Thanksgiving 2025

It has been a quiet day here at Casa Kumpe in Broken Arrow, used to be USA now Muscogee Creek Nation, Indian Territory of Oklahoma.  Ironic how history keeps repeating itself.  Thank you SCOTUS for setting progress back a hundred and fifty years.

Sheila and I's holiday meal was almost exactly the same as the ones I remember growing up on the farm.  Just the immediate family.  No crowds, no noise, no hullabaloo.  When I was  young we were so poor that the food was far simpler than what was on our table today but nevertheless the atmosphere was the same.  It is good to spend time with those close to you.

We are not doing the major production we did in years past.  It's a waste to cook that
much food for two people. We had a small roast turkey breast, mashed potatoes (frozen), stuffing (out of a box), green bean casserole (dump two cans and add toppings), rolls (brown and serve), apple pie (Walmart) and a sugar free pumpkin pie cheesecake (sort of homemade).   It wasn't nearly as good as our scratch made productions but it only took me a couple of hours to prepare.  Sheila is off work for the rest of the week and it will feed us at least that long.  One of our traditions is to eat "Thanksgiving Sandwiches" out of the left overs until we are so sick of them we throw the rest out.

We had a pleasant little dinner with family last night at Charleston's celebrating our grandson Ben's 13th birthday.  Ben and his dad had been at our house earlier in the week and he had already opened his presents from us.  The company at dinner was pleasant but the food (at least Sheila and I's) was rotten.  We both ordered the shrimp scampi.  The pasta was badly over cooked, the sauce was greasy and they were very frugal with the shrimp.  I  make better pasta in the microwave with a cook-in-the-bag retort pack, a few spoons of leftover meat and a jar of sauce.   The only thing that saved the meal was the croissants and cheese toast.  If we hadn't been in a group with someone else paying the check I would have sent it back.  It just wasn't worth disturbing the party over bad pasta.  

Monday and Tuesday were kind of rough days.  A few months ago my Cologuard test came back positive so my GP ordered a colonoscopy.  At my age colonoscopies are not usually ordered unless really necessary because they are considered high risk.  This was confirmed when I got a glance at the scheduling board for the OR where my procedure was performed.  I don't think patients are supposed to see that.  It said "HIGH RISK COLONOSCOPY" in big letters.    I won't burden you with the details of the prep leading up to the procedure other than to say I really don't want to do that again if I don't have to.  The procedure went quite well after a couple of beginning hiccups and the doc's opinion was that nothing serious was found.

The week before, my friend Charles Glenn and I traveled to Tahlequah for our annual firearms re-qualification.  I had gone ten years without having to shoot the thing but CLEET (the Oklahoma state agency responsible for licensing law enforcement and security officers) installed a new computer system that cannot be easily fudged.  The course of fire requires shots from various positions including from the hip, from your weak hand and from cover at ranges from one yard to 25 yards.  Everything is done against a timer.  The average shot time FROM THE DRAW is about a second and half.  72 is a passing score.  Charles and I both scored in the 90's.   Charles' groups were a lot prettier than mine but for this qualification as long the hole is in the kill zone the shot counts.  Charles is a retired Army Master Sergeant who competes regularly in defensive pistol matches.  I shoot once a month because I have to to keep my skills up.  The picture shown is NOT the target I shot the day of the qualification.  It is the same qualification round shot previously in practice.  It's a good enough representation to show what is required.  

I'm sad that the weather has turned so cold that it's no longer comfortable to ride my scooter around the neighborhood.  I've been having great fun with that thing all summer and fall.  It will do pretty close to 30 mph and go way over 20 miles on a charge.  As soon as I got it, I quit driving my car for neighborhood errands, taking it instead on my usual round of stops, Aldi's, Braums, WalMart, Dollar Tree and Reasors.  Until this past week, every afternoon I would take a half hour or so spin around the neighborhood, stopping and talking to neighbors and generally enjoying being out of the house.  I usually let anyone who wants to take it for a quick spin and they all come back saying "I want one of those."   I wouldn't have chosen the color purple but I bought it out of an estate and apparently that was the favorite color of the little lady who owned it.  All of the little silver haired ladies of the neighborhood seem to love the color.  

I'm thankful for the things mentioned above.  I'm thankful for a quiet day with Sheila with good food in a comfortable home.  I'm thankful for a quietish dinner with the small Tulsa family.  I'm thankful for the good results on my medical tests.  I'm thankful for passing my firearms qualification.  And, I'm thankful for my purple scooter (a gift from Sheila) that lets me buzz around the hood shopping, visiting with folks and enjoying the wind on my face.  I've got a lot to be thankful for.    

Veterans Day 2025

I miss my old and dear friend Tom on Veteran's Day.  Tom was a veteran of the little spoken of and almost completely forgotten "Second Korean War" which was overshadowed at the time by events in Viet Nam and at home.  Like many veterans of that era, he served in a very dangerous place where there were no medals and not even an official recognition that a war had been fought.

We had so much and yet so little in common.  Our children grew up together.  We were deacons and lay preachers in the same little circle of churches.  We had a lot of history.  But that was where the similarities ended.  He was Army.  A grunt.  I was Navy.  A highly trained technician.  Tom had no education so speak of.  I have more education than any one man needs.  He was a fruit vendor.   One of the guys that goes house to house, business to business selling fresh fruit.  It was a hard way to make a living and he had a big family.   I was (am?) a lawyer.  I've always dressed pretty well.  Tom's daily uniform was a pair of worn jeans and plaid work shirt of some sort.   He wasn't much of an intellectual but he was a keen student of his Bible.  And he played a wicked game of chess.  In the latter years some of our best hours were spent quietly over a pot of coffee and a chessboard.  He regularly beat me in about forty moves but was always kind and humble about it.  

Every veterans day, Tom would call me up and we would hit the free meal offers at places he couldn't afford otherwise.  We would get in more than one sometimes as many as three meals but especially the Golden Corral dinner buffet.  I hated it but never let him know.  He loved it.  I'm not particularly outgoing.  Tom would strike up conversations with other vets every place we went.  

Last night, I really didn't want to eat out.  It had been a long day and I had already eaten out once.  I would just as soon have had a sandwich on the sofa in front of the TV.  But, thinking of Tom, I called Sheila and had her meet me at the Olive Garden in Broken Arrow where I claimed my free Veteran's Day dinner and we spoke a little bit about Tom.

One of the memories that haunts me on Veteran's Day are the grunts.  I did a tour of duty on a ship that was part of the massive machine feeding infantrymen into the meat grinder of Viet Nam.  Every few weeks we would embark with four hundred or so mostly fresh from boot camp newly minted Marine grunts who as soon as they had completed their amphibious training and jungle training would be fed into units in Viet Nam as replacements.  

They were loud, annoying and could be dangerous.  But, they were also lonely and scared even though they wouldn't admit it.  While nobody talked about it everybody knew that within a year somewhere between five and ten percent of them would be dead and that many more at least would be wounded and seriously affected for the rest of their lives.  Over twenty five percent of the casualties in Viet Nam were Marines.

The saddest part of it all was that they were mostly teenagers.  High school kids who should have been chasing girls, working on old cars, feeling their way into manhood and building the foundation for a good life.  But, manhood was thrust upon them early and for the most part they shouldered the burden quite well.  Their junior officers were college kids in uniform.  The average life expectancy of a platoon leader in Viet Nam was never more than two weeks and was often measured in minutes.  We killed off a generation of our best and brightest in that unforgivable war and permanently damaged the country in the process. 

I don't care much for flag waving and sentimental speeches on Veteran's Day.  I am  offended by the artificial sentimentality hawked by many designed to make the crowd feel good about themselves.  It cheapens the sacrifices.  I prefer to quietly remember the guys like Tom who was a friend closer than a brother and the masses of teenage green grunts facing a very uncertain future with what amounted to, for them at least, dignity, honor and devotion to duty.   

Anniversary Weekend

Sheila and I celebrated out 56th wedding anniversary this week.  While in the past we have done far more adventurous things, lately we are becoming more and more content to just stick around home and enjoy the little things around us.

The weekend began with Sheila getting flowers and a card with her morning yogurt and coffee.  That's kind of a ritual with me.  While we both say we aren't going to do anything this year we always do.  

That evening we had dinner at Tokyo Garden on South Memorial thanks to one of Sheila's vendors.  The place did not have the kind of traffic you would have expected for a weekend evening.  Sheila keeps an eye on that neighborhood since in her spare time she's the property manager for a big shopping center nearby.  

My calamari steak was very good, sweet, tender and perfectly prepared.  Sheila was less thrilled with her scallops.  The miso to put it kindly left something to be desired.  

The staff were all dressed up in their Halloween costumes and the crowd we shared our serving position with, a birthday party, were pleasant enough.  It was overall a pleasant little evening.

Sheila and I have a weekend ritual.  Most Saturdays about mid morning we fuel up her car, wash it and clean the interior, eat a cheap lunch someplace and then do any shopping I haven't take care of during the week.  

One of our favorite lunch places is Moreno's Supermercado at 81st and Aspen in BA.  Their in house restaurant serves real Mexican food at very good prices.  For example, you can get three big tacos meat of your choice, rice, beans and a soft drink of your choice for under ten bucks.  But, it helps a lot to speak some Spanish.  This day, the girl working the register at the cafe either spoke no English or was giving we gringos the business by claiming "no habla."  Luckily, Sheila and I have enough Spanish to order a meal.  The food was simple and good.

The Mexican Dia del Muerte holidays follow Halloween.  There are actually two feast days.  Nov. 1 honors the souls of deceased children while Nov. 2 honors the souls of all the deceased.   The celebration was in full swing at Moreno's.  These lovely young ladies were dispensing charm and candy to the children at the door.  

I made sure Sheila had her Kindle with her since I knew the next errand was going to take some time.  Some very generous friends gave me a nice little gift card to Scheels sporting goods.  I had never been to Scheels before.  It was like Tim Allen's "Outdoor Man" store had mated with the Texas State Fair.  The place was big, bright, very crowded and had everything from a Ferris Wheel to a shooting gallery.    

For some time, I had been wanting to try a red dot optic on a handgun but simply could not bring myself to let some local gunsmith begin milling and drilling on the slide of one my pristine Glocks.  And at any rate, I didn't care for the high sight mounting many optics require making your weapon far less elegant and concealable or the fact that the batteries can run down.  

Ruger appears to solved this problem.  Their little Max 9 subcompact 9mm seems to check all of the boxes.  It is a small but relatively high capacity pistol and comes from the factory machined to accept a small, low but very usable little red dot optic.  The kicker for me in this decision is that this optic, like the optics on my AR-15s perfectly co-witnesses the iron sights so that you can choose which to use depending on the situation or if the batteries are down.  A bonus for the Ruger was that this is a passive optic that requires no batteries or recharging.  It collects and uses available light through a passive optical collector.

Scheels had a good price on the actual weapon but did not stock the Ruger optic.  I ordered the optic from Amazon.  The process of purchasing the weapon at Scheels was more or less pain free, it just took a while as all weapons purchases do.  Sheila, sat patiently in the car enjoying her book.   

Overall it was a pleasant little weekend, just being together, doing a few things and enjoying each other's company.  That's adventure enough at our age.