March 26, 2025 • 39 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews Dr. David S. Buck about homeless seniors. Pike also speaks with Manny Lopez of El Cubano Cigars about his business.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. 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.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
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. Why welcome back
fifty plus. Thanks for listening. Certainly do appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
On this Wednesday midweek edition of fifty plus, appropriately dubbed
I guess, because we're about midway between yesterday and Monday's
sunshine and tomorrow's increasing chances for rain and thunderstorms, and officially,
really it just kind of depends on the track and
I guess. By the way, all of this is the
(01:10):
courtesy of Texas Into Air Quality Specialists, because cleaner air
is healthier air, and they'll clean all that air in
your house by cleaning your duct work. If you'll just
go take a look at the website and make a
phone call and ask them exactly how they do what
they do so that your duct work stays clean for years,
not months. In any event, there is an approaching low
(01:33):
pressure system, and much of what happens around here and
exactly where around here in this greater Metropolitan Houston area
that's about I don't know, sixty or seventy miles by
sixty or seventy miles. It all depends on which way
that front goes. If it goes a little south, then
somebody else gets rain. If it slides a little north,
(01:55):
then somebody else gets rain. There's going to be rain
tomorrow and Friday, and maybe even a little bit Saturday, unfortunately,
and that's the last thing the PGA Tour wanted to
hear for the Texas Children's Houston Open this week. Got
the world's number one and two, and then a bunch
of really really good players kind of tuning themselves up
for the Masters in a couple of weeks, and they'll
(02:19):
be here slogging away unfortunately, probably around the middle part
of the tournament.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Hopefully it'll just hopeully.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
It'll run through the We are pretty dry, and with
that in our favor, hopefully the water will be absorbed
by the ground. And not caused too many problems around town,
especially no flooding. I hate it when we see pictures
of in video of flooded streets.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
They're just a.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Major nuisance and probably not as necessary and probably and
certainly more frequent now than in years past when we
hadn't developed. Ninety nine point nine percent of the land
around here.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
A slab down.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Now when they build out on the west side of town,
at least most of the development out there requires and
this is why you see all these neighborhoods with lakes.
They're required to build those holes in the ground out
there to make sure that when water comes rushing in
all of a sudden with a big thunderstorm, it doesn't
(03:22):
just flood the streets, that it gets to go into
those reservoirs. And by the way, if you like to
fish neighborhood lakes, any place where rain water drains into
a retention pond that's got a bass or two in it,
half those bass are going to be right where it
drains in. And I can I can point out examples
of that if you want to listen on Saturday and
(03:43):
ask me over on Sports Talk seven ninety also on
our City's calendar this week, opening day of the Astros
long season, the Astros who pulled off by the way
at least Joe, a spot of the manager did a
really heartwarming welcome of rookie cam Smith to the opening
day roster inside the clubhouse. It's a video worth going
(04:05):
to see if you like good family moments. Inside the
locker room with the whole team gathered, Joe Spotta said
there was gonna be a special announcement made and that
it would be made by a special person. He more
eloquent and used a lot more words to say that,
but that boils it down. And that's about the same
(04:27):
time that Cam Smith's mother and whole family walked into
the locker room, and it was she who got to
tell her son. He was already crying as soon as
she walked in the room and had a pretty good
idea of what was going on, but she was able
to tell her son that he had made the big
league team. I can't wait to see that kid play.
(04:48):
I really can't. He's probably one of the best best
bets we've had in quite some time. And even if
he stumbles out the gate a little bit, I'm not
gonna worr him much about him. I remember a kid
named Bregman going about zero for thirty five not that
long ago, and he turned out okay in market news
(05:12):
thanks to Houston gooldexchange dot com. Still some uncertainty over
tariffs and interest rates and the FED and just you
name it.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Everybody's a little nervous. At least on Wall Street.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
They are where really nothing of great impact gets done.
Most of the trading, as I've talked about before, is
done by algorithms and computers that are set to buy
or sell anytime specific triggers get hit, and it happens
all day long, every day, all the way around the world.
(05:47):
All these giant supercomputers are making probably ninety nine percent
of decisions in the markets. You and I call a
broker and want to buy something. By the time that
coms over, there probably been millions of shares traded back
and forth, and the price is different, and hopefully we
(06:07):
still caught it on the low and maybe get to
take advantage of a rebound somewhere. All four of the
indicators I watch were red half an hour ago. Gold
was down a couple of bucks as well, and sadly,
the only little green on the board was oil, and
it was it's been pretty good, but it was kind
(06:29):
of let's call it just tickling the chin of seventy
dollars again per barrel, and I hope that that goes
the other way through the rest of the week. I
would love to see some of this oil stabilize. It's
going to take some changes in the Middle East and
some changes here and there around the world to really
get a good handle on where we're going to stand.
(06:50):
Once the drilling ramps up in our country too, where
we have more and more and more oil and gas
to export and rely less and less on any kind
of imports, we'll get that Keystone pipeline going again and
there'll be some really be a lot of oil coming
this way.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I don't want to get into that. I don't want
to get into this. We just I don't want to go.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
What I don't want to do is get into something
that's gonna take a lot of time, because coming up
we are going to talk about the homelessness among seniors
that's on the rise unfortunately, and what.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
They're doing to get the healthcare they need. Seniors.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I don't care how well off you are, you're not
gonna avoid things that happen when you get older and older. Now,
the wealthiest seniors can just pop in and see a
doctor anytime they want to. Even Medicare and Medicaid are
greatly helpful.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
But if you're.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Homeless, how are you going to get to the doctor.
That's a hard thing, and we're going to talk about
that with doctor David S. Buck when we get back
from this break. All the way out, I'll tell you
about a late health This is a it's a vascular
it is. It is vascular clinics around town where they
take care of a lot of different issues that can
be alleviated by cutting off blood supply to a particular area.
(08:11):
Whether it's an ugly vein, whether it's fibroids in women,
whether it's an enlarged non cancerous prostate in men. That's
the procedure they do most often. It's called prostate artery embolization,
and it alleviates those horrible symptoms of an enlarged non
cancerous prostate. If you're over fifty five, you might be
dealing with a little bit at least the onset of
(08:33):
those symptoms at that age, and the older you get,
the more likely you're going to have to deal with
it at some point. Go to the website a latehealth
dot com and then look around and see all the
different procedures they can do for you, almost always within
a couple of hours right there in the office. Much
of that is covered by Medicare and Medicaid, And they
(08:54):
also do regenerative medicine, by the way, which is very
helpful with chronic pain. And you never have to go
to the hospit little where you might bring home something
you didn't have when you got there. A latehealth dot com.
That's the website. Seven one three, five eight, eight thirty
eight eighty eight. Seven to one three, five eight, eight
thirty eight eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
What's life without a NET? I suggest to go to bed,
sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Just wait until the show's over, Sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Hi, Welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Thank you all for listening on this cloudy but at
least not rainy Wednesday. Good news for the people who
had pro am spots over there at the Texas Children's
Houston Open no promises for the rest of the week.
In this segment, will address the growing problem of homelessness
among seniors and to shed a little light in that direction.
I'm going to bring in doctor David S. Buck, Associate
(09:53):
Dean for Community Health at the Tillman Jay Fertida Family
College of Medicine and founder of Healthcare for the Homeless Houston.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Welcome aboard, doc, Thank you so much. It's my pleasure
to have you on here.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
So until this week, I hadn't really thought a lot
about homelessness among seniors, I'll be honest, and I really
wasn't aware that their numbers are rising.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Why is this happening?
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Well, it mirrors are aging demographic of our population. You know,
the boomers of which I'm one, That number of people
that are aging with limited or marginal benefits. That growing
(10:39):
number has increased the number of people going into the horrible,
unfortunate experience of homelessness.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
You know, it just mirrors the aging population. Really.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
If it's if the homeless are going to represent say
two percent of all seniors, then the more seniors there are,
the more that number grows as well.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
That's safe to say, yes, But there are other factors
that contribute to it. For example, twenty years ago, ten
percent of people in America will have experienced homelessness at
some point in their lifetime. Now that percent or number
has grown to thirteen percent.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Oh my word, that's a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I had no idea, right, and you may wonder, well, gosh,
so much money being thrown at this California spending billions.
Why is the number increasing? Well, we have to go
back in history to look at the New Deal. When
the depression hit and unemployment was twenty five percent. Our
(11:41):
government reversed this through implementing Social Security Administration, something that's
in peril today, the Federal Housing Administration, among other entities.
Then LBJ in the nineteen seventies. Our Texan president initiated
the Great Societiety in the nineteen sixties and targeted the
(12:03):
twenty percent of America that was in poverty and reduced
it in ten years by fifty percent to ten percent.
So had the biggest reduction in poverty in our lifetime.
And Medicare, Medicaid head Start We're all created and had
that part of that success in reducing poverty by fifty percent.
(12:28):
But in the nineteen eighties, HUD funding was decreased by
seventy five percent and has never increased. That amount of
funding for affordable housing in today's dollars would be sixty
billion dollars a year. So when we look at well,
why is homelessness becoming more and more and more an issue?
(12:51):
And that's because as the number of the billions of
dollars are now three trillion dollars of not spent funding
to go towards affordable housing, we have increased poverty over
these forty years. And I think we just don't grasp
(13:14):
the challenge.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Are homeless people what do they do for healthcare? How
do they We're all every one of us who are
seniors in my hands in the air, certainly, we all
know how important it is to maintain our health.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
How do these people get that healthcare?
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Well, that's a great question. In the nineteen nineties, I
started healthcare for the homeless Houston, and it was precisely
because everyone was getting their care in the emergency room,
where care is good if you have an emergency, but
(13:55):
non acute care. In most of the homeless, like us,
have chronic medical conditions, and so that's the most expensive
place to get care, and it's not the kind of
chronic care we need. And so not only are you
spending more approximately ten to twenty times more, but they're
(14:17):
not getting what they need. They're sent from the hospital
without even the meds that they need.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Oh gosh, I don't know how to get around that.
And I'm presuming a lot of these people. Most of
these people have no phone, they have no transportation. How
do they even get to the hospital.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Well, you know, that's why we set up healthcare for
the homeless Houston to be able to be where they are,
to be in the mostly the downtown midtown, in the shelters,
in order to access that more easily. But some people can't.
Just like what you said, they have to get care
(14:56):
where they are, and so they go to the emergency room.
Emergency rooms don't have social support in large measure, so
they really can't address these underlying challenges of.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Housing instability, Doctor David buck here on fifty plus. Are
homeless people sometimes hesitant to seek out healthcare for fear,
for fear they'll be judged.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Well, I can't speak for that blanket you know, of
all harmless people, but many people experiencing almost sins, they're
just like you and I, and they they would be embarrassed.
But even more than embarrassment, I find that our institutions
aren't very receptive to them. Our institutions are good at
(15:45):
doing what we do in large volume, and when someone
comes in that's outside of that what we do easily,
it becomes a source of frustration. And people sometimes, you know,
they want to what they used to call a gomer,
get out of my emergency room.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh my goodness, that's what.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Yeah, I've never heard that before. That's very interesting. That's
a little peak of Holy cow. What percentage of homeless
seniors would you guess actually get preventive care like they should,
like vaccines and mammograms.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
I would be lying if I said I knew that number.
I don't know it. In Houston, it has not been assessed,
but I would I would think preventive care. I would
think less than twenty five percent within my guess.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
That's That's what I'm heading for as well, because it
would be very hard for someone who who feels pretty
healthy and presents in some emergency room and says, hey,
i'd like to get A woman goes in and says
I'd like to get a mammogram just to make sure
I don't have breast cancer, and they're just going to say,
who's going to pay for that?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
And that's and you bring up a great point too
where I was going, homeless are younger, and they're younger
at dying. They die in Texas twenty nine years younger
than their domiciled counterparts. So if we live to being eighty,
(17:16):
they live to be fifty, so they're not even Yeah.
So many don't make it there, but those that do
have worse health.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
So in the last minute, we have doctor Buck, what
do we do about this?
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Well, we have to look at it in a coordinated, thoughtful,
deliberate way. We can't just keep doing these one and
done every kind of the silos of excellence. One group
is responsible for mental health. Another authority of Harris County
is responsible for physical health. Then there's yet another for housing.
(17:56):
One's permanent supportive housing, the other is for emerging sea housing.
One place does eligibility for getting off the street. Someone
else is involved with eligibility for medical or mental or
dental health. There's little to no coordination for this, and
the plans that we see are very fragmented as well.
(18:20):
We need to look at this comprehensively.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I'm so glad that you're out there championing the struggle
for these people, because they deserve the same level of
care as anybody else gets. Thank you so very much
for your time today, and I wish you well let
me know if I can help you again.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Thanks so much, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
All right, we got to take a little break here
on the way out.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Ut Health Institute on Aging is the collaborative, collaborative effort
of more than a thousand providers, healthcare providers from every walk,
every discipline who are so dedicated to us that they
have gone back after they got all the education they
(19:03):
needed to get whatever credentials they have, but they've gone
back and learned more about how to apply their knowledge
and their expertise specifically to us. And that is a
blessing no matter how you cut it. When you can
be seen by someone who has gone the extra mile
to help seniors stay healthy and enjoy whatever length of
(19:26):
time they have left on this earth, that's the people.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You want to go see. Ut dot Edu slash aging.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
These providers are all over town, a lot of them
in the medical center, a lot of them in outlying
clinics and hospitals. You can find somebody who's close to
you so you don't have to drive into the med center.
If you don't want to go to the website, see
all the resources, and then start your journey toward finding
just the right provider for you to help answer your
questions and help you maintain your health.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Ut dot edu aging. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
When we get back, we're gonna talk to a guy
named Manny Lopez. He's a cigar maker, one of only
fifty places in the country to do that. He's a
pretty interesting and knowledgeable man when it comes to fine tobaccos.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
We'll be right back. More fifty plus coming up now.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
They sure don't make them like they used to. That's
why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh cod o wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
All right, Welcome back plus. This is something this segment
is going to be. It's not the first and it
certainly won't be the last.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
When I interview somebody I find interesting in what they
do because it is somehow unique and somehow different and
somehow just really really cool. In this segment, we're gonna
talk about something we've never really discussed on fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And this is one of those things.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I'd also bet not many of you actually know about
right down in Texas City. My next guest runs one
of only about fifty cigar making operations in the whole country.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's called El Kubano.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
And I will let Manny Lopez tell you why I've
got him on here.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Man?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
How are you?
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Man? Good afternoon, mister Pike. I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And you I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And you you grew up around the cigar business. Didn't
you tell me a little bit about your background?
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Yes, sir, yes, sir. Five generations in the business of
growing tobacco, blending tobacco to make cigars, and hand rolling cigars.
So since nineteen oh four, so about one hundred and
twenty one, my family get involved in the cigar were.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Pretty good at it. Huh when did learning?
Speaker 5 (21:42):
We're learning?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, when did you come here?
Speaker 5 (21:47):
So as far as we left Cuba in the early
sixties due to the revolution and stuff, and came to Miami,
came to Key West, escaped actually in a little small
sailboat at twenty eight foot sailboat, father, my mother and
one other friend of ours and made it to Key
West and then from there we're in Miami for about
a month and then immigration found some work from my
(22:11):
father here in Houston off of North Shepherd out on
the old part of North Shepherd out there by the
old Seers. And so we started, you know, started here
and been in Houston ever since.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And the people who work alongside you down there in
Texas City also from that same heritage too, aren't they.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
Yes, everyone's from Cuba here at the Okawana Alla rollers
and everybody that does everything. We've got a couple of
salesmen that are American born, but everybody here that's involved
directly with the making and rolling of cigars is all
out of the larger Cuban factories and trained in Cuba,
which is a very extensive training program over a nine
(22:50):
month period, and it looks like any other art or trade,
it takes many years to master and to get good
at and.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
For the cigar smokers in the audience. Talk about the
tobacco goes you use and where they come from.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
Yes, we use a predominantly Cuban sea tobacco that's grown
all over the world. We bring tobacco from Honduras, Nicaragua
with door, Dominican Republic, Peru, Columbia, Costa Rica. We use
a little bit of Mexican San Andres and Rapper. We
use some Cameroon wrapper out of Africa. We use some
Sumasa out of Indonesia, so basically import tobacco leaf from
(23:24):
all over the world and then in house do all
the blending and rolling. Currently we're doing twenty seven different
flavor profiles or blends and a total of about one
hundred and fifty different cigars to choose from. Here at
Guana Cigars, and.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
You've got two smoking lounges, the one in Texas City
there at the factory and then the other in League City.
They're really there were I got to assume both with
you a couple of weeks ago. They're just very laid back.
It just seems like a really cool place to hang
out with friends and smoke a cigar.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
Yes, cigars are all about relaxation. Prenominantly they're about celebration.
So we've developed our stores around the same concept, where
you can come in and you can be social if
you'd like, you can get some work done if you want,
or you can just sit there by yourself and enjoy
a cigar and think about, you know, what your next
move in life is.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
One of the things I like about what you do
I know you sell cigars out of both stores and
you ship them all over wherever they need to go,
but you also do this customization. And I don't want
to run out of time before we talk about that
company logos, gender reveal, golf tournament, retirement party, just about anything.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Right, Yes, sir. We have two options that we do,
and that one is that we can personalize the cigar
for you with whatever you'd like on the cigar band,
whether it's a picture of yourself or a special statement
or the logo of your company and Zephyr promotional items.
And then secondly, as we do kind of on site,
we'll come out and do Cigar Roll League demonstration and
(24:50):
bring cigars for your guests to enjoy, and we actually
go over and kind of in detail how we roll cigars,
explain all the different types of tobacco that go into
the cigar, what their purpose is within cigar, in the cigar,
their placement within the cigar, and all the little fine
details about cigars. Kind of give people a little education
on cigar making as well as let them enjoy a
(25:11):
cigar while they're watching, which is the best way to
kind of do it.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I only know one guy who'd won his own picture
on the bands on his own cigars.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Well, you'd be surprised. I've done many a lot of times.
You're like, for a sixtieth.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Birthday, Yeah, well, yeah, that'd be cool if somebody else
bought them for you.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Picture a baby picture, yeah, a baby picture of the
job of a person for their sixtieth birthday party or
the fifteth birthday on a special occasion, some of that.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
I got that picture of the cigars you rolled and
banded for us here at iHeart too. I need to
back down. I need to meet up with you soon
so I can get those from you. I'll reach out
after the show and make that happen. And since you're
the manufacturer of these cigars, there's nobody in the middle
hiking up the price either, is there.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
That is correct. You're basically getting it direct from the
field to the consumer, you know, so there's no middle Manda.
And another thing, it's very important the cigars themselves are
always kept in the proper environment. They're never sitting on
a truck or an a warehouse or kind of neglected
by someone that may not care about the cigars as
much as we do.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
I got you a good. I got you a good
hook phrase from field to finger.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
How's that there?
Speaker 5 (26:17):
You are? I like it?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I like it right?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Is there a big difference between and this is just
a question that came to my head while I was
writing all this up, between the tobaccos using cigars and
the ones using cigarettes.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Yes, it's a completely different the cigarette. This is what
they call a bull leaf tobacco, which is a very
large tobacco leaf with a very heavy vein structure. In fact,
that's when you hear about tobacco grown in the United
States and Kentucky and Carolina and those parts of kind
of the eastern part of the Mara of the US.
That is what's used predominantly for pike tobacco, chew tobacco,
(26:54):
and cigarettes. Cigar tobacco is a premium it's a little
smaller leaf and it has a less pronounced vein structure
and stuff. So it's a lot prettier leaf that's a
lot more of a fine type leaf and has a
lot more flavor as well.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And back to the lounges, I'm sure there's a lot
of business deals been made over cigars in both places,
but I suspect there's more just good old storytelling going on.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Exactly. Yeah, it's just you know, you'll have a variety,
very eclectic group of people that'll come in in all
aspects of life, from CEOs to a garbage man, but
they all enjoy a cigar and the camaraderie of talking.
We may be talking about sports or you know, right now,
we've got you know, the NCAA tournament going on, We've
(27:42):
got opening day of baseball, so those are all big
times around the cigar lounge, and you know, people just
enjoy to talk about, you know, watching golf, you know,
which is on every weekend and stuff. So it's it's
just a place for people to kind of relax and
be themselves around other like minded people and that enjoy
the relaxation and the pleasure that a cigar brings to you.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That's what it does.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Absolutely many Many Lopez here with me from El Cubano's Cigars,
El Cubano dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I my forgive my accent being heard. Let me try
one more time. Is that better?
Speaker 5 (28:18):
I'm trying to any Cuban?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh god, no, I'm a long waist from there. I'll
leave that to you.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
You guys are very good at what you do, and
I'm not even gonna waste one leaf trying to roll
my own cigar.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Many Lopez, thank you very much, my friend.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Thank you for having me, mister Pike, and we look
forward to seeing everyone at either Texas City or our
league city.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Lokay, bet man, I'll send him your way. Thanks, Minnie,
see you, buddy. All right, we gotta take a little
break here. We will be back. There's a there's a
good story. I may I may hit you with it
when we get back from the break. About the most
interesting time I sat back, smoked a cigar and told
a story about a deer hunt. And if you're even
(28:59):
if you're not a deerter, you don't care about deer hunting,
or you don't like deer hunting, it's an interesting story.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Nonetheless, we'll take a little break here. We'll be right back.
Fifty plus on AM nine fifty kp RC old Guy's rule.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And of course women never get old if you want
to avoid sleeping on the couch.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh, I think that sounds like a good brand. Fifty
plus continues. Here's more with Doug.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I'm putting at eat them all right, Welcome back to
fifty plus. Thank you for listening. I certainly do appreciate it.
I have got boy, I got all kinds of stuff
in front of me today, little bits and pieces from
this morning gathered from a variety of news sources. Let's
just dive straight into the classless and disgusting desk and
(29:51):
talk about Representative Jasmine Crockett and how she laughingly referred
to Governor Greg Abbott, who has been confined to a
wheelchair since he was twenty six after a tree fell
on him. Well, she referred to him as Governor hot wheels.
(30:12):
And to make matters worse, she gaslighted the entire country
by claiming, and this is a quote from her, I
wasn't thinking about the governor's condition. I was thinking about
the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants
to communities led.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
By black mayors.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
She wasn't thinking any such thing, and the people who
voted her into Congress ought to be embarrassed to have
done so. She messed up, She got called out, and
then she came up with a flimsy excuse, a new version,
and then played the let's change the subject card. It's
(30:50):
not her first misstep in that direction, either. She has
a habit of putting her foot in her mouth, and
it saddens me that have people like that representing us,
and it should saden anybody honestly who voted for her.
If they think that's how the United States ought to
be run, how our representatives ought to conduct themselves, then
(31:14):
they need to start again. By the way, if that
name sounds familiar. Jasmine Crockett also the woman who said
someone said Elon Musk should be taken down and that
if she met him, she'd tell him to blank off.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
She didn't use blank and she.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Said that Ted Cruz and i'll quote here should be
quote knocked over the head like hard end quote. That's
the class she brings to lawmaking. Effort underway to have
her censored. Democrats are going to have a lot of
trouble convincing people that she's a good person to represent
(31:54):
their party. She's got a tough road hoe coming up
in her next elect cycle whenever that is up. In
Wisconsin again, just looking at the left, just totally unclear
on the message. Town hall meeting hosted by Wisconsin Governor
Tim Walls, runner up to the runner up to the
(32:16):
runner up, I guess in November, a woman was removed
from the building for filming or videoing. It should say here,
I don't know why people still use the word film videoing.
Organizers as they blocked admission to the event for three
(32:37):
supporters of President Trump. The woman who got booted for
even shooting the video, said she knew what organizers were
doing to these three Americans was wrong and called it
hypocritical to at least there's a quote from her and
I quote it makes it abundantly obvious that their town
(32:59):
halls aren't real end quote.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And that's that's what it is. It's a gathering.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
It's a select gathering of people who all follow that same,
that same train down the tracks, no matter how far
off course it's going, and they're going to ride it
until they ride themselves right out of office. There is
less and less, less and less interest in the Democrat
(33:27):
Party right now, and less than there ever has been.
And there's good reason, because they totally lost touch with
hard working Americans, with everybody, every American. They're flushing themselves
down the drain.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Out of that and into this.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I saw a fascinating example of how data in regard
to anything can be manipulated. But this was in regard
specifically to global warming. And it was a computer analyst
over in Great Britain talking to an audience back in
July of twenty twenty three when he'd been asked, after
he'd been asked by survey his opinion on anthropogenic global warming,
(34:12):
that is, the notion that global warming is our fault.
And the conclusion of that study was that ninety five
percent of the respondents to that survey agreed. And then
he started breaking out the actual results, starting with the
fact that about two thirds of the people who got
surveyed didn't reply at all, and then it's a pretty
(34:33):
long video, but essentially he kept debunking every contention they
made and backing it up with the true statistics from
the study. And in the end, after eliminating people who
didn't answer, people whose answers were vague, and all these
other reasons that they should be thrown out, but weren't,
(34:53):
the actual percentage of people surveyed who truly believed that
global warming was all fought was our fault, one half
of one percent.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
That was it. That was it. I got a great
rescue story. Will you want that?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, your enthusiasm is overwhelming today. I'm so glad you're
in such a spirited mood. What are you doing over there?
By the way, I can hear myself think for all
the clicking? Are you writing a book?
Speaker 4 (35:26):
No?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Doing crossword puzzles?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Dog?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Oh my god? Thanks for thanks for thanks for adding
to the program. Remember you you have an opportunity. I've
given you the opportunity to have your own little feature
in here every day.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
If you want it. All you gotta do is is
do it.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
And we're not gonna have Will's crossword corner.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Okay, that's not gonna be it. What if I asked
the listeners, I'll pose one of the clues.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Why don't you try to stump get I'll get one
of the listeners to call in and giving me the
Then you have to answer a phone call. Yeah, but
maybe this will be a good way to do it.
You just dive right in. You got to kill you're
stuck on over there?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
No, well, then didn't get off the kiddy crosswords? Get
a grown man's crossword? Will? These are these are speed crosswords.
I'm trying to get it as fast as I can
with all three letter words. No, no, they are not
all three letter words. Am I am?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I messing up your chances to win by sit here
on the clock, aren't you am Well, that's even better.
Let's chat, will Okay, I'll tell you about the rescue story,
which I thought was pretty cool. Small plane went missing
up in Alaska, Okay, where it's still pretty dog on cold,
and was found after quite a long search. It had
(36:47):
crash landed in a lake on the ice of that lake,
and that lake's ice was just barely strong enough to
keep that plane from sinking. And twelve hours into the ordeal,
they were spotted by one of the searchers out there
(37:07):
flying around himself, and he could see the plane very clearly.
There's a photograph that was taken from the plane, pretty
obvious that there's a plane on the ice, a very
small plane. And then the dad was sitting on a
wing and his two children were sitting kind of at
(37:28):
the base, if you will, against the fuselage of the
other wing, and they were out there in that environment,
nothing around them but ice for way longer than anybody
would have dared try to walk, because if they had
slipped through the ice, that would have been catastrophic. But
they just sat there and I guess said a few prayers,
I'd be willing to bet and finally got finally got
(37:52):
rescued and taken to a hospital where they're doing okay,
I believe considering what they experienced. A Maxim Waters is
in the news. Good gosh, eighty six years old, still
in Congress as a lifelong Democrat, and she's taken a
lot of heat this week for suggesting in a video
that Milania Trump should be investigated and possibly deported because
(38:15):
we really don't know the immigration status of her parents.
That is such a just pathetic way to whine about
losing the last election and the House and the Senate.
Elon musk on X wrote, quote, at some point, the
many crimes of Maxine Waters will catch up with her.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
End quote. Who knows what he's working on. It's sad
that we have people who.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Think that way in Congress and who steadfastly received refuse
to just see anything anything other than what they think
as being a possibility for this country.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
AOC made the news too, But I'm not going to
get into that right now. I don't have time.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
All right, Well, we're about to wrap it up, aren't we. Yes,
I'm not even I'm not even gonna look for something
that's really exciting. Why don't you give me the exciting world.
What was the hardest clue you just solved? You got
ten seconds go. They're not hard. Oh, you just have
to be fast.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
You just gotta be fast. So basically it's just a
typing contest.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Yes, all right, Well we'll find out how he fared
tomorrow on fifty plus. Boy, everybody can't wait, right, we'll
be back then, Thank you, audios
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. 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.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
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. Why welcome back
fifty plus. Thanks for listening. Certainly do appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
On this Wednesday midweek edition of fifty plus, appropriately dubbed
I guess, because we're about midway between yesterday and Monday's
sunshine and tomorrow's increasing chances for rain and thunderstorms, and officially,
really it just kind of depends on the track and
I guess. By the way, all of this is the
(01:10):
courtesy of Texas Into Air Quality Specialists, because cleaner air
is healthier air, and they'll clean all that air in
your house by cleaning your duct work. If you'll just
go take a look at the website and make a
phone call and ask them exactly how they do what
they do so that your duct work stays clean for years,
not months. In any event, there is an approaching low
(01:33):
pressure system, and much of what happens around here and
exactly where around here in this greater Metropolitan Houston area
that's about I don't know, sixty or seventy miles by
sixty or seventy miles. It all depends on which way
that front goes. If it goes a little south, then
somebody else gets rain. If it slides a little north,
(01:55):
then somebody else gets rain. There's going to be rain
tomorrow and Friday, and maybe even a little bit Saturday, unfortunately,
and that's the last thing the PGA Tour wanted to
hear for the Texas Children's Houston Open this week. Got
the world's number one and two, and then a bunch
of really really good players kind of tuning themselves up
for the Masters in a couple of weeks, and they'll
(02:19):
be here slogging away unfortunately, probably around the middle part
of the tournament.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Hopefully it'll just hopeully.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
It'll run through the We are pretty dry, and with
that in our favor, hopefully the water will be absorbed
by the ground. And not caused too many problems around town,
especially no flooding. I hate it when we see pictures
of in video of flooded streets.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
They're just a.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Major nuisance and probably not as necessary and probably and
certainly more frequent now than in years past when we
hadn't developed. Ninety nine point nine percent of the land
around here.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
A slab down.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Now when they build out on the west side of town,
at least most of the development out there requires and
this is why you see all these neighborhoods with lakes.
They're required to build those holes in the ground out
there to make sure that when water comes rushing in
all of a sudden with a big thunderstorm, it doesn't
(03:22):
just flood the streets, that it gets to go into
those reservoirs. And by the way, if you like to
fish neighborhood lakes, any place where rain water drains into
a retention pond that's got a bass or two in it,
half those bass are going to be right where it
drains in. And I can I can point out examples
of that if you want to listen on Saturday and
(03:43):
ask me over on Sports Talk seven ninety also on
our City's calendar this week, opening day of the Astros
long season, the Astros who pulled off by the way
at least Joe, a spot of the manager did a
really heartwarming welcome of rookie cam Smith to the opening
day roster inside the clubhouse. It's a video worth going
(04:05):
to see if you like good family moments. Inside the
locker room with the whole team gathered, Joe Spotta said
there was gonna be a special announcement made and that
it would be made by a special person. He more
eloquent and used a lot more words to say that,
but that boils it down. And that's about the same
(04:27):
time that Cam Smith's mother and whole family walked into
the locker room, and it was she who got to
tell her son. He was already crying as soon as
she walked in the room and had a pretty good
idea of what was going on, but she was able
to tell her son that he had made the big
league team. I can't wait to see that kid play.
(04:48):
I really can't. He's probably one of the best best
bets we've had in quite some time. And even if
he stumbles out the gate a little bit, I'm not
gonna worr him much about him. I remember a kid
named Bregman going about zero for thirty five not that
long ago, and he turned out okay in market news
(05:12):
thanks to Houston gooldexchange dot com. Still some uncertainty over
tariffs and interest rates and the FED and just you
name it.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Everybody's a little nervous. At least on Wall Street.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
They are where really nothing of great impact gets done.
Most of the trading, as I've talked about before, is
done by algorithms and computers that are set to buy
or sell anytime specific triggers get hit, and it happens
all day long, every day, all the way around the world.
(05:47):
All these giant supercomputers are making probably ninety nine percent
of decisions in the markets. You and I call a
broker and want to buy something. By the time that
coms over, there probably been millions of shares traded back
and forth, and the price is different, and hopefully we
(06:07):
still caught it on the low and maybe get to
take advantage of a rebound somewhere. All four of the
indicators I watch were red half an hour ago. Gold
was down a couple of bucks as well, and sadly,
the only little green on the board was oil, and
it was it's been pretty good, but it was kind
(06:29):
of let's call it just tickling the chin of seventy
dollars again per barrel, and I hope that that goes
the other way through the rest of the week. I
would love to see some of this oil stabilize. It's
going to take some changes in the Middle East and
some changes here and there around the world to really
get a good handle on where we're going to stand.
(06:50):
Once the drilling ramps up in our country too, where
we have more and more and more oil and gas
to export and rely less and less on any kind
of imports, we'll get that Keystone pipeline going again and
there'll be some really be a lot of oil coming
this way.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I don't want to get into that. I don't want
to get into this. We just I don't want to go.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
What I don't want to do is get into something
that's gonna take a lot of time, because coming up
we are going to talk about the homelessness among seniors
that's on the rise unfortunately, and what.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
They're doing to get the healthcare they need. Seniors.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I don't care how well off you are, you're not
gonna avoid things that happen when you get older and older. Now,
the wealthiest seniors can just pop in and see a
doctor anytime they want to. Even Medicare and Medicaid are
greatly helpful.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
But if you're.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Homeless, how are you going to get to the doctor.
That's a hard thing, and we're going to talk about
that with doctor David S. Buck when we get back
from this break. All the way out, I'll tell you
about a late health This is a it's a vascular
it is. It is vascular clinics around town where they
take care of a lot of different issues that can
be alleviated by cutting off blood supply to a particular area.
(08:11):
Whether it's an ugly vein, whether it's fibroids in women,
whether it's an enlarged non cancerous prostate in men. That's
the procedure they do most often. It's called prostate artery embolization,
and it alleviates those horrible symptoms of an enlarged non
cancerous prostate. If you're over fifty five, you might be
dealing with a little bit at least the onset of
(08:33):
those symptoms at that age, and the older you get,
the more likely you're going to have to deal with
it at some point. Go to the website a latehealth
dot com and then look around and see all the
different procedures they can do for you, almost always within
a couple of hours right there in the office. Much
of that is covered by Medicare and Medicaid, And they
(08:54):
also do regenerative medicine, by the way, which is very
helpful with chronic pain. And you never have to go
to the hospit little where you might bring home something
you didn't have when you got there. A latehealth dot com.
That's the website. Seven one three, five eight, eight thirty
eight eighty eight. Seven to one three, five eight, eight
thirty eight eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
What's life without a NET? I suggest to go to bed,
sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Just wait until the show's over, Sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Hi, Welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Thank you all for listening on this cloudy but at
least not rainy Wednesday. Good news for the people who
had pro am spots over there at the Texas Children's
Houston Open no promises for the rest of the week.
In this segment, will address the growing problem of homelessness
among seniors and to shed a little light in that direction.
I'm going to bring in doctor David S. Buck, Associate
(09:53):
Dean for Community Health at the Tillman Jay Fertida Family
College of Medicine and founder of Healthcare for the Homeless Houston.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Welcome aboard, doc, Thank you so much. It's my pleasure
to have you on here.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
So until this week, I hadn't really thought a lot
about homelessness among seniors, I'll be honest, and I really
wasn't aware that their numbers are rising.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Why is this happening?
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Well, it mirrors are aging demographic of our population. You know,
the boomers of which I'm one, That number of people
that are aging with limited or marginal benefits. That growing
(10:39):
number has increased the number of people going into the horrible,
unfortunate experience of homelessness.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
You know, it just mirrors the aging population. Really.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
If it's if the homeless are going to represent say
two percent of all seniors, then the more seniors there are,
the more that number grows as well.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
That's safe to say, yes, But there are other factors
that contribute to it. For example, twenty years ago, ten
percent of people in America will have experienced homelessness at
some point in their lifetime. Now that percent or number
has grown to thirteen percent.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Oh my word, that's a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I had no idea, right, and you may wonder, well, gosh,
so much money being thrown at this California spending billions.
Why is the number increasing? Well, we have to go
back in history to look at the New Deal. When
the depression hit and unemployment was twenty five percent. Our
(11:41):
government reversed this through implementing Social Security Administration, something that's
in peril today, the Federal Housing Administration, among other entities.
Then LBJ in the nineteen seventies. Our Texan president initiated
the Great Societiety in the nineteen sixties and targeted the
(12:03):
twenty percent of America that was in poverty and reduced
it in ten years by fifty percent to ten percent.
So had the biggest reduction in poverty in our lifetime.
And Medicare, Medicaid head Start We're all created and had
that part of that success in reducing poverty by fifty percent.
(12:28):
But in the nineteen eighties, HUD funding was decreased by
seventy five percent and has never increased. That amount of
funding for affordable housing in today's dollars would be sixty
billion dollars a year. So when we look at well,
why is homelessness becoming more and more and more an issue?
(12:51):
And that's because as the number of the billions of
dollars are now three trillion dollars of not spent funding
to go towards affordable housing, we have increased poverty over
these forty years. And I think we just don't grasp
(13:14):
the challenge.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Are homeless people what do they do for healthcare? How
do they We're all every one of us who are
seniors in my hands in the air, certainly, we all
know how important it is to maintain our health.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
How do these people get that healthcare?
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Well, that's a great question. In the nineteen nineties, I
started healthcare for the homeless Houston, and it was precisely
because everyone was getting their care in the emergency room,
where care is good if you have an emergency, but
(13:55):
non acute care. In most of the homeless, like us,
have chronic medical conditions, and so that's the most expensive
place to get care, and it's not the kind of
chronic care we need. And so not only are you
spending more approximately ten to twenty times more, but they're
(14:17):
not getting what they need. They're sent from the hospital
without even the meds that they need.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Oh gosh, I don't know how to get around that.
And I'm presuming a lot of these people. Most of
these people have no phone, they have no transportation. How
do they even get to the hospital.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Well, you know, that's why we set up healthcare for
the homeless Houston to be able to be where they are,
to be in the mostly the downtown midtown, in the shelters,
in order to access that more easily. But some people can't.
Just like what you said, they have to get care
(14:56):
where they are, and so they go to the emergency room.
Emergency rooms don't have social support in large measure, so
they really can't address these underlying challenges of.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Housing instability, Doctor David buck here on fifty plus. Are
homeless people sometimes hesitant to seek out healthcare for fear,
for fear they'll be judged.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Well, I can't speak for that blanket you know, of
all harmless people, but many people experiencing almost sins, they're
just like you and I, and they they would be embarrassed.
But even more than embarrassment, I find that our institutions
aren't very receptive to them. Our institutions are good at
(15:45):
doing what we do in large volume, and when someone
comes in that's outside of that what we do easily,
it becomes a source of frustration. And people sometimes, you know,
they want to what they used to call a gomer,
get out of my emergency room.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh my goodness, that's what.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Yeah, I've never heard that before. That's very interesting. That's
a little peak of Holy cow. What percentage of homeless
seniors would you guess actually get preventive care like they should,
like vaccines and mammograms.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
I would be lying if I said I knew that number.
I don't know it. In Houston, it has not been assessed,
but I would I would think preventive care. I would
think less than twenty five percent within my guess.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
That's That's what I'm heading for as well, because it
would be very hard for someone who who feels pretty
healthy and presents in some emergency room and says, hey,
i'd like to get A woman goes in and says
I'd like to get a mammogram just to make sure
I don't have breast cancer, and they're just going to say,
who's going to pay for that?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
And that's and you bring up a great point too
where I was going, homeless are younger, and they're younger
at dying. They die in Texas twenty nine years younger
than their domiciled counterparts. So if we live to being eighty,
(17:16):
they live to be fifty, so they're not even Yeah.
So many don't make it there, but those that do
have worse health.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
So in the last minute, we have doctor Buck, what
do we do about this?
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Well, we have to look at it in a coordinated, thoughtful,
deliberate way. We can't just keep doing these one and
done every kind of the silos of excellence. One group
is responsible for mental health. Another authority of Harris County
is responsible for physical health. Then there's yet another for housing.
(17:56):
One's permanent supportive housing, the other is for emerging sea housing.
One place does eligibility for getting off the street. Someone
else is involved with eligibility for medical or mental or
dental health. There's little to no coordination for this, and
the plans that we see are very fragmented as well.
(18:20):
We need to look at this comprehensively.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I'm so glad that you're out there championing the struggle
for these people, because they deserve the same level of
care as anybody else gets. Thank you so very much
for your time today, and I wish you well let
me know if I can help you again.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Thanks so much, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
All right, we got to take a little break here
on the way out.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Ut Health Institute on Aging is the collaborative, collaborative effort
of more than a thousand providers, healthcare providers from every walk,
every discipline who are so dedicated to us that they
have gone back after they got all the education they
(19:03):
needed to get whatever credentials they have, but they've gone
back and learned more about how to apply their knowledge
and their expertise specifically to us. And that is a
blessing no matter how you cut it. When you can
be seen by someone who has gone the extra mile
to help seniors stay healthy and enjoy whatever length of
(19:26):
time they have left on this earth, that's the people.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You want to go see. Ut dot Edu slash aging.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
These providers are all over town, a lot of them
in the medical center, a lot of them in outlying
clinics and hospitals. You can find somebody who's close to
you so you don't have to drive into the med center.
If you don't want to go to the website, see
all the resources, and then start your journey toward finding
just the right provider for you to help answer your
questions and help you maintain your health.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Ut dot edu aging. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
When we get back, we're gonna talk to a guy
named Manny Lopez. He's a cigar maker, one of only
fifty places in the country to do that. He's a
pretty interesting and knowledgeable man when it comes to fine tobaccos.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
We'll be right back. More fifty plus coming up now.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
They sure don't make them like they used to. That's
why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh cod o wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
All right, Welcome back plus. This is something this segment
is going to be. It's not the first and it
certainly won't be the last.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
When I interview somebody I find interesting in what they
do because it is somehow unique and somehow different and
somehow just really really cool. In this segment, we're gonna
talk about something we've never really discussed on fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And this is one of those things.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I'd also bet not many of you actually know about
right down in Texas City. My next guest runs one
of only about fifty cigar making operations in the whole country.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's called El Kubano.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
And I will let Manny Lopez tell you why I've
got him on here.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Man?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
How are you?
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Man? Good afternoon, mister Pike. I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And you I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And you you grew up around the cigar business. Didn't
you tell me a little bit about your background?
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Yes, sir, yes, sir. Five generations in the business of
growing tobacco, blending tobacco to make cigars, and hand rolling cigars.
So since nineteen oh four, so about one hundred and
twenty one, my family get involved in the cigar were.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Pretty good at it. Huh when did learning?
Speaker 5 (21:42):
We're learning?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, when did you come here?
Speaker 5 (21:47):
So as far as we left Cuba in the early
sixties due to the revolution and stuff, and came to Miami,
came to Key West, escaped actually in a little small
sailboat at twenty eight foot sailboat, father, my mother and
one other friend of ours and made it to Key
West and then from there we're in Miami for about
a month and then immigration found some work from my
(22:11):
father here in Houston off of North Shepherd out on
the old part of North Shepherd out there by the
old Seers. And so we started, you know, started here
and been in Houston ever since.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And the people who work alongside you down there in
Texas City also from that same heritage too, aren't they.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
Yes, everyone's from Cuba here at the Okawana Alla rollers
and everybody that does everything. We've got a couple of
salesmen that are American born, but everybody here that's involved
directly with the making and rolling of cigars is all
out of the larger Cuban factories and trained in Cuba,
which is a very extensive training program over a nine
(22:50):
month period, and it looks like any other art or trade,
it takes many years to master and to get good
at and.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
For the cigar smokers in the audience. Talk about the
tobacco goes you use and where they come from.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
Yes, we use a predominantly Cuban sea tobacco that's grown
all over the world. We bring tobacco from Honduras, Nicaragua
with door, Dominican Republic, Peru, Columbia, Costa Rica. We use
a little bit of Mexican San Andres and Rapper. We
use some Cameroon wrapper out of Africa. We use some
Sumasa out of Indonesia, so basically import tobacco leaf from
(23:24):
all over the world and then in house do all
the blending and rolling. Currently we're doing twenty seven different
flavor profiles or blends and a total of about one
hundred and fifty different cigars to choose from. Here at
Guana Cigars, and.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
You've got two smoking lounges, the one in Texas City
there at the factory and then the other in League City.
They're really there were I got to assume both with
you a couple of weeks ago. They're just very laid back.
It just seems like a really cool place to hang
out with friends and smoke a cigar.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
Yes, cigars are all about relaxation. Prenominantly they're about celebration.
So we've developed our stores around the same concept, where
you can come in and you can be social if
you'd like, you can get some work done if you want,
or you can just sit there by yourself and enjoy
a cigar and think about, you know, what your next
move in life is.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
One of the things I like about what you do
I know you sell cigars out of both stores and
you ship them all over wherever they need to go,
but you also do this customization. And I don't want
to run out of time before we talk about that
company logos, gender reveal, golf tournament, retirement party, just about anything.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Right, Yes, sir. We have two options that we do,
and that one is that we can personalize the cigar
for you with whatever you'd like on the cigar band,
whether it's a picture of yourself or a special statement
or the logo of your company and Zephyr promotional items.
And then secondly, as we do kind of on site,
we'll come out and do Cigar Roll League demonstration and
(24:50):
bring cigars for your guests to enjoy, and we actually
go over and kind of in detail how we roll cigars,
explain all the different types of tobacco that go into
the cigar, what their purpose is within cigar, in the cigar,
their placement within the cigar, and all the little fine
details about cigars. Kind of give people a little education
on cigar making as well as let them enjoy a
(25:11):
cigar while they're watching, which is the best way to
kind of do it.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I only know one guy who'd won his own picture
on the bands on his own cigars.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Well, you'd be surprised. I've done many a lot of times.
You're like, for a sixtieth.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Birthday, Yeah, well, yeah, that'd be cool if somebody else
bought them for you.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Picture a baby picture, yeah, a baby picture of the
job of a person for their sixtieth birthday party or
the fifteth birthday on a special occasion, some of that.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
I got that picture of the cigars you rolled and
banded for us here at iHeart too. I need to
back down. I need to meet up with you soon
so I can get those from you. I'll reach out
after the show and make that happen. And since you're
the manufacturer of these cigars, there's nobody in the middle
hiking up the price either, is there.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
That is correct. You're basically getting it direct from the
field to the consumer, you know, so there's no middle Manda.
And another thing, it's very important the cigars themselves are
always kept in the proper environment. They're never sitting on
a truck or an a warehouse or kind of neglected
by someone that may not care about the cigars as
much as we do.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
I got you a good. I got you a good
hook phrase from field to finger.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
How's that there?
Speaker 5 (26:17):
You are? I like it?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I like it right?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Is there a big difference between and this is just
a question that came to my head while I was
writing all this up, between the tobaccos using cigars and
the ones using cigarettes.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Yes, it's a completely different the cigarette. This is what
they call a bull leaf tobacco, which is a very
large tobacco leaf with a very heavy vein structure. In fact,
that's when you hear about tobacco grown in the United
States and Kentucky and Carolina and those parts of kind
of the eastern part of the Mara of the US.
That is what's used predominantly for pike tobacco, chew tobacco,
(26:54):
and cigarettes. Cigar tobacco is a premium it's a little
smaller leaf and it has a less pronounced vein structure
and stuff. So it's a lot prettier leaf that's a
lot more of a fine type leaf and has a
lot more flavor as well.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And back to the lounges, I'm sure there's a lot
of business deals been made over cigars in both places,
but I suspect there's more just good old storytelling going on.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Exactly. Yeah, it's just you know, you'll have a variety,
very eclectic group of people that'll come in in all
aspects of life, from CEOs to a garbage man, but
they all enjoy a cigar and the camaraderie of talking.
We may be talking about sports or you know, right now,
we've got you know, the NCAA tournament going on, We've
(27:42):
got opening day of baseball, so those are all big
times around the cigar lounge, and you know, people just
enjoy to talk about, you know, watching golf, you know,
which is on every weekend and stuff. So it's it's
just a place for people to kind of relax and
be themselves around other like minded people and that enjoy
the relaxation and the pleasure that a cigar brings to you.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That's what it does.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Absolutely many Many Lopez here with me from El Cubano's Cigars,
El Cubano dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I my forgive my accent being heard. Let me try
one more time. Is that better?
Speaker 5 (28:18):
I'm trying to any Cuban?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh god, no, I'm a long waist from there. I'll
leave that to you.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
You guys are very good at what you do, and
I'm not even gonna waste one leaf trying to roll
my own cigar.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Many Lopez, thank you very much, my friend.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Thank you for having me, mister Pike, and we look
forward to seeing everyone at either Texas City or our
league city.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Lokay, bet man, I'll send him your way. Thanks, Minnie,
see you, buddy. All right, we gotta take a little
break here. We will be back. There's a there's a
good story. I may I may hit you with it
when we get back from the break. About the most
interesting time I sat back, smoked a cigar and told
a story about a deer hunt. And if you're even
(28:59):
if you're not a deerter, you don't care about deer hunting,
or you don't like deer hunting, it's an interesting story.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Nonetheless, we'll take a little break here. We'll be right back.
Fifty plus on AM nine fifty kp RC old Guy's rule.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And of course women never get old if you want
to avoid sleeping on the couch.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh, I think that sounds like a good brand. Fifty
plus continues. Here's more with Doug.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I'm putting at eat them all right, Welcome back to
fifty plus. Thank you for listening. I certainly do appreciate it.
I have got boy, I got all kinds of stuff
in front of me today, little bits and pieces from
this morning gathered from a variety of news sources. Let's
just dive straight into the classless and disgusting desk and
(29:51):
talk about Representative Jasmine Crockett and how she laughingly referred
to Governor Greg Abbott, who has been confined to a
wheelchair since he was twenty six after a tree fell
on him. Well, she referred to him as Governor hot wheels.
(30:12):
And to make matters worse, she gaslighted the entire country
by claiming, and this is a quote from her, I
wasn't thinking about the governor's condition. I was thinking about
the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants
to communities led.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
By black mayors.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
She wasn't thinking any such thing, and the people who
voted her into Congress ought to be embarrassed to have
done so. She messed up, She got called out, and
then she came up with a flimsy excuse, a new version,
and then played the let's change the subject card. It's
(30:50):
not her first misstep in that direction, either. She has
a habit of putting her foot in her mouth, and
it saddens me that have people like that representing us,
and it should saden anybody honestly who voted for her.
If they think that's how the United States ought to
be run, how our representatives ought to conduct themselves, then
(31:14):
they need to start again. By the way, if that
name sounds familiar. Jasmine Crockett also the woman who said
someone said Elon Musk should be taken down and that
if she met him, she'd tell him to blank off.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
She didn't use blank and she.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Said that Ted Cruz and i'll quote here should be
quote knocked over the head like hard end quote. That's
the class she brings to lawmaking. Effort underway to have
her censored. Democrats are going to have a lot of
trouble convincing people that she's a good person to represent
(31:54):
their party. She's got a tough road hoe coming up
in her next elect cycle whenever that is up. In
Wisconsin again, just looking at the left, just totally unclear
on the message. Town hall meeting hosted by Wisconsin Governor
Tim Walls, runner up to the runner up to the
(32:16):
runner up, I guess in November, a woman was removed
from the building for filming or videoing. It should say here,
I don't know why people still use the word film videoing.
Organizers as they blocked admission to the event for three
(32:37):
supporters of President Trump. The woman who got booted for
even shooting the video, said she knew what organizers were
doing to these three Americans was wrong and called it
hypocritical to at least there's a quote from her and
I quote it makes it abundantly obvious that their town
(32:59):
halls aren't real end quote.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And that's that's what it is. It's a gathering.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
It's a select gathering of people who all follow that same,
that same train down the tracks, no matter how far
off course it's going, and they're going to ride it
until they ride themselves right out of office. There is
less and less, less and less interest in the Democrat
(33:27):
Party right now, and less than there ever has been.
And there's good reason, because they totally lost touch with
hard working Americans, with everybody, every American. They're flushing themselves
down the drain.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Out of that and into this.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I saw a fascinating example of how data in regard
to anything can be manipulated. But this was in regard
specifically to global warming. And it was a computer analyst
over in Great Britain talking to an audience back in
July of twenty twenty three when he'd been asked, after
he'd been asked by survey his opinion on anthropogenic global warming,
(34:12):
that is, the notion that global warming is our fault.
And the conclusion of that study was that ninety five
percent of the respondents to that survey agreed. And then
he started breaking out the actual results, starting with the
fact that about two thirds of the people who got
surveyed didn't reply at all, and then it's a pretty
(34:33):
long video, but essentially he kept debunking every contention they
made and backing it up with the true statistics from
the study. And in the end, after eliminating people who
didn't answer, people whose answers were vague, and all these
other reasons that they should be thrown out, but weren't,
(34:53):
the actual percentage of people surveyed who truly believed that
global warming was all fought was our fault, one half
of one percent.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
That was it. That was it. I got a great
rescue story. Will you want that?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, your enthusiasm is overwhelming today. I'm so glad you're
in such a spirited mood. What are you doing over there?
By the way, I can hear myself think for all
the clicking? Are you writing a book?
Speaker 4 (35:26):
No?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Doing crossword puzzles?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Dog?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Oh my god? Thanks for thanks for thanks for adding
to the program. Remember you you have an opportunity. I've
given you the opportunity to have your own little feature
in here every day.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
If you want it. All you gotta do is is
do it.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
And we're not gonna have Will's crossword corner.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Okay, that's not gonna be it. What if I asked
the listeners, I'll pose one of the clues.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Why don't you try to stump get I'll get one
of the listeners to call in and giving me the
Then you have to answer a phone call. Yeah, but
maybe this will be a good way to do it.
You just dive right in. You got to kill you're
stuck on over there?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
No, well, then didn't get off the kiddy crosswords? Get
a grown man's crossword? Will? These are these are speed crosswords.
I'm trying to get it as fast as I can
with all three letter words. No, no, they are not
all three letter words. Am I am?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I messing up your chances to win by sit here
on the clock, aren't you am Well, that's even better.
Let's chat, will Okay, I'll tell you about the rescue story,
which I thought was pretty cool. Small plane went missing
up in Alaska, Okay, where it's still pretty dog on cold,
and was found after quite a long search. It had
(36:47):
crash landed in a lake on the ice of that lake,
and that lake's ice was just barely strong enough to
keep that plane from sinking. And twelve hours into the ordeal,
they were spotted by one of the searchers out there
(37:07):
flying around himself, and he could see the plane very clearly.
There's a photograph that was taken from the plane, pretty
obvious that there's a plane on the ice, a very
small plane. And then the dad was sitting on a
wing and his two children were sitting kind of at
(37:28):
the base, if you will, against the fuselage of the
other wing, and they were out there in that environment,
nothing around them but ice for way longer than anybody
would have dared try to walk, because if they had
slipped through the ice, that would have been catastrophic. But
they just sat there and I guess said a few prayers,
I'd be willing to bet and finally got finally got
(37:52):
rescued and taken to a hospital where they're doing okay,
I believe considering what they experienced. A Maxim Waters is
in the news. Good gosh, eighty six years old, still
in Congress as a lifelong Democrat, and she's taken a
lot of heat this week for suggesting in a video
that Milania Trump should be investigated and possibly deported because
(38:15):
we really don't know the immigration status of her parents.
That is such a just pathetic way to whine about
losing the last election and the House and the Senate.
Elon musk on X wrote, quote, at some point, the
many crimes of Maxine Waters will catch up with her.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
End quote. Who knows what he's working on. It's sad
that we have people who.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Think that way in Congress and who steadfastly received refuse
to just see anything anything other than what they think
as being a possibility for this country.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
AOC made the news too, But I'm not going to
get into that right now. I don't have time.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
All right, Well, we're about to wrap it up, aren't we. Yes,
I'm not even I'm not even gonna look for something
that's really exciting. Why don't you give me the exciting world.
What was the hardest clue you just solved? You got
ten seconds go. They're not hard. Oh, you just have
to be fast.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
You just gotta be fast. So basically it's just a
typing contest.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Yes, all right, Well we'll find out how he fared
tomorrow on fifty plus. Boy, everybody can't wait, right, we'll
be back then, Thank you, audios
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