Author: Tom Darby

Comfort food; that’s what I need at this moment.

It comes after I watched hundred’s of law enforcement escort a fallen Bureau of Indian Affairs officer to her final resting place. To see the line of every kind of police , sheriff, state, federal and tribal vehicle — with it’s blue and red lights flashing, in this sad procession is heart wrenching.

It’s made even more wrenching when the back story is known. Officer Denise Phoenix died on Valentine’s Day jus’ months after she being exposed to chemical fumes emitted from a meth-lab she and her fellow officers busted up in Montana.

This is not the worst of it.

Eight years ago, Officer Phoenix lost her two children, Justin and Shasta Surace to a driver who suffered a medical event of some sort while driving. Also killed in the crash were her brother Ronald Phoenix and the driver of the errant car, Lafayette Lee.

I was one of the first people to come upon the scene and attempt to offer aid.

Since that time she fought and eventually won a battle to have a barrier erected dividing the north and south bound roadway on which three of her family members perished. The skid marks on the barrier are proof that lives are being saved since its installation.

She passed that spot this morning — one final time along the Pyramid Highway, en route to Nixon, Nevada. There are three crosses erected in the spot where her children and brother died.

She also passed by the barrier that she was so instrumental in having put up to save lives.

Currently, a request is before Nevada’s U.S. Senator Harry Reid to have that section of the Pyramid Highway between Sparks Boulevard and Highland Drive to the north and Golden View Drive to the south named in her honor. It would be fitting for this courageous officer who did so much for this community and lost so much at the same time.

Yes, I need some comfort food to nourish the sadness I feel for Officer Phoenix’s family. Then perhaps a good cry as well.

Tommy and Adam visited Grandpa every year when it was time to gather the hay. The summer was no exception. Except that they got in an awful lot of trouble that summer. They had lots of help from each other.

Adam talked Tommy into doing the darnedest thing. He talked him into sneaking into Mr. Breedon’s watermelon patch…in broad daylight! Adam offered Tommy a bit of his wisdom “Nobody would ever think we’d be crazy enough to steal water melons in the middle of the day.” Tommy took the bait, hook, line and sinker.

They crept and sneaked and belly crawled their way into the patch. They found the biggest, sweetest watermelon they had ever laid their eyes on. It was so big that, it took both of them to pick it up. Then they started to sneak out.

Click! Click!

Adam took off at a dead run. He left Tommy standing there, balancing that big old eye-popping watermelon in his arms. Tommy was hanging onto it for dear life.

Bang! Bang!

Later that evening, after Grandpa cleaned the rock salt out of Tommy’s hide and tanned Adams, they sat down to dessert and a quiet conversation. “Well, boys, guess you learned a thing or two today.” Grandpa said. It was a statement more than a question.

“Yes, sir,” they responded together. Neither boy could find the courage to look Grandpa in the eye, because each knew that they had done a bad thing. Stealing was wrong.

Grandpa cleared his throat and said, “Never under estimate the number of nobody’s in the world, boys. Nobody can suddenly become somebody especially if you’re making off with his prize melon. Understand?”

The boys replied, “Yes. Sir”

“Also, don’t ever expect your brother to bail you out of trouble that you got yourself into. He could end up leaving you holding that melon. Correct?” Grandpa continued.

“Yes, Grandpa,” they said in one voice.

Grandpa chuckled out loud and then concluded, “Finally, Tommy, you should have ducked when you heard the ‘click-click’ while stealing that melon. Now, pass your Grandpa another piece, Tommy would you?”

O Columbine, lovely purple flower,
Light like the last morning star;
Bright as the rising evening star;
Come unto those in this needed hour
With beauty, comfort near and far,
Bringing forth Christ’s healing power.

There are times when I just want to write. It doesn ‘t matter what the subject is or if I know all the facts.

It ‘s just a case of needing to write. Many times I am hit by what I called the ‘writing bug’ late at night, after everyone including myself has laid down for the night. It is difficult to say why this is.

In all honesty, I thought writing would be my ticket upward in this world ever in need of more and more information. However I’m still a weekend news reporter with very little  to show for picking up his pen save middle age, which comes on me quickly.

When I look around, I’ve come to the conclusion that having good communication and reasoning skills are not enough. Now I wish I had learned to work with my hands repairing engines or doing piece-work in some factory.

Certainly, neither of those two jobs would have been as satisfying as seeing or hearing my words being put to use, but at least I might feel somewhat accomplished . Right now I don’t feel accomplished at anything, especially when I see others my age and younger moving ahead of me in their chosen career fields.

A few years ago I was attack for my thoughts and beliefs. I was accused of being unethical; however it anyone were to truly take the time to dig down beyond all the crap that has been said of me, they ‘d find people who were and remain afraid of being discovered for having no position other than to attack others .

No, I didn’t take any of the rhetoric seriously. How can one?

These sorts of’ people value very little in themselves and only feel good when they think they ‘ve hurt others. All they managed to do was get me fired from a very short­ sighted liberal newspaper .

For that I’ll take credit alone. None of these people are important enough to have caused such a thing with their twisting of sentences and out-and-out lying.

And most of what they said and did was exactly that fabrication by rephrase .

But rather than run and hide, I have a great desire to continue writing . This is what I enjoy, though there is very little fame or fortune in it.

This is when I am at my happiest.

Perhaps someday I will find a greater reward than a part­ time job or working for a mediocre company. Maybe one day I’ll find that just-right relationship where they actually value my ability to connect words and thought together in a cohesive sentence.

My 15-year-old son, Kyle made three very interesting and pointed statements today. I found them to be both funny and true.

And I thought I’d share them with you.

My new cell phone gives me problems from time to time. I handed it to Kyle this afternoon to fix.

He resolved my difficulty within seconds, handing my phone back to me and saying, “If it weren’t for us kids, you parents would be technologically challenged.”

While on our way to the store, Kyle and I were listening to a radio talk show. They were discussing all the new laws in the Golden State. That prompted this response from him, “As I understand it, Nevada is the new west coast since California doesn ‘t think the U.S. exists .”

As we were checking out, I told Kyle to go grab himself a soda pop. He told ·me, “I can’t have a soda even though I want one because I gotta keep myself clean.”

Each one got a laugh out of me.

Working until midnight and crashing in one of the production studios to sleep, I was barely asleep before it was time to get up to be on-air by 6 a.m. My workday ended at 12:15 p.m. but the wife had me run a chore for her; wash the car.

Simple little task.

Don’t bet on it! That turned into a real fiasco.

The wash I normally use used to allow customers to buy gas and a car wash at the pump. They stopped that practice and I ended up going to the bank to get cash.

At the first bank the ATM was out of money. I’ve never heard of such a thing!

It’s a money-operation and there’s no cash in the machine! Give me a friggin’ break.

So it’s off to the next closest bank.

The route is right through the stupidest drivers in the world. People with their left blinker lights on, moving right and cutting me off. Stuff like that.

But I got the money, I got the car washed and I got home in time. It is time for bed, I’m thinking.

NOT!

My bed has been pulled apart and the sheets are being washed. Bless my son’s God-mother, but I wish she would have had better timing.

The sheets are tumbling dry now and soon I’ll lay down. Sleep which seemed so far away is now so close.

Tomorrow morning when I roll out of bed at 3:30, I’ll probably not even remember all this.

It’ll be later in the morning that I think about how my day got twisted by a car wash request and an ATM and I’ll laugh at it.

My appointment at the VAMC went well. That is to say I didn’t have to stand around or sit around all that long to see my doctor. Nor did I get a ‘script change as I thought I was going to get, so no long wait at the pharmacy either.

Instead, I had to try and explain to my MD why I refuse to take commercial flights since September 2001. He thought it was out of some sort of phobia or something.

Not at all!

It took me nearly all of an hour to get him to understand that the decision to not fly in a purposeful choice. I based this choice on the actions of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Safety Administration, as I have researched and learned of those two agencies screw ups over the years.

First, neither one target the correct people when it comes to searches. Grandma isn’t the threat and neither is the big busted blonde.

The profile is a younger male of dark complexion, well groomed and intelligent. I’m the whitest guy I know and I had to undergo a physical search.

Next are the things they call weapons or potential weapons. In my book my ball-point pen is more of a threat than the unbagged three-once bottle of shampoo.

They’ll take the shampoo and leave the pen. And have you ever seen how a woman’s high heel can pierce the skin?

Now they have the express system, where a person can undergo a background check and if they pass, they can jus’ by-pass the security lines. What a bunch of crap!

The background check is done by the FBI.

This is the same agency that allowed a woman to work for them in a classified position for nearly five years even though she a had fake marriage license and fake documentation to be in the U.S.  Boy, do I trust them to do the background check properly…not!

Yeah, I can go through the security check points and get on a passenger jet. It’s not a phobic reaction to the possibility of dying.

Instead I jus’ don’t want to go through a stupid procedure that only “creates” a “feeling” of public safety. This is MY choice and I don’t need any meds to help me with it.

My doctor still doesn’t fully understand what I am saying about all this. Instead, I ended up walking away — thinking of myself as obsessed with my need to be correct.

This has been a rough day.

The telephone kept ring and people kept knocking at the front door. Simply put, it was too busy around the house to sleep.

It started at 8:30 a.m. and the last call came in at 4 p.m. The last visitor at the front door was somewhere around 2 o’clock.

Thank goodness, but still too late to nap.

All I wanted was to lie down and sleep for a little longer; too take a nap before I had to put in my shift until midnight. Such is the life of a radio jock around Christmas time.

And I still want to lie down and sleep. Hopefully, things will be better come tomorrow—nope, wait, I have a friggin’ doctors appointment at the VAMC in the early morning.

I like to see my MD’s before they’ve had to deal with the onslaught of patients throughout the day.

It doesn’t help my exhaustion one bit now. That appointment was made over a month ago.

And as I think about it, I’ll probably get a change in my meds and that means waiting at the pharmacy for another hour. Oh, crap—the though leaves me even more exhausted.

At least I can laugh at myself and at the situation. I really thought I was helping myself by getting an early morning appointment.

Wrong. I will be back home by 1 a.m. and possibly asleep an hour later.

It’s the best I can do. With that, I am looking forward to whatever amount of sleep I can get.

Right now though, I have to refocus my energy and attention to the job at hand; re-writing and re-gurgitating the local news every hour. It’s all part of my life as a disc jockey.

Tossed wide my ol’ loop for that pony to wear.
And knew from his eye that I too must beware.
We dance back and forth as the dust flies thick.
And I know’d that he’s angry with each snort and each kick.

And jus’ when I figger I’m in for one helluva fight,
That’s when my wife chimes, “Honey, Good night!”
Well, I open my eyes with this wild looking stare.
I’m jus’ snappin’ broncs from my old easy chair!

Today I was thinking about how much I miss going to church on Sunday and as things go, one thought rolled into the next and so forth, until I got to thinking about the first time I realized I was an independent person; separate from my parents and siblings. It’s a thought that had never before occurred to me.

It was my birthday 1975, early morning as I recall. I was laying on my right side, facing the wall, on the top bunk of the bed set I shared with my younger brother.

As I struggled to wake up, I looked at my left hand. As I looked at it, I noticed my little finger.

There was nothing wrong with the hand or my finger. Instead it looked more or less the same as it had the night before, so what made me notice it and why was it suddenly so interesting?

It was simply the fact that it had turned 15 years old, jus’ like me.

I was marveling at the idea that it had been with me all these years and I had never paid it much attention.

That led me to take notice of myself; my personality and my private thoughts. All the years before I had taken what others, such as my parents, teachers and friends thought and believed and made them a part of my own.

On that day, my fifteenth birthday, I came to realize I was as complete a person as God had designed me. Of everything that day–this is all I can remember about turning 15.

So this morning, as I thought about this and remembering how I felt, it occurred to me that God doesn’t need a church to teach us a lesson about ourselves. He’s a gentle preacher and I really enjoyed our sunrise chat.