Skin Health and National Dog Day

Today, Doug Pike interviews Dr. Megan Rogge about skin health. Pike also speaks with Chrissy Joy about National Dog Day.

Episode Transcript

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?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
This show is all about you. One.

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.
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hold on a drop my pen. God, I'm not getting taller,
but it sure seems like it's a lot farther down
to the floor than it used to be when I
was younger. Day one of six. This is for me,
unusual week and first crack at what's going on now? Quickly?
The tropics are quiet, if and only if you could ignore,

(01:08):
and I sure can, tropical Storm fernand which is moving
lazily northeastward out over the open North Atlantic Ocean, and
none too soon we'll just fizzle into oblivion and become nothing.
Right now, it's still still spinning around, still has a name.
I suspect that by this evening, and certainly by tomorrow,

(01:34):
they'll downgrade that thing and quit looking at it. Local
forecasts call for a chance of rain all week, but
it's not one of those everybody gets the same shot deals.
I had reason, very good reason, eighteen of them for
tomorrow to check the forecast, which shows for Houston a

(01:57):
sixty chance of rain. I thought, Oh, that's that's not
what I wanted to see. However, when I checked the
same forecast for the same day for Richmond, Texas, which
is not exactly as far away as El Paso, it's
rich Richmond in Houston kind of shrif fit. If they
were ranchers, they'd share a fence, basically, and the chance

(02:19):
of raining in Richmond, Texas is only thirty percent, and
that matters greatly to my afternoon plans. Markets were pretty
quiet early. Big four were all green a few minutes ago,
as was gold, and oil was down actually nearly a
buck and a half a barrel, still hanging out in
the low sixties, which which is good certainly for gasoline prices.

(02:43):
The oil companies would like it to be a little
bit higher, but that's still within the realm of what
they can where it can be, and they can still
make a buck or two or a lot of money.
And I don't have problems with oil companies making money
because it costs a lot of money to produce oil
and to refine oil and to turn those turned crude

(03:06):
oil into all the products that it becomes. And if
you look at the law, look up what products, what
end user products contain petroleum as one of their ingredients,
some sort of petroleum product, and the list, it's like
a CBS receipt on steroids. It just goes into oblivion,

(03:30):
stepping into matters far more important. Over the weekend, I
saw a video in which a couple of liberals were
accusing conservatives of quote and from that story, losing their
minds end quote over Cracker Barrell changing its logo to
this cleaner, simpler version that doesn't include the rock and
chair or the barrel or any of that. It's just

(03:53):
the name in a different I think it's the same font,
but it's just a clean logo on a clean background.
Which is that's just the hip or cooler version of
what used to be when artists were hired to create logos.
Artists and other creative people, they would be hired on

(04:17):
to create the logos of companies and and have something
that represented the company other than its name that seems
to be being phased out. And hey, it's I don't know,
I don't know why anybody was accused of losing their
mind over a logo. It's just the same stuff that's
been going on for years. People focusing on the wants

(04:41):
and needs of tiny groups of unique people while totally
turning their their heads and their eyes away from big
picture issues. You know that violent crime, maybe illegal immigration,
human trafficking. There's clear cut evidence too now that the
the Left used falsified documents and leaked things deliberately in

(05:04):
the tip to Sway national election. There's that that needs
to be covered far more than Cracker Barrel's new logo.
First of all, nobody lost their mind over a restaurant logo.
That's what one side does, but not the other. Most
of the comments I see, actually, even the negative ones,
were just observations that these authors preferred the original to

(05:24):
the new. That was about it, same song, different verse,
accuser opposition of doing exactly what you're doing, And so
you know, the new logo did Cracker barrels stock no good.
Temporarily for the first few days after that announcement, shares
dropped nearly twenty percent. They've recovered most of that drop

(05:45):
now and are trending back upward again today. Still haven't
gotten all the way back to where they were, but
I suspect that once the hullaballoo wears down, it won't
be that big a deal. Meanwhile, Ben Beth and Beyond
said no thanks to California and is moving out for
good lock Stock and Barrel. Not that it's impossible to

(06:07):
survive as a major or noting excuse me, I read,
I read my own word that I put in my
notes here, noting that it's impossible to survive as a
major retailer in California. A number of reasons too, including
its soft stance on crime, tough rules on business, on
and on and on. And I've got much more. I

(06:28):
would love to tell you about all of that, but
we've got two really good interviews coming up, and I
don't wanna, I don't wanna impose on the time they're allotted.
Coming up next is gonna be doctor Meghan Roady, and
we're gonna talk about guess what skin, old people's skin
and to some degree young people's skin. But that's what
it's gonna be about when we get there. Shortly on

(06:50):
the way there, I'm gonna start with Champions Tree Preservation.
The people who will come to your house. They'll send
it an arborous That's a big deal, not just some
do with a truck and a chainsaw. An arborus will
come to your house diagnose your trees to see exactly
what they need to protect them and save them and
keep them healthy. That's what Champions Tree Preservation means. They

(07:12):
want to keep that tree healthy for you. They want
to make it healthy. They have all the equipment necessary
to do anything from deep root feeding to trimming the
tops of those trees if that's what it needs. And
in the horrible case that a tree has to be removed,
they have the equipment to do that, and they own
a tree farm so they can replace that tree with

(07:34):
a native Texas tree that will give you years and
years and maybe decades more enjoyment, depending on how long
you stay in that house. Give them a call, get
somebody out there. Two eight one three two zero eighty
two zero one two eight one three two zero eighty
two to oh one, or go to that website championstree
dot com. Championstree dot com.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, 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 coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Come back. Thanks for listening, certain to appreciate it. On
this Tuesday afternoon, I don't want to waste any time
because we got some good ones today. Welcome back to
this mostly nice Tuesday afternoon. We'll talk of this segment
about something most of us, at least in our teens
and early twenties, probably either ignored or just didn't know about,
and that's sun related skin damage. And while we're out

(08:29):
there slathering ourselves in baby oil back then so many
oversized chicken nuggets on the beach, our skin was taking
a very cumulative, long term beating. But done is done,
so no Swinton, we don't need to dwell on the past.
What we'll do now is talk about how to protect
what we've got left from exposure to o' sun and
the heat it produces in the summertime. Which brings me

(08:51):
to doctor Megan Rogi, board certified Dermatolgist at ut Physicians
and Memorial here Herman Hills. Good Slow Down Dog Memorial
Herman Hospital.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Welcome Doctor Rogan, Hi Doug, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
I'm gonna shift to a slower gear so i can
get through this heat and sunshine can trigger all sorts
of things even my experienced audience might not realize or related,
can't they.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah, absolutely, So you know, the most common effect of
sun exposure, of course, is going to be a sunburn,
which of course is painful in the short term. Of course,
in the long term, we know that increases your risk
for skin cancer. Something important I think for a fifty
plus crowd to realize is that certain medications actually increase

(09:40):
your risk for sunburns. So these are things like antibiotics,
diuretics or other blood pressure medications, So those can cause
sunburns to happen more easily. So you know, people who
take a lot of medication do need to be even
more careful in the sun. And then, of course, yes,
sun exposure itself can and kind of flare up a

(10:01):
lot of existing skin conditions roseacea, dan drifts, those are
some really common ones. And as you mentioned, heat itself,
sweating can cause you know, clogging up of the sweat
ducts that can cause something like the heat rashes that
would be known to most you know, bacteria, yeast can

(10:23):
overgrow on the skin, so that could lead to skin
infections acne, foliculitis, kind of yeast rashes in our skin folds.
So lots of good stuff can occur from exposure to
sun and heat.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
You and I have a different, different definition of good stuff.
I think does heat trigger these outbreaks or does it
just exacerbate something that was already there a little bit?

Speaker 3 (10:51):
I think it depends on the skin condition. So for instance,
let's take a common yeast infection on the skin Tinia versus.
This is yeast actually that grows on everybody's skin, but
you know, heat particularly causes the yeast to overgrow and
that's what produces the rash. So, you know, I like

(11:12):
to think of that now as a true, you know,
new infection that the sun or heat is causing, but
more just like an overgrowth of the healthy yeast that
lives on your skin.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Is this something that we can just look at and say, okay,
cabin out in the sun too much? Or at what
point would I look at something on me that I
know is heat related. I knows some related say, you know,
I got to get to the doctor for this.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah, I think you know, some of these things are
more mild, like a heat rash or you know that
kind of superficial yeast growth on the skin. That stuff
doesn't tend to cause a lot of problems, that resolves
pretty quickly, and so those might not be major things
that need to get you to a dermatologist. But certainly
if you're having an infection that's painful, if you have

(12:00):
you know, puss in the skin, or you have raw skin,
or you're just really uncomfortable, like very itchy, or you know,
clothing is rubbing in these areas and it's just hurting.
I mean, that's definitely a reason to go ahead and
see a board certified dermatologist.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
As long as we're talking about summer, what impact does
our high humidity have when it's combined with the sun
and heat. Does that just make it all the worse?

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Well, yes, particularly for that kind of yeast in bacteria.
Like we said, you know, yeast and bacteria love warm, wet,
dark places, and so all the crevices of of your
skin that you know, that's kind of the prime example.
But you know, humidity can help a lot of people
in Houston people who suffer from let's say, egzema, which

(12:44):
is like a dry, itchy skin condition. That humidity could
be helpful for a lot of people. I think people
who have struggled with dry skin, and in the Houston climate,
we actually do a lot better for most of the
year than in some of the northern climates, where you know,
there's a lot of dry air and that kind of
dries out the skin.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
That's a good point, doctor Meghan Rogi here on fifty plus.
So let's do everybody a favor and ditch all this
hot stuff talk and go to fall, the cool dry fall.
Please tell me that there are no negatives with being
outdoors in the cooler, relatively drier air of southeast Texas
in autumn.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yeah, you know, I think autumn and Texas is still
pretty mild. But of course colder and drier air can
lead to loss of moisture in our skin, which may
increase flaking and dryness. If you add central heating to that,
which really takes the moisture out of the air that
we live in, this can really drove the skin further,
so that could again exacerbate common skin conditions like ezema

(13:44):
and itch.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Hey, Here's the question I always have to ask, but
I hate to ask it. Does all this stuff get
worse as we get older?

Speaker 3 (13:54):
So, unfortunately, the skin barrier does kind of start to
weaken on its own as we get older, so we
lose some of the natural lipid or waxy layers to
our skin as we age. Furthermore, hormonal changes, for instance,
women having declining levels of estrogen in their older age
could actually dry the skin out more and contribute. So

(14:18):
I think, of course this can all get worse than
a cold, windy or dry environment, and older folks do
need to be careful to lather on that moisturizer.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Bearing in mind that I love to be outdoors, Doctor
ROGI out big fishing, hunting, golf ball, baseball games. Is
there any specific recommendation for the amount of time seniors
should spend out doors or does that really depend on
how well we keep the sun from getting a direct shot?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (14:46):
You know, my approach is everything in moderation. I think
you need to understand your own risk factors, right, so
it depends on your own personal For instance, skincare excuse me,
skin cancer risk. You know, some people skin conditions where
sun exposure might actually be helpful to them, and so
it's important to just you know, visit with the dermatologists

(15:08):
and understand those risks for skin cancer and understand if
sun exposure could be helpful for your skin. I think
I like to tell patients ten minutes a day for
most people, that's going to be totally fine. If you're
planning to be outside for longer than that, or if
you have a very high risk of skin cancer, then

(15:28):
go ahead and cover up or wear that sun protection
right off the bat.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah. I think that's that's where I need to do better,
is protecting because I can't play one golf hole in
ten minutes. I've read a couple of times lately, doctor
ROGI that sun related skin cancers didn't become calmon until
after the introduction of sunscreens, and that sunscreens have stuff
in them that could make things worth Is there any
truth at all of that.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
So?

Speaker 3 (15:55):
I don't think so. I think that skin cancer diagnosed
have been on the rise for a long time. That
is because we have much better detection, early detection than
we used to, so these numbers are always rising and
skin non melanimal skin cancers are the first and second
most common cancers in the United States. So these are

(16:15):
just super prevalent things. I think there are ingredients in
certain types of chemical sunscreens that at very high levels
could cause hormonal issues in the body. But this applying
sunscreens never gets that level of chemical in your bloodstream

(16:36):
that could actually cause those problem. So these are theoretical things.
These are not things that you really do need to
worry about. If you are worried about them, choose a
mineral sunscreen instead, something with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide,
and you will be fine.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah. I have to wonder how much of that stuff
gets generated by AI and it's just silly. Okay, here's
the big question. We got thirty seconds. Is there anything
at all to do with our health that gets better
with age?

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Well, you get wiser, right, all these years of experience
in the sun, you know how to protect yourself.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Until young people realize that, we're just going to have
to be content to know that we know more than
they do. Doctor ROGI thank you so very much. I
really appreciate your tongue.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Of course, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Doug Bob all right, we got to take a little
break here. I knew there was something. I'm wiser than
I was even yesterday. I learned something just a little
while ago. Amazing collaborative of providers from every medical discipline.
Think about if you had access to something like that,
and you do. If you live in the Greater Houston area,

(17:44):
you have very close to home access to more than
a thousand providers who are involved with the ut Health
Institute on Aging, which is a collaborative of people from
every medical discipline who have taken it upon them to
go back and get additional training as to how they
can apply their specific field of knowledge, their specific body

(18:08):
of expertise to seniors. And that is a tremendous benefit
that's not available to the overwhelming majority of Americans. It
simply is not. I know of only a few more
places in the entire country where there is anything related
to this. It's a great thing to have. Go to
the website, take a look. You can see all the

(18:29):
different opportunities you have to learn about your health, and
then follow your way if you have something If you
have something specific that you need taken care of, and
you can't really get answers from the people you're seeing,
now find somebody who's a member of the Institute on
Aging and go see that person. Most of them are
in the med center, as you might suspect, but a
very large percentage of those people also work in outlying

(18:52):
clinics and hospitals and offices, so that if you don't
want to go down into the med center, you don't
have to. Health Institute on Aging ut dot edu slash Aging.
That's the website. Go check it out. You'll be very
glad you did. Utch dot edu slash Aging.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Aged to Perfection. This is fifty plus with Dougpike.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Welcome back, Thank you for listening. I certainly do appreciate it.
On National Dog Day and if you have a dog,
your task today is to do exactly what you do
for that pet every day. If you're a good pet owner,
which is take good care of it. I'd like to
think that all of you would do best you can.
But one of the things some dog owners don't realize
is that there are kind of ways to help your

(19:39):
dog get through the day while you're at work or
shopping or whatever. And to share some ideas on just
how to do that right, I'm gonna welcome Chrissy Joy
Dog Trainer to some of the best known people in
the country. Welcome aboard, Chrissy.

Speaker 4 (19:53):
Hello, I'm so happy to be here and thank you
for having me.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
I greatly appreciate your time. So first, let's talk about
how pets react when their owners leave to go to
work in the morning. There's no sound, no screens active
in the house. When when we're away, what's the impact
on these animals?

Speaker 4 (20:10):
You know, it's yeah, it's whether you're leaving for work.
It's whether you are traveling, whether you bring your pet
with you or you have to leave them behind. You know,
it's really an extend any extended period of time where
their routine is being disrupted, you have a chance for
your dog to be actually going through some strut and
you know, stress can manifest itself in different ways. We
have dogs that you know excessively pant and shake and

(20:30):
obvious signs, but there's also subtle signs like your dog
yawning sometimes or shake doing a body shake.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Uh oh, does she fall off?

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Come back?

Speaker 2 (20:45):
I bet will can find her. In the meantime, I
had an observation about National Dog Day, and while he's
getting her back up, I'll let you know it's also
National toilet paper Day. Only one of those things actually
should be a thing.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
If anything to go along with National Dog Day, perhaps
today should be National Small green Plastic Bag Day as well.
Or maybe we could move it to a Wednesday. You
got it, will We're getting there now, we're getting her voicemail.
We'll try again. So if we moved National Dog Day

(21:20):
and created National Green No, that wouldn't that wouldn't matter.
Move National Dog Day to Wednesday. It could also be
hump Day. Some of these little dogs drive you crazy.
By the way, forty five percent of Americans actually owned dogs. Uh,
and that's up against thirty two percent who owned cats.

(21:40):
And in very boring news, a new poll found that
medium dogs are our favorite. That's why they're that's why
they're medium. That not too big, not too small. Only
twenty five percent of people actually said they would get
a big dog. And it's just having the room for them.
And I've owned a pretty big male lab back when

(22:04):
I was a waterfowl. Got out on the Katie prayer.
You got her? She just gone, oh my word. Well,
we'll figure this out, and I'll tell you what. Let's
let's hit this brake. Well, can we do that this earlier? No,
I don't have to I can go back to the news.
What do you want to do? I sew on news.

(22:27):
It is okay, will let me go back over to
my page here. Uh, going back to what we were
talking about earlier. Oh wait, you got her? Are you there, Chrissy,
I'm here, so sorry.

Speaker 4 (22:45):
We must have got disconnected or.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
My dog pulled the plus you know that may have
been in I get by the way, going back to
what these how these dogs react. I can personally vouch
for what what young Labrador retriever puppies will tear up somewhere,
but they'll they'll do about fifted to ninety percent of
the chair and sofa cushions in the average den when
left alone for forty five minutes. I guarantee you I

(23:08):
know that. Oh my, that's.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
An impressive statistic.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
One of the one of the main things I tell
people is, you know, before you leave for the day,
or if you're going to go on a trip with
your dogs but you're going to leave them for a
little bit, get them exercise first, because our tired dog
is going to be a happy dog.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I was going to ask you about that. See, it
made perfectly good sense to me when my dog came
home after I had that lab was a retriever for me,
and after a very long morning in the field, he
would just come home and just lie down and sleep
for hours.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
He was tired, absolutely, And and you know some dogs,
you know, that's that's what we call like an off switch.
Can your dog come in the home and rap after
getting exercise. I have Border Collie, so they do that
for about twenty minutes and they're like, Okay, what are
we doing next? So you know, it all depends on
the dog that you have. But I cannot say enough
that you have to tire them physically but also mentally.
You know, dogs they can run three four miles a

(24:02):
day or all that. You know, when you do if
you are working them in the field and they're actively
retrieving things, that's using their brain as well versus just
taking a walk or you know, not having this chance
to sniff and explore. So you know, that's one of
the biggest things. Another thing I love is, you know
everybody feeds their dogs out of bowls. I think that's
kind of old school. I think you can go online
and get some really cool puzzle toys that is going

(24:24):
to work your dog's brain and help them get sharper
and also burn out some of that mental energy instead
of just eating from a bowl. And then five minutes
later they're looking at you get them something that's actually
going to burn out some of this energy before you leave,
or use it to put down while you walk out
of the house. So they're busy playing with this thing
and bopping it around the house where you can kind

(24:46):
of slip out and run your errands.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Celebrity dog trainer Chrissy Joy on fifty plus I saw
something about screen time and dogs watching TV. What's the
story with that?

Speaker 4 (24:57):
I know it's so crazy, So I know how some
people like been watched their own shows, But there is
an actual network for your dogs now it has happened.
It's called dog TV. This is the coolest part though,
you know. So when you watch the screen some of
the programs, like it looks like you're watching a three
D movie, but you didn't put the glasses on. You're like,
why is it so weird? It's actually been scientifically altered

(25:17):
so that your dog can see everything in it, and
not just the gray scale. It's going to show colors
that dogs can see, which is blue, yellow, and tades
of purple, so your dog can actually now watch this program,
and the program is tailored for your dog, so it's
very pleasing. Scenes like hiking the field, beaches, dogs, running
and playing, even someone who talks to the screens so

(25:40):
your dog doesn't feel alone, so they feel like someone
else is there with them.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Are there any TV stations that still show reruns of
last year rentintin.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Oh, I don't know rooting for which I'm rooting for?
Which phone to come back?

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah? Okay? With so many breeds and so many different
dispositions among them, are there any just basic guideline on
things that will keep all these dogs happy when we're gone,
and then I've got a really important question to ask
after that.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Absolutely, it's also recap. You know, exercise is a big deal.
Get dogs out there with propper exercise. Absolutely, spend that
quality time with your dog, or get them a puzzle toy,
something that's going to enrich their brain so you're mentally
satisfying them now, and then something when you do leave,
like dog TV that has calming playlists designed specifically for
your dogs, so you can leave it on in the
background while you're going off and doing things. Kind of

(26:29):
programs for you to watch too.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
I've known people This is the question I wanted to
ask before we end up, and we've got about a
minute and a half about people who create their dogs
all day while they're at or what's your opinion on that.

Speaker 4 (26:41):
I have a mixed opinion there. My dogs have to
earn their freedom. So my younger dogs are absolutely created
when I'm not there, and if I'm gone for an
extended period of time, I will hire a dog walker
if I can't take them out. But my older dogs,
when they get older and they kind of earn that freedom,
I will let them be loose. But for your dogs
who are young and you still in your got know
that they're a bit spontaneous in their actions, and you

(27:03):
know who you people are because you know your dogs
are doing naughty things. I absolutely love a crate. It's
for their own safety. Also, this is a note in
terms of fire or any emergency. There are things today
that help firemen locate the crates immediately in the home
so that your dogs, they know where your dogs are
and they can get to them right away.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
That is absolutely a fantastic way to end on this.
That's a very good, positive, happy note. Chrissy Joy. Thank
you so very much for helping me through this one.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
Yeah, thank you so much. And if anybody has any
pet questions or wants to follow along, feel free to
follow the Joy Crew. I'm an open book, so feel
free to send me a message.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
You got it, the Joy Crew. Thank you very much. Chrissy.
All right, we got to take a little break here.
Let me tell you all about berry Hill. Baja Grill
out there in Sugarland, family run restaurant on fifty nine
at where is it Sugar Creek. Should have known that
been living out there thirty years, been around for thirty
something years too, and has some of the best fish

(27:58):
tacos you will ever find anywhere period. End of story.
My wife found Barry Hill. My wife and I both
found berry Hill more than twenty years ago. There was
a grocery store in the same parking lot, and we
went up there every now and then because we had
four different grocery store choices, and ended up actually going
back there a little more often than to the others
because we also found Berry Hill in that same parking lot,

(28:21):
and we would go in and eat at berry Hill
sometimes and then go do our grocery shop. And so
we wouldn't just binge by in there. I love the place.
It's a family style restaurant. You walk in the door. First,
on the way in you'll see the outdoor dining area.
Then when you get in it's been around a while,
it's just got this homey country feel, a welcoming feel,

(28:43):
if you will. To the left there's tables and booths
for the family area. Then to the right is kind
of a sports bar, and there are even a couple
of rooms toward the back where you can have a
private gathering any kind of like. It's a family run,
family owned and operated business the whole time they've been open.
Great menu of traditional tex Mex foods, all of which

(29:03):
are absolutely delicious. My favorite of all still is that
seafood enchilada with the cream sauce on it. I absolutely
love those things. Berryhill dot com is a website. They
also do catering all over town. They've come down here
a couple of times for us. I'm hoping we get
them back again soon. Berryhillsugarland dot com.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
What's life without a net?

Speaker 2 (29:25):
I suggest to go to bed, sleep it off.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Just wait until the show's over.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Sleepy.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues. Welcome back
to fifty plus. Final segment of the show starts right now.
Thanks to Chrissy Joy for her help talking about those
dogs of ours.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Dogs still far out pacing cats as pets, and I understand.
I understand why some people like cats. I really do.
I've had them before I had one. I think my
sister actually got a kitting at some point w we
were both very young, and that kitten kind of disappeared

(30:07):
not long after. It used my mother's slipper for a
litter box. That was I think that was kind of
the beginning of the end for that cat. I don't know.
I think they gave it to somebody. That's what I heard,
if I remember correctly. It was long, long, long, long,
long long ago on Langdon Lane. That's where I grew

(30:29):
up many many years ago, over in Sharptown original Sharpstown,
by the way, it was really it was really interesting
because for a little boy who grew up playing in
the street with five or six more little boys about
the same age who lived on the same block. We
would just get our homework done when we got home
from school, and then out we went, not to come

(30:52):
back until the street lights came on and we found
places to go and things to do. I was within
one block's walking distance of the baseball fields there on Bissonette,
and there was a hole in the fence. There wasn't
a gate or anything. There was just a hole in
the fence there that we'd crawl through and go over
there and either watch big kids practice or maybe catch

(31:17):
tadpoles in the ditch if there'd been a good rain
and the water had held up for a while. A
lot of good times, a lot of good memories back there.
One bad, bad memory. It's faded now. It's probably it
was bad at the time. We used to have little
wrestling matches. We just look at each other and say, Okay,

(31:37):
I'm going to wrestle you right now, and we would.
And there was one lot at the end of the block,
and I was actually over that way not that long ago,
went down the street and there's the same elevation on
that lot at the end of the street where towards
the sidewalk, it's kind of about a foot and a
half maybe a two two foot drop, just an angle,
not a sheer wall, but just a rolling angle of

(32:01):
Baby Hill, the biggest hill in Sharpstown, probably, and buddy
Mine and I were wrestling in that yard and ended
up rolling down the hill toward the sidewalk, and where
we stopped happened to be where there was a giant
ant bed, and as fire ants tend to do, they
waited until a couple of hundred of them more on

(32:22):
each of us before the first one yelled okay, bite now,
and both of us came up screaming. Both of us
went running home to our mothers. And I don't remember
what my mother did to get me out of that,
but I made it happy, happy, happy.

Speaker 4 (32:37):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Back to Gavin, Oh, good old Gavin. Let's talk about
what he's done to this state and what he's still
doing to it. Chevron's leaving now, been in California since
eighteen seventy nine and finally said enough's enough. They're moving
here by the way to Houston. And why there's a
quote in the story I saw the quote is a

(32:58):
more business friendly environment, lower cost of living, and proximity
to key industry partners. That's three big boxes to check
for a company the size of Chevron, and good for them.
Welcome aboard. Oh gosh, I so desperately want to talk
about him. Some more, but I won't. I'll leave that alone.

(33:19):
Let's go to Oh, here's another little place we can
talk about, Chicago, where there is a two hundred and
twenty five foot tall concrete monument slash museum being constructed
to honor former President Obama, the one who's about to
find himself in uncharted hot water too, by the way,

(33:42):
But that's the story for a different time. This concrete
building was presented to whomever signed off on it as
a wonderful chance to boost the economy in that area,
to make it a much better place for the low

(34:02):
income people who lived in that area of the city, somehow,
to empower them, people who've lived there all their lives
in their modest little homes and we're just barely scraping by.
Only it's having the opposite effect those same people, because
these plans, in addition to that two hundred and twenty

(34:25):
five foot tall monument, these plans include office space, They
include shopping and dining for the area around that museum
for I'm sure several blocks in all directions, and all
those property values are skyrocketing.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Now.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
If that's great if you want to sell, but it's
horrific if you kind of like the neighborhood, and you
want to stay there, even if you live a few
more blocks away, because there's this ripple effect that's going
to come out of there, and your taxes are going
up too exponentially. They're running out the same people they
supposedly were trying to help. There was one Chicago and

(35:04):
quoted in the story I saw this morning and said,
this is a monument to one man's ego, and that's
about all it is. Because it's not going to help
anybody in Chicago unless you're the tax collector. That guy's
job just got easier. They're gonna have all kinds of
money to spend wherever they're going to spend it. Who knows,
who knows. By the way, I had somebody ask me

(35:25):
a few days ago, why I talk about so many
things that are happening elsewhere around the country but not
necessarily happening right here in Greater Houston. And the answer,
I think can be summed up in a single word,
and that word is yet bad policies, bad practices that
have either already ruined one's great city or are about

(35:46):
to are never more than really never more than one
election away from happening here. And if you're looking for
a real time example of an amazing city that's been
circling the drain for several years now and is on
the verge of being flushed right into something out of
Mad Max, look at New York City and the guy
who's got his his site set on being the mayor

(36:07):
of the Big Apple because that voting base is about
to put him in charge a city run grocery stores,
that's what he wants, greatly reduced or maybe no law
enforcement at all, going to replace him with social workers,
and that's not going to work at all. This guy's
he has if he has any chance at all of

(36:29):
being elected to run that city, That'll tell you everything
you need to know about how just how far how
far it's gone. And I hope they can. I hope
they can fix that someday. I don't know what's going
to happen up there, but most of the people I
know up that way have they quit going to There's
one guy I know pretty well who quit going to

(36:51):
New York City a long time ago and told his
grown children to avoid the city as well. And I
know we see it on TV. Everything's happy on New
Year's Eve and they bring out, bring out everybody and
their brother in law enforcement to make sure it stays
kind of quiet then and still I'll bet their problems.
The subways i've heard are a mess. There's been some

(37:14):
effort to fix some of that, but if this new
sheriff gets into comes into town, a lot of that's
going to go right back away. Unfortunately. If you ever wondered,
three servings of French fries a week can raise your
diabetes risk by twenty percent. Drop that into conversation. Next term,

(37:34):
you're in the in the Hamburger joint. And if you
rotate a tic Tac toe board, This is from Captain Obvious.
Rotate a Tic Tac toe board in ninety degrees, no
difference in the game. Really tomorrow, Audios,