Monthly Archives: December 2023

legal news, medical news

Getting ready for a burning

I have concluded that the only way I should bid farewell to the most horrible year of my life is to light a fire.

The idea comes, in fact, from a friend in Beaumont, Texas. I am going to heed his advice.

I intend to gather up every paper 2023 calendar I have in my Princeton, Texas, home. I then will place them in a fire pit I have in my back yard.

Then I am going to light them on fire. Burn them into ashes and embers. I want zero evidence of their presence in my home.

The year 2023 will be known in my house as the Year of the Broken Heart. It shattered into a million pieces on Feb. 3 when my dear bride, Kathy Anne, passed away from the savage effects of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer.

It took some time to find my way out of the darkness, but I am essentially free of that pain. Most of the time. It still hurts on occasion, such as yesterday when I got weepy with my son talking about his Mom.

Then came the loss of Toby the Puppy on Dec. 1. He suffered cancer in various organs. He got too weak to continue the chemotherapy treatments. He had become a valued companion and buddy. We grieved together. My sons and I let him go and my heart broke all over again.

So … I now await the new year. 2024 will be a year of continuing recovery, but the journey is a lot brighter than when it began earlier in this most miserable year of my life.

And to my friend, Dan, who prompted me with this notion I offer a heartfelt thank you.

Fire in the hole!

education news

‘No!’ to paying student-athletes

When will we ever stop discussing this nutty notion of paying college students who happen to have athletic prowess?

I know the answer to that one. It’s never. The issue won’t go away.

I hereby declare that my fuddy-duddy streak is showing itself on this one. Thus, I also declare that I adamantly oppose paying men and women who participate in team sports for their universities. Why?

It’s simple, man. They already are getting “paid.” If they are attending the school on an athletic scholarship, they are getting a free education. Tuition is paid for. So are the books. Same for assorted fees. They have a place to live. They might have to spend a few bucks on a meal plan.

How much would it cost them without that scholarship? In Texas, in-state students still get a bit of a break. But if you’re from out of state, that bachelor’s degree would come at a cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Student-athletes don’t pay anywhere near that kind of dough. Therefore, they are spared the burden of those student loans that progressives want forgiven. My fuddy-duddy view is that the lefties are wrong to demand complete loan forgiveness, as students obtain those loans knowing they would have to repay them.

I am just weary of this issue seeming to never vanish.

national news, political news

Impeach POTUS? For … what?

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said it is imperative that the House launch an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s conduct.

Sigh …

I am trying to understand this idiocy being promoted, fomented and put forth by the MAGA wing of the House Republican caucus. They are looking for anything to hang around Joe Biden’s neck. They are angry that the House impeached their guy, Donald Trump, twice during his single term in office.

So they’re out for revenge. Credible charges? Evidence of corruption? Anything of substance they can present as a “high crime and misdemeanor”? Pffttt!

This is the theater of the absurd run amok.

Now we have the speaker of the House saying its so damn important that the House launch an inquiry into impeaching the president.

The man is nuttier than a Payday bar!

national news

McCarthy bows out? G’bye!

Kevin McCarthy has had enough of Washington, D.C., and is leaving Congress at the end of the year, prompting some members of the MAGA clown squad among congressional Republicans to concoct some sort of “conspiracy” to deny the GOP any real power as the governing majority.

Conspiracy? They all have rocks in their noggins!

I get why McCarthy wants out.

He lusted after the House speakership. When Republicans regained control of the House after the 2022 midterm election, McCarthy announced his intention to run for speaker. He got there … but only after 15 ballots on the House floor. He gave up damn near everything to the MAGA morons before getting enough votes to take the gavel.

Then he riled the MAGA loons by working with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown, allowing one of the chief MAGA blowhards, Matt Gaetz of Florida, to call for McCarthy’s removal as speaker; that was one of the deals to which McCarthy agreed. The House removed McCarthy.

“No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing. That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country,” McCarthy wrote.

So … he goes from being second in line to presidential succession to a place on the back bench. Would you want to stay in office serving an institution that treated you like that?

He’s a goner. Fine. Hit the road, dude. As for conspiracy, there isn’t anything of the sort.

national news, political news

Mojo creeping back

As it becomes evident, but far from certain, that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2024, I am feeling the pangs of my political mojo stirring in my gut.

I have had to set that all aside as I deal with personal grief and mourning. But … this is a blog born initially as a political forum. I am starting to feel the urge to dust off my rhetorical weaponry and weigh in more frequently on the happenings as they develop on the campaign trail.

Yeah, a lot of it will have to deal with that GOP moron seeking a third run at the presidency.

The English language doesn’t have verbiage that describes adequately the visceral feelings I harbor toward Trump. I have ranted, raved, skewered and slashed at Trump every way I know how during two previous presidential election cycles. A third one might await, although I am going to withhold judgment until we get the first criminal trials in which Trump is a defendant out of the way.

My political juices, though, are beginning to flow.

You know what? It feels kinda good.

local news

Hailing the holidays!

Let’s see now … what is Christmas going to be like around here after the year of heartache we’ve endured?

I believe it’s going to be OK. Not great in the way we used to celebrate the holiday season. But OK enough for us to set aside our sadness that an important person in our lives won’t be around to cheer the season with us.

My dear bride Kathy Anne was so wired for the holiday season. She embodied the Christmas version of the Looney Tunes’ character the Tasmanian Devil. She would seemingly whirl through the house decorating practically every blank counter-top, table top, window sill, and door jamb with religious and secular symbols of Christmas. It didn’t matter to Kathy Anne; if it symbolized any version of Christmas, it came out and was put on full display.

My bride invariably would apologize for “not being very creative.” I would snap, “nonsense!” She turned our home into a showcase.

I did not acquire that passion for Christmas when I married Kathy Anne in September 1971. I just went with the flow. Or, in this case, held on with both hands as she tore through her paces.

In her honor, though, I do intend to decorate my modest Princeton, Texas, home with at least part of the style to which we all became accustomed. I have decorated some outdoor shrubbery with lights. The tree is up, it is lit and it has a portion of the decorations we used to hang on it in previous years.

I believe Kathy Anne would be proud of the effort I have put into it so far. It won’t look quite the same as it did when she did the decorating. We’ll just have to settle for what I am able to do to welcome the holiday season.

I’ll be smiling all season long.

national news, political news

Trump’s standing defies all logic

I am likely to go to my grave never grasping what appears to be developing on our nation’s political landscape. What, pre-tell, is about to happen?

My trick knee has failed me once again, or so it seems. A former POTUS, a man impeached twice by the House of Representatives, who’s been indicted on 91 felony counts and is about to stand trial in a criminal court, who was defeated for re-election four years ago, now stands on the verge of being nominated for another run for the office he lost.

I had relied on my trick knee to predict that Donald Trump never would be nominated by what is left of the Republican Party. Silly me. It now appears evident that rank-and-file Republicans indeed are too stupid, too gullible, too smitten by the cult of personality to reject this idiot’s potential return to power.

What’s more, Trump has all but declared that democratic governance as we have known it will be tossed into the crapper if he happens to take the oath of office in January 2025. He has pledged in a loud voice to seek revenge against his political foes. He will sic the FBI on those who oppose him. Yes, he intends to “weaponize” the Justice Department.

The reasons for his being rejected in 2020 are too numerous to itemize here. You know them as well as I do. What this moron is doing, though, is adding even more grist to kick his sorry ass to the curb by vowing to be the nation’s “retribution.”

He plans to issue pardons for the traitors who stormed the Capitol on 1/6. Trump has avoided arguing his points with his GOP campaign competitors.

Trump’s record during his four years in office is the stuff of condemnation. He is amoral, yet he curries favor with the evangelical Christian movement. He cannot — under any circumstance you can name — tell the truth. He is without humanity, without grace, without any semblance of decency.

He has denigrated war heroes, people with physical challenges and told us he can grab women by their genitals because he is “famous.”

What on this good Earth am I not getting?

local news

Wishing for a quick end to ’23

Mom always advised me against “wishing my life away” by wanting a date to arrive sooner rather than later.

I am going to ignore Mom’s sage wisdom on one matter, in that I want this year to end as rapidly as possible. That means I will welcome the arrival of 2024 with ruffles and flourishes, perhaps even a whistle and a whoop.

The year 2023 has been one for the sh***er, at least in my house.

I have chronicled for you on this blog multiple tales of my journey through the darkness that began on Feb. 3, the day I lost my wife, Kathy Anne, to glioblastoma. I am happy to declare that my trek’s path is a lot brighter today than it was when it began. But the year has been nothing short of tragic for my family and me nevertheless.

Then, just this past Friday, I had to say farewell to the sweetest puppy God ever produced. Toby had contracted cancer this past summer and he fought it like hell until, well, he just ran out of strength. His doctor informed me that Toby’s quality of life had deteriorated beyond any hope for recovery. It was time to let him go. My sons and I did so.

My house today is eerily quiet without Toby the Puppy.

I always have followed Mom’s advice about wishing my life away. I have steered away, for instance, from phrases like “I can’t wait … “ for something to occur, remembering precisely what she told me. She knew life was too short to seek a quick arrival at the next destination. She was so very correct.

However, I am done with 2023. I want nothing more to do with this godforsaken span of time.

They’re going ban pots and pans on New Year’s Eve in my Princeton neighborhood. I might even join my neighbors in heralding the new year. More to the point, though, is that I will usher out the old one with relish and a hearty “good fu**ing riddance!”

Furthermore, while I am at it, I am likely to give 2023 what we used to call The Finger.

local news

Special pup, indeed

1 Comment

On this first full day in more than nine years without Toby the Puppy in our lives, I am left to ponder just why his passing has hit me so damn hard.

I figured it out this morning as I rolled out of the rack after a mostly sleepless night.

Toby the Puppy simply bowled us over almost the moment he entered our life in Amarillo in September 2014. It took literally no time for us to fall in love with him … and him with us.

His impact on our family was immediate and everlasting. We learned a lot of things about Toby right from the get-go.

  • He loved riding in motor vehicles. All we had to do was mention to him, even as a puppy of just a few months old, “Do you want to go for a ride?” He was good to go. Right then! Right now!
  • Toby’s big-dog bark was music to our ears. He used it sparingly. He was not a yipper-yapper. He would bark selectively, such as when someone would approach the front door. He knew that if both Mommy and Daddy were home, that the person who was knocking at the door might not be welcome. If it was our sons, he learned quickly to recognize them. Oh, and Emma? Well, that’s another matter. He loved our granddaughter wholeheartedly … and she loved him back.
  • Toby was five months old when he joined us. He had precisely two potty mistakes in our house. We never had to swat him. We simply told him, “No, Puppy. You can’t do that in the house.” I’m telling ya, he understood what we said. He didn’t do it ever again.
  • We showered him with expressions of love several times every day. And he knew what the words “I love you” meant. How do I know that? I just did, OK?
  • Toby loved to travel with Kathy Anne and me. We must have driven more than 15,000 miles with him in our truck as we hauled our RV across the nation. He saw the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes; we toured through the western half of Canada … all with Toby the Puppy. He could sit quietly and ride with the best of ’em.

After I lost my bride to cancer earlier this year, Toby the Puppy stepped it up some more by being by my side constantly. He grieved right along with the rest of us. However, he continued to make us smile every day.

He was a constant source of joy for all who met him, knew him and, of course, loved him.

I will miss my one-of-a-kind pal.

local news

Heart breaks yet again

The year that is one month away from passing into history will be known in my house as the Year of the Broken Heart.

2023 has been without question the worst year of my life. Today it got even worse. I said goodbye this morning to Toby the Puppy. He had been battling cancer for the past few months. What started as a urinary tract infection this past July turned into cancer of the prostate gland, the bladder, and one of his kidneys.

I took him this morning for his second scheduled chemotherapy treatment and at 9:30 his doctor called to inform me that Toby’s “quality of life” has been compromised beyond recovery. He suffered pain in his left front leg, apparently from a nerve condition. He had suffered severe weight loss. His appetite had all but vanished. All the pain pills and medicine to stimulate his appetite weren’t working.

The doctor gave me all the options that lay before me. I collected myself and told her it was “time to let him go.” I called my sons, who rushed over right away to be with me. We all went back to the clinic and said our goodbyes to the best companion a grieving “daddy” could ever want. Indeed, my year began with the loss of my dear bride, Kathy Anne, to glioblastoma, a savage and aggressive form of brain cancer.

Now this.

Toby joined our family on Labor Day Weekend, 2014. It was love at first sight — for us and for him. We all fell in love with each other on the spot. Kathy Anne decided that we officially would call him “Puppy,” although he did answer to Toby, which was the name given to him by his previous family.

He went everywhere with us in our RVs. To both coasts and the Great Lakes, through the western half of Canada. To dozens of Texas state parks. Toby was a road warrior. He was smart. Toby would react excitedly to hearing Emma’s name, even though our granddaughter was not necessarily present when we mentioned her to him.

Toby had a bark that belied his small size. He sounded much larger than he was … and that made it all the more special when he did bark, because he did so only for a reason, such as when strangers would come to our door.

I sought to chronicle Toby’s life on this blog with the series I called “Puppy Tales.” A theme throughout the series was his ability to bring smiles to our faces. Indeed, he made us laugh every … single … day.

Puppy Tales | Search Results | High Plains Blogger

I am not laughing today. I am saddened beyond all measure. I will miss Toby the Puppy for longer than I can imagine at this moment.