tantrums. I coined
that phrase this morning. Will you like that temperature tantrum?
Thank you very much. Feel free to use that if
(22:21):
you like, Just give me credit. It'll be closer to
eighty than seventy most of next week, including Christmas Day.
And before you whind about it being too warm, just
recognize that the forecast high for Christmas Day in Minneapolis
is two degrees below zero. So count your blessings, Houstonians.
(22:46):
If you moved away from the cold a long time ago,
you know exactly why you moved down here. What we
call cold up there in Minneapolis. Actually, we have a
neighbor and dear friend of ours right down the street
and we've known them since both of our sons were babies.
And she's from Minneapolis. I think it's minneapl I'm sure
(23:08):
it is, yet she's from Minneapolis, and she talks about
it being forty forty five degrees up there, and everybody's
out in shorts and t shirts. Just watch one of
the football games, watch one of the college bowl games,
or maybe a professional game that's being played up yonder
and then while you're sitting there watching it and watching
(23:30):
all the breath come out of these players' faces, and
look at how overly dressed the people in the stands are,
ask your at home assistant what the temperature is in
that host city. The last time I did that, my
little I got one of the Alexa deals and I said, Alexa,
(23:50):
what's the temperature up in Where was it? I can't
remember where it was. Anyway, the current temperature during the
game was fifteen degrees and the low that night was
going to be like seven. I don't want any part
of that. I've actually experienced colder weather than that here
when it got down in the eighties to four degrees
at the house I lived in in Katie then, and
(24:14):
I really don't want to experience that again. We had
the nasty freeze couple of years ago, a couple of
winters ago, and oh, by the way, the power went
out during that, wasn't that nice. At least at least
I had a fireplace. The markets surged pretty good all
the way up to the last time I looked was
about an hour hour and a half ago, all four
of mine up significantly, Nasdaq up more than a full point.
(24:36):
Gold also kind of standing on its tippy toes and
reaching for forty four hundred dollars an ounce, up almost
nineteen overall just seventeen dollars. Shy of that what will
then be a new benchmark oiled down again. That's good
news if you want to drive all over town for
Christmas or out of the state, even fifty six bucks
in change a barrel. Fifty six bucks and change barrel.
(25:00):
If that's the way you buy your oil. I don't.
I just I just go into the oil change place.
I don't even have to get out of my car.
I really like that. I don't even have to get
out of the car. They bring you a bottle of water.
Maybe they'll bring hot cocoa once we get another front.
That'd be nice. By the way, I noticed also that
inflation was down, and speaking of benchmarks, inflation down to
(25:22):
two point seven percent. That's a five year low.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Hm.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I can't imagine. I can't imagine why that happened. Experts
actually thought it was going to come in about three
to one. But no, no, no, no, two point seven
record low in the last five years. So yesterday at
the how much time to have? Will four? Can I
get four? That's a three? I can do this. Yesterday,
(25:49):
at the invitation of one of the men at the
table where I was, I had dinner last night with
ten guys who were part of Braburn Little League's All
Star team that won bear in mind one in single elimination,
which is what it was. They won the nineteen sixty
six Little League World Series. I'm working on getting an
(26:13):
interview with a couple of them to share their current project,
their current effort not to draw attention to themselves, which
would be be kind of tough for me to just
bring in a couple of guys my age, you're a
little bit older, a little bit younger, whatever, to talk
about winning the Little League World Series back in a
(26:34):
decade when probably half this audience may not have even
been born. But what they're doing is sharing the story
of their parents who were the founders of Braburn Little
League and made everything those kids ended up doing possible.
It's really their stories are fascinating. It really I heard
(26:55):
a lot of great stories about baseball, and I learned
which guys on the team were the clowns, which guys
were the the analysts, the statisticians, which ones went by
the book, which ones went by the seat of their pants,
who could hit, who couldn't hit. And it was really
fascinating to see how sharp those guys are in their recollection,
(27:18):
recollection of doing what they did, what's almost sixty years ago,
in fact, right at about sixty years ago. Just fascinating,
it really was. It was a lot of fun. If
you're new here, somewhat new here but familiar with Bissonette
out in southwest Houston and Bayland Park, which is between
He'llcroft and beech Nut on Bisonette. Know that the very
(27:41):
front field farthest west that belongs to Braburn Little League
and always has. North of there was a Pony League field,
and then east of the Pony field was and still
is Sharpstown Little League where I played so long ago.
I've gone back there several times in adulthood too, and
those it's always bringing back great memories. They really do
(28:03):
really special. About eight years ago actually, when my son
played a couple of tournament games on that very same
field one weekend, you talk about really that really moved
me to have come full circle that much later and
had my son running around the same field that I
ran around when I was ten years old. Just amazing.
(28:25):
First coaches that way too, they were so good. All
of those coaches were good. Mine. A guy named George
Reese on Never Forgetting. He distributed to all of his
players a book, a book that he hand drew at
hand wrote that showed pretty much every situation, every player,
where every player was supposed to go, when the hitter
(28:47):
did pretty much anything a hitter could do at home plate.
We read those, we studied them. I think I have
it still at the house somewhere. I may go looking
for that someday, and if I do find it, I
won't do I may put it under glass. It was
that important to me, and it still would be to
any little leaguer who was trying to learn the game
(29:08):
of baseball. Maybe I'll make a bunch of copies of
it and hand it out at some Little league game somewhere,
if I can keep the coach from yelling at me.
Little League coaches are pretty tough on those boys because
they're old enough to understand what they need to do,
and sometimes they get a little silly and don't do it. Hi, man,
I learned that from coaching the Little league. That's a fact.
Most of them all. They love the game, though, And
(29:30):
I enjoy coaching kids at that age because they do
genuinely love baseball. They may be horrible at it, but
they still love it, and I still keep them all
on the field. I kept them all on the field
as much as I could. I need to take a break,
don't I will. Ut Hell's Institute on Aging is that
fantastic collaborative of providers from every medical discipline. More than
(29:51):
well I talked to Actually, I talked to one of
the people from there two days ago and was told
the actual number. Probably because they collaborate also with other hospitals,
other providers all over the country, the actual number thousands
who are involved. We just happen to be in one
of the well the epicenter of this type of care.
(30:14):
And by this type of care, I mean all of
the people who are involved here from every medical discipline
go back on their own dime, on their own time,
and get additional training on how to apply their specific
knowledge directly to us to seniors. That's a huge break
that we get here. Take advantage of it. Go to
the website, look at all the resources you can get
(30:36):
there for nothing, and then if you've got something that
specifically ails you, start working your way through that website
to find a provider who not only is going to
know just how to fix what you got wrong with you,
but will probably work at least a day or two
a week out near where you live. Most of them
are all based in the medical center, which is proper
(31:00):
for all of these people, but they also do some
work in outlying clinics and hospitals and areas to make
it easier on all of us. Ut Health Institute on
Aging utch dot edu slash aging uth dot edu slash aging.
What's life without a NET? I suggest you go to bed,
(31:21):
sleep it off, Just wait until the show's over. Sleepy.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues. Welcome back
fifty plus. Final segment of the show starts right now.
What have I got about seven minutes?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Will?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Is that correct? Eight twelve fifteen thirty two? What football?
I dabbled in football in high school and we didn't
have a great team. Was kind of laughing with those
guys last night. One of the masters, did you play football too?
Because I played baseball in high school? And I said, yeah,
But let's just put it this way. We improved our
(31:58):
record from my junior year to my senior year from
two and eight to three and seven. And I think
everybody on the team and in the school was pretty
aware of how insignificant that was. But at the pep rallies,
(32:20):
the cheerleaders and the student body did the best they
could to encourage us to just keep suiting up and
going out there. We were not the biggest team, we
were not the fastest team, we were not the strongest team,
but we showed up and we gave it all we had.
I'll give it that. I don't recall anybody on either
(32:42):
of those teams being a slacker. We just typically weren't
quite as good as the other teams. And that's okay.
That's okay. So taking a hard write off memory lane,
easing back onto the interstate of life. The the man
believed responsible for the shooting at Brown University was identified
(33:03):
and shortly thereafter found dead after police received a tip.
He died of a self inflicted wound. You know, I'm
glad he's no longer a threat to those students or
to anybody else, But I'm a little disappointed that he
didn't have the guts to face the music for what
he did and maybe explain why he thought that was
(33:24):
something he needed to do. That would have at least
helped law enforcement better just a little bit better understand
the motivation of people who do these things, and maybe
help prevent something like that from happening in the future.
Also from Brown University, I found this somewhat interesting. The
(33:44):
president there, Christina Packson, caught a lot of heat this
week for blaming the shooting on her campus, not on
not having enough, not on the guy who did it
at first, but on not having enough gun restrictions in
the world. I've talked about this all week long. No
(34:05):
gun restriction, no law, no scribble on a napkin, is
gonna stop a deranged person from carrying a gun right
past all the signs, the ones that are all over
Brown University let people know it's a gun free campus.
Laws don't stop criminals. In fact, they encourage them. They
actually have quite the opposite, opposite effect of discouraging they. Well, yeah,
(34:28):
here's a good place to make people's lives miserable because nobody, nobody,
who's a law abiding citizen will be able to stop me.
Nothing they can do about it. This woman, by the way,
Christina Packson, makes three point one million dollars a year
as the president of that university and had no answers
(34:49):
from jump on how this happened, why it happened, how
much security they had or didn't have on campus. She
was kind of a blank canvas. And at least she
has finally walked back those early words about being the
gun's fault and rightfully blamed the shooter for what happened there.
(35:11):
But I'm I'd be willing to bet that somebody went
to her and said, you know, you need to walk
that back. We had anti gunn rules in place on
our campus, and they didn't matter if you like a
little gossip with your lunch. How about this the woman
who got caught up in that kiss cam thing, remember
(35:32):
at Coldplay concert months ago? Now, Well, she finally come
out and told her story to a couple of well
their news magazine type shows and publications and whatnot and
the more. Here's the deal. I won't go into details
really because mostly because the more you hear from her,
(35:54):
the more boring really the story becomes. But for those
of you who can't get enough of this sort of thing,
just do a search like I did for kiss cam woman,
and all the juicy little bits will magically appair appear,
he said, correctly, when his tongue slipped. And you like me,
(36:15):
we'll be bored to sleep with it all in less
than five minutes. Less than five Speaking of how many
do I have? Now? Will three? I have four things
here on my sheet, each of which I can squeeze
a minute out of, but I'll speed one of them
up so we can get it all. I think. To
wrap up the week title, this one no place like home,
(36:36):
because it's about a little dog that looks sort of
like Toto from the Wizard of Oz. Not a lot,
but it's a little brown dog anyway, But also because
it's about a homecoming. And back in twenty twenty two,
this little dog disappears from California, disappears. Friends and neighbors
look far and wide, They looked everywhere, but wherever that
(36:58):
dog was for a while, never found Choco. Or maybe
it's Choco as in chocolate. The imaginations, oh, the creativity.
Fast forward to this past month when Choco's little implanted chip.
Now there's a that's interesting. I bet that dog's full name.
If it's pure bread as chocolate and they implanted a chip,
(37:21):
that's kind of cool. Chaco was found. Chaco was found,
chained to a fence and retrieved by animal control people
in Detroit, Michigan. So now Chaco's found, But how to
get Choco back because her original owner from twenty twenty
(37:43):
two didn't have the coin to fly that dog home,
and I presume that greyhound wanted no part of it,
despite the close relationship between greyhounds and little chocolate dogs.
So anyway, some stranger named Pamela donated air miles to
Chaco and got Chaco back to California. All isn't that sweet?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Will?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Isn't that a happy ending story? Also happy soon. For
the first time ever, scientists have replicated a cancer therapy,
but done so so these cells, the patient's own body
cells are now being reconfigured, so to speak. I don't
(38:26):
know exactly the verbiage for this, but just normal cells
are being flipped so that they now become cancer fighting cells,
only without the chemo. That's very uncomfortable and very horrible
and almost it's a lot. I've heard patients say, you
know it, if I had to do it again, I
don't know if I'd do it. It was so tough on
(38:47):
their bodies. But this is a non chemo protocol that's
going to enable treatment of some of these cancers faster, cheaper,
and it's not going to involve anything going into your body.
Your own body, well, something's going to go in there
to trigger the reaction from the cells, but way way
easier than chemo. And that's outstanding news for people Will's age,
(39:10):
because that's it may take a few years for this
stuff to come into practice, but boy, when it does
it'll be good. By the way, that mysterious comet a
thirty one atlas about to pass intergalactically close with no
fund I think it's about as much an alien spacecraft
as Bigfoot is real. Audios
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Because 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?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
This show is all about you one. This is fifty
plus with Doug Pike. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, here
we go another edition fifty plus cranks up right now,
and a lot a lot going on, really and a
lot to unpack. If you watch my Facebook stuff, you
know that we've got a good interview in about I
don't know about twenty answer. So I promised that yesterday,
(01:03):
and I hope when we get to it you enjoy
it as much as I think I will. I got
a word about I don't even want to talk about
that right now. Let's move on. I'm going to get
back to that. It's a book. It's a book review basically,
but I haven't seen the book yet, and I might
(01:25):
have to try to talk Chris Florence out of a
copy of that book. I probably I want one, and
I'm willing to pay for it. Actually, it's that good
a book, and it would look very handsome on my
bookshelf in my personal library at home. My wife and
I each have our own I guess, our own libraries,
if you will. And she more into fiction, me more nonfiction.
(01:50):
And as you might guess, the topics of most of
the titles of most of my books have to do
with the outdoors and or golf. Now I have some
other things in there, well, No, most of them are
tied to outdoors at golf. I'm not gonna lie. I'm
not gonna I'm looking all the way around my bookshelves
(02:13):
and I'm not seeing anything in my mind that is
is not Yeah, it's it's all. That's what I do,
that's what I love. I can't help it. I'm so
so well. I was gonna say I'm sorry, but I'm not.
That's just who I am. I'm I'll go into something. Yeah,
(02:34):
here's here's what happened. And I'm I'm a little bit
discombobulated because I came in here a few minutes late.
Will had to come grab me and and bring me
in I was wrestling with something at the desk. But
what I do want to do is kind of explain
as I I'm gonna be going on vacation next week,
so on the way out, kind of I guess I'm
gonna I'm gonna tell you a little bit about why
I do what I do and how I do what
(02:55):
I do, And it came up in conversation last night,
and I'll get to that in a minute. But what
I do with this show, and I hope it works,
and if it does, shoot me an email that says, yeah,
you got it. And if it doesn't, shoot me an
email to tell me why you want to change in
what you want change, and I'll certainly consider it. I'm
not closed minded at all. I'm not a one way street.
(03:20):
But what I try to do what I do is
I presume all of you are grown ups who know
right from wrong and good from bad, and give it
enough information to make you curious. You will go looking
for more and then use your unindoctrinated brains to form
your own opinions. That's how we were raised. I'll tell
(03:43):
you what I think, but that never means and I
hope you understand this. It's quite true. It never means
that I expect you to take my opinions as gospel
and jump on the wagon with me if that's not
the wagon you want to be on. It's just what
I think, and in a civil society, which I think
we're regaining, albeit in baby steps in some ways and
(04:08):
bigger strides than others, but nonetheless we're making progress away
from the foolishness that ran America for far too long,
and only because the conservatives among us kind of sat
on the sidelines and didn't want to ruffle feathers, didn't
want to didn't want to hurt feelings. Were tried, but
(04:29):
that didn't really work because no matter what we did,
it seemed to hurt somebody's feelings, and then they would
yell at us. In a civil society, my opinion is
of equal value to yours, Will and I disagree on
a lot of things, but I don't recall you ever
yelling at me, Will, and I hope you won't, and
(04:50):
I'm pretty sure I've never yelled at you and won't
over some opinion you have. That's just the way, that's you,
And that's half the country leans one way, half the
country leans the other. The trouble this country has is
that we created this perfect storm of younger people a
while back. Not Will Will, Will's one of the good ones.
(05:13):
A whole bunch of people from younger generations were told
from birth, do your own thing, You be you, and
if anybody gets in your way, you just tell them
you're being you, and that's all it is. But we
stopped short, I think of telling them that their own
thing didn't mean necessarily that everybody else had to subscribe
(05:34):
to their magazine. We had kids in our high schools
who were different. When we grew up, every one of
us did. There was always that kid, or those kids,
that group, or those groups that were different, who were different.
To be grammatically correct, every school had them. But back
then those kids knew they were different. They didn't run
(05:55):
from their difference. They didn't go screaming through the halls
or throwing punches people who weren't like them. They didn't
get in fights and gem knives or scissors. And the
kids who disagreed with the way they wore their hair,
or their clothes or their makeup, they dressed one way.
The rest of the kids dressed the other way, and
that was okay. In both directions. We didn't attack people
for being different, and I'm seeing a return. I returned
(06:20):
to that in lots of ways, and I'm hoping it continues.
There were a minute and a half I can do that.
That's such, that's almost complex. When I just glance up there,
I've got all these fingers flashing through the air, and
I have to absorb them and understand them. And I do,
Thank goodness, I will. It would be hard if I
(06:40):
didn't understand sign language. We didn't attack people for being different. Now, granted,
there were people who got teased. There were people who
got bullied, and I, for one don't like that. I
was never bullied, and I kind of I'll take that back.
(07:01):
There was one kid that gave me grief about something,
and fortunately for Fortunately for me, I was able to
just let it go and just realized that he was
just lashing out because he didn't have anything better to
do and didn't know how to express himself. It wasn't
my fault. I didn't do anything wrong, that's for sure.
In any event, I see this return, and I'm still
(07:24):
confident that most of the people in this country, no
matter what they look like or how they dress, I
don't care what color somebody's hair is. I don't care
how short or long a skirt they wear. I don't
care whether anything. I really don't care. As long as
you're not bothering anybody else or shoving some opinion of
yours down my throat. That's fine. You're entitled, you really are.
(07:46):
So I'm gonna end this segment with good people, and
then when we come back, I'm going to introduce you
to a good person who has something really cool to
share with this audience. His name's Chris. Florence. Will talk
to him next. On the way out, I'll tell you
about RV resort down there at the end at the
end of Tri City Betrode on Galveston Bay, right across
(08:07):
from Thompson's Bake Camp, all concrete slabs and roads. You
got free WiFi, you got water, sewer and electric hookups
at every site. And if you don't own an RV,
the kind owner Al Kibbi and his wife, Nancy, the
kind owner and his wife will rent you one. They'll
(08:29):
put it on a slab for you. You and your
family roll down there in the mini van, the sedan,
whatever it is you're driving, the truck, the SUV doesn't matter.
Just roll down there and say, hey, we're the ones
who wanted to rent the RV for the weekend, and
see what this whole life you're talking about is about.
And you'll get to sit in there and relax and
look out the window, and then you want to come
(08:49):
outside and you feel that nice ber. It's going to
be beautiful down there this next week. Holy cow, it's
gonna be warm. It's almost well, it's not summer like
warm where you're just sweating bullets, but it'll be comfortable warm.
Right there on the water. You can probably go catch
a little redfish women buy down the shoreline. If it's
big enough and you have a license, you can keep
(09:10):
it needed Cedar Covervresort dot com. They've even got a
little convenience store down there that sells frozen bait. But
if you want the good stuff, go across the street
to Tompkins Thompson's excuse me, Cedar Cove RV Resort. Once
you try that lifestyle, you're gonna find yourself. You're gonna blink,
and you're gonna be in the middle of an RV
show somewhere trying to figure out which one you and
(09:32):
the family want cedar Cove Rvresort dot com Cedarcovearvresort dot
Com Aged to perfection.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
This is fifty plus with Dougpike. Thanks for listening to
fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Certainly to appreciate that on this beautiful, beautiful morning or afternoon,
excuse me time every time I walk in here, it's
just like I'm walking through a time warp where I
go from morning to afternoon, just in the flick of
a wrist. So I promised yesterday, and I hope you
enjoyed this as much as I think I will. I
got worried about it. A very unique book that I'm
(10:07):
confident most of you will enjoy. I'm not going to
say would enjoy, because I think you will go looking
for this thing, or if not you, certainly someone you
know will. It was written and compiled by my next
guest and contains actual historic recipes that have direct ties
(10:28):
to forty two of our state's historic sites. And to
explain all of this the contents of a culinary journey
through Texas history. I'll welcome the man behind every page
of that cookbook, Chris Florence. What's cooking? Chris?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Hey, we are cooking Boy over one hundred and twenty recipes,
all taken or inspired by the Texas Historical Commissions, forty
two state historic sites all across the lone Star state,
and you have a you have the Sanjacental Sanjacento Monument
(11:04):
and Battleground right there in Laporte, right outside of Houston
is probably one of the better known state historic sites
we operate, and right there in your community. Many folks
have probably visited San Philip to Austin just out there
to the east, a little bit past Katie and sugar
Land in San Phillip, Texas. And then you have some
(11:27):
plantation houses in West Columbia and Brazos there and kind
of in the greater part of the metroplex, all of
our sites, from our prehistoric Native American sites right up
to some of our twentieth century sites like the Bush
Family Home and Midland, we have a representation of all
(11:50):
these recipes. Food being one of the great things that
every Texan has in common. We all like to eat,
and all the cultures that have made Texas such a success,
you know, have made their own mark all the way
from the earliest Native Americans right up to you know,
some of the German and Czech immigrants and any even
immigrants into the twentieth century here. So we just have
(12:11):
a really fantastic array of these historic recipes. Many of
them will be familiar to people, but they'll be surprised
when they open it up and read you know how
different the preparation of some of these favorites has been.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So so take us back, Chris, to the genesis of
this project. What prompted this gathering of recipe from history?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah, this well, and you know, I'd love to take
credit for all of it. This was really the brainchild
of the State Historic Site staff. We have about one
hundred and fifty or so employees, some here in Austin,
the rest spread out the interpreters and the educators at
those sites. They do different demonstrations of historic cooking. We
(12:56):
have some researchers and historians on the team. And this
was really a big collective in house effort by that
Historic Heights team. Employee by the name of Hal Simon,
who's retiring soon, actually was the one that pulled many
of these recipes together and we owe him a great
debt of thanks. You'll learn a little bit about how
(13:17):
if you get that book and see some photos of him,
and he has tested most of these recipes himself at
various demonstrations and things around our state historic sites. So
we either have tested all these things or we know
they have recently been tested. Many of them are from
classic cookbooks of the period, and then in some case
(13:38):
we've gotten recipes and stuff from like the wives of
some of the officers on the frontier forts in the
eighteen fifties, in the eighteen sixties, so there's a few
recipes in there, and also recipes that the soldiers created
Fort Griffin near Abilene. Fort Griffin had a bakery on
site that put out eight hundred loaves of bread a
(14:01):
day for the cavalry and the other soldiers on the base,
And so we've got a great regulation bread recipe in
there from Fort Griffin as well.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
About that, I hadn't really given much thought to what
pioneers and cowboys eight, what our ancestors here ate through
the depression, or what until I've heard about the book.
We've got you got recipes that covered all the way
from the Republic up through World War Two. Let's start
with something really old. One of the recipes I saw
that I think this audience might appreciate, is corn coffee?
(14:32):
How was that madeen? Who drank it? Boy?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Corn coffee was a staple, and you know, I'm sure
it arose from other drinks that we don't have recipes
for sure. You know, folks would take grain and make
various beverages, warm beverages from it. Corn coffee was you
would literally roast corn, get a pretty good char on it,
grind it up real fine like coffee, and then brew
(14:58):
it as you would brew coffee. And it was it
would you know, had nutritive value. You know you could
it would, it would give you a little nutrition boost,
but you didn't really get that kick of the caffeine.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
And they relied on that.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
You know, the front whether it was on the frontier
where folks you know, made do with what they had,
and then you know they tried to use as much
as they could because you know, you couldn't just run
down to the market and get coffee. But it also
came in handy then later in the Civil War. Uh
And and I don't know for sure if anybody resorted
to it in World War One or World War two.
(15:34):
Certainly there were many rationing and clever recipes that homemakers
would use to extend their ration coupons and their ingredients.
And we have a real interesting one in there called
economy loaf, and that is a meatless meat loaf, a
lot of breadcrumbs, a lot of potatoes, some peas in
(15:54):
there for a little bit of protein. If you had eggs,
you could hard boil the eggs and put them in there,
bake it in a pan, just like you would meet loaf.
And if you had some ketchup, you know, dig in
and enjoy and and you know, these things aren't bad.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Uh, it's it's real.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
It's fascinating to realize what people were willing to sacrifice
to come together, you know, especially in that World War
two period when everybody wanted to do their part and
and help the help the troops.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Corn corn coffee may have been the original declf Chris,
it's still very decaf. Let's talk about here's another one.
Here's another one I want to get to. I don't
want to run out of time here, okay, And I'm
trying to. I've got a whole page of questions I
would love to get to. Sure I saw a recipe
for possum and dressing, which is ever so close to
a traditional Thanksgiving favorite now but also kind of so
(16:49):
very far away. Those chuck Wagon cooks really had no choice.
They couldn't they couldn't just hack a cow down. That
would cost them money. But they may do with what
they imagine.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Can you imagine rolling that out at a Christmas dinner.
That's a real interesting recipe. We don't give you any
kind of preparation on how to, you know, prepare the
beast once you get it, but we do tell you
how to cook it. That's a that really, that's a
that's a possum and sweet potato. You make a gravy,
you make a nice stuffing out of the sweet potatoes.
(17:22):
I'd love to try it, but I don't think I'm
going to try to make it myself anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is there a particular recipe in that book that you've
tried and really pleasantly surprised you?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
You know, I have tried a couple of the very
simple ones that we've done at some of some of
the you know, some of the events and stuff at
our sides. One that I'm planning on making on Christmas
Eve is called I May butcher. The name of it,
it's called slam acouch okay, and it's it's a it
is a German based We identify it as an Alsatian
(17:58):
h recipe. And and this is basically, I think a
savory tart. Okay, you make a filling of onion and bacon.
That sounds good, right, yeah, and you just take you
can just take some of that tube dough pizza dough.
Obviously they didn't do that any kind of of pie
dough or pizza dough that you have, make a little
(18:20):
almost like a little tart, bacon in the oven, serve
them real quick. It's a classic dish and that comes
from the landmark in in Castroville, which is all of
Castroville has this wonderful Alsatian community, some great architecture and
events and things they do there in Castroville, right outside
of San Antonio.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Thank you, Chris, We are out of time, my friend.
Great gift for New Texa's history buff Where can they
get it? In about fifteen seconds.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Go to Texas History Gifts dot com. You may get
a Christmas miracle if you order now. But these are
great gifts year round and you can buy them at
any of our state historic.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Sites across outstanding. Chris Florence, thank you so very much.
It's a fascinating book. I'm gonna try and get my
hands on a copy. Thank you, yes, sir, very good. Hey,
thanks for having me on my pleasure. Brewster Law Firm
Alisa Brewster is out in Sugarland, been there quite some time.
Works every day with clients who are dealing with payer disputes, compliance,
(19:24):
healthcare transactions, reimbursement. She does business law as well and
works with seniors at be US who need advice protecting
their about protecting their wealth and drafting end of life documents,
which we all know as we get a little bit older,
comes up in conversation a little bit more. Office is
(19:44):
right off fifty nine in Sugarland. You can't miss it.
It's very easy and she is very professional. I've gotten
to know her a little bit and I really appreciate
what she does if you need legal help. Brewster LAWFIRMTX
dot com. Brewster Law Firm, TX dot com. Now they
sure don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
That's why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spray on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Right before I push that button to start this microphone up,
I was watching a video of some guy who had
immersed himself with a guy standing behind him now. But
he's immersed in a mud hole, a literal mud hole
in a riverbank, I mean, just dark, nasty mud. And
(20:34):
his buddy's talking about how he's gone in there to
get a turtle. I I'm not crawling into a muddy
hole for a pound of gold. I don't think it
looked like the guy was about halfway ready to drown.
He started kicking his legs and his buddy grabs him
by the blue jeans that aren't blue anymore. They're completely
covered in mud. Everything on this guy's covered in mud.
(20:57):
Yank him out of there. And he's got a turtle
not much bigger than a dinner plate. That's that's not
worth it. If he'd come out with one about the
size of a garbage can lid, I might have. I
might have been impressed, But to go rooting around up
to his waist, literally in the river bank, up to
(21:20):
his waist. He's reaching around in there. You can see
his upper body movement and that's all he came out with.
I would have to call that despite actually bringing a
turtle out of there. I guess because there was no catfish.
Catfishing that way is called noodling. I wonder if there's
(21:41):
a different word for it when you're in and don't
say turtling. That's low hanging fruit. There's got to be
a name for it that's equally obscure and not. It
just doesn't go along with what you've pulled out of there. Anyway.
I didn't take a look at the weather at all.
I'll do it really quickly. Today cool today, and tonight,
(22:01):
then southerly wind and high pressure sit down on us again.
That's gonna make it feel like, well, you can't really
name a season here because all four seasons we have
down here have their own little temperature tantrums. I coined
that phrase this morning. Will you like that temperature tantrum?
Thank you very much. Feel free to use that if
(22:21):
you like, Just give me credit. It'll be closer to
eighty than seventy most of next week, including Christmas Day.
And before you whind about it being too warm, just
recognize that the forecast high for Christmas Day in Minneapolis
is two degrees below zero. So count your blessings, Houstonians.
(22:46):
If you moved away from the cold a long time ago,
you know exactly why you moved down here. What we
call cold up there in Minneapolis. Actually, we have a
neighbor and dear friend of ours right down the street
and we've known them since both of our sons were babies.
And she's from Minneapolis. I think it's minneapl I'm sure
(23:08):
it is, yet she's from Minneapolis, and she talks about
it being forty forty five degrees up there, and everybody's
out in shorts and t shirts. Just watch one of
the football games, watch one of the college bowl games,
or maybe a professional game that's being played up yonder
and then while you're sitting there watching it and watching
(23:30):
all the breath come out of these players' faces, and
look at how overly dressed the people in the stands are,
ask your at home assistant what the temperature is in
that host city. The last time I did that, my
little I got one of the Alexa deals and I said, Alexa,
(23:50):
what's the temperature up in Where was it? I can't
remember where it was. Anyway, the current temperature during the
game was fifteen degrees and the low that night was
going to be like seven. I don't want any part
of that. I've actually experienced colder weather than that here
when it got down in the eighties to four degrees
at the house I lived in in Katie then, and
(24:14):
I really don't want to experience that again. We had
the nasty freeze couple of years ago, a couple of
winters ago, and oh, by the way, the power went
out during that, wasn't that nice. At least at least
I had a fireplace. The markets surged pretty good all
the way up to the last time I looked was
about an hour hour and a half ago, all four
of mine up significantly, Nasdaq up more than a full point.
(24:36):
Gold also kind of standing on its tippy toes and
reaching for forty four hundred dollars an ounce, up almost
nineteen overall just seventeen dollars. Shy of that what will
then be a new benchmark oiled down again. That's good
news if you want to drive all over town for
Christmas or out of the state, even fifty six bucks
in change a barrel. Fifty six bucks and change barrel.
(25:00):
If that's the way you buy your oil. I don't.
I just I just go into the oil change place.
I don't even have to get out of my car.
I really like that. I don't even have to get
out of the car. They bring you a bottle of water.
Maybe they'll bring hot cocoa once we get another front.
That'd be nice. By the way, I noticed also that
inflation was down, and speaking of benchmarks, inflation down to
(25:22):
two point seven percent. That's a five year low.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Hm.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I can't imagine. I can't imagine why that happened. Experts
actually thought it was going to come in about three
to one. But no, no, no, no, two point seven
record low in the last five years. So yesterday at
the how much time to have? Will four? Can I
get four? That's a three? I can do this. Yesterday,
(25:49):
at the invitation of one of the men at the
table where I was, I had dinner last night with
ten guys who were part of Braburn Little League's All
Star team that won bear in mind one in single elimination,
which is what it was. They won the nineteen sixty
six Little League World Series. I'm working on getting an
(26:13):
interview with a couple of them to share their current project,
their current effort not to draw attention to themselves, which
would be be kind of tough for me to just
bring in a couple of guys my age, you're a
little bit older, a little bit younger, whatever, to talk
about winning the Little League World Series back in a
(26:34):
decade when probably half this audience may not have even
been born. But what they're doing is sharing the story
of their parents who were the founders of Braburn Little
League and made everything those kids ended up doing possible.
It's really their stories are fascinating. It really I heard
(26:55):
a lot of great stories about baseball, and I learned
which guys on the team were the clowns, which guys
were the the analysts, the statisticians, which ones went by
the book, which ones went by the seat of their pants,
who could hit, who couldn't hit. And it was really
fascinating to see how sharp those guys are in their recollection,
(27:18):
recollection of doing what they did, what's almost sixty years ago,
in fact, right at about sixty years ago. Just fascinating,
it really was. It was a lot of fun. If
you're new here, somewhat new here but familiar with Bissonette
out in southwest Houston and Bayland Park, which is between
He'llcroft and beech Nut on Bisonette. Know that the very
(27:41):
front field farthest west that belongs to Braburn Little League
and always has. North of there was a Pony League field,
and then east of the Pony field was and still
is Sharpstown Little League where I played so long ago.
I've gone back there several times in adulthood too, and
those it's always bringing back great memories. They really do
(28:03):
really special. About eight years ago actually, when my son
played a couple of tournament games on that very same
field one weekend, you talk about really that really moved
me to have come full circle that much later and
had my son running around the same field that I
ran around when I was ten years old. Just amazing.
(28:25):
First coaches that way too, they were so good. All
of those coaches were good. Mine. A guy named George
Reese on Never Forgetting. He distributed to all of his
players a book, a book that he hand drew at
hand wrote that showed pretty much every situation, every player,
where every player was supposed to go, when the hitter
(28:47):
did pretty much anything a hitter could do at home plate.
We read those, we studied them. I think I have
it still at the house somewhere. I may go looking
for that someday, and if I do find it, I
won't do I may put it under glass. It was
that important to me, and it still would be to
any little leaguer who was trying to learn the game
(29:08):
of baseball. Maybe I'll make a bunch of copies of
it and hand it out at some Little league game somewhere,
if I can keep the coach from yelling at me.
Little League coaches are pretty tough on those boys because
they're old enough to understand what they need to do,
and sometimes they get a little silly and don't do it. Hi, man,
I learned that from coaching the Little league. That's a fact.
Most of them all. They love the game, though, And
(29:30):
I enjoy coaching kids at that age because they do
genuinely love baseball. They may be horrible at it, but
they still love it, and I still keep them all
on the field. I kept them all on the field
as much as I could. I need to take a break,
don't I will. Ut Hell's Institute on Aging is that
fantastic collaborative of providers from every medical discipline. More than
(29:51):
well I talked to Actually, I talked to one of
the people from there two days ago and was told
the actual number. Probably because they collaborate also with other hospitals,
other providers all over the country, the actual number thousands
who are involved. We just happen to be in one
of the well the epicenter of this type of care.
(30:14):
And by this type of care, I mean all of
the people who are involved here from every medical discipline
go back on their own dime, on their own time,
and get additional training on how to apply their specific
knowledge directly to us to seniors. That's a huge break
that we get here. Take advantage of it. Go to
the website, look at all the resources you can get
(30:36):
there for nothing, and then if you've got something that
specifically ails you, start working your way through that website
to find a provider who not only is going to
know just how to fix what you got wrong with you,
but will probably work at least a day or two
a week out near where you live. Most of them
are all based in the medical center, which is proper
(31:00):
for all of these people, but they also do some
work in outlying clinics and hospitals and areas to make
it easier on all of us. Ut Health Institute on
Aging utch dot edu slash aging uth dot edu slash aging.
What's life without a NET? I suggest you go to bed,
(31:21):
sleep it off, Just wait until the show's over. Sleepy.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues. Welcome back
fifty plus. Final segment of the show starts right now.
What have I got about seven minutes?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Will?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Is that correct? Eight twelve fifteen thirty two? What football?
I dabbled in football in high school and we didn't
have a great team. Was kind of laughing with those
guys last night. One of the masters, did you play football too?
Because I played baseball in high school? And I said, yeah,
But let's just put it this way. We improved our
(31:58):
record from my junior year to my senior year from
two and eight to three and seven. And I think
everybody on the team and in the school was pretty
aware of how insignificant that was. But at the pep rallies,
(32:20):
the cheerleaders and the student body did the best they
could to encourage us to just keep suiting up and
going out there. We were not the biggest team, we
were not the fastest team, we were not the strongest team,
but we showed up and we gave it all we had.
I'll give it that. I don't recall anybody on either
(32:42):
of those teams being a slacker. We just typically weren't
quite as good as the other teams. And that's okay.
That's okay. So taking a hard write off memory lane,
easing back onto the interstate of life. The the man
believed responsible for the shooting at Brown University was identified
(33:03):
and shortly thereafter found dead after police received a tip.
He died of a self inflicted wound. You know, I'm
glad he's no longer a threat to those students or
to anybody else, But I'm a little disappointed that he
didn't have the guts to face the music for what
he did and maybe explain why he thought that was
(33:24):
something he needed to do. That would have at least
helped law enforcement better just a little bit better understand
the motivation of people who do these things, and maybe
help prevent something like that from happening in the future.
Also from Brown University, I found this somewhat interesting. The
(33:44):
president there, Christina Packson, caught a lot of heat this
week for blaming the shooting on her campus, not on
not having enough, not on the guy who did it
at first, but on not having enough gun restrictions in
the world. I've talked about this all week long. No
(34:05):
gun restriction, no law, no scribble on a napkin, is
gonna stop a deranged person from carrying a gun right
past all the signs, the ones that are all over
Brown University let people know it's a gun free campus.
Laws don't stop criminals. In fact, they encourage them. They
actually have quite the opposite, opposite effect of discouraging they. Well, yeah,
(34:28):
here's a good place to make people's lives miserable because nobody, nobody,
who's a law abiding citizen will be able to stop me.
Nothing they can do about it. This woman, by the way,
Christina Packson, makes three point one million dollars a year
as the president of that university and had no answers
(34:49):
from jump on how this happened, why it happened, how
much security they had or didn't have on campus. She
was kind of a blank canvas. And at least she
has finally walked back those early words about being the
gun's fault and rightfully blamed the shooter for what happened there.
(35:11):
But I'm I'd be willing to bet that somebody went
to her and said, you know, you need to walk
that back. We had anti gunn rules in place on
our campus, and they didn't matter if you like a
little gossip with your lunch. How about this the woman
who got caught up in that kiss cam thing, remember
(35:32):
at Coldplay concert months ago? Now, Well, she finally come
out and told her story to a couple of well
their news magazine type shows and publications and whatnot and
the more. Here's the deal. I won't go into details
really because mostly because the more you hear from her,
(35:54):
the more boring really the story becomes. But for those
of you who can't get enough of this sort of thing,
just do a search like I did for kiss cam woman,
and all the juicy little bits will magically appair appear,
he said, correctly, when his tongue slipped. And you like me,
(36:15):
we'll be bored to sleep with it all in less
than five minutes. Less than five Speaking of how many
do I have? Now? Will three? I have four things
here on my sheet, each of which I can squeeze
a minute out of, but I'll speed one of them
up so we can get it all. I think. To
wrap up the week title, this one no place like home,
(36:36):
because it's about a little dog that looks sort of
like Toto from the Wizard of Oz. Not a lot,
but it's a little brown dog anyway, But also because
it's about a homecoming. And back in twenty twenty two,
this little dog disappears from California, disappears. Friends and neighbors
look far and wide, They looked everywhere, but wherever that
(36:58):
dog was for a while, never found Choco. Or maybe
it's Choco as in chocolate. The imaginations, oh, the creativity.
Fast forward to this past month when Choco's little implanted chip.
Now there's a that's interesting. I bet that dog's full name.
If it's pure bread as chocolate and they implanted a chip,
(37:21):
that's kind of cool. Chaco was found. Chaco was found,
chained to a fence and retrieved by animal control people
in Detroit, Michigan. So now Chaco's found, But how to
get Choco back because her original owner from twenty twenty
(37:43):
two didn't have the coin to fly that dog home,
and I presume that greyhound wanted no part of it,
despite the close relationship between greyhounds and little chocolate dogs.
So anyway, some stranger named Pamela donated air miles to
Chaco and got Chaco back to California. All isn't that sweet?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Will?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Isn't that a happy ending story? Also happy soon. For
the first time ever, scientists have replicated a cancer therapy,
but done so so these cells, the patient's own body
cells are now being reconfigured, so to speak. I don't
(38:26):
know exactly the verbiage for this, but just normal cells
are being flipped so that they now become cancer fighting cells,
only without the chemo. That's very uncomfortable and very horrible
and almost it's a lot. I've heard patients say, you
know it, if I had to do it again, I
don't know if I'd do it. It was so tough on
(38:47):
their bodies. But this is a non chemo protocol that's
going to enable treatment of some of these cancers faster, cheaper,
and it's not going to involve anything going into your body.
Your own body, well, something's going to go in there
to trigger the reaction from the cells, but way way
easier than chemo. And that's outstanding news for people Will's age,
(39:10):
because that's it may take a few years for this
stuff to come into practice, but boy, when it does
it'll be good. By the way, that mysterious comet a
thirty one atlas about to pass intergalactically close with no
fund I think it's about as much an alien spacecraft
as Bigfoot is real. Audios
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