Mindfulness – Lessons from a Stone

Ginger (“Little One”) Stone

Ginger striking a pose for the “Cutest Dog in the World Competition”!

She always seemed to come alive during our spring wildflower season.

I’ve had dogs for almost my entire life. Ginger is my thirteenth, and her brother and sister, our male and female, lab mix, litter mates are my 11th and 12th. They’re somewhere around seven years old now, but with some good care and luck, they’ll live into old age and die of natural causes like the rest of my dogs. For this alone, I am tremendously thankful. I’ve never had one get hit by a car or die of some terrible disease. Each has led a full and complete life until they were ready to go, and go on their terms.

Ginger didn’t spend her younger years with us here, at Lonesome Dove. Before my wife, Genie, started her job with an engineering company in San Antonio, she had partnered with a close friend doing estate, corporate, and private taxes. It was here that Genie first met Ginger. Because they worked long hours during tax season, Genie would often spend the night at Marci’s, her best friend and partner, in Austin to make for a more productive week. It’s a little over an hour’s drive but I did not want her driving the 70 miles, getting started already late into the night, so anytime she worked late was all the more time spent with Ginger.

The story has it that for the next two years, Genie and Ginger became exceptionally close, bordering on inseparable. I would sometimes hear stories about this special little dog. After Genie moved on and she was no longer seeing Ginger regularly, the next four or five years rolled by quickly until one day when she Genie got a call from Marci, who was beside herself in tears from trying to re-home Ginger. At this point, Ginger was already twelve but she was still spry, athletic, and quite healthy . Putting her down wasn’t a part of the conversation. Within just two days, Marci would be dropping Ginger off for the rest of her very fortunate life!

When Marci adopted Ginger, she went on to give her a great life for her first twelve years, but she had gotten two younger, larger dogs that had inexplicably begun to harass Ginger and no longer wanted her around. It went on like this until it became obvious that it was only a matter of time before Ginger got hurt and Marci couldn’t be available 24/7 to see that things didn’t get out of hand. Aside from typical declaration of dominance and territory between dogs, once that’s established, usually within a day, or two, the dominant dogs don’t tend to continue ostracizing what has just become an omega. Low dog on the totem pole. Wolves will if that omega is deemed as no longer able to pull its own weight. The wild has its own rules and they can seem extreme to us.

Any way you look at it, for a twelve year old dog this would be a terribly sobering and very threatening new reality. I never met the other two dogs and was coming into the situation too late to do anything about it other than to open Lonesome Dove up to this little dog and give her a good, safe home in which to spend her last few years. Had we lived nearer to Marci, I may have been able to correct the situation so that Ginger would be able to remain with her. It’s hard to say, but I believe the whole thing worked out for the best for all parties.

In earlier discussions between Genie and Marci, a month or two before I knew of the situation, Genie knew I was going to be a “Hard Sell” because I was quite happy with things as they were and was enjoying the break from having had four dogs for the three years prior. Genie knew as well as I did that it had been no mean feat and, because of the drastic age differences and very specific dynamic. At maybe ten and eleven years old, respectively, Kelpy and Sage had never had to share us and had us all to themselves. Now, with no rehearsal, it was happening and I hated every moment of doing this to them. While we were opening the door for Ginger to have a better life, I was potentially committing an act of treason with my own dogs. The thought did not go easy on me and it would take a couple of months for the dust to settle. Talk about feeling the effects of the”Pushmi-pullyu” syndrome and being seriously conflicted over such an important change to our household and super-tight pack structure that had developed over a long period of time, and it would be unfolding right in front of me every day from then on. As I said, and I can’t emphasize this complication enough, we had just gotten used to the idea that it was going to be just Josie and Jett now, and our lives could again take on a sense of normalcy. This would be a “forever” change that couldn’t be undone. We knew this going in, but it didn’t help matters very much. Life was supposed to be slowing back down to a sustainable pace, just like it had been when it was just Genie, me, Kelpy and Sage for so many years. But Genie’s heart was immediately drawn to Marci’s circumstances and her own love of Ginger. And I couldn’t live with the idea that Ginger may just have to be put down and decided that whatever happened next, it was not going to involve euthanasia.

I had found the sibling lab-mixes which we later named Josie and Jett. They were somewhere around nine months old on the Sunday that I first encountered them. I was out hiking with Kelpy and Sage in the State Park, just down the road from where we live. Genie had taken a lower trail by herself and we agreed to meet at the truck in a couple of hours. Fifteen minutes later and I was talking to two very nice ladies about their two obviously (at least to me) special dogs. As far as my criteria for great dogs was concerned, these dogs appeared to meet or exceed every one of them. I would find out that very afternoon just why the dogs and I had “crossed paths” with these two beautiful dogs and their wonderful volunteer handlers.

I’m not sure what compelled me to open my mouth and inquire about the two dogs. We were perfectly happy with our current dog situation.

The two young dogs had recently and finally (after weeks of trying) been caught by the county dog catcher and dropped off at the city shelter just two weeks earlier. We followed the two volunteer “Dog Walkers” the county shelter where we could speak with the manager about adopting the two littermate labs. The two women turned out to be lovely, middle-aged, compassionate people who were out working for the “Greater Good”. They were about to head out with two more dogs, so we said our thank yous and goodbyes when she introduced us to the manager. It is always refreshing to meet people who are out doing good in the world. There aren’t enough of them.

This was one of the days they had reserved for the two lab siblings. We were going one way around the long loop, and they, the other. I told them that my dogs were friendly and under control. We let the four dogs play for a few minutes when I asked if we could switch out our dogs and allow me to walk with the siblings. I really had no intention of adopting, but it was almost like something was guiding me. I leashed the two dogs and they fell right into line and we walked the rest of the way down (a couple of miles) without incident and over to my truck and awaiting wife. In that moment, right then and there, I blurted out, “Are these two dogs available for adoption?”. The look on Genie’s face was one of shock at what I’d just asked. We’d literally just walked up to the truck where she was waiting. She was not at all pleased with what I had just done without at least first consulting her. Who could blame her?! I certainly couldn’t and knew that I was about to get “a talking to”. We broke away from the group to speak privately. Genie finally acquiesced to my insistence that we could handle it, but she definitely had some reservations. I knew I needed to honor her doubts, but I showed a lot of confidence that this was something we could do for these two dogs, if we stuck together on it. I believed that this was something that was preordained and fateful. Who was I to turn my back on it?! I reasoned “One of the keys to training a dog is to first figure out the “Rules of the House” and if there are to be changes made. Once you’ve agreed over how you’re going to go about this, the most important thing is to catch “bad behavior” before the dog has the chance to repeat it”. Sounds easy, right. It is not and requires a lot of diligence in watching the dog carefully and catching him or her “in the act” while voicing a firm, clear command like “NO”. If it’s going to mean peeing or pooping, it is imperative that you catch them right at the beginning but just after they’re started, grab them, correct them, and quickly take them outside where it becomes important to praise them for “going” outside. But we had just inherited two dogs, not just one and, if you’ve ever had more dogs than just one, you know that getting the second dog is nonlinear in terms of the amount of work it takes to bring them up right. I listened to myself and couldn’t believe that these words had just escaped my lips. She already knew all of this. “Look, honey, there’s nothing to it?”, forgetting that we’d spent years training four dogs together.

I asked for two weeks to see what we could do. If after the two weeks, Genie still thought it was too much, I would take them back to the shelter and explain our situation. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t take them back that was the biggest problem in returning them, but when we were there the first time, the manager told us of the likelihood that they would have to be separated in order to home them. They’d been together since birth for nine months, I just couldn’t allow that to happen. It turned out that, particularly after seeing for herself the potential promise these two dogs held within them, neither could Genie. When the two weeks were up, we vowed to never let these two dogs be separated and we never spoke about returning them again.

“We’ll See You on the Other Side, Sweet Girl! You will never have to worry about being alone. Just close your eyes and think of us and we will be there when you open your eyes again!

Jett, Ginger, Josie on their Way to the Park

By the end of that Sunday afternoon, we were home letting the four dogs sort themselves out. Dogs get right to the heart of a matter. Things looked promising, though Genie remained reluctant and she would stay that way for a couple of weeks. After about ten days had passed, she broke into tears a couple of times out of pure frustration and what was probably exhaustion from working with me on the two dogs. At times, she believed it was an exercise in futility. But, slowly but surely, there was more and more order until it finally outweighed the chaos. From then on, Genie committed herself 100% to making the arrangement work and has never spoken a word otherwise.

You can see why it was me who was first to be reluctant over adopting this tiny little dog who, while twelve years old already, was surprisingly fit from her many walks with Marci, her previous owner, and very puppy-like in her temperament. But I was maxed-out from working with the other four dogs before Kelpy and Sage passed. When finally told about the whole thing, it had reached critical mass and there was a bit of pressure to make my decision quickly and I think I simply asked for the night to sleep on it. By now, I had met the dog during a one-day “test run” and could feel my heart slipping towards taking-on this little ten pound dog with the heart of a giant!

Prior to Ginger, I simply never had a need for a miniature dog. I didn’t see the attraction. What could they possibly contribute to our “Big Dog” oriented family? But she immediately revealed the right mix of aggression and intelligence and didn’t allow the bigger dogs to push her around. She’d handle it herself and I would only step in if it looked like she might get hurt. Soon, she was running all over the property with them and playing tag or wrestling (gently). They didn’t “give” her an inch (but you could see that they were going easy on her and taking her size and age into consideration) she just “took it”. This is how things went for Ginger throughout her time spent here. A wonderful blend of doing things to keep both her spirit and body in good working order. The three dogs got very close with one another and we had our “Pack” mentality going again.

That was an extremely hectic period and not one I’d wish to go through again. But now, it would be down to just me, Genie, Ginger, and Josie and Jett, who were older now and much more manageable. We settled in for a period of three, or so, years and things with the dogs were easy-going. A few scrapes here and there, but they would mostly line up and make runs at the coyotes and wild dogs that inhabit this chunk of Central Texas. When they caught one, there would be hell to play. We held on to Ginger while the “Big Boys” were going at it. I would break it up before any of them, including the marauding trespassers, got seriously injured. Mostly just lost fur, but the coyotes come around close at night to taunt the dogs from the safety of the other side of the fence, and the dogs don’t tend to forget it when they have a shot at revenge. We’d have to keep an eye on Ginger. There was one instance where we were doing laps with the dogs on our nature trail that runs the perimeter of our property (about a half-mile loop), where an extremely bold coyote attempted to hide behind a copse of trees and brush, wait for us to walk by, and grab Ginger from behind. Genie had seen the coyote at the last second before he got to cover and I asked her to simply let Josie and Jett go and let them take care of the problem coyote. They chased him off the property but he had too much of a head start for them to catch him…this time. Since the offense was so great and the coyote so bold, I didn’t like knowing that he was still out there, potentially awaiting another chance. I happen to like having coyotes around and would never shoot one just for the heck of it (like so many country people do), but, if I had another chance at this one, I’m well prepared to shoot him or her on sight and would do so so we wouldn’t have to worry about him coming out of nowhere to grab Ginger. The coyotes around us are probably ten pounds over-size from interbreeding with feral dogs. This same thing is happening throughout the country, enough that many coyotes today don’t look like the coyotes of prior decades.

We used to comment regularly on how pleased we both were to be able to provide for Ginger the kind of “Golden Years” she more than deserved to have. She really did have it made here. A big dog kennel to run around in and be safe from the many rattlesnakes that call our property home. I snake-proofed their 36′ x 80′ kennel. They’ve got a dog door to come in when they need some air conditioning and plenty of shelter and water. It doesn’t end there. They each have their own old couch segment to sleep on. Never cold in winter!

To the best Genie and Marci can figure, Ginger was fifteen when she passed (a few days before this writing) which is pretty long for a miniature-sized dog. She was so much fun to watch. To see her bounding through grass taller than she was, or keeping up all day with the much bigger and more powerful dogs, would quickly put a smile on my face. So much tenacity, temerity, and heart all in just one little ten pound package of fur. She won me over to an extent I hadn’t been prepared for and I fell in love with her the moment I first saw her chase a big dog off the property. Of course, it helps when you’ve got ample backup, which she has with a 75 pound female and 100+ pound male lab mix with oversized head, shoulders, and teeth!

I was told early on in the discussion that Ginger had become too much for Marci to handle with her two bigger, younger dogs and she could find no one who was interested in taking her on. I think we all knew that this was the only viable option where Ginger was being given the keys to the kind of life she deserved.

We went from our cozy little two dog situation (remember, we had just done a two year stint with four – a crazy, busy time!) We never got to enjoy the benefits of being back to a “perfect” two dog household. But, when looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way! Remember, this is coming from a guy who previously loved all breeds but who had a basis and a predilection for choosing medium-sized, athletically built dogs. Because of my lifestyle, I wouldn’t have been able to provide a small dog with the kind of life they deserved. But, it wasn’t long before I saw how much joyous energy she had brought with her. But there was one problem and that was that Jett must have thought we’d gotten Ginger as his very own play toy. He’s the one dog I’ve had that will actually play with a dog toy instead of shredding it up first chance they get. They were playing roughly enough that I would have intercede because, even with his best intentions, he was so much bigger and stronger that he could easily hurt Ginger unintentionally. But she handled it herself and she went at Jett like a little gremlin. She had no intention of “fighting” him, only to defend what she considered to be her “personal space”. After those first few weeks, all three dogs were doing things together as a pack (a family unit), but, during our many walks on our trail, Ginger began to head off on her own, seeking her very own “Experience”. But, even this presented no real “diversion” and she’d soon be joining the rest of us, it never ceased to amaze me to see a small dog, well on in years, not only keep up with the others but to be out front, in the lead as if she were in charge of the expedition.

Jett on a Long, Fast, Hike at Lockhart State Park, Just Down the Road

To Our “Little One”, we wish you safe travels on your journey to wherever it is that you’re going. Just close your eyes and think of us, and we will always be right there, beside you. You will never be scared or alone…ever!

A few random pics of her pals!

Sage Taking a Supervisory Break from Her Work!

Josie Inspecting the Freshly Stained Porch

Ninety Pounds of Jett – A Lean, Mean, Goofball! (Unless needed or called upon!)

You Know Who! Taking on a Stately Look, Jett on His Very Own Couch-Throne!

I read a long time ago (which means that it’s probably been disproven by now) that small dogs don’t know that they’re small. This seemed to be the case with Ginger. I’m fascinated by dogs and wolves and the various ways they interact to maintain a strong and healthy pack. It has always seemed to me that this is true, that Ginger didn’t know that she was small and almost always at a disadvantage. Because there are so many potential dangers on our property (coyotes, feral dogs, and venomous snakes like the western diamondback rattlesnake and the copperhead), we keep a pretty tight rein on allowing Ginger to roam and seldom allow her a distance any greater than thirty-feet. In the fourteen years we’ve been here, I’ve had numerous close calls and do not afford the dogs free rein of the property. Both Kelpy and Josie have been bitten and I can tell you that it is something you do not want to happen to your dog, or dogs. If it’s a large diamondback that’s already agitated, your dog is likely to receive a full-on envenomation. This is, without question, a large enough volume of venom to kill a mid-sized dog within twenty -four hours. But it’s what happens during those hours that no one is prepared to see. Both of our dogs survived. Josie’s bite turned out to be only one small fang wound on her lip and was inconsequential. But we came very close to losing our Australian Kelpie, Kelpy, (pictured below ) who spent three days receiving vial after vial of anti-venom, horse plasma, and constant airway attention by an angel. She survived the encounter. The snake did not. It’s not difficult for me to imagine just how quickly we’d have lost Ginger to the same or similar bite.

About a Year Before this was Taken, Kelpy had Her Encounter with a 5 1/2′ Diamondback. It’s Covered in Detail in the Above Paragraphs

What a Rough Life! Kelpy and Sage, the “Older Dogs” in the Story. RIP 2021 and 2022

Think you’re getting the right idea about these two, lazing about the property? No! Not these girls! Two of the Most Incredible Dogs I’ve Ever Had. They Could Jump to Attention and be on a Long Run Just a Few Moments Later!

Sage as a Two Year Old. She Could Run Forever and Was the One I Would Take When I Knew we were in for a “Big Day”. It Could Have Been Just About Anything!

Just Chillin’ Between Activities! Sage Could Achieve Zen-like Peace in Her Spirit…that is, Unless Kelpy Decided to Crash the Party and Impose Herself on the Moment!

Though this is an “Ode to Ginger”, it Wouldn’t Have Been the Same if I Didn’t Include the Dogs that She Shared her life with…and What a Life She Had!

As I mentioned in the beginning of this story, that, until Ginger came into my life, I never thought much about little dogs one way or the other, aside from the fact that I didn’t want one! They were cute, and I get that, but I didn’t see what redeeming quality they offer, serving a function other than being petted, cajoled, and loved on. It’s not fair to the other dogs! (That’s my human mind at work. Jo and Jett had plenty of uses for her.) And so it was that Ginger found her own way to climb into my heart! In the beginning, I was thinking that I would have to learn to love this little dog and now the end has come (just four days ago) and I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind. I particularly loved that her warm, baseball-sized head for perfectly in the hollow of my hand. I would gently rub her entire head while it was buried deep in my hand. She especially liked to have her closed eyes rubbed with just a tiny bit of pressure. She’d make these little snoring sounds which were barely audible and, upon hearing those noises, I could hear my heart starting to sing!

I had a 180 degree turnaround on how I feel about little dogs and it was Ginger who showed me the light. None of us are the same as we look at places where Ginger usually is at different times of the day and are still in disbelief that she’s not there. Josie and Jett have been unusually quiet and having been moping around the house if not just lying down somewhere. They genuinely seem to be mourning more than other dogs I’ve had when a pack member passes. They’ll forget and move on much faster than we will, but it’s been interesting to see how the loss of Ginger has impacted them. I see a certain sadness in them, or a reluctance to want to do anything… even if it’s on one of their many happy walks and doings on the trail. I find myself wanting to reach out to them with some kind of an explanation, but it seems that they don’t need one. If they could speak, I think we’d hear something like a pragmatic “Life goes on so we might as well get back to it!”.

-The End

My Favorite Quote

For as long as I can remember, the above quote has been among my favorites. There is a small sampling of essentially the same message but delivered using slightly different words and arrangements, accredited to a number of authors as the centuries have passed. Note that by the time you get to the last iteration … Continue reading “My Favorite Quote”

Landmark Kitty Genovese Case – Copilot Summary

For as long as I can remember, the above quote has been among my favorites. Above is a small sampling of essentially the same message but delivered using slightly different words and arrangements, accredited to a number of authors over the course of history. Note that by the time you get to the last iteration of the quote on this page, that it is credited to “Author Unknown”. That is the way I found it, and it is the most accurate representation of the quote’s original author, which is, in fact, unknown. Certainly, it is an obvious tenet that can be traced back for centuries. But the actual wording and the supposed author have been up for debate throughout the 19th, 20th, and now, the early 21st century.

When I take this very old and well-known quote and apply it to the above Copilot summary, I’m compelled to wonder what might or might not have happened if the same event were transported sixty-three years into the future to find us here, today. The Copilot summary provides the essentials of the case, which shook the nation to its core in 1964, and left Americans everywhere to contemplate how they may have responded had they been there amongst the 38 onlookers bearing witness, whether directly or hearing the horrible spectacle unfold from not far away. I don’t care to recall the exact number of times that she was stabbed, but it was some ungodly total that took well over a minute, or two, to inflict. This amount of time afforded bystanders a substantial opportunity to react, or, think on it and consciously decide not to.

If you look to history for examples, you’ll find that this kind of a good versus evil occurrence is commonplace, but it is rarely as severe as to what took place on the day when Kitty Genovese, a young New York bartender was brutally attacked and killed just outside her Queens, New York apartment. The term “Bystander Effect” was coined by the various psychiatrists who studied the case in detail. Not one individual in the 38 who witnessed the horrid crime did anything to stop it, including making a simple phone call to the closest responding police department.

It happened just three years after I was born, but I well remember the case because I took a college level Psych 101 class at some point during highschool, and I can still recall the sickening feeling it left in my gut. I could not wrap my young head around the fact that this had been something real and struggled with the idea that story couldn’t possibly be true. It bothered me to such an extent that I still think about it today, some 50 years after first learning about it. early twenties that I remember making a promise to myself that I would never sit back and watch something similar occur on what would be “my watch”. It has been my sad experience in going through life and being the only person among others with enough temerity to engage myself in attempting to bring whatever it may have been to a halt and putting an end to things before they’d had the chance to gain momentum. I had put myself in harm’s way somewhere between ten and twelve times before I turned fifty, and was still quite fit and schooled enough in fighting to tip the scales, never sustaining an injury more substantial than a few cuts and bruises, and, the “road rash” that invariably occurs when a fight goes to the pavement. Sure, some torn clothing, say, a hole in a shirt, jacket, or jeans that hadn’t been there just ten minutes before, but it was a small price to pay to stop four kids in their early twenties for haranguing an even younger male for taking on work at an supermarket chain dealing with strike of hundreds of employees. Though I doubt any of the “Bad Guys” understood the true meaning of the word, they were calling him a “scab” and using all sorts of foul and derogatory language.

It was somewhere in my early twenties that I remember making a promise to myself – that I would never sit back and watch something similar occur on what would be “my watch”. It has been my sad experience in going through life and being the only person among others to engage myself in attempting to bring to a halt whatever bad thing might have otherwise transpired. I had put myself in harm’s way somewhere between ten and twelve times before I turned fifty, when I was still fit and schooled enough in fighting to handle myself. I sustained no injury more consequential than a few cuts and bruises, and, the “road rash” that invariably occurs when a fight goes to the pavement. Sure, some torn clothing, say, a hole in a shirt, jacket, or jeans that hadn’t been there just ten minutes before. Perhaps a bloody lip or nose. But it was a small price to pay to stop four young men from haranguing an even younger, clearly handicapped kid simply for taking on work at a supermarket chain while in the midst of a regional strike. These four had been recently laid off and were out looking for some associated trouble.

I have done these things automatically, without ever thinking beyond the goal at hand, such as getting hurt or killed in direct defense of people (family and friends, my daughter, or people that I came across who were, for whatever reason, at an obvious disadvantage). I have also done these things in defense of myself, outnumbered by people bearing weapons, including guns and knives, in a failed attempt to rob or intimidate me, and during situations where I’ve come across animals who were clearly being harmed. I have an extremely low tolerance for people who harm defenseless animals. In all these interactions, I have never walked away having gotten “the short end of the stick”.

It has been my experience that one man armed only with serious conviction and a determined and dominant way, combined with the knowledge of having good on his side can inflict enough damage that the evil-doers don’t have a chance to respond as a group or, better yet, have a complete change of heart. This is based on the theory that when things quickly turn ugly, individual members of a group tend to lose their “pack mentality” and turn to saving only themselves. A group, any kind of group, is only as powerful as the individuals it is composed of. If you show no fear and, if it comes to violence, you should have already made a plan in your head as to what you’re going to do. If and when this moment occurs, there is no time to stand there and come up with one.

In my 65 years on this planet as an astute observer and a person who is always prepared to “do the right thing” in terms of getting the truly daunting but instantaneous (without warning) things done, I abhor the “turning away from trouble” mentality. I believe that putting ones own safety above that of others has become the default setting for many people but a few of us are born with the instinctive drive to defend and protect (even if it means putting ourselves directly in harm’s way) those who were members of my “tribe” or anyone who was in dire need of help. I believe this is because in our newfound individual anonymity, we no longer belong to tribes or even tightly knit communities and we look to others (such as the brave members of our military or our closest police department) to put their lives on the line on our behalf. Trouble is, when evil shows up unannounced, these warriors cannot be there for us simply because they are nowhere nearby, and therefore, it is up to those of us who feel the “calling” not to turn from it, but to cultivate it. To think various situations through often long before they happen and to train ourselves with the ability to “react” with virtually no time to think and barely enough time to even remotely assess the danger, with the full extent often hidden from view. We are talking about very brief moments in time, usually just seconds. While the masses turn away and help is nowhere to be found, those few of us who carry this primitive urge must do what our instincts and prior experiences tell us to do.

I’m not here to train people on how best to handle themselves. It is fully up to the individual. It is extremely complex and takes years of forethought and personal experience to know what works best for any given person. This is something that you have continually prepared yourself for over the course of your life. If you are youthful and strong, all the better, but that is not the only criteria required for a successful outcome which means only that you brought the occurrence to an end and that you’re able to get up without major injury and walk away all the more wise from the encounter.

Just think about what I’ve said, for it is based on some of the greatest truths of all. We see and hear about people who step-up in these moments and they become immediate celebrities (celebrated people) and almost always are given the label of “hero”. If a particular event is caught on video (which is likely with almost everyone carrying a smart phone and the millions of closed-circuit cameras seemingly stationed everywhere these days) it goes viral. I suppose this is as it should be in modern times, but fame should never enter into the running algorithm maintained in your innermost brain. If you have the greater good in mind, it tends to be of serious interest when we are still young, long before adulthood drags us down with all of its “more important” responsibilities and diversions (like social media and hollow friendships), while we can still discern the differences between who we aspire to be and who we become.

There are roughly eight billion human beings weighing the world down. Don’t you feel a deep yearning to aim higher, not only with the subject at hand, but in the context of every choice you make on your journey through life. We are here but once. By making choices that are steeped in sound values, you will put yourself in a place that when your time is up, you will have lived honorably and are therefore without regret. None of this is intended to motivate people to go out and “look for trouble”. Doing so would result in becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution. I’m simply saying that when and if trouble (bad, evil) crosses your path, do your best to move steadfastly into it with some sort of strategy in mind for getting to the other side, where the problem has transcended from the present and become part of the past.

Back to the Quote

“The only way for evil to exist is if otherwise good men turn away”. Author Unknown

This is my own version of a wordier quote that delivers the same message. It has been used in a variety of forms for centuries, so I am comfortable with using fewer words to deliver precisely the same message. Originally thought to have been written for JFK (I’ve also read FDR in a speech made during WWII) and a preacher at the turn of the last century, then traced to the 1800’s to Sir Edmond Burke, but there are references which precede biblical times. Versions of it have been found in the works of classical literature and both Roman and Greek philosophers coined their own.

I’ve spent hours digging into the subject myself and was unable to find any single source. In my opinion, it’s such a basic concept (Good versus Evil) to ponder that I don’t believe there is just one author. So I took the liberty of using “Author Unknown”.

I am an avid cyclist and am considering carrying a concealed hand gun for which I have a license to carry concealed. Does anyone else carry while riding and what are folks using to holster the gun?

Response to a Question Posted on Quora

I was an elite road cyclist and expert/elite mountain bike racer from Colorado where I competed throughout for almost twenty-five years while holding down a high-level engineering career. This is not an easy thing to do, particularly over such a lengthy period. After sixteen years in the foothills of the Front Range (about seventy five minutes from Denver) but working closer to home, in Golden, I made my home in Durango for the last fourteen years of my thirty years in Colorado. While living in such a hugely competitive state for mountain athletes, with Durango being considered the “Mountain Biking Capitol of the World” (it may still be), I was compelled to continue racing and did well enough into my mid- forties to win (or place top five) in the few events I entered during my years in that much less populated part of the state. Towards the end, I was racing in just one or two events per year.

Being an accomplished elk hunter, both rifle and archery, and learning how to shoot and be safe around firearms by the age of seven, I have always been a “pro-gun” individual, but I have also lived and spent much of my time in rural, if not remote places, so I never felt the urge to “carry” while out riding. But that all changed in 2011 when I was forced to leave my adopted home state and move to Houston, if I had any chance of remaining gainfully employed in the oil and gas industry. It was a rough deal because I had hoped to stay in Southwest Colorado to retire, spending my “Golden Years” hunting and fly-fishing to my heart’s content. My wife and I made the reluctant move to the Houston area where she had already secured a solid position with BP at their US headquarters in Westlake, thirty minutes west of Houston. I found enough consulting work to get by at a time when I had two major back surgeries to coincide with the horrible (for me) move. I had to give up all my mountain activities but, after I healed from the surgeries, I continued to run and ride and enter a road racing event every now and then here in Texas.

Before I could even wrap my head around such a move, I was riding through some pretty rough areas of Houston, still in significant pain, to get to some halfway decent roads without getting hit, and I was set upon twice by small bands of the “criminal element” in a car moving in quickly from my left and they’d push me to the side of the road (as if they were well practiced in their craft) under some bridge or another. But I never rode with anything of value except for thirty bucks and the bike I was on.

During each of the two instances, I was able to “talk my way out” by first handing them the thirty and then stepping off the bike, showing absolutely no fear while making it known that I wasn’t going to make things easy for them. Standing six-four and weighing (at the time) between 185 and 190, (I’m not your typically diminutive rider and know how to defend myself), I somehow wriggled my way out of some bad circumstances based mostly on the “luck of the draw”. I had a gun pointed my way each time but no one with the gumption to pull the trigger and, like I said, I had nothing of value except for that thirty bucks and expensive bike. Fortunately, none of these “would be muggers” had the need or desire to attempt to take that from me.

From then on, I simply racked my bike and drove the fifteen or twenty minutes to reach those country roads, where I could safely park (though I did have my truck broken into once) and take off riding from there. After a couple of years, we were able to move to a nicer part of Texas, well away from the Houston area (a city I’d spent time in and learned earlier in life to abhor). Fortune had smiled upon as my wife scored a very good job in San Antonio, not far from her hometown where many of her friends and relatives still lived. We found some property and a wonderful new home in a very rural area, roughly fifty-five minutes from her new job. But she continued her “lucky streak, and, when combined with a strong work ethic and commensurate capabilities, she was given the opportunity to work from home for the last six or seven years. I managed to find a few sporadic consulting opportunities working from home and formally retired just over a year later, several years earlier than I had planned. Let’s just say that retirement has been tighter than I’d ever thought it would be, but the upside was that I would now be riding in some of the best cycling country Central Texas and the Hill Country had to offer, and again the need for carrying while I was riding went away as quickly as it had come.

Had this story gone differently and I’d been forced to remain in Houston, I could picture myself happily walking into a gun store, of which there were many, so I could have easily found what I’d have been looking for. After doing a bit of research, with all the options available today, I’d likely go with a Walther PDP 9 mm, as pictured below, with its 4-inch barrel. There are several important reasons I’d choose this make and model above everything else available in the veritable smorgasbord of handguns on the market today:

-It has the muzzle energy (“stopping power”) of a 9 mm;
-The four-inch barrel is a better choice for a 9 mm than anything shorter;
-The gun is relatively lightweight, but not too much so;
-It is Walther built and of Walther quality;
-It has good capacity for a compact at 10 rounds +1
-It is uber-thin and very streamlined with no major protuberances to get snagged on polyester jersey material;
-It’s a great looking gun and is well proportioned;
-Great sights and plentiful accessory options.

Last, (IMO), it is priced very reasonably when comparing build, features, and deadly capability.

Of key importance is that it would serve two important purposes. Its primary function would be as a personal/home defense weapon that had “concealed carry” capabilities for my wife. I would simply borrow it if out riding and would knowingly be passing through the kinds of places I described. Again, had I been forced to remain in the Houston area, this is the compact handgun that I would choose. I have huge hands and would have difficulty fiddling with anything smaller. For me, subcompacts and miniguns are out of the question.

Walther PDP Compact in 9 mm, with a 4-inch barrel

The African Wild Dog

Originally Written for Medium

The Piercing Gaze of An African Wild Dog
burrard-lucas.com

Among the many species of creatures that are in jeopardy of fading into extinction, there isn’t much information out there on the plight of the African Wild Dog (AWD). These incredible canids once roamed freely throughout much of Sub-saharan Africa but are now predominantly confined to small parts of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. But the countries where they are still found comprise a much larger area than the patchwork of comparatively small national parks and game reserves held within them. In looking at a map of protected AWD habitat relative to the geographic area in which they are found today, one can quickly see the small and disconnected patchwork of sanctuaries, wildlife parks and reserves where the species can go about its business without the perpetual threat of encountering humans and the associated dangers that have already brought the species to its knees. It’s like connecting the dots to form a blotchy and incomplete geographic space where they are safe, with a gauntlet of hundreds of miles of unprotected and hazardous African bush between protected areas. That would be fine and is what these incredible canids are built for if it didn’t mean that they’ll eventually have some sort of encounter with man or the many hazards that are associated with mankind. Worse yet, they have no way of knowing where these protected areas lie, so these places where they can seek sanctuary are largely ineffectual. If they did much good, the species wouldn’t continue to decline at such an alarming rate.

I used Copilot to provide a summary showing the historical versus current range of the AWD and provide an explanation of these maps along with relatively up-to-date information as to their continued decline over the past 100 years.

Click on any image or screenshot to view it in its entirety.

Current Versus Historical Range
animalia-life.club

For African Wild Dogs that are fortunate enough to have been born into or ultimately find themselves living within sanctuary boundaries and tending to new generations, there is the still the neverending risk that they’ll eventually venture outside of these habitats of relative safety. When this occurs, more often than not they are killed before landing safely in another. Unfortunately, and not unlike any animal, they can’t read signs or comprehend borders. Worse yet, the areas between these “safe zones” comprise the bulk of where most AWD’s spend their lives. It is, for all African species, the majority of their overall living space. The risks include but are not nearly limited to being hit while crossing roads, dying at the hands of poachers, or being shot for straying too close to a native farmer’s goats or cattle. Put differently, these are far-ranging apex predators and whether they remain within a given national park or any other form of sanctuary set aside for the protection of African wildlife and their habitat, it is simply a roll of the dice. Most AWD’s spend their entire lives traveling and maintaining pack territories well outside the boundaries of the relatively small areas which provide the very habitat that have been set aside for their survival. The larger the protected area, the greater the likelihood that they’ll remain.

It is when you look at Africa as a whole that you see just how small these protected areas are relative to its overall landmass. In our conquest to populate the African continent, we made an attempt at creating a few wonderful spaces and they do fall into some of the best habitats for many African species, but for Africa’s wildlife and their predilection for widespread travel and vast migrations, they are far too small.

When I began following the plight of the African Wild Dog four or five years ago, the estimated population remaining at that time was a staggeringly low 17,000. As a lover of dogs and their wild counterparts, I had no idea that the AWD was already so close to extinction, and I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of both sadness and anger. The reason for the sadness is obvious, but the anger was more complicated. How could we, as the supposed caretakers of the planet, have allowed such a massive decline in a species which looks very much like its close cousin, our beloved domestic dog?! If the population data as reflected above provides us with a reasonably accurate estimate, then there are now just 6,000 AWD’s remaining in the wild, or roughly a third of the population which existed just a half-decade ago. It doesn’t take a genius to see that it has become the “Eleventh Hour” and saving them now would require a complete workover to catapult them into the forefront of public consciousness in the same way that mankind came together to save itself when faced with the COVID pandemic. This is the sense of urgency that I spent a year on Quora trying my damndest to advocate for threatened and bighly endangered species only to find that the overwhelming majority of people who are supposedly committed to this very thing are still lost in talking about wildlife conservation without so much as lifting a finger to get involved in a way that their time and purported compassion results in “moving the ball down the field”. While they’re discussing the issue of the demise of keystone species all over the world, the very creatures they’re hoping to save are, each day, moving inexorably closer to oblivion. In other words, many “Red Listed” species will reach the point of extinction while these “talking heads” are still talking about it.

As was the case with the American bison, historians today have no concrete number as to the pre-white settlement population of buffalo roaming all over what would become the United States, but best guess estimates range from between 40 and 60 million animals. For the AWD, the number a century ago is estimated to have been in the “hundreds of thousands” roaming all over Africa. That there are estimated to be just 6,000 remaining today is beyond heartbreaking. It means that we, as the most powerful species on earth, haven’t learned a damned thing. Please let that resonate for a moment before continuing to read any further.

The primary reason as to why so many species of both flora and fauna are in serious trouble the world over is related to loss of habitat due to human encroachment. In Africa, humans and their activities such as burning, logging, farming, and mining have quickly spread throughout this magnificent continent once teeming with hundreds of animal species, large and small, roaming freely over hundreds of millions of acres of wilderness. Many African creatures are larger than creatures found anywhere else on earth and these large animals require continent-sized areas in which to thrive. More and more creatures cease to exist in and around regions of development and the entire African continent has become fragmented and discontinuous in the span of just two-hundred years. The entire landscape changed, beginning with European colonialism and followed by the Industrial Period when railroads connected towns and towns became cities, while nations became nations, and boundaries began to exist everywhere in a place that had never known boundaries.

Among other things, loss of habitat coupled with poaching, meat hunting, and legalized trophy hunting of many of the large ungulate species (herbivores), results in a major loss in food resources while apex predators like the African Wild Dog, lion, leopard, cheetah, and hyena quickly decimate what’s left of the remaining herds and other prey species that are caught in their own struggle for ecological survival. Whether predator or prey, they share the same fate from accidental human interaction through legalized hunting, poaching (which continues to run rampant even today when measures are in place to help curb the animal parts and trophies trade). The anecdotal analogy of the “thumb in the dyke” in an ill-fated attempt to keep billions of gallons of water from slashing its way downstream and taking with it everything in its path, seems appropriate. There aren’t nearly enough resources to fight the poaching problem head-on. Worldwide bans on the “animal parts” trade have helped, but from what I know of the issue, it has been like placing a bandaid on an arterial bleed, or fixing a single dent on a car ravaged by hail.

We are living in a time when most people are aware that Mother Earth is gravely displeased with our goings-on and the collateral damage left in our wake on our way to drastically overpopulate the planet to a point that defies our own logic and reasoning. It would seem that Ted Kyzinsky’s manifesto on “Industrial Society and its Future” wasn’t far off the mark. I read his manifesto when it was first published by the New York Times in 1996, while he was still hard-at-it making bombs to be unleashed on those he viewed as the creators of technology and unimaginable future technologies which were having or would ultimately have a drastic impact on the relatively controlled world he had known. In a nutshell, his manifesto blames humanity for taking technology too far and well past the point of diminishing returns, to a level where it controls us and no longer does the converse exist. It is worth reading and is even more relevant today than it was then. I obviously don’t condone his means for getting his point across, but as a prognosticator of the future of mankind, he was spot-on. There was a part of him that was truly sociopathic, but it shows that even a madman with a high IQ may have seen the world more clearly than many of us. He knew what was coming, and what the world has been up to since his demise proves it.

I fail to understand how global society can continue on its social media-driven path while allowing for the wholesale extinction of some of the world’s most beautiful, intelligent, and fascinating animals. I am not a member of any of the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (“Instant Gratification”). You will never hear me “tweet” about anything. There’s simply too much at stake to get lost in such nonsense. It would be an altogether different matter if social media didn’t function as a perpetual diversion from things of greater importance and these same platforms were put to better use in disseminating important information such as that which could be used to save our dying planet.

I do not think humankind has proven itself to be responsible enough to be the world’s top apex predator while also charged with being the planet’s caretaker. There’s a fundamental conflict of interest associated with such a responsibility. I suppose that many of you reading this will find that to be a harsh blanket statement, but someone needs to be an oracle for creatures who, while incredibly intelligent, simply don’t speak our language (though some of their languages have proven to be far more intricate, elegant, and complex than our own). I just don’t meet enough people who would risk the relative ease of their lives to do whatever it takes to save some of these creatures, including the African Wild Dog. If we refuse to do what it takes to save the AWD from almost certain demise, what does that say about our relationship with the most historically significant and beloved creature we’ve so carefully cultivated over a thousand centuries – the domestic dog?! Will we eventually turn our backs to “man’s best friend”, as well?!

There are, of course, certain wildlife conservation groups that have been charged with the monstrously huge task of saving these animals from the rest of us, but these groups are vastly understaffed and underfunded and are just not militant enough to address the very significant issue of poaching. I don’t care if a poacher is some person from a native tribe trying to make ends meet. Whatever his reasons, his actions border on evil. Get some funding out there so he can be given a job protecting these species in lieu of annihilating them.

There are now close to eight billion people populating the globe and fewer than 6,000 African Wild Dogs (650 breeding pairs). This statement should serve as a “shock and awe tactic” to compel people to do something as opposed to just sitting around and talking about it. But my plea will likely die along with the creatures it is intended to protect. When a population of any animal gets too small to be viable (no longer sustainable because there aren’t enough individuals remaining to formulate a healthy gene pool), there is no going back. When the number of animals for a given species has reached this point, there is little that can be done, particularly if that species has proven itself unfit for captive breeding. Some animals are simply too wild and require continent-sized areas in which to thrive. Perhaps they don’t breed in captivity as a way of saying, “We are simply too good to submit to your machinations and would rather die than live out our once free-ranging lives in captivity!”.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you feel as guilty as I do for being a human being and, however unwittingly, taking part in the destruction of our planet, perhaps you’ll do some research of your own and find a wildlife and wild places organization you feel good about supporting. It may just be the most important thing you’ve ever done.

Here is a list of places to start. To expand it, just click.

African Wild Dog Conservation Organizations

Photos.willbe.com (Burrard-Lucas Photography)

The Allure of the Guitar

Originally Written for Medium – Edited and Expanded for this Post

I didn’t start playing guitar until I retired twelve years ago. I had just moved from my long time home in Southwest Colorado to my last job as regional director for a large engineering company in Pennsylvania. I’d been having back trouble for years, but it was during that move that things got serious. I was more than a little concerned about starting a new, high profile job while my back had begun to spiral out of control. I had seen enough specialists over many years, including a recent visit with a spine surgeon in Durango, to know that I would now be in need of a major corrective surgery.

I began my new post and could immediately tell that it was going to be hell. Loads of responsibility and pressure trying to turn water into wine. By now, I was in serious need of seeing a pain specialist and getting some help with the quickly deteriorating circumstances. Soon my situation became untenable. I’d come from Colorado a well conditioned athlete and mountain bike racer but now it was all I could do to sit through my fourteen hour days. The company had located a wonderful home for our two-person, two dog family and we moved in. But I was immediately in need of finding a place closer to work to mitigate the fairly long commute, which meant more sitting. By far, the most uncomfortable thing I could do to my body was to sit for long periods. The walls containing my life were collapsing all around me. I finally found a pain management clinic that would squeeze me in. Unbeknownst to me, there was a war going on and it was called the “Opioid Crisis”. At least in Pennsylvania, with some of the harshest laws covering the transfer and sale of oral opioids, it was like playing musical chairs and when the music stopped, I would be left standing without a chair. Clinics were booked solid and doctors were being forced to discern how much pain a given patient might be in while interrogating them to see if their pain was real or whether they were exhibiting “drug seeking behavior”, which closely mimicks being in severe pain. I was refused by three clinics before a doctor agreed to take me on as a genuine pain patient. At this point, I’d only been in Pennsylvania for three months and was already fighting to be able to perform well enough to keep my job and all that I had gambled when I left Colorado. The country was deep in the throes of a major recession, largely due the “House Mortgaging Crisis” which had been two decades in the making, and virtually every industry, including mine in oil and gas, was hurting and solid engineers in my particular field (natural gas development) were being laid-off left and right, which is why I was forced to make such a faraway move at such a bad time for me and my rapidly declining spine. I had lived and worked hard making my way in Colorado for thirty years. To me, it was the end of an entire way of life. Just a few months prior to the move, I had simply gone in to see our local family doctor in Colorado and was, with no trouble at all, given a prescription for the very same medication that I was now fighting for my life to renew. I was fortunate that I’d found a pain clinician who, after seeing X-rays, an MRI, and a CT-scan could see how badly I needed surgery, as my lower lumbar spine was completely decimated from years of concussive sports. He wrote a script for just enough medicine to just take the edge off so that I could at least get a few hours of sleep at night and continue working while attempting to locate a reputable spine surgeon. But, make no mistake, the pain was still bad enough that I could barely sit at my desk, let alone travel to and from Houston, something required for my new position as the company was headquartered there, and I reported to the CEO.

It was at this time that I was compelled to find something pleasing to concentrate on to keep my mind off the pain. Since I’d always looked to numerous mountain sports and activities for stress relief and to maintain a semblance of work/life balance, but was now having serious difficulty with short runs and was forced to exchange my runs for short walks, what I was looking for was something immersive enough to help me relax and fend-off the profound associated stress and vastly debilitating anxiety. I had been saving two time-intensive passions to dive into after retirement as I’d done just enough of each over my working life to have a burning desire to take them up when I finally had the necessary time to commit. One was to learn to play and become an accomplished guitarist, and the other was creative writing. As a function of my career in engineering, I had become a highly proficient technical writer, but since taking some literature and writing courses in college, which I had enjoyed immensely, I had had an overwhelming desire to one day pursue creative writing as an avocation. This, too, would have to wait until retirement as becoming an accomplished creative writer doesn’t happen overnight. I decided to continue to put the writing on hold as I wasn’t yet ready to retire in earnest and had hoped to get my back under control and continue working for another four or five years, but I thought that learning to play guitar would help get me through this very difficult period and would be something that I would continue pursuing while finishing up my working life.

No sooner than I had made the decision, my wife and I went to the nearest Guitar Center while I spent an entire Saturday working closely with the store’s assistant manager who, himself, was a gifted and regularly gigging guitarist. We had found a surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh whom I believed could do the work but my surgery wasn’t scheduled for another two months. I needed this change in my life in the same way the desert requires an occasional rain to sustain its own extremely beautiful life force. Years ago, I’d played a bit of acoustic in college and decided that I would initially pursue electric guitar. By the end of the day, I had settled on a very limited edition “Old Growth” redwood Fender Telecaster, the very first guitar to have caught my eye on that momentous day, a good quality tube amp, and everything I would need to get started. Even with the severe pain, I felt an overwhelming sense of elation! We got home and, though it took me two hours to get everything setup in the manner I was instructed by the uniquely helpful and super-knowledgable Guitar Center employee, I got everything set up to be able to play the next day. I went to bed completely exhausted from what had been a long day considering the horrible condition I was in. Exhausted, but full of hope and desire.

As worn to a nub as I was, I couldn’t wait to wake up the next morning and try my hand at playing. That day turned out to be epic as I played until my fingers bled (I’m being completely honest about that!) and played went on to play some more. It was nightfall before I quit for the day. I remembered more than I’d have thought from my bits of playing acoustic guitar in college and found something I’d never known about myself. I could play by ear. I never knew what that meant until I played to a bunch of old favorites and turned Pandora to a blues-rock station where I attempted to play lead along to each song and found myself putting together many of the notes and fitting them in nicely to match the lead guitar on the song. As with all things, there is a spectrum when it comes to playing by ear. Let’s just say that I could do it well enough to thoroughly enjoy what I was doing. Most people spend months, or even years, working on music theory and learning basic chords before enjoyment takes the place of frustration. For me, frustration would come much later when I’d gotten to be a reasonably good player but I was now attempting more complicated things, so the learning curve slowed and got steeper. Time was coming up on my surgery date and the surgeon had instructed me to prepare myself for a long and painful recovery. I was thankful for getting into guitar when I did because I would need it for what would end up as years of chasing pain and having other surgeries, six in the course of the following twelve years. I was forced to retire during the height of my career with just a few more years to go before I could retire “comfortably “. Times got pretty rough and I’ve all but completely lost myself at times, occasionally falling into deep despair from the pain and associated depression, but as bad as things got, I continued to play and began expanding my newfound avocation into buying, selling, and collecting guitars to an extent that my fascination with the guitar would become an obsession. I would read about the history of guitars and learn all about the market for vintage acoustic guitars by Martin and Gibson. I became an “enthusiast” and an expert on vintage acoustic guitars all while my playing continued to get better. I’ve been playing for almost fifteen years now and have developed an equal love of playing acoustically. Today, I’m roughly 50/50 with equal time playing both electrically and acoustically.

The 2011 Fender “Old Growth” Redwood Telecaster I purchased that one fine day at Guitar Center

Aside from problems with my back, I would have a half-dozen major health issues to contend with, three playing out as near-death experiences. Several of the presiding doctors over the gruelling period have made wonderfully compassionate observations as to my inner strength, resilience, and unique ability to endure under the most demanding of conditions. I have spent long periods of time where it was only by the grace of God, support from my family and a very small circle of friends, and my love for making music that I made it through. I had three major surgeries in 2023 alone. One, another spine related surgery and two that had to do with other long-term life threatening illnesses. In the aftermath, I had to relearn how to walk and, on most days I still use a cane to get around. But through it all, there were my guitars standing at the ready to help me through the worst of things. Then, there is my wonderful wife and three fine dogs. I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to live mindfully and being thankful for the things that matter most.

But nothing has gotten me through these difficult times like remaining positive and playing the guitar like there’s no tomorrow. It wouldn’t be a stretch for me to say that my love of guitar and making music have saved my life several times over. When I occasionally reflect on all that has transpired, I can only hope and attempt to draw strength from what I have already accomplished as I am currently battling bladder cancer, the one remaining illness that I have yet to conquer. I was diagnosed in mid-2024 and had two surgeries and a failed form of frontline treatment, yet I still had a seven month period of remission only to have it reappear. Over the last six months, I have had two more surgeries to remove two more tumors, the most recent was just a month ago. This time, it was the smallest tumor yet, caught early. I have a follow-up “scraping” surgery in a month (to make sure my surgeon gets all of it), and have just begun a second, less efficacious form of treatment called systemic immunotherapy. It is given through an IV for two-to-three hours at my oncologist’s clinic in Austin, every third Friday for a period of twelve months. I do not know if I have enough gas in my tank to beat this last, most pernicious illness, but I’m going to give it everything I’ve got left. I still have “places to go, and people to meet” and am not nearly done with the things I hope to accomplish in my lifetime.

As always, good thoughts and prayers are more than welcome and are always deeply appreciated…from the bottom of my heart!

Some of the guitars from a collection that has taken me fifteen years to build. The most important pic to me is the last one. It’s a shot that my wife, Genie, took of me and our pure-golden-hearted little girl, Sage. RIP 2021 Age: 15

Thanks for reading!