Dear Secretary Rubio and Mr. National Security Advisor:

I’m entrusting you with my modest proposal for global peace. It’s genius, even if I do say so myself. Then again I’m a high-IQ person. I tell you that because as we all now know, self-aggrandizement is a virtue not a vice.

But this is about you, not me, and let me assert some ingratiation that you folks usually give not get. No one has held the same two jobs you have since the legendary Henry Kissinger. What’s more, you’ve proven yourself to be the most competent White House servant during the Trump 2.0 administration, which—you’ll agree—is a bar about an inch off the ground. You’re my guy.

First, a bit about my own bona fides. I’m a retired 72-year-old, born-here, passport-carrying U.S. citizen, which means I should be able to vote if we ever have another election. I’m a liberal arts graduate and a longtime journalist, which means I know next to nothing about a lot. Did I say I’m also a high-IQ person?

Now to my plan. The nut of it is this: Why not settle international disputes on the soccer field instead of the battlefield?

Here’s why.

To understate it, everyone around the globe has been watching the just-concluded 2026 FIFA World Cup. More than 5 billion people watched or otherwise engaged with it in some form, or so estimates my in-house economist, ChatGPT. It’s a bonding force among North Americans, South Americans, Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, Asians, and Oceanians. Even Curacao, South Korea, and Uzbekistan sent teams. People from every corner of globe watched in witness to a rare commonality, not a difference. When has that happened before?

What’s most important to note, however, is this: Every World Cup match has been civil—on the field and in the stands. During this World Cup, I didn’t see a single report of fan violence. Not one burning car, not even after England beat France in that wild 6-4 shootout for the Cup’s third place, and those two have been at each other’s throats going back 450 years. One of their wars lasted 100 years, while their World Cup match lasted about 100 minutes, including stoppage time. See what I mean?

Think about the difference between war and the World Cup. In the Iran conflict, American forces have suffered 427 killed or wounded, with the toll hitting 33,500 for Iran. Casualties on the FIFA fields? No fatalities. A Qatari player broke a Canadian’s leg and afterward went to the Canadian locker room to tearfully apologize. Oh, for the day when Vladimir Putin breaks into a blubbering mea culpa over the suffering he’s inflicted on Ukraine.

This, however, is what should appeal most given your party: It would save money!

FIFA estimates that the tournament generated about $40.9 billion. Compare that with the $37.5 billion Secretary Hegseth said the Iran war cost so far. That doesn’t account for the extra estimated $70 billion or so to repair bases and to replace or restock equipment and munitions.

In short, American taxpayers are picking up a hefty tab for obliterating Iran’s nuclear program, missile capability, and leadership. Of course, I use “obliterate” loosely, as in “Roger ordered an extra-large pizza and obliterated it by eating two of its 16 pieces.”

Better yet, everyone willingly paid for the World Cup—fans, advertisers, broadcasters, sponsors, licensees—from all over the world! I saw oodles of Messi No. 10 jerseys in the stands, but not a single camouflage shirt sporting your boss’s No. 48. He’ll back this idea on that branding opportunity alone!

POTUS thinks the U.N. and NATO have been sandbagging us, right? Give him those stats, then tell him about FIFA’s reach. Forty-eight national teams qualified for this year’s World Cup alone, but FIFA has 211 national associations—more than the U.N.’s 193 member states.

The only sovereign states without FIFA-affiliated organizations are the Marshall Islands, Monaco, and Vatican City. We could focus our foreign aid on promoting soccer in those places—a pittance. Granted, the Catholics might prefer substituting Our Fathers and Hail Marys for yellow and red cards, but that doesn’t matter because popes don’t order crusades anymore.

You want to settle this un-war, unapproved by Congress? Instead of ending it again and again and, well, again and again, let’s put the U.S. women’s national team on the pitch against the Iranians. They’ve won four World Cups, more than any other nation. Then again, Secretary Hegseth would insist on testosterone tests they’d surely fail.

If Nixon could open relations with Mao’s China through ping-pong diplomacy, imagine what a real sport could accomplish.

Your boss is buddies with FIFA, so we can play that card. The Nobel Committee may have snubbed him, but FIFA President Gianni Infantino gave him FIFA’s very own Peace Prize and with a remarkably straight face. Your boss is so fond of the organization, in fact, he didn’t seem to mind when Infantino bum-rushed him from the World Cup awards stage.

I don’t want to jinx it, but this plan for global peace really could win a Nobel. I’ve even given you a cool name for it—the FIFA Accords. Since your boss has been tearing down long stabilizing Marshall Plan as fast as the East Wing, the timing is perfect to launch the Rubio Plan. I told you I was a high-IQ person, didn’t I?

Anyway, if a Nobel arises from our collaboration, you can have it.

As for me, I want no part of it.

I don’t need Kash Patel and Todd Blanche showing up at my front door armed with subpoenas connected to rigging the outcome.

Sincerely,

Patrick Houston

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About me: I grew up in the steel and coal-producing valley south of Pittsburgh and graduated with honors from a liberal arts college. I’ve written for newspapers, national magazines, national newspapers—and won prizes for feature writing. I also helped create or led major websites as an executive producer, editor-in-chief, and general manager. I write because it continues to be a calling.

Ratings

Property/Setting:       ★★★★★ (5/5) 

Wine quality:       ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Dollar value:       ★★★★★ (5/5)

Service:            ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Member Events:      ★★★★½ (4.5/5)

Getting there:      ★★★★★ (5/5)    

Total Score:        27.5/30

* Five-point scale, 5 is highest.

My take:

We live in the heart of Sonoma County, CA’s, verdant wine region. We’re surrounded, literally, by hundreds of wineries. Of those I’ve visited in Sonoma and elsewhere in California, the U.S. and Europe, Trentadue tops my list of favorites. The estate rivals most any you’ll find in Tuscany, Italy, the region that imbues its aesthetic. The wine is good—at reasonable prices. The staff is welcoming.

In Italian, Trentadue means “thirty-two.” Many urban myths surround the name. One of the most widespread: It was the 32nd winery licensed in California. Nope. It’s the founding family’s last name. Present day Trentadue — in the 1860s it was a fruit tree nursery — owes its roots to Evelyn and Leo Trentadue, who bought the then 208-acre property in 1959 to escape the urban sprawl consuming California’s Silicon Valley. (I once lived there. You should see how packed the place is now.)

The property is dominated by a Tuscan-inspired villa that houses an Italianate tasting room, its production facilities, and its aging barrels.. As in Tuscany, you’ll see lots of tall, slender cypress trees. Out front, there’s a giant patio with tables, couches, and fire pits, shaded by soaring trees. It adjoins a covered area for wine club parties, after which comes a large indoor hall, then a big lawn bordered by cypress trees on one side and a long vine-covered trellis on the other. Words can’t do it justice.

The trellis holds a special place in my heart. The BelovedOne’s granddaughter held her wedding there five years ago, and we enjoyed a classic Italian feast with friends and her large Italian family — all seated at tables stretching nearly its length. Today, the entire property encompasses 130 acres, with 72 planted with estate vines.

We’re club members. As such, my BelovedOne and I have enjoyed Trentadue’s every summer Thursday “Happy hour” parties. They feature live music. You can buy wine for $8 a glass or $24 a bottle. Charcuterie boxes are available, but we generally bring our own lawn chairs, tiny table and picnic nibbles. The winery also offers prix fixe dinners — with all the wine included. We just enjoyed an Italian dinner. In September, we signed up for a lobster feed for $140 per person, again including wine. If I had one nit, however, it’d be the food. The Italian dinner of spaghetti, meatballs, and pesto gnocchi were just okay, but it’s difficult to complain at a price of $45 per person.

Trentadue distinguishes itself, too, because it bottles (mostly) wine grown on its estate. (It offers a La Storia brand using grapes grown in a nearby vineyard.) Its wines are very drinkable — and reasonably priced. Per bottle non-club member prices top out at $50 a bottle. (Compare that to Napa County wines that soar into the hundreds.) They go for as little as $18 for the California champagne and $20 for its (mostly) estate grown OPR red blend. Along with the red blend, we’re partial to Trentadue’s Estate Old Orchard Montepulciano, at $42 per bottle.

Finally, the tasting room attendants are friendly and informative, and we’ve forged a relationship with the wine club manager, bolstered by standing in a food serving line next to her parents. Yeah, it’s a small world.

When we have out-of-town visitors who want one of the richest wine culture experiences in Sonoma County, Trentadue is where we take them.

Basic details

• Tasting fee: $25 per person, $40 per person for groups of eight and up

• Owners: Second and third generation family members

• Winemakers: Miro Tcholakov (with Trentadue for 25 years)

• Staff members we’ve met: Lacey Hall, wine club manager

• Website: Hours, contact, wines, club details are all available on the winery’s Website

• Specialty: Estate-grown varietals: Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese, Malbec, Petite Sirah, Montepulciano, Carignane, Zinfandel and Merlot

• Club: Yes, four levels anywhere from 8 to 48 bottles a year, four times a year

• Club Perks: No charge on tastings. with discounts of 20 to 30 percent on bottles or cases, at a per shipment price of between $90 and $336 with varying shipping discounts.

• Production: Roughly 23,000 cases a year, with most individual wines are made in small lots of (under 20 barrels).

• Reservation: Recommended, but walk-ins welcome

• Hours: 10am - 5pm Wednesday-Monday, closed Tuesdays

• Parking: Plentiful

See for yourself:

Clockwise from upper left: Trentadue Tuscan Villa main building, inside its tasting room, the courtyard just outside the tasting villa, Happy Hour event crowd picnicking to live music, the wedding lawn, BelovedOne’s Italian wedding dinner under the grape vined trellis.

Disclaimer: The opinions and ratings expressed here are my own. This review is based on a personal visit. I received no money, item, or free wine to influence my viewpoint. If anyone at the winery disagrees with this review, they are welcome to leave a comment.

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On a one-to-ten extroversion scale, my BelovedOne is a 13. Her social meter is always pegged deep into anyone else’s ah-oo-ga red zone. This woman could socialize 24/7. She’s a genetically gifted force of nature. Even as an octogenarian—an age of which she’s proud—she shows no sign of slowing down.

Me? I fall somewhere between a six and an eight. Yes, I like people, but they exhaust me. (”Honey, do we have to go out for the third night in a row?”)

She also lives to travel. And I travel to live — with her. And the thing about travel is that it opens you up to strangers. In my retirement, I’ve gotten far more comfortable interacting with people I don’t know.

The BelovedOne and I talk to each other a lot. My lived experience is that women have more words than men. It’s one of those Venus-and-Mars things. I’m certainly a verbal person—words have been the hallmark of my life. Still, when it comes to the two of us, I listen more.

We’re not one of those couples you see sitting silently across from each other in a restaurant.

In fact, we seldom sit at a table by ourselves.

When we dine out, near home or on one of our many trips, we head for the bar. While we enjoy cocktails and wine with dinner, it’s not about the drinking. It’s about one of retirement’s unexpected pleasures: meeting new people, even if only for a few minutes.

Over the years, we’ve become practiced at striking up conversations without being intrusive. Most people sitting at a bar, whether alone or as a couple, are there, like us, hoping for human connection.

My go-to conversation starter is, “Where ya from?” I’ve lived in so many cities, states, and regions that I figure I’ll find something in common somewhere. The BelovedOne’s approach is more travel-oriented: “Oh, I’ve been there.” (She’s traveled so far and wide that it’s faster to ask where she hasn’t been.)

For example, we recently went to Lo & Behold Bar and Kitchen in nearby Healdsburg, CA, and plopped ourselves onto bar stools. I ordered a Manhattan; the BelovedOne, a French 75 only with vodka instead of gin.

The two bartenders knew their craft. They rattled off the ingredients of several other similarly exotic cocktails, which naturally led to a conversation about their favorite drinks. Then one of the young women mentioned she was expecting her second child. (It was obvious, but you never ask. If you’re wrong, yikers.)

That, in turn, led to a discussion about parenting. I told her that, for me, the toddler years were the most challenging phase of parenthood. Once they start walking, look out. You can’t let your guard down for a split second. I still remember my terror when my three-year-old son bolted from the grocery checkout line and out the front doors and nearly into the busy parking lot.

Soon another couple settled onto the stools beside us. As they studied the menu, they asked what we’d enjoyed. We recommended the pickled green beans and the scallops over creamy corn ragù.

During that brief exchange, I caught an accent.

“Where’s that from?” I asked.

They challenged me to guess.

“Portuguese?”

“No, farther east.”

“Croatia?”

“Not quite that far.”

Finally, the man smiled.

“Italian.”

Italian!

The BelovedOne and I are unabashed Italophiles. Her late husband was born near Naples. His father had to return to America or risk being drafted into the Italian army. During World War II, his Italian-American father served in the U.S. Army Air Forces in England, loading bombs onto planes that—who knows?—may have been dropped near the wife and son he had yet to meet.

The BelovedOne has traveled to Italy dozens of times. Although she’s an Okie without a drop of Italian blood, she knows the country as well as a native.

I’ve been there four times myself. My grandmother—mia nonna—immigrated in 1913 from a small town not far from Rome.

Bingo.

The similarities multiplied. She came from just north of Rome. He was from Padua. They’d lived in the United States for more than twenty years. They now lived in the Bay Area, where we had spent decades ourselves. They were spending the weekend on the coast and had driven inland to trade the chilly gray fog for a little Sonoma County sunshine. Now in his sixties, he worked at a startup. I, too, had spent years drinking from the waters of Silicon Valley, the world’s startup capital.

The commonalities were uncanny.

Eventually they left for their reserved table, but not before giving us their contact details—one of those delightful little encounters that reminds you of two enduring truths.

First, interesting people are everywhere, and sometimes all it takes is sitting at a bar to meet them.

Second, retirement adventures don’t have to involve something exotic Bucket List wishes like skydiving or climbing Mount Everest. Sometimes they arrive in the most quotidian—there, I finally got to use that word—act imaginable: having a meal at the bar of a restaurant.

Dear reader, was the time you spent reading about my personal experience worth your while? Would you like me to address topics that offer information or guidance you can use? Or would you like then on the lighter side. Let me know what other topics you’d like me to address? Comments welcome!

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Have you heard of the Singularity? It’s a concept close to the core of our collective dread about Artificial Intelligence. It holds that self-learning machines will mutate in ever-accelerating cycles to the point where they reach a super-intelligence, and then, bang, no one knows what happens when we’re overtaken by the Big Bot.

I use AI. ChatGPT created the illustration for this piece. I lived in technology’s world capital, Silicon Valley, and I’ve observed technology’s cycles for decades as a journalist, writer, and editor. I’m no Luddite. However, unlike sunnier members of my aging cohort — , say — I’ve become a crank.

And I’ve had it with AI. It’s too damn stupid.

You’ve encountered AI as an app by now, like ChatGPT. Or it’s asserted itself as part of your browser, like Chrome’s Gemini or Edge’s Copilot. But our two most common interactions now are with AI-driven automated phone call systems and website help chatbots.

Just the other day, for example, I was trying to obtain online access to my car loan account at multinational TD Bank. (I’m naming names in my own personal shame campaign.) This is a corporation, by the way, that racked up a 2025 profit of $14.5 billion. I dutifully downloaded the bank’s app — as I’ve done oodles of times before at other banks. The bank permitted me to log in on its website, but the very same username and password wouldn’t work on the app. I tried again and again. WTF! WTF! WTF!

So I called the number recommended by the app. Pressed the selection for login issues. Entered my name, email, social security number, account number. The phone-bot told me the bank had no account using that information. But wait, how the hell have you been taking money out of my checking account every month? This also made me anxious because, I’m thinking, if you haven’t been taking the money is my car about to be visited by the repo-man?

Finally, I manage to reach a human. Steam is hissing from my ears. I have literally wrestled with this for more than an hour. She confirms that she can’t find an account. I then tell her it’s for a car loan. Oh, says she, I have to transfer you to our auto loan department. It’s a separate entity. She initiates the transfer.

Guess what? It takes me back to the very same automated process — name, email, social security, account number, blah blah. By this time I’m punching numbers indiscriminately in a lunatic rage. I can only hope that my adrenaline reaches such heights if ever I have to lift a car from atop the Beloved1.

Generally, at this point I start to get even more manic. It’s as though I have werewolf blood under a full moon. I start yowling, Agent, agent, agent. Then I ratchet up the volume, Representative, representative, representative. Then, even louder, Banker, banker, banker. Finally, I use any word that might apply to a real person, like he, him, we, they — just in case the AI system attended a university with a DEI program.

Then the Beloved1 starts talking me down, saying calmly and correctly, “You do realize, don’t you, that you’re screaming at a computer.” You bet I do. But the primal screaming helps relieve the dark synapses misfiring in my lizard brain.

Well, I finally get through to the auto loan contact — only to find out that there isn’t any access to my account via the app. The bank has no app for that! WTF! WTF! WTF!

TD, couldn’t you add a disclaimer, something like, “Sorry, auto loan accounts are only available through our website” with a big fat link off to the auto loan site? Or how about an additional phone option: “To get to your auto loan, press 6.”

This proves another reality countering the end-of-humanity-by-AI argument. These systems underestimate us. The all assume the same thing: Dear customer, you’re too much of a technology imbecile to find the feeble answers we have in our Help and FAQs, so we’re just going to rehash them for you. Gah! WTF!

You see, nitwits, I did look at your support page. I did scan through your FAQs. I’m calling because I have a specific question about a specific issue — the kind only a human can understand.

My Kaiser Permanente health plan has trapped me in similar loops. So has Disney+.

Even the Substack bot failed me when I tried to add a “Subscribe” module on my site using my iPad in the Substack app and on the web. It marched me through at least three different ways to initiate the “modules” feature. None existed, I swear. Eventually, even the bot gave up and told me someone from support would contact me.

So folks, be not afraid. AI won’t be lording over humankind anytime soon. Nor will it mutate into a world-ending event, no matter what the nervous nellies, doomsdayers, and end-of-times adherents say.

AI won’t threaten us until AI gets smarter than it’s been so far. Take heart: Corporations are full of lamebrains. They keep forgetting the oldest rule in programming — garbage in, garbage out. Until the people implementing these systems get smarter, AI isn't replacing humanity, just the receptionist — and I’ll take the receptionist.

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You tell me. Why does potty humor tickle my funny bone so much. When the Beloved1 read an earlier draft of this piece, she said, “Good writing, but I don’t find it particularly funny.” What? I split a side as I did the research for it.

But maybe the question isn’t why do men find potty humor funny. It’s why do men find it soooo funny. Maybe the blame belongs to our mothers and the way they toilet trained us — all those encouraging words along the way. No wonder our reptilian brains made the connection between praise, poop, and fun!

To be serious, I was inspired to the subject by recent explorations from high-minded humorists I found on my travels across Substack, including seniors like me such as , , and . (I want as an epitapth, “He loved to laugh.”) Keillor has long been known for flatulence stories and just recently opined about the indignity of breaking wind so indiscreetly. “...old guys” he said, “don’t squeak anymore — they sound like a tuba.”

But it was Barry who prompted me most to this essay. So blame him, not me. He took on flatulence in a June Substack that began as a paean to dads. He wrote:

Sunday is Father’s Day, a time when we pause to appreciate Dad, and the special qualities that make him Dad, such as a willingness to admit that he farts.

Dad is not ashamed of the fact that he farts. Dad may even, on occasion, derive amusement from, or take actual pride in, a given fart. In this respect Dad is very different from Mom, who, if we are to take her word for it, has never farted, not one single time, in her entire life.

Okay, you could me-too Barry. But my own lived experience gives witness. I was married for 34 years and heard my wife pass gas once — once and only once — and that was while she was pushing to deliver a baby. Even at that, God bless her, she apologized to all of us in the OR.

Then Barry went on to riff about a 2025 study in Australia named — and I’m not joking — Chart Your Fart. See the full report here. (I have friends who will click this link and actually read the whole thing, and you know who you are Tahoe, No. 1, and Giff who lives Down Under.)

According to a CoPilot AI precis, the study asked Aussies older than 14…

…to use a smartphone app to log every episode of flatulence for at least three days (including one weekend day). Participants recorded not just the number of farts, but also their stench, loudness, duration, smell longevity, and detectability. The project ran from November 2024 to February 2025, with over 19,000 downloads and 470,980 farts recorded.

Say what you will, but those are compelling stats for any study. And yes, there’s even an app for that. Barry went on to write:

They then determined the Average Daily Flatus Releases for various ages and genders. Here’s the key result: men logged an average of 5.2 flatus releases per day, whereas women averaged 4.8. In other words: Although men, as we would expect, report that they fart more often than women, the difference between the genders is 0.4 flatus releases, or less than half a fart per day. This is assuming that the women in the study were being completely honest about their output, which I seriously doubt…

Hey, ladies, roll your eyes at Barry. He wrote it, not me.

If there’s any other reason to question these findings it has to do with the boys and men. Teens no doubt took great delight in using the app and actually categorizing their outputs, which, on the plus side, is a helluva lot safer than holding matches to your butt. But the guys relished their role in the study, too, because, when it comes to flatulence, men at any age are still fourteen.

C’mon farting is funny. Look it up on Wikipedia. Flatulence humor occupies its own entry. Did you know the first recorded flatulence joke dates back nearly 4,000 years to the Sumerians? How about the Roman Emperor Elagabalus whose name, come to think of it, sounds like Latin for a “blubbering flatus?” He used whoopee cushions at dinner parties. Of course, back then, even the women politely laughed because it was in those days either the cushion or the Colosseum.

Jonathan Swift — he of Gulliver’s Travels fame — wrote a satirical pamphlet that encouraged women to openly poot to make them less talkative. (Again, my lived experience dispels any such correlation, and I’ll leave it at that for reasons of personal safety.)

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, and Mark Twain also used flatulence for the sake of humor.

Yes, and you’ll note that all these people are men.

Then again, I can provide some countervailing evidence that females get a hoot from toot, too. I have viewed dozens of Facebook reels — for research purposes only! — where a guy passes by women with a surreptitious device that blasts a sound like a conch shell while a henchman records the prank. (Look them up! Just search for the phrase “farting guy.”) To prove my point, I captured a few screen grabs of typical female responses.

Invariably, they respond primly — then double over. So maybe we fellas aren’t entirely alone on Uranus.

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Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” “Just the Way You Are,” and “New York State of Mind.” Sir Elton’s “Rocket Man,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” and “Candle in the Wind.” And those are just a few of my favorites, as we were regaled with their biggest hits since the 1970s.

Music is magical, with its power to transport you back to memories that become more precious but no less vivid with age. “Piano Man” took me back to 1977 when I was a newspaper reporter in Morgantown, West, by God, Virginia — in fact, to a bar where my Chum and I spent many an evening drinking tonics and gin from a bartender named John who became a friend of ours, literally. We got well-oiled enough one night to belt “Piano Man” out the car window. If the police had pulled us over, I’m sure we would have been cited, not for drunkenness but for singing the song so badly.

(Sirs, please step out of the vehicle. We need to give you a sobriety test. Now sing “Tonight’s the Night” by Rod Stewart. Okay, that’s enough. Cuff ‘em, Willard.)

How did the Beloved1 and I get so lucky in Vegas? Although we checked into the Park MGM as VIPs, a widely inclusive class, we’re not high rollers. We spent $20 each at the slots. (Geezer alert: Me, a technology nerd couldn’t figure out how to make the new-fangled video game machines work. Times, they are a changin’ — gone are the one-armed bandits.) And my byline gracing this piece isn’t a pseudonym for Bruno Mars who performs in a Vegas residency. (He does, we were told, because he dropped $50 million in one night there and remains indentured to the city.)

Okay, time for the reveal: Billy and Elton were both performed at Planet Hollywood by one — just one — Kyle Martin in a show called Piano Man. The dude isn’t Bill Murray’s “Nick the lounge singer” crooning “Star Wars.” Martin has bona fides. A forty-something whose actual age hasn’t been published anywhere, he spent years in Sacramento creating bands, including an award-winning top Billy Joel tribute band. He tried out for American Idol.

But his big break came in 2007 when Billy Joel himself picked Martin for the lead in Movin’ Out.

Broadway has a thing these days for bio-musicals (like Hollywood does for biopics): The list of recents: Jersey Boys (The Four Seasons), Beautiful (Carole King), Tina (Tina Turner), MJ (Michael Jackson) and the more recent A Beautiful Noise (Neil Diamond).

Martin has been presenting Piano Man in residence to the tune of six years and some 1,300 performances, as he told us from the stage.

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Generally, I hold my nose when it comes to impersonators. I have ever since I produced a big convention event in Vegas that featured a Johnny Cash impersonator. As I stood next to him offstage before he went on, he told me that his life had completely changed since he became the beloved country star. At which point I said to myself, “Dude, if you found meaning in being a cheesy fake, you must have been leading one sad life.” I also generally dislike the ever-growing number of tribute bands resurrecting the likes of Queen, the Beatles, the Bee Gees, Pink Floyd — ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby — but such is their draw to geezers reliving the music of our lives.

Then again, there are impersonators, imposters, fakes. (Anyone have a count on the number of Elvis’ out there?) And then there are truly talented people performing the music of great songwriters and recording stars. Kyle Martin was one of them. He gave a us an hour and twenty minutes of entertainment well worth the dough.

ROAD NOTES

… We considered seeing country-Western star Kenny Chesney at the Vegas Sphere, a venue in the very round, so to speak. But at $425 a pop for the cheap sets, we said, “Ummmm, no…”

… Speaking of which, I have a new nickname for Vegas. Add it to “Lost Wages” and “Sin City.” My moniker: Las Fleece-us, for the city’s exorbitant prices…

…For $35 a ticket, however, we did visit “Diana,” a exhibition at the Aria. It included personal letters, miniatures of her most famous gowns, and other artifacts of her brief life and reign. Hers was a fairy tale life with too tragic an end. Everyone else loved her, except Charles, that is…

…The Federal government must be doing something right. Perhaps it was Biden’s Infrastructure Act. The US freeways between San Antonio and our home in Northern California were in great shape, smooth as silk almost the entire way. Even US 5 north, was miraculously free of the damage done to it by the vast amounts of truck traffic it carries…

… I got “Hormuzed” especially once we hit California, where gas prices are ordinarily sky high anyway. A fill-up for my Ford Escape’s 12-gallon tank cost $82! …

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Note: Based on your feedback. I’ve turned on the pay wall to Adventures in Retirement. What does that mean? IF YOU WISH YOU CAN PAY TO SUPPORT MY WORK. But if you don’t you’ll continue to receive it for free. What’s more, if I don’t think it’s worth it to you, loyal subscribers, I’ll turn the “pay” feature off.

My sin, if I can put it that way, is that I’m a failed entrepreneur. Hear me out. There’s a reason I want you to know that.

I led a high-flying career as a journalist and then a media executive at huge Web companies, until, that is, I got caught in a corporate re-org that left me jobless at 55. I did land on my feet at a startup, but reporting to an obstreperous 22-year-old bested my limits and pride (another sin), and I quit.

But, hey, I lived in Silicon Valley and drank the same waters of so many other entrepreneurs, and the place was awash with resources and money. I figured, what the hell, how hard can it be?

Well, it was hard. What plagues me, most of all, however, about this experience is that I raised money from family and friends and spent even more of my own. I don’t ever wanna do that again. And, you, dear subscribers, are tantamount to those same family and friends.

While I’m in the confessional, there’s another thing I want you to know about me: I’m a sprinter, not a marathon runner. I fire from the starting line, excited about this or that. And, then after a stretch, I’ll get bored or, worse, discouraged.

That’s why I’m writing to ask you this before I make any decision: What would make it worth your while to pay about $5 a month for Adventures in Retirement? Disclaimer: A free version will remain in effect, and If you’re presently a subscriber, Adventures in Retirement will remain free to you. It’s up to me to bring some value to the table in exchange for your dough.

I haven’t charged up to now, if only because the blog has been inconsistent. (There’s that 50-yard-dash thing.) What’s more, I’m not sure it’s been hitting the right notes.

To help me at this crossroads, I’m asking you to answer the survey questions that follow. And please, puh-lease comment!

Please do share any thoughts related to this plea. And hey, even if you dump all over this idea of charging, I won’t be offended. I’d rather hear honest feedback. Sincerely, you’d be doing me a favor.

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Santa Fe is one of those few places in our many later-in-life travels that have made us look at each other and say, “Ummm, yah, we could live here.”  That’s just one of the reasons we spent three days in the northern New Mexico city this time through. But trust me: 72 hours still doesn’t do it justice.

 First, there’s the climate. While so much of the Southwest suffers the summer swelters — and we melted in San Antonio, Fort Stockton, and Las Cruces — Santa Fe’s nearly 7,000-foot elevation tames the dry heat into a kinder, gentler 80-something degrees. (Beware: It snows 32 inches or so in winter, much to the Beloved1’s disappointment.)

Santa Fe wears bright colors, an inheritance of the indigenous tribes that have melted into America’s enduring crucible of national strength. Yet, peoples are somehow maintaining at least some of their cultural distinctiveness. We were treated to a procession at Sunday Mass of the “courts” of young ladies representing each of several tribal councils in the Santa Fe archdiocese. And of course there’s the landscapes that have attracted so many artists. Some, like Georgia O’Keeffe, were so enamored they made these parts home.

Speaking of O’Keeffe, Santa Fe is all about art. It’s gotta have more galleries per each of its 88.000 residents than anyplace else. The storefronts along its very walkable downtown streets invite you to browse paintings, sculptures, pottery, furniture, photos, weaving, you name it. On Sunday after Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, an artwork in itself, we ambled through more than a dozen canopies displaying the works of local artists.

(By the way, “amble” is the pace at which the Beloved1 and I travel these days. We prefer to car, RV, train or plane into a place and plunk down there — the longer the better. We travel like our mornings — slowly: Make the coffee, sip it, savor it, browse the email, texts, and news — my fav ritual of retirement.)

And then there are the museums. A must-go is the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, which is in the process of building a new “campus.”  Too bad. Right now, the museum is small and intimate, where you can see her work — and her life — unfold, and bigger ain’t always better. There’s an exquisite drawing she did as a teen that marks her emerging talents. She paints big flowers because, she said, if she made them small no one would notice their beauty. And if you see erotica — as many critics did — then that’s on you. Throughout her life, she vehemently denied any sexual overtones.

O’Keeffe is just one of the scores of famous artists who made Santa Fe a mecca. You can see the works of many at the New Mexico Museum of Art, where we spent the better part of a day. Believe it or not, this museum was built in 1917 — more than a century ago that Santa Fe was inspiring so much art. We were awed by an exhibit of Jody Folwell’s pottery, a 83-year-old native American who’s taken this oeuvre to new limits — bowls, really, that astound in their ceaseless variety of shapes, etchings, and painted designs.

(We toured the Louvre in Paris in April. Bleck. Too big. Too crowded. Gimme a small museum any day.)

So, yah, we could live here. Or maybe not. But Santa Fe is definitely worth a visit.

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Addendum: Places to Eat

• The Cowgirl Santa Fe, local bar once associated to one of same name in NYC. Great BBQ, especially the brisket. We chatted it up with Laura, the bartender who served attentively with a tasty side friendliness.

• The Boxcar, a sports bar where we serendipitously met a clutch of other San Antonio Spurs fans to watch our team fall to the Kicks in Game 5 that finalized the 2026 NBA champtionship. BTW, it’s our team because the Beloved1’s sister lives in San Antonio, where we spend time on her 20-acre ranch.

Two years ago, I purchased this beautiful 2024 Newmar Bay Star 3014 new. I have a son in LA and a daughter and her two children in Massachusetts. So the idea was to spend time on one coast and then the other in our own rolling pied-a-terre. We’ve enjoyed traveling extensively in it.

I’m now exploring a fractional ownership arrangement — with the right partner.

This is an opportunity to enjoy high-quality luxury Class A RV travel at a fraction of the cost of sole ownership. Trust us on that. This is my third rig since 2020, and all the while I’ve been learning by doing, often by attending the college of harsh lessons. Ouch. And that’s one of the reasons the Beloved1, as I call her, and I would make good partners. By now, we’re experienced RV owners. We know whaat it takes, and we can share our knowledge with you.

We’re retired, mature, well-to-do homeowners from the Bay Area’s Peninsula, now living in Clover Springs, a Del Webb retirement community in Cloverdale, CA.

RV Details

• 31-foot 2024 Newmar Bay Star 3014

• Newmar noted as a quality make that maintains its value

• Gas Class A

• Ford F-53 chassis

• Approx. 16,000 miles

• Excellent condition

• Blue Ox tow bar

• Fully stocked galley

• Added solar, great for overnight visits to wineries

• Stored and maintained carefully

• Based in Cloverdale, CA, possibly in San Antonio, TX, where we have a lovely concrete pad and patio on the sister-in-law’s 20-acre ranch

Proposed Structure

I’m open to a 25 to 50% ownership split through a California LLC that turns the asset into ownership shares — to legally protect our mutual interests. The LLC would assure:

• Clearly defined scheduling rights

• Expense sharing

• Maintenance responsibilities

• Exit/buyout provisions

• Insurance requirements

• Usage rules

Why Fractional Ownership?

This setup can make sense for:

• Retirees who travel seasonally

• Couples who only RV part of the year

• People wanting luxury RV access without a full six-figure commitment

• Experienced RVers downsizing ownership costs

Ideal Co-Owner:

• Financially stable

• Retired

• Responsible and communicative

• Prior RV experience

• Comfortable coordinating schedules

• Respectful of equipment

• Ideally located in Northern California, but possibly San Antonio, TX, too

If interested, send me an email with:

• Your RV experience

• Where you’re located

• Typical travel style

• Approximate usage you’d want annually

Happy to discuss details privately.

Even though I’m attempting to put a kindly face on it in Aging Graciously, I have to be honest. I’m not fond of getting older; it’s ain’t for the faint. But it does have this benefit: You can look back on contemporary history — much of it which you’ve seen with your own eyes. I vividly recall events as indelible dots along my own time line, that form patterns, like those 1-2-3-pencil-paper puzzles we did as kids.

Now, the images coming out of Minneapolis, my old hometown, have given graphic witness to ICE’s extrajudicial arrests, tactics, and, yes, killings — reminding me of the others that have made an unforgettable mark on my times.

I remember: The civil rights marchers in Selma scooted like loose leaves along the pavement by fire hose blasts; antiwar candidate Bobby Kennedy bleeding from a mortal head wound behind a hotel campaign lectern; the young Vietnamese girl burned naked by napalm, arms outstretched wing-like; the keening coed beside a dead Kent State student; the vacant look on the Minneapolis police officer’s face as he knelt on George Floyd’s neck.

I’m watching all the video analysis detailing the twin ICE shootings in Minneapolis, and my mind went back — nearly four decades to an incident by now nearly forgotten. I was a newspaper reporter in West Virginia. Back then, in 1979, we were in the midst of an escalating civil war between the U.S. backed iron-fisted regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle and a Communist-connected Sandinista rebel movement. Guess whose side our government was on?

This small chapter paled in comparison to other egregious U.S. foreign policy entanglements, like Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Except it generated singularly graphic footage. It showed ABC News Correspondent Bill Stewart kneeling before a lone Nicaraguan National Guardsman, all the while his film crew recorded the scene from a distance. The soldier forced Stewart to lay down — then calmly shot him in the head.

The film was broadcast widely. It provoked widespread condemnation of the Somoza regime. President Jimmy Carter, bless him, called the shooting “barbaric.” Less than a month later, the government fell, ending the 43-year Somoza family dynasty.

It happens. And it can happen here, too. Thus giving purchase to Minnesota Gov. Tim Wahl’s admonition that can be paraphrased thusly: “See something, record something.”

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PALM DESERT, CA — Whenever we hit the road for our winter’s sojourn to find cozier climes, we stop for an extended stay in the SoCal’s Palm Springs and Palm Desert. It’s not that far from our NorCal home. While it suffers hellishly hot summers, winter here in the Coachella Valley offers consistently welcoming weather. It’s the main reason it became a playground for the likes of Sinatra, Hope, Crosby, Benny, and Dinah Store, all now memorialized by local street names.

Aside from all that, however, we not only relish our time with friends there — Nooorrrrmm, J and W, and Berty but for one other reason, too: The copious number and variety of prolonged Happy Hours hosted by the bars, restaurants and hotels in these twin cities. Not just a three-to-five custom here, they start as early as two with many extending to seven o’clock.

No place else the Beloved1 and I have been offer such liberal terms. Why so here? To find out, I consulted my (nearly) all-knowing pal — no, not Number1, but the artificial intelligence tool known as ChatGPT, or high-tech’s Cliff Clavin. (I use it so often I bought a $20 monthly subscription.)

Short answer from GPT Cliff: “There are structural, economic, and cultural reasons why happy hour is unusually prevalent in Palm Springs and Palm Desert. The phenomenon is not accidental; it is an intentional response to local market dynamics.”

Aha! To put a finer point on it: The summer heat suppresses lunch and early afternoon traffic among (we) retirees and (them) snowbirds, who eat smaller portions earlier and often, as they stretch a dollar. What’s more, all the restaurants and hotels use happy hours to nab us. Finally, the social culture and lifestyle rests on casual patio dining and the cities’ bar-crawling areas.

We’ve been to several. Some of our faves:

• Little Bar: This aptly named watering hole features “craft cocktails” by talented bartenders who treated me to a deliciously different version of one of my go-tos, the Manhattan. Oh, it’s a few doors down from a Mimmo’s, a good Italian restaurant we frequent that offers a happy hour repaste that goes from noon until nine of you sit at the bar.

• Tommy Bahama Restaurant & Bar: Tropical-style bar & patio with happy hour drinks and lighter fare. It’s part of a chain and an extension of the famous clothing brand, but it comes recommended.

• Kitchen 86 + Bar: It’s upscale and upbeat. Happy hours don’t go as late but are longer — from 12 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Great service.

Do you have any of your own to add? Please…

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Interstate 5 rolls right down California’s gullet — from its border with Oregon, down past the state capitol, through the giant fruit basket that is its San Joaquin Valley, finally descending to LA and San Diego. As the state’s main north-south artery it’s a heavily traveled route for passenger cars, RVs, and especially commercial trucks. I’ve driven it dozens of times, most recently as we head south chasing sunnier weather in “The Starship,” the name we’ve given our rig.

If you’ve ever wound up in the far right lane of most any road, you know the toll the eighteen wheelers can take on a highway. Weighted by all it takes to make the U.S. economy run, they pulverize a road’s surface. There are times when driving becomes paroxysms of bumps, shudders, shakes, and quakes. One of the truisms of the RV life is that it’s like owning a home in the midst of an incessant 4.5 earthquake.

But on this trip, I took special note of I-5’s long smooth stretches. Yeah, there were places over which the rig clattered, but for the most part, it was like still water. In a year, we’re put 15,000-plus miles on the Starship and driven through turnpikes and superhighways across some 30 states. I been astonished by what’s happening to the nation’s infrastructure. While states such as Indiana still have hellish main roads, many, including those in Texas, Louisiana, and Carolina’s have been a driver’s dream.

We spend a lot of time during the winter in San Antonio. More overpasses are being built there than Willie Nelson got years. They, too, have a story to tell, and it’s one that goes to the heart of our political divide. Yes, there’s government inefficiency and bureaucratic waste. Yes, there’s fraud. (We should spend more ferreting wastrels and thieves than we do pursuing immigrants.) But the moral of the road trip is this: There’s a difference between government spending and government investing. The roads I’ve been driving are asphalt and concrete examples of investing on a scale that no private entity would or could. We’re all better off as a result.

You would think the business class of the conservative right would especially recognize the difference. Rather than bellyaching about the taxes they so assiduously try to avoid, they should start debating government initiatives in their own familiar terms, holding them to the same account as a company capital expenditure: What’s my return? How do I spend money to save or make money?

Given our cold, calculating numbers-driven culture I’m sure that we could titrate even so-called soft costs into an ROI, or return on investment. Yes, yes, I know. I agree. Some things, like healthcare, should be judged on a moral standard — in keeping with the Judeo-Christian bearings to which we’ve long been beholden. But I’m searching for common ground.

So when I-5 speaks, all of us can listen.

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Our first leg on the road blessed us with a hopeful portent — as you can see from the photo.

It made me feel better, because the heavy lifting involved in planning and packing for three back-to-back trips, all amid the always too hectic holidays left me overwhelmed and cranky. Just ask the Beloved1. On a scale of 10, she’s a 12-level extrovert. She lives to travel, and she’s practiced at it. By contrast, I need time with my books, I’m poor at the details of filling up suitcases, and, if anything, I travel to live — with her.

We’ll be residing in the RV for the next four weeks. Thank heavens we’re finding our rhythms for the itinerant existence. We try to keep our drives between RV parks to three hours, and before the Marine calls me a wuss, many other Golden Agers follow this three-three-three rule — three hours, 300 miles, arrive by 3 p.m. Our 31-foot motor coach contains most of our home comforts. Like any home, though, it requires as much maintenance. The Beloved1 and I often wonder how we did it when with kids and work on our plates.

To confess, I’m addicted to convenience. Here’s what’s wrong with that: Any little inconvenience becomes a crisis about which to bellyache — sad when there’s so much real suffering in the world. Picture me genuflecting and making my Catholic sign-of-the-cross “roger that.”

You’d think that life would slow down at our ages. In some ways, it has for me, and not in a happy way. The past year knocked me out of my game with all the travel (six months) and a foot surgery that hobbled me for another two. I ceased playing pickleball, my fav form of exercise. I’m struggling to cope with my all-too-easily triggered frustrations, born of a life as a young runt who always had to try, try, try harder to keep up with the older, bigger boys. (Mom, why didn’t you red shirt me for first grade?) The macular degeneration that has fogged my central vision in one eye has wrenched in my works. I’m forever changing from one pair of eyeglasses to another and another and another. None seem to work well enough for seeing close up.

Ah well, it’s why the Beloved1 and I are so well matched. She’s the yin to my yang, unceasingly patient and sunny. It’s also the reason we can live in such close quarters for so long and still manage to get along.

She also grabs for all the gusto she can. Amen. Time flies. And it is running out. We live in a 55-plus retirement community, where the average age of our own niche is closer 80. I’ve seen how many men, especially, fade away in their octos. I’m not sure my kids have reached that realization that dear ol’ dad is heading to sunset.

Then I remind myself: There are still days that bring us rainbows.

Next stop: Palm Springs, CA.

In a nod to singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright’s 1972 ditty, today’s politics “stink like a dead skunk in the middle of road” — and for all the reasons you already know. Now it’s taken another odious turn. It’s in the form of my just received mail ballot for California’s Prop 50.

Prop 50 is an initiative, if passed, that will allow the state legislature to redraw the state’s Congressional districts to favor Democrats.

Favor Democrats! Pee yew. And I’m a Democrat.

What’s so sad is that California has it right. In 2010 the state enacted into existence an independent commission to determine Congressional districts a year after each decade’s census. This is how it should be. Take the partisanship out of a process more dubiously known as “gerrymandering.”

The process is as slithering as it sounds. It derives from Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry who in 1812 signed a bill that created a partisan Boston district that resembled a salamander. (Yeah, the scoundrels have been futzing with our elections that long!)

Since then, it’s been a way for the pols to “crack” a district to put a political party or black, ethnic, or immigrant Americans at the disadvantage. After they crack it, they “pack” it to help control a district by a party, race (white), or an otherwise socio-economically privileged cohort.

Gerrymandering might as well be a synonym for commandeering.

So by achieving all the things I abhor, why am I voting for the Election Rigging Response Act, as it’s properly known?

ITS NAME MAKES no pretense about its purpose. This constitutional amendment was placed on an upcoming November 4, 2025, special election ballot in response specifically to Texas’s mid-decade redistricting efforts, not to mention those by other red states, most notably such populace ones as Florida and Ohio. These are unvarnished attempts to stack the decks to maintain GOP control of Congress.

What makes the Texas effort so slimy is this: Normally, Congressional districts are drawn based on the results of every U.S. census conducted at the turn of every decade, but Texas, at the behest of President you-know-who, is redistricting midway through the decade. It’s a bald effort to affect the outcome of the 2026 Congressional elections.

If passed, Prop 50 would — and here’s the catch — temporarily replace California’s current congressional district maps with new ones drawn by the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature, to counter gains by Texas’ gerrymandering. Those districts, already defined by the proposed Prop 50, would remain intact be through 2030, when the independent commission would resume its work.

THERE ARE SOUND REASONS to abhor any proposition, not just 50, as one of my BFFs has long argued. They’re instruments of direct democracy. As such they represent the very reason the founding fathers, who feared rule by the masses, created the United States as a representative democracy.

What’s more, the adage applies: Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Nevertheless, since his reelection I’ve followed closely the unbridled excesses of Trump 2.0. While I understand the blowback against political rectitude and the left’s language police and its identity-driven cancel culture, Trump, Musk, Vought, and Miller have gone too far by way of policy and rhetoric, especially after the deplorable assasination of Charlie Kirk.

Capturing and deporting illegals without any semblance of due process? Denying medical care to those who can least afford it? Inserting the U.S. military into American cities? That is frightening: If Trump could summon a mob to takeover the capitol after he lost to Joe Biden he could certainly decide to impose martial law if an election turns against him.

GUESS WHAT DONALD ET AL? I don’t belong to Antifa or any other radical left wing group. I will not encourage anyone to violence — ever. I’m a left-leaning follower of Jesus. I am a second generation product of immigrants. In other words, I’m a normal, everyday American citizen who believes in the U.S. Constitution and its extraordinary durability.

And I don’t like what Trump, his GOP controlled Congress, and the Supreme Court hath wrought.

Yes, we can protest. However, the sheer sum of Trump’s moves compels me to support more concrete action.

I’m going to vote “yes” for Prop 50.

If nothing else, Prop 50 is symbolically important. It sends a message, and from a state with the nation’s largest economy. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking a huge political risk by assuming the role as Prop 50’s father. A loss could quash his now obvious presidential ambitions. But I take him at his word that he was moved to action by hearing over and again, “Somebody has to do something.”

Folks, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Prop 50 fights fire with fire. So be it.

Our well-traveled friend and Nircal neighbor, JH, tells us Savannah is one of her favorite cities because it “has an edge to it.” The Beloved1 gives her nod to Savannah, too. Me, I give mine to Charleston. To me, it has more of what makes them both unique. The old Southern homes that populate sections of both cities are grander and more stately in Charleston.

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To be fair, we spent just a day in each — not enough time to savor either one. To know a place beyond its tourist persona you have to spend time there, like the two weeks we spent in Matera, Italy, a city that tops my travels list and probably as a result of our extended stay.

We toured the historic parts of Savannah by horse carriage, an entirely apropos way for such an old city. In Charleston, we toured in a too-air-conditioned mini bus. We saw more, but I felt unduly separated from the sites.

Both are port towns. Both came off to me as what I call “boutique cities” — downtowns with many shops, bars, and restaurants.

Here’s a surprising fact: Charleston is South Carolina’s biggest city.

For as old as they each are — Charleston founded in 1680, Savannah in 1733 — both have a youthful vibe. Lots of young people. A young bartender we met in Charleston, grew up in Miami and went to college in Washington, D.C. She told us she chose Charleston as a more affordable place between both.

Both have rich histories, Charleston more so if only because it owns the start of the Civil War with the firing on Fort Sumter. Savannah was founded as a “blocking colony” to keep Spanish colonists in Florida from raiding its English rivals to the north. Savannah banned Catholics at its beginning because of fears they would create a surreptitious threat. (Just like the West Coast’s Japanese Americans of WWII; human cruelty to humans knows no time our place.)

In the end, these are both bucket-list destinations. We highly recommend both.

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GREENVILLE, Ala. — On arrival, the Beloved1 immediately puts her green, white, and blue pride-of-possession cover over the usually old, rough, dirty picnic table that comes with most RV sites. It’s a sweet ritual. Me, I head to the driver’s side to hook the rig to electricity, water, wastewater drain. This, while she deals with other inside sundry items we stowed for the drive.

This division of labor seems too old-school, gender-specific. Then again, it works for us. It’s become a ritual.

I’ve taken long trips by myself. Heavy labor. RVing is not an individual sport. Yet, we’ve met many a mature woman driving rigs alone. Strong, independent, brave.

The RV park here is tiny. Quiet. We only saw two people out and about. The big white propane tanks outside some of trailers gives witness to the full timers that live here. Many people opt for this life — tradesmen, traveling nurses, retirees. It’s affordable. See “Nomadland,” the Frances McDormand movie about dispossessed RVers. It’s true.

Our RV is sitting on a cul-de-sac site surrounded by towering trees with plush green crowns. Spring has given way to summer’s full bloom in this part of Alabama. It’s as close to being out in the woods as we’ve ever been.

We’re here for just a day, but the spot has put me in a contemplative state.

When I got divorced just before the Pandemic, I had no idea where I wanted to live. But I come from people who put family first. And I wanted to be close to the kids — even though one has moved to western Massachusetts, the other to LA. So my penny-wise, pound-foolish solution was to use some money from the sale of our Silicon Valley house to buy an RV.

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The first one was used, old, and small. Immediately, things began to break, including the motorized Murphy bed inside. I traded it for a bigger one. Still, the Beloved1 and I found it inadequate to our age and accustomed lifestyle. On a whim, during a trip to Palm Desert, we decided to visit the RV dealer next to the RV resort. Just to window shop. Kick tires.

Well, the pull was just too strong, and I wound up with a 31-foot Class A motor coach from a manufacturer known for its quality. It’s a high-class apartment on wheels. The economic truth of an RV: While real estate generally appreciates over time, an RV doesn’t; it’s worth less the moment you drive it off the lot.

Mastering the RV has been a steep learning curve. The dealers and manufacturers generally do a poor job of teaching you. On our maiden trip in the new RV to the Grand Canyon during an unanticipated late March winter blast, we discovered our furnace didn’t work. Froze our asses off.

Now, in year two, we’re conquering the rhythms of RVing. We space our stops three-to-four hours apart, each of which invariably turns into five or six-hour drive by the time we stop for lunch and to gas up. We aim to arrive by mid-afternoon. That gives us time to set up, hook up — and to kick back for cocktail hour.

As the Beloved1 says, her idea of camping is a four-star hotel. Almost ashamed to say, but, okay, we’re glampers.

I’m actually pleasantly surprised to see how much she’s taken to the RV. Me too. Not sure why. We’ve seen many places from a different POV. Witnessed the nation’s extraordinary variation of terrain and flora.

Met many nice people. Just last evening, we encountered the M’s out on an evening walk. We bonded immediately over our similar RVs, both by the same manufacturer. He’s Italian, like me, from Cleveland. She’s from Pittsburgh, my hometown. Small world.

Perhaps that’s the whole point of the RV: It brings the big world much closer.

When I wrote about feeling conflicted en route to my 50th college reunion, a friend responded with this ever so articulate comment about the upcoming milestone:

“Nothing quite so poignantly reminds us of the vast swath of life that is behind us, or of the precious brevity of that which is before us.”

And so I consider it a blessing that I encountered the National WWIi Museum, which houses the memories of one of our nation’s most tragic and most glorious of times. Before the war, we were divided — isolationists and interventionists. Pearl Harbor united us. We won — at a steep cost of 400,000 plus. But we would do well to recall — especially now — the achievements of the “greatest generation.”

As kids, we often went into the woods to play war. Back in the 50s and early 60s, the glory of WWII was still a fresh memory. We were surrounded by its mementos. One kid in our gang had a leather flyers helmet, a relic of his father’s service. My father was too young to join the fighting but served in the U.S. Army’s occupation force in Germany. I often perused his photos and scrapbooks from that time. And in 1962, I started watching “Combat!” with Vic Morrow as Sergeant "Chip" Saunders. Many of you remember, yes?

Despite portraying the grim side of men at war, “Combat!” couldn’t dispel the romance of it all. In real history it began badly for the United States. The Japanese devastated the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. We promptly lost the Philippines and thousands of American troops went on the “Bataan death march.”

The nation made a remarkable effort to raise a 16-million strong combined services force — and to supply them. In the end, it became clear and simple, especially with the liberation of Germany’s heinous concentration camps: The good guys won, and the bad guys lost.

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From the kid who reveled in playing war with his pals, I lived through national dilemma that the Viet Nam war became. I could have been drafted. Up to my cohort’s draft lottery, I was consumed with my freshman year classmates with the giant “what-if?” Every day, we discussed the alternatives. Risk pulling a low draft number? Leave for Canada? Join ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corp) program at the college?

The potential shame of dodging to the north eliminated that option. ROTC would have required cutting my then long and plentiful locks. Never! So that meant facing the draft. In the end, I ended up at 155, high enough to avoid going into the services as Viet Nam was winding down.

Perhaps because I could have been drafted I have harbored a prurient curiosity about war. I list my favorite college class as “WWI in History and Literature.” And I have read widely — fiction and non-fiction — about the Civil War and nearly all of its American-involved successors.

Our visit to the WWII museum didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. Still it was a rich multimedia experience, giving voice up and down the ranks of those who served through audio, video, and its artifact exhibits. As a history buff, I’ve been to countless museums but this one outdoes them all if only for its importance.

The U.S. fought to make the world safe for democracy. It freed Europe from the crimes of fascism. We assumed a role afterward, sometimes wrongly, of standing up to ideological threat of Communism.

In the end, during our divisive political climate, the WWII museum stands as a beacon light, reminding us of all the white, black, Japanese, and Native Americans who served —and sacrificed their lives — to the idea at the core of our nation: Freedom for all, the rule of law, a government for and by the people.

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This morning’s New York Times headline struck a chord for the Beloved1 and me. “At U.S Masses, the Dawn of a Homegrown Pope Brings an Air of Electricity.” So it was that we headed to Mass in tiny Duson, Louisiana, excited as well about the prospect of getting some local reaction to the first ever American-born pontiff — news, by the way, that brought me to tears of hope and relief because I firmly believe Leo XIV will be a strong moral counterweight to the soulless Trump Administration.

But the tiny parish’s Nigerian priest said not a word about Robert Prevost’s elevation, even though the Pope hails from Creole bloodlines. Nothing. Instead, he delivered a Mother’s Day homily encouraging moms in their roles of taking care of the kids and cooking while we men go off to work as providers.

Even though he likes to cook for himself every now and again, the women back in Africa just kept chasing him out of kitchen, he told us.

His words seemed particularly antiquated even in today’s rural deep South — at least to my California sensibilities. I feared the Beloved1 was going to bolt out of the pew.

But then again that was his lived experience.

I’ve seen its effects among friends, too. We recently had a spirited dinner-party discussion that started when I said I worried about my kids’ seeming aspirituality. They’re good, responsible kids, both now is their thirties. Still, I wondered aloud at table about where they would find their own moral compass — and how they would pass it on to their own children.

What my guests heard, however, is that I worried that my children weren’t practicing Catholics, like me. One, a gay married man, who left Catholic seminary years ago and is now an Anglican priest, became especially impassioned. So much so that he apologized the next day. “I guess I’m a recovering Catholic,” he texted.

Such was his lived experience, having felt rejected by the Church for his sexual orientation.

And so it goes.

The trek to Louisiana is a bucket list experience for me. I’ve never set toe in the state. Nor have I ever visited New Orleans, where we’re headed next.

Our Duson RV park provided plenty of southern hospitality and cooking. The staff whipped up a complimentary Mother’s Day dinner of beef stew, green beans with lots of bacon, and — new to me — “rice stuffing.” It was a high-carb, high-fat repast but damn it was tasty. I savored every bite.

Our 27-day RV swing to my 50th college reunion officially began in San Antonio, where lives the Beloved1’s sister. We’ve spent a lot of time there during the past year, and the city is thriving — new development everywhere. Highway projects, too. You can’t go anywhere without encountering major construction.

On day one, we headed out on Interstate 10 toward an RV park in Highlands, Texas, just east of my namesake city. Long stretches of 10 are like moving across still water. The road, a major trucking route, is new, wide, and silky — welcome conditions to any driver. But long narrow stretches are like running a gauntlet, requiring an inordinate amount of concentration to avoid all the trucks to the left and the temporary concrete barriers to the right.

There’s no doubt that the nation’s key infrastructure was in awful shape until President Biden started his hallmark effort to improve it.

Amidst all the divisiveness over immigration, transgender rights, other cultural differences, we often overlook the virtues of government investment. The many improvements taking place across our interstate system is one of them.

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Highlands, Texas, sits along the San Jacinto River not far where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. (I don’t care what Pretend Putin wants to call it.) After a BBQ rib dinner delivered by Grubhub to the RV to go with the bottle of Pinot we had aboard, we walked over the river shore to witness a sunset, silhouetted by a long chain of refinery stacks. See picture above.

By the way, this marked the first time we used the delivery-fee-free adjunct to our Amazon Prime membership. Great option for travelers and other glampers.

The San Jacinto Riverfront RV Resort was large and well-kept, with a mixture of homes and cabins mixed in with its RV sites. We’d stay here again.

Next stop: Duson, LA, en route to New Orleans.

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