Tag: family

Frozen at Forty-Five

A drunk stranger, a thermos of coffee, and 115 miles an hour: what one second cost me.

My speedometer stopped at forty-five. Frozen there, like a clock that gave up mid-tick. The rest of the world had slowed too: glass tumbling past my face one shard at a time, the dashboard rising to meet me, the steering wheel folding into my chest. People say your life flashes before your eyes. Mine didn’t. Time simply stretched, and in that stretched second I understood I was about to die. I was wrong, but only barely, and only because I like coffee.

You’ve been in that lane. Maybe not drunk, maybe three drinks in and certain you were fine, or looking down at a text for what felt like half a second. Half a second is the whole story. That’s all the time it took to take the rest of my life apart.

That was thirty sevenyears ago. It made the front page of a small East Texas newspaper, and it earned me my fifteen minutes in the most austere way a man can get them.

Driving home tonight, I passed more than one driver weaving across lanes. Usually it’s texting or checking a missed call, and of course they’re convinced they can do it more safely than anyone else. Sometimes the weaving is simpler: they’re drunk or high. I know exactly where that road leads, because in 1992 it led straight into me.

A head-on collision at freeway speeds with an intoxicated eighty-year-old forced me to reinvent myself. I survived treatment at a small country hospital that doubled as an emergency vet clinic (joking . . . I think), and I was clearly destined for other things.

The broken bones and lacerations healed, but the scars remain just beneath the surface. Pain is a constant reminder of that day.

I still have my legs because I like coffee. Minutes before impact, I’d stopped for gas and filled a stainless steel thermos, setting it upright on the passenger seat. Cresting a hill, I found a Cadillac barreling toward me in my lane. My options were to swerve or brake. A red truck blocked the next lane, so in the split second it took to say “Oh, shit,” it was over. That fast. I’d locked the anti-lock brakes and bent the brake pedal. He never touched his.

The combined collision speed was 115 miles an hour. How they calculated that, I have no idea; my speedometer was frozen at forty-five.

That split second is etched into my brain, a permanent reminder of what happens when idiots drink and drive. Time fascinates me now, because I believe it isn’t linear but relative. During impact, the world became a high-speed film: glass tumbling frame by frame, left to right; the dash rising to meet me; the steering wheel crushing my face and chest. What I remember isn’t a bang. It was a long tearing, metal giving up all at once, and then the smell: gasoline, hot coolant, and my own blood. The thermos launched to the floor and wedged between the firewall and my seat frame. Full of liquid, its hydraulic resistance stopped the dash from severing my legs and likely kept the steering column from piercing my heart.

The other driver was pinned under his dash. He left in the first ambulance with a single cut on his forehead and was released that day. He wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt. I never learned what became of him. Since we shared the same insurer, I was “lucky” to be compensated. The claims adjuster was nasty on the phone. They wouldn’t replace my six-month-old truck, and they didn’t care that I was upside down on the loan. I understand adjusters work for the company, but I was surely not in “good hands.” If you’re lucky, insurance is money pissed away on something you’ll never need. Either way, they do whatever they can to avoid paying. Worth knowing: you get two years to file every claim. What surfaced in me after those two years was a diagnosis football players collect from the punishment of the game. I’m certain the insurers know that timeline as well as the doctors do. Two years, then it’s “piss off.” Some injuries take years to declare themselves, growing new bone that either steals your range of motion or hands you pain you never escape, until death.

As I said, my trip to the hospital began only after they’d removed the man responsible.

My vision faded as the pain in my chest intensified. Certain I was going to die, I made my peace with God, and strangely, I didn’t mind. There was a peace in it, as if the answer were finally at hand. God had other plans. Waiting for the end, I managed to unbuckle my seatbelt, but the pain remained.

With what vision I had left, I watched them pull the other driver onto a stretcher. A man came to my window. Talking hurt, and breath was scarce, so my answers were short. My face had met the steering wheel (or the wheel had met my face), so speaking clearly wasn’t an option anyway. Blood was leaving my body through every orifice, visible and not.

The engine and tires of my truck had come to rest beneath my seat. I heard the Jaws of Life popping the metal as they cut the door away, then sliced through what remained of my seatbelt. My vision was nearly gone, but I could still hear the equipment and the voices. People talk about the white light; mine faded from white sparkles to a blank white screen. “It’s a miracle he’s alive,” one responder said. They fitted a collar and pulled me out.

I wanted to say something, anything, to prove I was still a person and not a body they were working on. Nothing came out. My hands wouldn’t close. Somewhere behind the ringing a woman was crying, and I couldn’t tell whether it was for me or for him.

Once they laid me down, my sight returned. I saw the emergency vehicles and the wrecker driver gathering my belongings, scattered across the freeway. Steam rose from under my seat, where the engine now sat. The truck bed was warped and twisted by the force of the crash.

In the ambulance, the medic warned me the 18-gauge needle for the sugar water would hurt. Compared to everything else, it was a mosquito bite.

At the hospital, they were already working on the man who’d hit me, separated from me only by a curtain. He was old, drunk, and on medication. His wife had recently bought him this big old Cadillac after he’d totaled his last car, so he’d be protected if he crashed again. He bragged that she’d been right, since here he was.

Listening to him praise his classic Cadillac, what was left of my blood boiled. Bad enough they’d taken him first; now I had to share a room with him.

Then it was my turn to be treated like meat.

As they cut my clothes off, there was no shortage of spectators: doctors, nurses, a physician assistant (young, attractive, long curly brown hair), and a burly old cop who’d clearly never missed a meal.

The accident report was read aloud to everyone, including the note that my seatbelt was unbuckled. I tried to explain that I’d taken it off, but the cop was more interested in fault and writing a ticket than in me. He looked down as if to say, Sure, we’ve heard that one before. Arrogant son of a bitch. If he couldn’t read the evidence, he was a moron.

Then they cut off my shirt and revealed a wide purple stripe across my chest and belly, the mark of the belt. The cop put his ticket book away. I don’t mean to sound churlish; I count many police as friends. But thinking about him still makes me angry.

The doctor arrived in a black silk sports jacket with a yellow logo, on call from some sporting event and clearly unhappy about it. His bedside manner left much to be desired. There were two hospitals in town, one for the poor and one for people with means. I had insurance and means, and they’d brought me to the one in need of everything.

After examining my naked body in front of the crowd, the “doctor” flipped me over and stuffed a finger up my rear as the last insult. Broken bones, crushed chest, shattered face and legs, and without so much as an X-ray, he finished his exam like I was a slab of meat, scribbled orders, and left. A sonogram showed my heart was bruised. Then came X-ray, near the morgue. I could smell the dead, or maybe that was me.

Water-stained ceiling tiles told the story of the building’s finances. The X-ray machine wouldn’t stay put; its old, loose joints let the head slide every time she stepped back to trigger it. We shot several images before she finished. God knows how much extra radiation that museum piece gave me.

Back in the ER, the man’s wife arrived. “They said I was in the wrong lane,” he told her.

He got three stitches and was soon released. Before leaving, his wife came to me. I was covered head to toe in my own blood, my beard caked with it. She rubbed my forehead and apologized: “I knew better than to get him another car.” Then she added, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but we have good insurance.”

Even in my state, I was too polite to tell her what she could do with her good insurance. First I had to survive the day, the night, and another day before I could think about any of that.

After hours in the ER, I was moved to the ICU. If you’ve never been hospitalized (and I hadn’t), it’s not an experience I’d recommend.

Because of the bruised heart and they didn’t know what drugs I was on, they decided I couldn’t have pain medication. A dentist checked the teeth that had gone through my face and stitched me up from the inside out, no anesthetic. Next came the doctor who set my broken nose, a man who reminded me of the professor from Back to the Future. He pressed with his thumb, couldn’t get it straight, then jammed enormous forceps up my nose and forced it into place. The pain was unbelievable, ending only with the final crunch of bone.

The monitor echoed the throbbing in my body. As long as it beeped, I knew I was alive.

The PA kept pressing me to admit what I was taking. “C’mon, we know you’re on something. We need to know.” “Really, I don’t do that. Never have.” She tried again and again; my answer never changed. I may be the only person on this planet who’s never touched the stuff, but I haven’t. “If we know what your on we can give you pain meds.” True story, they were bribing me with pain relief.

“We don’t know what you’re on, so we can’t give you pain medicine,” she said. What was I supposed to do, lie so they’d treat my pain? I am not making this shit up, it happened. Whoever this Andy person was, they were protecting him.

After the worst week of my life, the toxicology report came back: low potassium. “What are you doing to make your potassium low?” asked the doctor with the bad bedside manner. “Um . . . I don’t salt my food. I had the flue a few weeks ago…???” I never got so much as an aspirin.

The days and nights blurred. I couldn’t sleep. My nose, packed with cotton, throbbed for days. With broken ribs, even breathing hurt.

Every few hours someone jabbed me repeatedly for blood; whoever they were, they were bad at it. Still on saline, urinating was the only activity I could manage, and lifting the sheet was nearly impossible. More than once I needed help. Humbling doesn’t cover it.

By the third day, glass from the crash was still embedded in my hands, arm, and face. My beard remained a solid chunk of dried blood, and not one person offered to clean me up.They had extracted some of the glass but much like a splinter in your foot, the glass in my body was a constant reminder that I was still alive.

For entertainment, I discovered I could control my heartbeat through biofeedback, slowing it to an eerie crawl or speeding it up. I was wired to telemetry so someone, somewhere, could watch my rhythm; a camera on the ceiling watched too. One night I wanted a nurse and couldn’t get one, so I pulled off the leads. The monitor went silent, and nobody came for nearly fifteen minutes. If this was the ICU, I shuddered to imagine a regular room.

The next day I asked to be transferred to Houston. I knew Dr. DeBakey and many other quality doctors personally; he’d once told me to call, if I ever needed him. If something was wrong with my heart, I wanted him and his team, not these people.

Instead, they moved me to a private room in the hospital’s “best” wing, built with someone’s donation. There, with my family’s help, I got myself into the shower and stayed until every trace of dried blood was gone from my hair and skin. Then I dug my own tweezers out of my luggage and pulled the glass from my body myself.

Before releasing me, the doctor with the crappy attitude was noticeably kinder. Maybe he’d finally accepted I wasn’t on anything, or realized the wreck wasn’t my fault, or maybe he’d just gotten lucky the night before. Either way, I was glad to leave. Holding a pillow to my chest, an old friend drove me home, where I lost months of work, and eventually had to leave the job I loved, no longer able to do it.

I never did get Dr. DeBakey and his team. I’d spent years caring for the physicians of the Texas Medical Center, only to end up in a small East Texas hospital that was a joke by any standard.

Months of lost pay later, I got a call from MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. I could barely afford it, but I sent them money anyway.

Thirty-seven years to date, I’m still teased about my driving. I’m defensive; I leave plenty of room, and I preach to anyone who’ll listen, watch the traffic at least fifteen cars ahead, and leave enough space to see it. People say I drive like a slow grandpa. “Slow” means the speed limit, give or take a mile or two for terrain.

Driving a big truck full of airbags is only part of my strategy. When I see people fiddling with phones behind the wheel, part of me wants to scream. And the cops? They’ve got radios, phones, laptops, and a dozen other distractions, right through school zones. Folks, they’re no different from you. Watch them drift as they mess with their gadgets. I’ve seen it, and I cringe.

Keep your distance: from big trucks, from cheerleader types who think a selfie in a school zone is smart. They do it, and it’s all over Facebook. Just the other day, a young woman picked up her child and tore out of the school at 40-plus in a 20 zone, texting as she passed me. “Where’s a cop when you need one?” I said, and right on cue, a motorcycle officer pulled onto her bumper. She drove a long way, still texting, before she noticed him. That ticket had to be pricey.

I wish I could say this was fiction. It isn’t. It happened. Some memories have surely faded, but most remain, including the pain. For thirty-seven years I’ve lived in unrelenting pain. I take nothing for it. I manage with exercise as best I can, because no medication would leave me mentally sharp. With opioids and such they work, then you need more, and more, and more, and soon enough you have all kinds of other problems like you can’t poop! No thank you. You would be shocked to learn how many people die on the toilet because they have a heart attack trying to poop.

I don’t know what became of the man who hit me. I finally read the police report in 2016 and learned the only charge against him was driving left of center. He and the cop who worked the scene went to the same church.

The cop came in, prayed with Andy, then crossed to my side of the curtain and watched them cut my clothes off. He had his ticket book open when someone told him my seatbelt hadn’t been on. I’d taken it off to see whether that would ease the pain. It didn’t; my sternum was cracked in two. When he saw the long purple bruise the belt had left, his face turned to disgust. He’d wanted to ticket me, to make me the villain instead of his church buddy Andy. On his way out, he told the attending to test my blood for anything and everything known to man. Some East Texas cops and sheriffs really do suck.

I do know that when you share an insurer, you lose. He’s surely gone by now, but there are plenty to take his place. There were no smartphones then; now everyone has one. Weed is legal in some states, and I fear those drivers will be impaired too. Even where it’s illegal, I’d bet one in three drivers is under some influence.

He got three stitches. I got thirty-seven years of pain, PTSD, and counting.

That’s the part I need you to sit with. The man who hit me felt almost nothing. He went home that afternoon, praised his Cadillac, and let his wife apologize on his behalf. The cost didn’t land on him. It landed on a stranger cresting a hill with a thermos on the seat beside him, and it has stayed with that stranger every day since.

So if you’ve ever done the arithmetic in a parking lot, counting drinks against miles and telling yourself you’re fine, understand what you’re actually wagering. Not your license. Not your record. Someone else’s life, spent on your behalf, without anyone asking them.

My speedometer stopped at forty-five. I’ve spent every year since trying to keep yours from doing the same. Hand someone else your keys. Take the defensive driving course. It’s the cheapest insurance you’ll ever buy

I’ve written a memoir. You can get your copy here. This story is in it in full, along with many others. the cover art is different with more stories than this version but the link will get you there.

Best,

A Story to Start or End with Wheels

A story from a prompt:

Imagine this: a room filled with the hum of creativity, the scratching of pens against paper, and the occasional burst of laughter as ideas collide.

That’s where you’ll find me, well by zoom since I moved to the country, a proud director of our small but fiercely passionate Writing Group in my old hometown.

This week? Oh, this week is special. The challenge is simple yet brimming with possibility: craft a story that begins or ends with a bicycle.

A single object, two wheels, infinite potential. Will it be a tale of freedom, of mystery, or perhaps of heartbreak?

The group is ready to dig deep, to wrestle with their imaginations and see where the humble bicycle takes them.And you?

You’re about to get a front-row seat to the magic that unfolds. Buckle up (or should I say, hop on?). The journey is just about to begin.

The following is my story from a somewhat childhood memory, and an imagination, as a girl with freckles and red hair is a part of the story.

The Bicycle and the Bay Mare

The summer Thomas turned twelve, the world smelled of hot asphalt and cut grass, and his blue Schwinn bicycle was the finest thing he owned.

His father had rescued it from a yard sale for eight dollars, sanded off the rust, and painted it the color of a robin’s egg.

Thomas rode it everywhere: to the creek, to the library, to the little store on Miller Road where Mrs. Halvorsen sold penny candy that hadn’t cost a penny in thirty years.

That Tuesday afternoon in July, he was flying down Ridgewood Lane with a paper bag of licorice ropes bouncing in his front basket.

The wind pulled at his hair. His legs pumped in perfect rhythm. He was, he decided, the fastest boy in the county, possibly the state, possibly the world.

He was thinking exactly this when a horse came around the bend.

It was enormous, a mountain of muscle and gleaming chestnut hide, hooves hammering the pavement like a blacksmith’s anvil.

Thomas had just enough time to see the flash of a red-gold mane, both the horse’s and the rider’s, before he yanked his handlebars sideways and sailed straight into Mr. Peterson’s hedge.

The Schwinn went one way. Thomas went another. The licorice went everywhere.

“Oh my gosh, are you alive?”

A face appeared above him, upside down through the tangle of privet leaves. Freckles. Green eyes. Hair the color of a maple tree in October, spilling down in wild waves that seemed to catch every scrap of sunlight and hold it hostage.

“I think so,” Thomas managed. A leaf was in his mouth. He spit it out with what he hoped was dignity.

“I am so sorry. Dolly spooked at a plastic bag. She’s a total drama queen about plastic bags, and I couldn’t get her to …”

The girl paused, tilting her head. “You’re bleeding.”

Thomas touched his elbow. He was, indeed, bleeding. It seemed a small price to pay for continuing to be looked at by this person.

“I’m Ellen,” she said, offering a hand streaked with horse sweat and dust.

“Ellen Brennan. We just moved into the yellow house on Fox Hollow.”

“Thomas,” he said. His voice came out slightly strangled.

“Thomas Kepler.”

She helped him up, retrieved his bicycle (which had a new and interesting bend in the front fender), and gathered up as many licorice ropes as could be salvaged.

The horse, Dolly, watched all of this with the mild, unimpressed expression of a creature who had caused chaos and considered her work done.

“Come by the stable sometime,” Ellen said, swinging back into the saddle with an ease that struck Thomas as miraculous.

She clicked her tongue, and Dolly wheeled around and cantered off, and Thomas stood in the middle of Ridgewood Lane holding a bent bicycle and a bag of dirty licorice, and knew with absolute certainty that his life had changed.

He waited three days. Three days felt appropriately casual.

Three days felt like a boy who had many important things to do and only happened, in passing, to remember there was a stable on Fox Hollow.

In truth, he thought about it every waking minute.

The Brennan place was set back from the road behind a row of oaks, with a weathered red barn and a paddock ringed by white fencing that had gone gray at the posts.

Thomas leaned his Schwinn against a fence rail and walked toward the barn, and there, in the shadowed doorway, was Ellen, not in the jodhpurs and boots he’d half-expected, but in cutoff jeans and a t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder, mucking a stall with a pitchfork nearly as tall as she was.

“You came!” she said, and her whole face lit up in a way that made Thomas’s ears go hot.

“Come meet everybody.”

Everybody, it turned out, was not just Dolly.

There was Dolly, yes, the chestnut mare from the road, but also a stocky black gelding named Pepper, a spotted pony called Bandit who had, according to Ellen, “opinions,” and an ancient white horse named Mr. Biscuit who was thirty-one years old and, Ellen said solemnly, the finest gentleman she’d ever known.

Thomas offered his palm the way Ellen showed him, flat and steady, and Mr. Biscuit breathed onto it with a warm, hay-scented sigh.

Something inside Thomas’s chest turned over.

“You should ride,” Ellen said.

“I don’t know how.”

“That,” she said, “is exactly why you should learn.”

He came back the next day. And the day after.

Ellen was a patient teacher and a merciless one.

She made him groom Mr. Biscuit for a full week before she’d let him sit on the old horse’s back, and even then, only at a walk, in circles, in the corral, while she called out corrections from the fence.

“Heels down, Thomas!”

“They are down!”

“Down like you mean it. Like gravity is your personal friend.”

He fell off twice. The first time he landed in soft dirt and Ellen laughed so hard she had to sit down. The second time he landed in something considerably less soft, and Ellen laughed so hard she cried, and Thomas found that he didn’t mind at all, because when she laughed her whole face crinkled up and her freckles danced.

By August he could trot without bouncing.

By September he could post.

By the time the leaves turned, Ellen let him ride Pepper, and the two of them went out along the trails behind the Brennan property, ducking under low branches, Dolly and Pepper’s hooves whispering through the fallen leaves.

The Schwinn stayed in the yard, propped against the fence.

Years unfolded the way years do: quickly, when you look back at them; slowly, when you’re inside them.

Thomas grew tall and lean, with a rider’s hands and a rider’s seat.

Ellen grew into her freckles.

They rode through four autumns and three summers together, through a hundred sunsets over the ridge, through a season when Mr. Biscuit lay down in his stall and did not get up, and Thomas held Ellen while she cried into his shoulder for the finest gentleman she’d ever known.

There was the winter Ellen’s father lost his job and she came to school with red-rimmed eyes, and Thomas learned that sometimes the most useful thing a person could do was simply be present, and quiet, and steady, the way Mr. Biscuit had once been for both of them.

There was the spring Thomas’s mother got sick, and Ellen rode over on Dolly every single afternoon, and sat with him on the porch, and didn’t try to fix anything, because some things can’t be fixed, only witnessed.

There was the first kiss, under the oak tree by the corral, when Thomas was seventeen and Ellen was seventeen and a half and had never let him forget the half.

There was the college years, and the long-distance letters, and the summer they both came home and knew, without saying it, that they were done pretending to be uncertain.

There was a small wedding in the Brennan’s front pasture, with folding chairs borrowed from the church and Dolly, gone gray around the muzzle now, watching over the fence like a chaperone.

The blue Schwinn stayed leaned against the fence rail where Thomas had first left it.

At first, someone would move it. Ellen’s father, when he mowed; Thomas himself, when he remembered. But the years wore on, and the bicycle wore down. The tires went flat. The chain went orange with rust. Ivy found the wheels first, then the frame. A morning glory climbed the handlebars one summer and never really left.

A robin nested in the basket the year Ellen turned twenty-four, and the year after that, and the year after that.

Nobody moved it anymore. It had become part of the fence, part of the yard, part of the place. A blue-green ghost of the boy who had once been the fastest in the county, possibly the state, possibly the world.

It is a Saturday afternoon in late June, and Thomas is thirty-four years old.

He and Ellen are down by the lake behind what used to be her parents’ farm and is now, deed and mortgage and all, theirs.

A red plaid blanket is spread on the grass beneath the willow. The picnic basket, her grandmother’s, the wicker frayed at the corners, one hinge held together with baling wire, sits open and mostly empty.

There are the last crusts of a sandwich. A jar with two swallows of lemonade. A peach with two bites taken out of it, one small (hers) and one large (his).

Not far off, in the shallow slope of the pasture, two horses graze in the slow, unhurried way of horses who know they are home.

One is a bay mare with a white star. The other is a chestnut gelding whose sire, if you traced the papers back far enough, was a mare named Dolly.

Ellen is lying on her back with her head in Thomas’s lap. Her red hair, still absurd, still catching every scrap of sunlight it can find, is spread across his knee. He is twirling a piece of it around his finger, the way he has been doing for fifteen years, the way he suspects he will still be doing when they are eighty.

“Do you remember,” she says, eyes closed, “the licorice?”

“I remember the licorice.”

“It was disgusting. The licorice.”

“It was covered in gravel.”

“And you ate it anyway.”

“I did not.”

“You did. I saw you. You ate a piece with a leaf stuck to it because you were trying to seem casual.”

Thomas laughs. Somewhere up by the house, on the other side of the pasture, leaning against a fence rail nobody has repainted in twenty years, a blue Schwinn bicycle is quietly dissolving into the landscape. Weeds have grown up through its spokes. A morning glory is in bloom on its handlebars. If you didn’t know it had once been a bicycle, you might not guess.

If you did know, you might think it looked less like a ruin and more like a small, patient monument. To a boy who rode too fast around a corner. To a girl on a horse who couldn’t stop. To the exact and unrepeatable accident of two lives colliding on a summer afternoon and choosing, ever after, not to come apart.

Ellen opens her eyes and looks up at him. The freckles are still there. The green eyes are still there. Everything, somehow, is still there.

“Thomas,” she says.

“Yes.”

“I’m really glad you didn’t die in that hedge.”

He bends down and kisses her forehead. The horses graze. The lake laps at the shore. The picnic basket holds its small ruins with dignity.

“Me too,” he says. “Me too.”

A Whisper from the Past, a Chance at Redemption

If that little taste of my writing intrigued you, then you won’t want to miss my novel, Nothing But Time.It begins with a letter…a letter that arrives three weeks after Jack Harper stopped mattering.Jack gave everything to his career.

His marriage slipped through his fingers. His daughter grew up without him. Forty-one years of sunsets went unwatched, and the roses? Never smelled.

Now retired, redundant, and utterly adrift, Jack is left wondering if it was all worth it.

Then, out of nowhere, he inherits an old farmhouse from Ed, the friend who once tried to warn him.

Ed, who escaped to Vermont years ago, died alone, and left Jack with one simple instruction:

“Tend the roses. Stop and smell them. Live.”

But the farmhouse isn’t what it seems. The radio crackles with broadcasts from 1943. The roses bloom when Jack kneels in the soil. And at the edge of the orchard, Ed keeps appearing—smiling, waiting, calling Jack to finally understand what he refused to see all those years.Some second chances come with instructions. Some come with ghosts.

Are you ready to discover which one Jack will choose?

Nothing But Time

Your Voice Matters

If this story resonated with you, don’t hold back, leave a comment!

Your thoughts, your reactions, and your support are what keep this journey alive. I know you’re out there, and your presence means everything to me.

Go ahead, share your voice, and let’s keep this connection alive.
Have a blessed day…you’re the reason I do this.

-Scott

Nothing But Time: A Story About What We Lose When We’re Too Busy to Notice

There’s a particular kind of silence that fills a downtown apartment at 3 PM on a Tuesday. It’s not the peaceful quiet of a weekend morning or the contemplative hush of a late evening. It’s the silence of a man who suddenly has nowhere to be, and worse, no one waiting for him to arrive.This is where we meet Jack.

The Weight of an Empty Calendar

For forty-three years, Jack’s identity was stitched into the fabric of a company logo. He knew the precise angle of morning light through his corner office window. He could recite quarterly projections in his sleep. His fingers knew the keyboard shortcuts of Excel the way a pianist knows Chopin.Then came the merger.They called it “restructuring.” They handed him a plaque, a modest severance, and a handshake from someone half his age who couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Just like that, the man who built departments, mentored executives, and sacrificed weekends for deadlines became… what, exactly?In “Nothing But Time,“ I wanted to explore what happens to a man when the thing he traded his life for suddenly decides it doesn’t need him anymore.

The Ghosts That Live in Silence

Jack sits in his sleek, expensive apartment—the one he bought because it was close to the office, not because it felt like home—and the memories arrive uninvited.His wife, Diane. The way she used to leave dinner in the oven, then eventually stopped. The way she’d ask him to come to bed, then eventually stopped asking. The night she said, “You’re already gone, Jack. I’m just making it official.”His son’s baseball games he missed for board meetings. His daughter’s wedding, where he gave a toast about “investments and returns” because he didn’t know her well enough to say anything personal. The grandchildren whose names he sometimes has to pause to remember.He built a monument to his career.He built it out of the people who loved him.

The Letter That Changes Everything

And then, one gray morning, an envelope arrives. Heavy paper. A law firm’s embossed seal. An roomate from college left him a farm, acres of rolling green somewhere far from spreadsheets and quarterly reports.What does a man who has spent his life optimizing efficiency do with soil, sky, and silence?That’s the question at the heart of “Nothing But Time.”

Why I Wrote This Book

I didn’t write this novel to entertain you, though I hope it does. I wrote it because I’ve watched too many good men and women trade the irreplaceable for the replaceable.Here’s the truth nobody puts in a corporate handbook:

The company will replace you before your desk is cold. But your daughter will remember the recital you missed for the rest of her life. Your son will remember whether you showed up. Your spouse will remember whether you were present or just physically in the room.We chase the watch. The title. The bonus. The corner office. We tell ourselves we’re doing it for the people we love, while the very act of chasing it takes us further from them.And then one day, the chase ends. The company merges. The title evaporates. The watch stops mattering.And what’s left?For Jack, what’s left is a farm and forty years of regret. What’s left is the possibility—maybe, just maybe—of learning a different way to measure a life.

From a large city to a small town Jack Harper gave everything to his career.

Now he’s retired, redundant, and utterly lost.

Then he inherits a farmhouse from the friend who tried to warn him, the friend who escaped to Vermont and died alone, the friend who left behind one final message: Tend the roses. Stop and smell them. Live.

But something strange is happening at the farmhouse. The old radio plays broadcasts from 1943. The rose garden blooms when Jack kneels in the dirt. And Ed, his dead friend, keeps appearing at the edge of the orchard, smiling, beckoning, waiting for Jack to understand what he spent a lifetime refusing to see. Some second chances come with instructions. Some come with ghosts.

An Invitation

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re building the right kind of legacy… if you’ve ever looked up from your desk and realized the seasons changed without you… if you’ve ever felt the quiet fear that the people you love are becoming strangers… then Jack’s story is your story too.“Nothing But Time” is available now. It’s a novel about loss, yes, but more importantly, it’s a novel about what we can still choose while we still have breath.Because here’s the thing about time: we all think we have more of it than we do. Until one day, we’re sitting in a quiet apartment, holding a letter, realizing that time is the only thing we ever really had.And the only question that matters is:Who did we spend it with?

Don’t chase the watch. Chase the people. They’re the only thing that ticks back.Get your copy of “Nothing But Time” today—and maybe, tonight, call the person you’ve been meaning to call.

Investing in Our Youth: A Call for Change

I have been giving a lot of thought to the recent criminal trials in this country. Consider the Charlie Kirk trial, in which the defendant sits laughing in court with his lawyers, or the case of the child who killed another child at a track meet. Then I see the news, where we are trying to fix the world’s problems, and I note that we have brought in twenty million people from third-world countries who were unvetted. Something needs to be done, but what?

Walk through any high-crime neighborhood and you’ll find the same story repeated. A boy grows up with no father, a stressed or absent mother, a school that’s given up on him, and a street corner that hasn’t. The gang doesn’t recruit him with force. It recruits him with belonging, protection, status, and money — the very things every human being needs and that we failed to give him. Researchers point to the same root causes again and again: poverty, social isolation, discrimination, limited educational opportunity, and low parental monitoring.

These aren’t mysteries. They are the predictable results of communities we chose not to invest in.Here is the hard truth about how we’ve responded: we spend a fortune on the back end — after the damage is done. Locking up a young person can cost well over a hundred thousand dollars a year, often producing worse outcomes than community programs at a fraction of the price. We are paying premium rates for failure. As one blunt observer put it, there is no purely legal solution to gang violence — the only way to end it is to disincentivize the gang money and offer something better.

So let’s offer something better. And let’s pay for it by looking honestly at where our dollars already go.

The argument writes itself. We send billions overseas to prop up other nations’ security and development. Meanwhile, our own veterans sleep in doorways, our own addicts wait six months for a treatment bed, and our own kids are left with idle summers that gangs are happy to fill. As Americans debating this very question.

Op-Ed: Bring the Money Home — Rebuild Our Kids, Redeem Our Lost

We keep exporting stability to the world while our own communities burn. It’s time to invest in our people first.

Every year, America sends tens of billions of dollars overseas — to shore up foreign governments, fund distant development projects, and manage crises on other continents. Meanwhile, a fourteen-year-old three miles from my house is being recruited into a gang because it’s the only place offering him belonging, protection, and a paycheck. We have our priorities exactly backward.This isn’t a call to abandon the world. It’s a call to finally do right by our own — the wayward kids drifting toward crime, and the adults our system already lost decades ago. The money exists. It’s just pointed in the wrong direction.

The Failure We’re Paying Premium Prices For

Here’s the uncomfortable math. We spend roughly $80 billion a year incarcerating people, and a single juvenile detention bed can run $100,000 to $200,000 annually — often producing worse outcomes than community programs costing a fraction as much. We are paying luxury prices for failure.And it is failure. Research consistently shows the roots of gang membership are predictable: poverty, social isolation, discrimination, drug use, limited educational opportunities, and low parental monitoring.

And this figure does not include those with LEARING CENTERS scamming those who see a problem and toss tax dollars at it with zero audits or accountability.

We know the warning signs. We watch kids fall through the cracks in slow motion. Then we act shocked and reach for handcuffs.Even ordinary Americans see the connection. As one online commenter bluntly put it, we could fund real solutions “if we didn’t send all of our money to Ukraine and Israel and Palestine” — money that could instead go toward “better funding of education and funding of mental health programs” and “tackling the root cause(s) of why people join gangs in the first place.”

Why Gangs Win — and How We Beat Them

Gangs don’t recruit through force. They recruit by offering what we’ve stopped providing: family, status, protection, and money. The evidence is clear that there is no purely legal solution to gang violence — you can’t arrest your way out of it. As even blunt online debates concede, “the only way to end gang violence is to disincentivize gang money.”

That means offering something better. It works when we try. Structured activities and sports “keep children out of trouble and also give them something to work for,” though they require “extra resources and teachers willing to coach/mentor teams.”

It means encouraging kids to create positive goals — helping them build “realistic and attainable personal, educational, and career goals outside of gang involvement.”

And it starts at home: experts across law enforcement, schools, and community groups agree that educating and equipping parents with real skills “is necessary and critical if the growth of gangs is to be curbed.”

The framework already exists. Federal research distinguishes between prevention programs that “target youth at risk of gang involvement” and intervention programs that “provide sanctions and services” to pull kids already involved back out. We know what to build. We just refuse to fund it at scale.

The Group Everyone Forgets: The Lost Adults

Here’s what most policy debates skip entirely. The at-risk kid of today is almost always the child of the lost adult of yesterday — the one who never got the mentor, the trade, or the second chance twenty years ago, and who now cycles through prison, addiction, and unemployment. You cannot save the child while ignoring the broken adult raising him. Fix both, or fix neither.So a domestic-first agenda must do two things at once:

For the lost adults: fair-chance hiring, trade certification in fields that can’t be outsourced — welding, HVAC, trucking, electrical — and addiction and mental-health treatment available now, not after a six-month waitlist.
For the kids: full after-school and summer programming in every high-poverty zip code, family support, and credible-messenger mentors.

And here is the beautiful symmetry: the redeemed adult becomes the mentor for the next kid. The man who did his time, got clean, and rebuilt his life is the single most credible voice a drifting teenager will ever hear. He isn’t a lecture — he’s living proof. Foreign aid builds roads in other countries. This builds people in ours, and each rebuilt person rebuilds the next.

Answering the Critics — and Winning

Defenders of foreign spending will say aid is a small slice of the budget that buys strategic stability. Fine. Then find the money in the other 99 percent — the point stands that prevention at home is starved relative to its proven return. This was never about isolationism. It’s about a simple principle: put our own house in order first, and lead the world by example rather than by check.Public safety and human redemption aren’t opposing goals. Policymakers should prioritize public safety by curbing gang activity and restoring order to communities — for the sake of families “still living in fear” — precisely by investing in the opportunity that makes gangs obsolete.

The Bottom Line

We have the resources. We have the research. We have millions of Americans — kids and adults alike — waiting for someone to bet on them instead of writing them off. Bring the money home. Rebuild the kids. Redeem the lost. And watch the redeemed turn around and save the next generation.That’s not charity. That’s the smartest investment this country could possibly make.

Comment below if you have thoughts on this.

Thanks for the hug!

Why are hugs important?

Hugs are part of a more complex subject, “Love Language.”

Recognizing and understanding love languages can significantly improve relationships. It helps partners communicate their needs more effectively and fosters a deeper emotional connection. When both partners understand each other’s love languages, they can express love in ways that resonate most with one another, leading to greater satisfaction and harmony in the relationship.

Love language doesn’t stop in your home. In our increasingly social world, we tell people we barely know happy birthday. How does social media affect the fabric of the human condition?

I want to discuss five different aspects of the love language. I want to focus on the fifth one specifically.

Words of Affirmation: This language involves expressing love through verbal compliments, encouragement, and affirming words. People who resonate with this love language feel valued when they hear kind words.
Acts of Service: For some, actions speak louder than words. This love language emphasizes doing things for your partner, such as helping with chores or running errands, to show care and support.
Receiving Gifts: This language is about giving thoughtful gifts that show you are thinking of someone. It’s not about the monetary value but the sentiment behind the gift that matters.
Quality Time: This love language focuses on giving your partner undivided attention. Spending meaningful time together without distractions is crucial for those who value this form of love.

I want to expand on this form of expressing love. Without going into a lengthy explanation, let’s talk about what it means to be “without distractions.” Kindly disable the phone and store away any other electronic devices. When I say quality time, I truly mean it. You are important to me, and I truly want to hear about what’s happening in your life. How many times have you interrupted or been interrupted by something on some electronic leash? Have you done it to people? Are you guilty of putting them in some lower class of person by elevating a Facebook post or reel? It’s important to put them first, period.

Physical Touch: For many, physical affection such as hugs, kisses, and holding hands is essential. This love language emphasizes the importance of physical closeness in expressing love.

The first four are self-explanatory, and we can accomplish many of them through social media. We can also do the opposite through an unkind word. I have told many people never to drink and drive and never to drink and get on social media. While you might not kill someone on social media, your words can cut like knives (yeah, I know it was in a song), and the damage your thoughtlessness can do is far-reaching.

What about physical touch?”

Not that many years ago, I topped a hill at freeway speeds to meet head-on with a drunk guy in a Cadillac that his wife had just bought him because he promised to stop drinking after he drove his truck into a tree. True story…you can read about it here…

Beeping monitors, wires, and tubes mixed with needles, and the sterile odor of a hospital is only part of the process. The thought of never being held or holding someone again sets the stage for an emotional roller coaster.

To live through an experience like that makes one appreciate life and its simple pleasures.

Why physical touch, why hugs?

The truth is you have no idea what someone else is going through. People don’t fake depression, they fake happiness. When you ask someone how they are doing and they say “fine,” do you buy it? We are all going through stuff. We also know that when someone asks us how we are doing they rarely want to know the truth.

“Fine great. Did you see the Cowboys?”

“What if we asked, “No, really…how are you doing, and then listened?”

A simple hug can do that. I care about you and I don’t know what you are going through but this hug is my way of showing…not telling you…that I care about you. If you need an ear or a shoulder, I am here.” Would the world be so much better if we showed more people that we care about them?

Are we that kind of friend? So, why hug?

Hugs play a significant role in our emotional and physical well-being. Here are some key reasons why hugs are important:

1. Emotional Connection

Hugging fosters a sense of connection and belonging. It communicates feelings of safety, love, and support, which can be especially comforting during difficult times. This emotional bond is crucial for mental health, as it helps reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation.

2. Physical Health Benefits

Research indicates that hugging can have tangible health benefits. For instance, it promotes the production of oxytocin, often referred to as the “love hormone,” which acts as a stress buffer and can enhance overall well-being. Additionally, frequent hugging has been linked to reduced severity of infections, highlighting its role in bolstering the immune system.

3. Stress Reduction

Hugs can significantly lower stress levels. The act of hugging can help ease feelings of anxiety and depression by boosting the release of feel-good hormones, which can improve mood and emotional resilience.

4. Pain Relief

Interestingly, hugging may also help reduce physical pain. Touch, including hugging, is a powerful form of communication that can convey comfort and support, potentially leading to a decrease in pain perception. Were you aware that your state of mind has an effect on your general health?

True story time:

We had a blood drive at work. One of my employees got a call from them telling her to check with her doctor, something wasn’t right with her blood. This girl had never missed work and was always up. She was delightful in every way. Two weeks after she got the news that she had cancer, she died. Her brain shut her down.

What if she had positive support from just a few hugs? There are cancer centers that focus on treating the whole body, not just the disease. I believe in something I call PMA or a positive mental attitude. There is scientific evidence that your mind is powerful. How could we develop more PMA in people we know? It’s like the butterfly effect, ripples in a pond. The media for whatever reason wants us at each other throats, scared of everything. Would hugs be the middle finger to the talking heads stoking fear and hatred? I think it would be worth a try. Whatever happened to Flower Power?

Did you know there are different types of hugs?

Hugs come in various forms, each conveying different emotions and meanings. Here are some common types of hugs and what they typically signify:

Bear Hug A bear hug is a strong, enveloping embrace that conveys warmth and affection. It often signifies a deep emotional connection and is typically shared between close friends or loved ones.
Side Hug In a side hug, two people stand next to each other and wrap one arm around the other. This type of hug is often seen as more casual and can indicate friendship or comfort without being overly intimate.
Romantic Hug This hug is characterized by a close embrace, often with bodies pressed together. It signifies romantic feelings and intimacy, typically shared between partners.
Back Hug A back hug occurs when one person hugs another from behind. This type of hug can express protection, affection, and surprise, often making the person being hugged feel cherished and secure.
Polite Hug A polite hug is usually brief and may occur in social situations where a more formal greeting is appropriate. It often lacks the emotional depth of other hugs and is more about social etiquette.
Comforting Hug This hug is given to provide support and reassurance during tough times. It is often longer and more enveloping, conveying empathy and understanding.
Group Hug A group hug involves multiple people coming together for a collective embrace. It signifies unity, friendship, and shared joy, often seen in celebrations or moments of camaraderie.
Lift Hug In a lift hug, one person lifts the other off the ground while hugging. This playful gesture often signifies excitement and joy, commonly seen in romantic relationships or among close friends.

I am all for meaningful hugs. The gift of a hug, a genuine hug, is worth more than just about anything you can think of. When we draw our last breath, everything that we own stays behind—all the money, cars, collections, clothes, friends, all of it.

What do you take with you?

I pray we take the memories of the kindnesses we were shown.

The Mormons believe they group around their family members. That is one reason they are so adept at genealogy. I guess they want to know who is waiting for them.

The love language of kindness, touch, empathy, and caring for another person is a selfless act and a treasure that one takes with them, I hope.

Always resolve conflicts before going to sleep and make a point to express appreciation to your loved ones. Nothing compares to the impact of a warm embrace over verbal communication.

What if we incorporate the phrase in our daily walk, “I may not agree with you, but I love you anyway?”

Words to think about.

-Best

Timedok

What is it, and why does it have that name?

The premise is this: Years ago, I was one of those inquisitive kids who took things apart to discover how they worked. When I was old enough to push a lawnmower, I learned that many in my area didn’t like mowing grass. This was long before there was such a thing as a lawn service. Why? I fought to collect $2 for the front and $2 for the backyards. That includes raking, edging, and so on.

Pop refused to let me use the ‘family lawn mower.’ Had that been my kid, I would have encouraged it. Pop failed to see the value of teaching kids leadership through stretching their wings. The cost of that ‘family mower’ was nothing compared to the growth potential of his son…me.

Fate or God intervened. On the way home from school one day (via the alleys on garbage day), someone was discarding an old mower that had seen better days.

I brought it home, went straight to the library, and found a book on small engine repair that helped me fix the troublesome item.

The journey had just begun, and at the ripe old age of eleven, I had to learn not only about the care of a lawn mower but also about marketing and business.

I grew that business by purchasing used equipment at garage sales and, yes, being mindful of taking the alleys home on trash days…just in case.

Fueling my interest in electronics, I embarked on a self-taught journey into radio and TV at the age of eight. I proudly earned my first amateur radio license at thirteen, becoming a certified operator.

You guessed it: I purchased a broken color TV at a garage sale. I fixed it, and I had the first color TV in our household. It wasn’t just a TV, mind you; it was a Curtis Mathes console entertainment system. The $50 I spent back then I earned by mowing yards was a huge chunk of change for the 60’s.

In the days before the Internet, the library acted as my personal Google, where I could find answers to any question. In those days, computers and electronics were filled with more tubes than transistors, creating a maze of wires and glowing glass.

I built the transmitter for my ham radio activities from used parts gathered from cannibalized radios and TVs that I bought at garage sales or brought home on garbage day. One man’s trash is another’s treasure, and this was not lost on me, even at that tender age.

We only had a few channels back in the day, and they went off the air after the nightly news. Books were my escape from reality when not working on something outside of the home.

Fast forward a few years, and the world around us has changed drastically.

Church had become a prominent fixture in my life, providing me a sense of community and spiritual fulfillment. I only say that to weave the tapestry of the Timedok story together.

At church, my reputation for being able to fix things, quickly spread. Despite all the VCRs and other items I repaired for my church family, I never received any payment. I never once requested that of them.

To this day, I consider them family, and the bonds we formed then are still strong.

One of my friends approached me, holding a broken file marker date stamp machine, and asked, “Could you possibly repair this?”

I shrugged, and from that simple gesture, Timedok was born.

Since that day in 1995, I have repaired thousands of them, spending countless hours tinkering with their intricate mechanisms.

I stopped marketing the business because word of mouth alone keeps me busy enough. The machines that make it to my shop, after failed repair attempts from other ‘companies,’ always take the longest to fix. The reasons are simple, not just anyone can fix these things.

Even though the original concept design dates back to 1939, these machines are still indispensable.

Despite technological advancements, the need for them has not entirely disappeared, and unless there is a significant shift in government practices, it is unlikely to ever happen.

Every year since I became a dealer for Rapidprint, they have consistently increased the price on all their products by at least 2%. Those machines have increased from around $500 to over $1000.00.

Their competition has not followed suit in drastically raising their prices, which leads me to believe that Widmer will eventually gain a more significant portion of the market share as Rapidprint prices itself out of the business of file stamp machines.

Even though future price increases may occur, Timedok has chosen to keep its labor prices unchanged.

Over time, the cost of goods and services has been steadily rising.

The freight charges from Connecticut to Dallas for one machine are upwards of $65. These companies are likely facing financial difficulties and are increasing prices across the board to generate more income.

Small companies like mine were adversely affected by the economic downturn caused by COVID and the subsequent shifts in the business landscape.

Point of this blog post….?

If you need assistance or plan to buy a new one of these machines, be sure to do so before the end of this year. Right after you folks (the government) get your new budgets, they conveniently change their prices. dok At Timedok.com

When not working on clocks, I focus on my writing career because it complements my lifestyle.

Stay tuned for the latest updates on my novels and short stories and my work as the Executive Director of The Carrollton League of Writers.

My latest novel, Earth’s Last Hope, can be found at this link.

-Best