Radio Diversions

I've been under the weather for the past week or so.  I believe it was a combination of lack of sleep, over-exertion and severe allergies.  When my allergies are bad I stay at home indoors.  That means I have time to, among other things, play with my radios.

I've been playing a lot lately with the rig shown here.  It's an experiment in how small and how cheap you can put together a rig that actually works.  It takes me back to my childhood when I spent countless hours rigging long range receivers out of discarded broadcast radios, salvaged parts and hookup wire antennas.  

The transceiver (center) is a Chinese knockoff of a legendary German design, the QCX.  It is built for three bands only but those are the three most commonly used by most hams and they are compatible harmonics meaning a single antenna with a little tuning can work all three.  It is a 5 watt radio.  That is by definition low power or "QRP" in ham talk.  

The antenna tuner (left) is a Chinese knockoff of a legendary American design, the Emtech "Z-Match."  It is ideal for low power operation due to its high efficiency and minimal insertion loss. 

The battery (center front) is 12 volt 9 amp hour LiPo that I received free through the Amazon product tester program.  It will power the radio for a long weekend without a recharge.

The roll of wire (left rear) is 66.5 feet of high quality silicon coated copper strand.  66.5 feet is one half wave of 40 meters, a full wave of 20 meters and a wave and half on 15 meters.  It is matched to the tuner and radio by a homemade 49:1 balun (matching transformer).   This is a home brew reverse engineering of the famous old MFJ 1984LP design.

The radio, tuner and antenna are the same circuits as their more expensive predecessors just in different packaging. 

 Working low power is different from regular ham operation.  You have to work at it and operator skills are required.  You can't just key the mic and talk.  On our last little mountain top adventure I managed to talk to nine states including Southern Florida and Northern California.  But, I got reports that my audio was less than perfect and I felt I should have made more contacts.

I brought the rig home, fiddled with it some and decided that I have much better radios that will fit this application.  I should just use one.  So, I repacked my radio travel kit with a fairly expensive little jewel of Japanese craftsmanship, my beloved old Yaesu FT 818 and forgot about it.

But this week as I had time to think about it, I realized that I had been looking at my little bargain basement rig the wrong way.  The QCX design started life as an ultralight CW (Continuous Wave Morse Code) rig and was stellar in that application.  The single sideband voice was achieved by diddling the software.  Since I am a lousy CW operator, I hadn't even tried the little rig in CW mode.

Today was a lousy day on the ham bands.  The big kilowatt stations that run nationwide service and emergency networks were struggling to make contacts.  A combination of atmospherics, sunspots and unexplained variations in the earth's magnetic field have played havoc with HF (High Frequency) communication recently.  But, I figured what have I got to lose.  So, I pulled the little Chinese knockoff out, hooked it up to my best antenna and programmed it to automatically send out a Morse Code signal which would be picked up by monitor stations around the world.  I hoped I might be heard in Kansas City or Dallas.

What I found when I went online and checked the monitors astounded me.  I had been heard 1500 miles north up in the edges of Arctic Canada and 1800 miles south in Costa Rica.  I had been picked up in the Caymans.  And I had solid reception numbers between the Appalachians and the Rockies.  I didn't make it over the hump of the big mountain ranges into coastal areas but this was a terrible day on the bands.  But, for a 5 watt radio on a terrible reception day that wasn't bad at all.

The rationale for the cheap rig was travel.  I am hesitant to check luggage containing an expensive radio and in some places you are liable to have the rig confiscated if you run across a customs or border official having a bad day.  I would worry a lot less about an under two hundred dollar setup than one costing thousands.  

My dad used to have a favorite aphorism that he stole from Will Rogers.  He would say, "Son, you can put a generator up a billy goat's behind.  But, it's gonna take a lot of work, neither one of you is going to be happy, there's going to be %@#$ (smelly stuff) all over you and everything around you before you're done and it still won't make electricity."

I think I have been trying to make electricity with a Billy Goat concerning the cheap little Chinese radio.  It was designed as a CW rig and it obviously does a great job of that.  I just need to either learn CW or worry less about my Yaesu.   

Eagles Nest

Sheila and I spent a couple of days last week at Greenleaf State Park in Eastern Oklahoma.  We had a cabin in an area titled "Eagles Nest."  Amazingly, as advertised, the first morning I was sitting on the screened in porch with my coffee I saw a couple of  beautiful eagles fishing the lake and then passing over the cabin.

The cabins, like many Oklahoma State Parks, were built by the WPA in the 1930's.  But, many of them were finished by German POW's during WWII.  Gruber was a prison camp.  The Teutonic influence shows.  Greenleaf Park is directly adjacent to the Camp Gruber military reservation.  These cabins are frequented by military families who have a family member deployed to Gruber which is now a national guard training center and special forces training area.

It was a quiet time for us.  The cabin had no television or internet so Sheila binged out reading.  I also got some reading in.  I managed to finally complete a line by line "deep read" of Paul Washer's "The Gospel of Jesus Christ."  It's less than fifty pages but packed with thought provoking material.  

The lack of television and internet took me back to a better time when instead of constantly taking in electronic information we sat quietly, read and perhaps listened to the radio.  In the picture, I am reading from my Kindle E-Book reader which lets me carry a ton of books in a tiny package and doesn't require an internet connection. In the background, I am listening to DeBussy on the tiny but powerful little shortwave radio I carry in my travel bag.  As a child and young teen I listened to shortwave a lot.  It let me hear the world far away from our humble little rural Oklahoma home.

One afternoon, Sheila and I broke out our tiny little mobility scooters and explored the paved hiking trails in the park.  Sheila loved it.  Since mobility has become a problem for both of us little adventures like this mean a lot.  We got to spend a couple of hours in the woods, enjoy a couple of wonderful views of the mountains and the river in the distance and remember better times when we were backpackers.  Those tiny, delicate looking little scooters that are powered by an electric drill motor and fold up small enough for a car trunk to hold two of them have been a great blessing.

I spent quite a bit of time on my micro ham station.  I managed to talk to nine states
including Florida and California on a battery powered radio about the size of a couple of packs of cigarettes and an antenna made up of a carefully measured and tuned piece of wire thrown up into a tree.  It doesn't take much skill to sit down at home with my sophisticated rig feeding a huge, carefully tuned antenna and talk to both coasts and even South America and Europe.  In that case, it's all about the atmospherics.  If conditions are right you can talk.  But, talking a thousand miles or more with a tiny little field rig feeding a piece of wire hung up in a tree is a bit of challenge.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I found several glitches that I will have to tinker with further.

We ate out a couple of times.  We had an early dinner at the Boom A Rang Diner in Ft. Gibson on the way down that is still causing me heartburn a week later.  These places must be franchises.  We had a fabulous lunch at one out west on one of our previous trips but I would love to forget this one if the heartburn would let me.  We had a fabulous Mexican lunch at El Lago in Gore.  The place was full of locals from miles around and a steady stream of military from nearby Camp Gruber came in and out.  Army and Air Force.  I asked for a grilled jalapeno with my meal and they brought me a plate of sliced and cleaned jalapenos fried to perfection.  The were delicious and the chile releno with my lunch was outstanding as well ... and huge.

We had yogurt, fruit and coffee for breakfast every day.  Easy, quick and no prep.  Just make coffee.  I always pack several of what I call "MRE Meals" when we travel.  These are quick meals that can be prepared with a hotel room or truck stop microwave.  The one shown is penne pasta Alfredo with pink salmon from retort packs and an avocado ranch salad from a refrigerator bag.  

The cabin had no internet, no television and no cell service.  I think the digital fast let  us relax.  Twice a day we would drive to the top of the mountain to the ranger station where you could pick up a cell signal and check for anything urgent. 

It was a quiet, pleasant little interlude, reading, listening to music, enjoying nature and the quiet and above all enjoying each other's company.   We need to do this more often.

Memorial Day 2026

This morning Sheila and I made our annual ceremonial pilgrimage to Sallisaw to decorate the graves of our parents.  As usual it was raining and we didn't get to contemplate the moment as we would have liked. 

This Memorial  Day was sadder than usual because most of the people we would have visited while we were in our old hometown have passed.  We're the last of our generation.  I wonder who, if anyone, will decorate our parent's graves when we are gone.

The days of families meeting at the cemetery on "decoration day," visiting with each other, perhaps having a picnic nearby and even having a hymn sing in the weathered old church building that was always located on the grounds of a country graveyard are long past.  That culture of respect for our passed loved ones is long gone.  This year, there was only one scant aisle of "decoration flowers" at Wal Mart and the selection was sparse and cheap.   

I also made my annual visit to the grave of Capt. Michael D. Casey, United States Army.  He died on my birthday in Binh Dinh Province, Republic of Viet Nam in 1970.  He was awarded the Silver Star for pulling several wounded members of his team to safety under heavy enemy fire before he was taken out himself.

I've done a lot of soul searching about why I obsessively visit his grave year after year, leaving the traditional veterans penny on his headstone as a sign of respect.  I didn't know the guy.  Barely met him.  He didn't even go to school locally.  He was a graduate of one of the last classes of the Oklahoma Military Academy.  This year the answer came to me.  Survivor guilt.  

In 1968 when I enlisted everybody knew the war in Vietnam was lost.  Not because we couldn't win but because the politicians in Washington preferred to play politics with it.  We could have been in Hanoi within thirty days or left it a smoking hole in the ground anytime we chose if there had been the political will.

But, the scum that had taken over the streets and college campuses of the U.S. were throwing rotten eggs at men in uniform, spitting on them, beating them up and insulting them both living and dead.  They brought the war to the streets of the U.S. in a way that no foreign power could have and defeated winning U.S. troops on the ground through political pressure.  Nobody in their right mind would risk dying in a war their country no longer cared about.  And yes, I do have real thing for hippies and left wingers.  A visceral thing.  They got a lot of good men in my generation killed.  Far better people than them.

When my time came the combination of my education and intelligence scores allowed me to serve honorably doing something besides carrying a rifle through the rice paddies of Southeast Asia.  I took advantage of the opportunity in a heartbeat.  When the time came for assignment to a theater of operations, I again had options.  I "dream-sheeted" for and was assigned to amphibious forces Atlantic Fleet, about as far from Southeast Asia as you could get.

I had my reasons.  I had a wife and a child to think about.  I was doing important, honorable work that most people couldn't.  At least I hadn't faked a medical condition through a cooperating doctor or rigged a just serious enough felony conviction through a cooperating judge that would magically disappear in a few years as some did.  I had ex-friends that did both.  Notice I say ex-friends.  

Logic told me I had nothing to be ashamed of.  But I was ashamed.  Getting to know the Marine grunts headed for "Nam" sobered me.  In my heart I knew that, dumb, loud, boisterous and sometimes dangerous as they were, they were better men than me.  I had worked the system to my advantage in ways that most of them couldn't.

But, it was the guys like Casey, the bright young career officers who were smart as a whip and the senior non-coms who knew how to game the system better than anybody that shamed me most.  They didn't have to be there either.  But, they were going and going back not because they wanted to but rather because it was their duty.  They shamed me to my core.

So if, God willing, I am around next Memorial Day, I will once again decorate my parent's graves, pay my respects, and then look up to see Captain Casey's headstone a few yards away.  I will once again walk over, pay my respects for a few moments and leave a veteran's penny as an outward sign of respect.

Hopefully next year there will be less guilt now that I have figured it out.     

The Morning After

It's the morning after and though I drank nothing but non alcoholic beer I am still a wreck.   

Yesterday was Sheila's 75th birthday.  I decided to go all out to make it a good one.  She refused a spa day and since I needed her out of the house to prepare for her surprise party I convinced her to work and save the vacation day for travel.

The plan was that our daughter and grandson would visit her at work and keep her there until the guests arrived at our home.  That didn't work out.  She made it home about five minutes before the first guests arrived.  But she was still surprised.  Kind of shocked actually.

The food was catered by our favorite hole in the wall Mex joint.  Since they speak no English my negotiating and ordering the food was an adventure in my broken Spanish with a little of their Spanglish thrown in.  As the two sweet little ladies were helping me carry the food to the car I told them it was "mi esposa's cumpleanos," my wife's birthday.  Huge smiles came across their faces as they wished her happy birthday in Spanglish.

A well known local blues musician was supposed to play for us.  He called at ten the morning of the party to let me know he couldn't make it.  An arthritis flare up.  Arthritis in the hands is a musician's curse.  So, I called a musician friend who lives just down the road and is usually up for small gigs.  He was already committed elsewhere. 

So, I provided what little entertainment there was singing and playing the uke.  That was a poor substitute for what I had planned but you work with what is available.  I think things were going OK.  I was doing jazz standards Leon Redbone style.  But then I did the St. James Infirmary Blues.  That may have been a little much. The looks on a some of the ladies faces were ..... well .... interesting.  But, I followed it with a hot version of Sweet Home Chicago and that brought most of the smiles back.

Charles Glenn, who among his many skills is a very talented professional photographer, set up a video rig in my office and as the evening progressed he would tap people on the shoulder and ask them to come back and record their birthday wishes on video.  He also shot some live video.   

The party went well.  There were good friends, good food and good fellowship.  Sheila had a great time.  That was the goal and I think by God's grace that happened.  I had prayed for the strength to get it all done and that prayer was answered.

My only regret was that we couldn't invite so many of the people we would have liked to.  I could only invite a couple of representatives of each of the separate social groups we are a part of.  Our home is tiny, a lot of them are elderly and need to sit and as it was there were still people standing around with a taco in one hand a drink in the other with barely room to move around. 

Today is going to be a tense day.  Sheila has an important doctors appointment this afternoon.  Serious decisions may have to be made.  I'm glad she had a great night before facing it.   

An Unpleasant Weekend Away

I usually reserve this blog for posts about pleasant holidays, vacations and our other little life adventures.  We had such an adventure this weekend but it was far from pleasant.

Thursday evening, Sheila developed violent nausea.  Every hour on the hour all night.  She grew weaker by the hour.  Friday morning I bullied her into going to the doctor.  She was so worn out she was immediately asleep as soon as we settled in the doctor's waiting area.

The visit with her GP was short and sweet.  After a little blood work and some imaging, (all done in house at his office very quickly) he said head to SouthCrest hospital.  They will be expecting you.

After more tests in the ER at SouthCrest and a couple of consults with a PA they admitted   Sheila.  The preliminary diagnosis was acute drug induced pancreatitis.  It would seem that one in a hundred or so people react very badly to semi-glutides.  Sheila had been taking SGT's to control her diabetes.  

This situation presented a bit of a travel and logistical problem for me.  A massive winter storm was on its way.  News reports were advising that travel, even local travel, would be difficult or impossible for the next several days.  So, I decided to dash home ahead of the storm, pack a bag for both of us and camp out at the hospital wherever they would let me sleep.

When I asked one of the nurses on the fifth floor if she could replace one of the hard backed straight chairs in Sheila's room with a recliner so I could attempt to sleep she said she might be able to do better than that.  Within a few moments she brought in one of the few cots allowed on each floor and set it up for me beside Sheila's hospital bed.  She even provided extra blankets. Thank you Casey (or KC).  You made this difficult time a lot easier.

I had a lot of time to observe the hospital and particularly the fifth floor operate.  The charge nurse seemed to live at her workstation.  No matter what time I passed she was there, day or night for several days.  Her name is Binh.  She is a slight, serious looking little Vietnamese lady with a nice smile when she shows it.  She runs a tight ship but is also very kind and thoughtful. We got to know a lot of the crew.  One of the staff, Ronnie (Veronica???), was always there, friendly and eager to help any way she could.   

Sheila's treatment plan was pretty straightforward.  Nothing by mouth for what turned out to be a little more than 24 hours, constant IV's then light liquids by mouth.  The IV's brought her back around and she was feeling better within a few hours.  She had been badly dehydrated among other things.

I was taking all of my meals in the dismal little hospital "cafe."  The best I can offer is that the food was adequate and relatively inexpensive.  Biscuits and gravy for two bucks and a passable wrap with protein and veggies for around five.  I guess I've gotten spoiled by the near restaurant quality facilities at St. Francis.  The food staff were a mixed bag.  The gentleman who served me near closing time Friday evening was thoughtful.  One of the cashiers named Jesse got to know my face after a couple of visits.  When I shared why I was there, she offered to pray for Sheila.  Nice, quiet young woman.

By Saturday afternoon Sheila was feeling better.  I had packed her adult coloring book and massive wooden art box containing pastels, watercolors and colored pencils.  Coloring calms her.  She played with that some between long bouts of reading fiction on her phone.  I knew I had packed her beloved Kindle but we just couldn't find it in the luggage.  It turned up in her suitcase later when we unpacked at home.

By Sunday, they were allowing her to have solid food but were monitoring blood work and temperature.  She had a fever that wasn't going away.  Turned out she has an infection apparently separate from the pancreatic issues.  They treated that with a massive IV injection of antibiotics and follow up with oral antibiotics.  They are still waiting for cultures to determine the nature of the infection. 

SouthCrest was virtually deserted the entire weekend.  I roamed the halls on my scooter out of boredom.  As  usual multiple people wanted to know where I got it, how much it cost, etc.  I let one curious staff member take it for a test drive.

I found places that had unused public phone chargers for our equipment.   I didn't see one in the waiting room of the fifth floor.  I didn't discover the only public coffee station with decaf (ICU) until Sunday evening.  While the staff on the fifth floor repeatedly offered to make me a pot of decaf in their little food area I was reluctant to bother them.  They were busy enough as is.  I mostly made my coffee GI style with lukewarm tap water and MRE style packets of instant I carry in my go-bag. 

One of my great disappointments was that SouthCrest has closed their chapel.  Over the weekend I had some very bad moments.  Times when I needed to pray and let myself go emotionally out of Sheila's (and everyone else's) sight and hearing.  In similar situations at other hospitals, I had always gone to that hospital's usually deserted little chapel.  This time, I found myself hunkered on my scooter in a darkened doorway vestibule down a deserted hallway.    

Another disappointment was the television system.  It was entirely possible to surf all fifty channels and hit commercials on ninety percent.  The programming was pure junk. If this is "basic cable" I can't believe people pay for it.  Other hospitals often have a commercial free channel or two of soothing music.  Not here.  The TV might was well have not been there.  We listened to broadcast radio and weather spotter reports on the handheld two way I keep in my go bag.  We streamed the Sunday services of Grace Community Church and our local church, Reformation Church Tulsa, on my tablet.  Thank heavens the public wifi at SouthCrest is fast enough to allow streaming.  

Still another disappointment was the janitorial service.  It takes constant work to keep a hospital clean and safely sanitary.  I don't remember seeing a member of cleaning staff all weekend.  Apparently, they let it go until Monday.  That would be OK I suppose if the trash and bacteria also took the weekend off.   

By Monday morning, Sheila's temperature was down, she was keeping food down and her labs were more or less clear.  Shortly after noon, we packed up and headed home. The streets were mostly clear but the big question was whether or not we could make it through our neighborhood.  Aaron, one of our pastors that drives a massive four wheel drive pickup, offered to take us home or be on phone standby in case we got in trouble driving home.  We had no trouble driving home.

There are medical issues that remain to be addressed but Sheila is back on an even keel and feeling pretty good though still needing a bit of rest after the ordeal.  God is good.

When I blog about a weekend away, it is usually about a nearby recreation area or other destination.  Pray with us that we can avoid this type of weekend destination in the future. 

New Years Day 2026

Sheila and I are enjoying a quiet start to the new year.  Last night our New Year's Eve celebration consisted of eating a high class carryout oriental meal and watching TV.  Sheila had a decadent pork belly banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) and I had a truly wonderful Pad Thai.  We were both asleep long before the New Year arrived.  And I am thankful for that.  I slept six  hours straight which for me is a blessing.

Today, the house is filled with smells that bring back old memories, black eyed peas and mustard greens simmering in a "pot likker" flavored with smoked meat.   Soon, Sheila will add the smell of her famous iron skillet corn bread to the mix.  The smells would be familiar to any southern born child black or white.  Soul Food and Southern home cooking are if not the same thing at least close first cousins.  

Today's meal is highly symbolic for Sheila and I.  The current zeitgeist be damned, we are southerners and we will not forget our southern heritage.  Our great grandfathers fought in the same unit during the civil war.  They did not wear blue.  We refuse to be ashamed of them or apologize for them much less try to erase their memory.  Southerner's now eat black eyed peas on New Year's Day for "good luck" but the tradition has a much darker history.  

We eat the meal of black eyed peas and greens to remember the time that Northern troops on President Lincoln's direct order tried to starve Southern CIVILIANS into submission by stealing or burning all of the civilian food they could find, taking all of the livestock and leaving nothing but what they thought was inedible pig food ... black eyed peas.  Southerner's considered themselves lucky to have black eyed peas and thus the legend of black eyed peas bringing good luck was born.  Thus the southern legend of eating black eyed peas for good luck on New Years Day was born out of hunger, hate, cruelty and ignorance.  

Here in the Indian Territories the same tactic was applied. The North planned a second "March to the Sea" through Oklahoma and Texas but Indian troops allied with Texas Cavalry cut them to ribbons every time they marched.  The Northerners then tried to literally starve the Southern sympathizing tribes into submission by withholding food distributions, burning crops and stealing livestock just as they did in the deep south.  Tribal legend has it that starving Cherokee women followed the cavalry columns leaving Ft. Gibson to pick the undigested grains of corn from the horse's droppings to feed their children.  It's hard to imagine American troops feeding their mounts grain while Native Americans starved outside the walls of the post.  But, given the state of the human heart, especially in wartime, I don't doubt the legend.

Every year, in remembrance, Sheila and I cook a pot of a rich old Southern dish called "Hoppin John."  It contains black eyed peas, greens, onions, fatback and ham.  We usually cut back on the fatback, adding just enough to give texture to the broth and use smoked turkey legs instead of the ham.  It is always served over rice with corn pone of some sort on the side.  In the past, we would eat on the pot of "Hoppin John" for days and send bowls of it home with whoever happened to stop by.  This year it was a much smaller pot for just the two of us.

New Years Day is a good day to remember who we are, where we came from and what happened in the past.  We need to remember these things because the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, capable of unimaginable cruelty all the while proclaiming the righteousness of the cause.  

Christmas 2025

This Christmas was a quiet one. I guess our holiday celebrations started with the Reformation Church Christmas party held at Five Oaks Lodge in Jenks. One of the RCT members donated the cost of the event. The Five Oaks facility is beautiful. It overlooks a small lake. The deacons were acting as parking valets as we arrived making sure the aged, limp and lame like Sheila and I were parked close to the entrance. We saw ducks and geese moving around in the evening light as we walked in.

The catered meal was superb and a high percentage of the congregation attended. After the meal, carols were sung accompanied by a very talented RCT family who were in town for a holiday break from their jobs in the Middle East. Our table was lively. We were joined by our friends Robert and Jessica Clanahan and their children. Since Sheila I have only the one grandchild who is now a teenager that we never got to spend much time with, being around children, especially during the Christmas season, is a treat, noise, sticky fingers and all. It was a time of good fellowship around a good meal, good music and good friends.

Our family Christmas was celebrated on Sunday the 21st since our grandson Ben and his father were going to be in Portland with his family and our daughter had other plans Christmas day. I haven’t quite figured out yet how my daughter’s invitation to Christmas dinner at her house morphed into Sheila and I cooking the meal at our house.  We served smoked turkey and roast pork with the usual sides. Since just preparing the meal took more energy and than Sheila and I normally expend in a week, I drew the line at getting out the good china, silver and serving equipment. We fed them on seasonal decorated paper plates from disposable foil serving containers. That way there would be minimal clean up afterward. My daughter Michelle, our grandson Ben, my cousin Robert Burchfield, his wife Christi and her sister Cindy attended.

After the gifts were opened, I showed the crew Sheila’s big present, a new three wheel

recreational scooter similar to my “Purple Peril” that I have used to cruise the neighborhood all summer. Ever since I got mine, Sheila had been wanting to come along but our smaller medical mobility scooters had neither the range nor the speed. Ben had already been asking to ride the scooters before the meal so, after everybody else who wanted to took a short trip up and down the street, Ben and I took off for a long ride. It was a warm afternoon. We had a good time. We even wound up drag racing the two scooters up and down the street in front of our house.

Christmas Eve, we were invited to an RCT deacon's house for dinner and more carols. This brother’s large, beautiful home is located on a small lake out in Creek County. The evening was warm and the view from their deck was very nice indeed. Again there was a catered meal, carol singing and fellowship. Our host is a talented musician. We left early since I was beginning to feel under the weather. 

Christmas day, Sheila and I were alone. We opened our remaining presents over coffee and I fixed a “Thanksgiving Pie” for lunch. Thanksgiving Pie is one of those southern inventions that defies all of the rules of cuisine and still tastes quite good. You start with a pie crust. You add a can of green beans, a can of cream of mushroom soup and a layer of crispy fried onions. You then sprinkle a small package of instant mashed potatoes over everything followed by a layer of shredded turkey and a can of turkey gravy. You top it off with a small package instant stuffing and a stick of butter cut into pats and distributed over the top. I served it with cranberry sauce and rolls.

That mishmash is actually quite good and a very easy way to get the flavors of a turkey dinner without all of the effort. Sheila and I ate half of it and gave the remaining half to our friends Mike and Jodi Sala since Mike, the family cook, was under the weather. Another benefit of this culinary monstrosity is that it tastes just as good or better as leftovers.

Our good friends Mike and Susan Bass’s Christmas card arrived yesterday, only a few days late. That is to be expected I suppose since it was postmarked from Honolulu. Like many empty nesters, Mike and Susan travel during the holidays. They usually spend the holidays at their place in Hawaii.  It was a unique card, showing pictures of their adventures throughout the year. There was a picture of them together on a hiking trail somewhere in the Southwest. There was a picture of Susan in front of the famous “Las Vegas” sign. And several pictures of Susan and their adult son on safari in Kenya. And there was a picture of a beautiful sunset viewed from the deck of their home base on Grand Lake.

Sheila and I’s adventures this year don’t compare with Mike and Susan’s but comparisons aren’t really a good idea. There is great pleasure to be found in being happy for your friends who are enjoying themselves and at the same time being content with whatever the Lord has provided for you. The Christmas season causes too many of us to make material comparisons which often result in unhappiness.

The deacon who read the Christmas story at our Christmas Eve gathering made a very good point. It is good to enjoy good food, good friends and all of God’s blessings. There is nothing wrong with sharing and enjoying God's blessings.  But we should never let those things be the center of attention during the Christmas season. We must always remember that we are not celebrating material gifts but rather the amazing gift God gave us that night so long ago when our Savior was born in a humble manger. If we remember that we can have joy no matter what our circumstances.

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.

Bali On the Badlands

 

Sheila and I spent a long weekend at Foss State Park in far Western Oklahoma.  Foss Lake is relatively unknown expect to locals and bass fishermen who travel long distances to fish there.  It is located in the flat grassy expanse of Western Oklahoma and has extraordinarily ocean like sandy beaches.  During the week, especially outside the summer rush, the place is virtually empty.  

Since I had a teaching activity Saturday, we left mid-morning Sunday.  We stopped for lunch at the BOOMARANG DINER in CHANDLER, OK.  This is a chain of 50's retro diners that serves breakfast, burgers and simple diner food. The place was spotless and cute, the young servers were friendly and helpful and the food was outstanding.  I told our statuesque young server that with her height and figure she should be a model.  I was rewarded with a charming small town blush and shy smile.  Sheila and I split a chicken tender sandwich and an order of onion rings.  It was all exceptionally fresh and well prepared.  We thought about stopping there on the way back to do it all over again. 

We stayed at the CABINS at FOSS LAKE STATE PARK.  We arrived at the tiny house cabin we had reserved almost exactly four hours after we left.  Check in  took less than five minutes.  The little cabin was spotless, well laid out and well furnished.  It even had a good queen size bed.  It is a near perfect tiny house layout.  But having said that, the people who placed the cabins (there are two) should have thought twice about the location.  They are close to a busy state highway.  We could hear oil trucks passing until almost sunset.  This was not helped by someone from the farm house up the hill who had their stereo turned up full blast and kept it that way until bed time.  Our home in Broken Arrow is much quieter and has a better view of nature than these cabins.  There was nothing the local staff could have done to make our stay more pleasant. They were friendly and helpful.  But, somebody didn't think when they located those cabins.  I would strongly recommend they plant a grove of fast growing pine trees and shrubs between the cabin the road and that inconsiderate farmers house if they want to improve the ambience of their cabins.

We had a couple of hours to kill before dinner so I set up my amateur radio field rig and worked a few contacts.  I was surprised that it worked as well as it did.  I also spent a little time serenading Sheila with my uke as we sat on the bench on the patio watching the late afternoon pass.  While my attempts at music are not always melodic she was still nice enough to endure it and give me a patient smile in the process.  

We had dinner at PREET DHABA an Indian restaurant just a few miles down the road.  The online reviews were good and the pictures of the food looked good.  Some people shade the truth on the internet.  The "restaurant" is actually the back room of a small Conoco truck stop.  The so called "menu" was written in Punjab on a dry erase marker on the wall.  One of the Indian men hanging around translated for us in a less than gracious manner.  The servings were tiny and served on a military style metal tray.  The only really good thing on the tray was the fresh cooked flatbread.  This place is apparently a hangout for Punjabi, Indian and Sikh truck drivers running I-40.  We didn't feel especially welcome and neither the food nor the service would bring us back.  The place had a bad vibe.  Once again, don't believe everything you read on the internet.

I was up long before Sheila as usual.  I made myself a cup of coffee and got out our travel radio.  I enjoy listening to distant AM stations.  So far out on the flatlands, I was receiving signals from hundreds and even thousands of miles away.  I enjoy listening to the small town stations where the local AM broadcaster is still a big part of the community giving everything from farm reports to obits.  I spent several minutes listening to local newscast from Cheyenne, Wyoming.  

We spent Monday morning exploring the park.  It is a remarkably clean and well kept little park with an abundance of RV slots, picnic tables and other recreational facilities.  There are several good docks and ramps for the serious bass fishermen.  There was none of the hustle and bustle of the state parks near more populated areas.  We settled in on one of the pretty little beaches shown in the ads.  We had it to ourselves.  We spent the rest of the morning there.  The water was too cold for swimming so we got out our rods and fished.  While we saw many large bass breaking the surface none were interested in what we had to offer.  This is a lake that attracts serious fishermen so I guess the fish knew it when a couple of rank amateur bank fishermen were on the other end of the line.

I had forgotten to pack our picnic basket for lunch so we decided to explore the small towns north of the lake.  These tiny little farming hubs are all remarkably clean and well kept up compared to places of similar size in the eastern part of the state.  It's almost as though the strong west winds out there blow all of the trash east.  

We wound up at a charming little place called MARIA'S TAQUERIA in HAMMON, OK.  No sign out front.  Just a storefront on the sparsely populated Main Street of Harmon.  I guess all of the locals know where it's at and there's not much traffic so a sign isn't necessary. We found it using GPS.  We were amazed when we stepped in.  The place was spotless and very well equipped.  Maria was cooking and her charming teen aged daughter was working the counter.  I had tacos and Sheila had gorditas.  The food was fabulous.  Genuine home cooked Mexican.  

About halfway through our meal a large Hispanic man in work clothes walked in and sat down at the table behind us.  He is Maria's husband.  He told me the story of the place.  He works for one of the local rig service companies.  They bought the shell of this empty downtown building a few years ago and Maria refurbished it herself.  I have to say she did a great job.  It looks like it was professionally done. I remarked on the place being empty and he explained that most of their business is takeout for the guys who work the rigs and local agribusinesses who pass through.  This family is working hard and doing a good job.   I wish them well.  Western Oklahoma has killed a lot of small timer's dreams.  

After lunch, we headed back to the lake and settled in at the large, well situated pole fishing dock at one of the boat ramps.  Again, we had the place to ourselves.  Sheila managed to thoroughly tangle the line on her little Zebco Dock Demon spinning rig and I managed to lose a pretty nice lure and a bait rig to the undergrowth near the bank.  Once again, the fish eluded us but it was a nice quiet time together sharing a few laughs at ourselves and enjoying the surroundings.  

Sheila wanted to have dinner at LUCILLE'S ROAD  HOUSE in CLINTON, OK.  It is hyped as a Route 66 legend.  It may have been once upon a time when it was in the old gas station out on old Route 66.  Now, it is nothing more than another cookie cutter diner clone on a large scale.  We shared a chicken fried steak.  It was overcooked and under seasoned. The mashed potatoes were sub par.  The only thing good was the fried okra but it is really hard to mess up fried okra unless you cook it black since all you have to do is dump it out of the bag frozen into the deep fryer.  Our GPS tried three times to take us to TC's up the street where the parking lot was jammed.  We should have listened to the GPS.

Once back at the cabin, Sheila spent the evening reading and I overdosed on Gunsmoke re-runs on the satellite TV.  

Tuesday morning, I asked Sheila what she wanted to do.  I figured she might be up for a little more exploring on the way back.  She declined and said head home so that's what we did.  On the way back we stopped at Braum's in Clinton, OK to get a sausage biscuit to supplement our healthy but meager yoghurt breakfast eaten earlier.  The voice through the drive thru speaker came back with perfect, unaccented highly polished and professional English.  When I got to the window, I asked the young lady where she was from.  She replied Guatemala.  She sounded very well educated and spoke a lot better English than most Okies.  

The trip home took a little over three hours.  This was our first road trip in our new Hyundai Kona SUV.  The fuel economy was great, thirty three or so mpg at the speed limit or plus.  All of the systems worked flawlessly except for gps which tended to lie about road obstructions and route us in great circles around the flatlands when it got confused.  The drivers seat did prove to be an issue after a couple of hours of driving. We opted not to purchase the more expensive model because the base equipment package on a Hyundai has all of the features we will normally use plus many more we won't. The one thing missing on our Kona is a lumbar support on the drivers seat.  It is a power seat with a number of possible adjustments but you have to spend a couple of thousand more for a package that includes a touch screen the size of a TV that stretches across two thirds of the dash to get lumbar support.  This usually isn't a problem driving around town.  But, I spent most of trip back with a folded towel strategically positioned on the spot where my back was complaining.  

I don't know if I would do the Foss Lake Cabins again.  The cabin itself was great but between the truck noise and the farmer's stereo I really didn't get the cabin experience I was hoping for.  They apparently didn't think about the cabins as a destination in and of themselves but rather just a place for visiting fishermen to sleep.  Having said that, Foss Lake would be great place with an RV or Travel Trailer since those spots are far quieter and better located near the water and the rest of the park.

We had a good time and didn't let the annoyances bother us.  That was the most important thing.  We were together and it was pleasant.

Memorial Day 2025

Yesterday, Sheila and I made the annual trek to Sallisaw to decorate our family graves. It was a cold and rainy day and we did not get to enjoy a few moments over the graves, silently remembering and in our hearts speaking to our beloved family members who have passed on.  We simply put the flowers out and got out of the rain and wind as quickly as we could.  Mom, Dad, Uncle Gene, Uncle Charlely you deserve more attention than you got this year.  But, Sheila was barefoot in the puddles and my shoes were soaked.  We were both shivering in the wind.  I'm sure you understand.

I was disappointed to see that the local American Legion had not (at least yet) placed flags on my father's and my Uncle Charley's graves.

As we were getting ready to leave, I asked Sheila to dig around her purse and find a penny for me. I never carry change. There is a tradition among veterans. When you visit another veterans grave, you leave a coin. A penny means that another veteran was there showing his respect. Larger coins mean more about your relationship.

I always visit the grave of a young army captain who would have been about about my age.  He is buried near my family's graves. I didn't know him but knew members of his family.  He was one of the last graduates of the Oklahoma Military Academy.  He died in Viet Nam on my birthday in 1970 trying to rescue a number of wounded that had been left behind by their retreating unit. The citation for his Silver Star, America’s second highest award for valor, says that he personally pulled two of the wounded back to safety and died with a third in his arms. Many of the best men of my generation died in that useless jungle geo-political escapade now just vaguely remembered as the Viet Nam "conflict." In years past, I would I would often find other coins on his headstone. This year, there was only mine.

It was a necessary but disappointing trip.  But, we had the living to think about as well.  Sheila's sister and her husband are both quite ill and were past due for a visit.  We took them food and then took them  for a little drive up in the hills to visit an old hangout or two. It seemed to cheer them up a bit.

Maybe next year we can spend more time.

 

The Kona Chronicles - Beginning

It's been over a decade since Sheila and I bought a new car.  We are by nature frugal and I take very good care of my automobiles so they usually last until I get tired of them. And then Sheila drives them some more.  Had the insurance company not, over my strenous objections, totalled my beloved 2011 Sonata which ran like a Swiss watch, I would still be driving it.

We had been discussing buying a new car for over a year and were torn between the Hyundai Kona which gets  high ratings for reliabilty and value and the Buick Envista which is stylish and cute.  We settled on the Hyundai because of the superior warranty and the fact that Buick's tiny three cylinder supercharged engine makes the car while cute as button over complicated under the hood and still badly underpowered.  

But, deciding to buy a Hyundia and actually buying one are two very different things.  They make wonderful cars that offer incredible value for the money.  But, you have to buy the car in spite of their dealers rather than with their help.  We made several initial attempts over several months and every time the dealership frustrated us so badly that we just quit looking.  Hyundai USA should pay a lot more attention to the quality and training of their sales force.

At one dealership we were met in the lot by a friendly, well dressed guy about our age who did the preliminary sales talk.  But, when we walked into the showroom he "handed us off" to a young man with dreadlocks,urban athletic clothing and an attitude that we did not find conducive to favoring with our business.  Hyundai USA should take a lesson from Bud Light and scrap DEI.  Some of us find it insulting.

At another dealership, the very young sales person knew absolutely nothing about the car and when we asked questions would pull out his phone and Google for information.  When he couldn't Google an answer and asked a more senior person on the floor that person said, "Go ask Jimmy.  He knows about this stuff."  Apparently Jimmy was the only person in the building that had studied the brochures.  Hyundai USA dealers, here is message for you, customers Google too and in many of  your dealerships they may walk in knowing more about the cars than your so called sales people. Get rid of your identity politics token employees and hire a few professional salespeople who know the product and know how to serve a customer.

At this dealership, we asked to test drive a new vehicle and they found the battery was dead.  After they tried jumping the car they found the gas tank was empty.  So, we spent nearly an  hour sitting around the dealership waiting for them to get a new car on their lot able to drive around for a few blocks.  Hyudai USA dealers here is another message. Keep your stock in good shape and in running condition.  Buyers will want to drive the car and will not be impressed if it won't start.

After several more disappointments at dealers around the area I decided to give the last dealership a second chance.  Even though they are about a forty five minute drive away and their sales department is virtually non-existent, they do have a reputation for having the best service department in the region.  Since Hyundai gives a 5/60 bumper to bumper, 10/100 drivetrain warranty and free oil changes and regular service for the first several years you own the car the service department is important. 

So, I emailed the general manager of the dealership, told him where the car we wanted was located at another dealership about half an hour away and asked him for appointment to talk business.  My proposition was straightforward.  They would appraise our trade in and if the final price was reasonable I would give them a cashiers check for the amount due.  THE DEALERSHIP DID NOT ANSWER MY EMAIL.

In desperation, we finally went to the dealership where the car we wanted was located.  After a couple of really frustrating situations with them in previous years with different cars I had sworn I would never walk onto that lot again.  But, we already knew which car we wanted right down to the VIN number and had already determined what we would pay for it.  Surely we could get through that.  

The very young salesman who approached was friendly and helpful.  I knew we were being hustled but he was giving us the information and access we needed so I went along for the ride.  At least his line of BS was entertaining and he didn't look like a thug. The car we wanted was ready for a test drive so I drove it for a while and then we went downtown to Sheila's office and she drove it around a while.  We were gone at least an hour and half.  We already knew what we were willing to do.  The obligatory negotiations followed and later that evening we drove away in the car.  

However, the young man who did all of the work was not the salesperson who appeared on the paperwork.  We had apparently once again been "handed off" to another person.  I was left wondering if the dealership was not pulling the same stunt insurance companies use.  They "hire" junior salespeople as trainees, milk them for all of their personal contacts, only give them part if any of their commissions or worse get them into the hole on a draw and then let them go when the stream of new leads dries up.

A real sour note was their "business manager" actually their F&I man.  Sheila and both worked the F&I market a long time ago and we know the tricks.  This guy spent too much time hard selling us an expensive secondary warranty that would kick in after the very generous Hyundai warranty expires.  He tried to scare us by telling us how delicate the electronics of new cars had become and how expensive it is to repair them.  I was tempted to say, "Well if that's true give me my check back and I'll go buy a low mileage pre-electronics, pre-computer used car." 

Sheila was an executive in the company that underwrote the US extended warranty program for one of the Japanese big three.  We know what those warranties cost.  But, the scare tactics, cheap sales methods and "I'll only do this price reduction for you" statements reduced his credibility to zero in my eyes.  Hyundai USA dealers here is another message.  Set a fair fixed price for your extended warranty and stick to it.  Don't encourage your F&I people to cast doubt on the quality of your product and ruin the credibility of the whole dealership over a few hundred dollars in commissions.  If this guy had just spent a few moments explaining the benefits of the program without the scare tactics and then offered a reasonable price we might have bought it.    

After all is said and done, we are happy with the little car.  It is comfortable, peppy enough and gets great fuel economy.  It is small but handy.  We averaged 35 mpg at 75 mph on a trip this weekend.  I only wish Hyundai offered it with their more powerful 2.0 L Theta normally aspirated engine instead of the turbo option. Sheila will drive it to work and around town and we will use it for travel.  My well kept but aging Sonata will remain my every day vehicle.  Sheila likes the new car.  It is her first new off the lot car.  In the past she had always driven my hand-me-downs.   And, it is something like her beloved ancient Nissan SUV from decades ago that I made her get rid of when it was no longer safe to drive and uneconomical to repair.  

But above all, thank heavens we won't have to deal with car salesmen for a long time in the future if ever again.

Postscript:

The saga continues.  Soon after we purchased the vehicle I got a call from the younger salesperson saying that they "required" three referrals on each sale.  I was taken aback by the hubris.  I didn't say what I should have said but simply replied, "I am not inclined to do that."  Did they seriously think I was going let them more or less order me to give them the names of three of my friends just because I was buying a car from them?  The very thought was insulting.  I am not about to share my friends contact information with anyone much less a car salesman and I would be highly unhappy with a friend that did.  

Then the calls began concerning their performance review.  The younger salesman almost begged me for a good review saying that they actually got paid on their review performance.  He offered to buy us a free tank of gas if we would fill out the review in the dealership.  I told him I didn't have the car.  Then the calls began from the older salesperson whose name appeared on the paperwork.  Every couple of days with texts and emails as well.  It was getting annoying quickly.  I find the thought of asking for a good review and then thinking you can buy one with a tank of gas insulting.  Seriously.  Do a good job with your customers and then don't worry about the reviews.  The reviews will take care of themselves.

Hyundai USA here is final message.  You sell fine quality products.  They have a great reputation here in the US.  Make sure your dealerships sales tactics match that reputation.