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Labor Day - A Tip of the Hat to the American Worker

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How often has a national holiday come and gone without many of us ever giving a passing thought to its history? I know I have. Remember Flag Day? Most of us don't. But Labor Day? I give credit to one man... my dad, who most reminds me of the value and purpose of this national holiday.    He was orphaned as a youngster. With minimal education and training, he set out alone to the big city to find a job. He found it, or it found him, in the stock yards of Kansas City. " School " consisted of killing cattle and moving the carcass to the next " Station " of the slaughterhouse process. It was a hard job. In 1923, he was a tiny segment of the process that slaughtered approximately 2,631,808 heads in that single year. Jumping decades ahead, when I was in high school and he was still butchering in the neighborhood grocery store, he gave me some stark advice. I will remember it until the day I die. He said, "Son, get a good education, then get a job where you have s...
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  Blog July 2025 The Writing Mood Music has always been a key part of my life, especially when I write. I've heard that writers retreat to quiet, isolated spaces to work without interruptions. Not me. Over the years, my taste in music has shifted from U2, the Beatles, Nirvana, and Alice in Chains to Mozart, Brahms, Prokofiev, and Bruckner. As time races away, I’ve reflected on my younger years and found myself drawn to the great outdoors and different tastes in music. I’ve always been what some have called outdoorsy. And that is true: from mountain climbing, swimming in the ocean, golfing, hunting and fishing. Now, I maintain a hunting lease on a couple of thousand acres of land off the Caprock in Graza County, Texas. It is a great escape, especially at sunset. My wife and I enjoy sitting on the tailgate of our truck, sipping a cold drink, and not saying a word. The sounds of the vast open spaces are more than enough to soothe us into a peaceful, relaxing, and creative mood...
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Trust but Verity

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  Trust but Verify Blog May 2025   Summertime, and the living is easy…, so says Ella Fitzgerald. With one glance around, I agree with her. My summertime is a smooth ride: kids and grandkids are flying high; school is winding down; our eldest, Emily, is home from a semester in Rome; Gwen and I are enjoying the fruits of our labors of over fifty years of policing for me, and teaching for Gwen. These years have been the cherry on top of the dessert. It is the pleasure we enjoy with our little road trips to the small towns of West Texas and throughout the USA and Israel. Our book signing ventures have ranged from the steps of the LBJ Library in Austin to the historical plaza at the San Albino Cathedral in Mesilla, New Mexico; to the vast open agricultural fields of Dimmitt, Texas, on to the bookstores of Canyon and Plainview; and eastward to the canyons of New York City and the NYPD First Precinct, the home of the World Trade Center. And last, but certainly not least, to T...
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