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I saw a post the other day from Ella Emhoff, the daughter of former Vice President Kamala Harris. She was laying her anxieties out like laundry on the line—worries about global warming, her angst over the state of the world, worries about things so big that none of us, not even her famous mother, could fix with a snap of the fingers.

“I experience a lot of climate anxiety, like a lot of us do,” she said on TikTok.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not making light of her feelings. Anxiety’s real enough—it’s like a stubborn dandelion in your front yard.

You can mow it down, pull at it, scold it, and even spray it with fancy chemicals, but it pops back up when you least expect it. What I want to tell Ella, if she’d listen, is that her problem isn’t the dandelion itself.

It’s thinking she can turn the whole world into a golf-course-green lawn.

Global warming isn’t keeping her awake at night. Not really.

What’s keeping her up is the idea that it’s her job to fret about it nonstop, as if her tossing and turning will lower the temperature a single degree. That’s the trick anxiety plays—it makes us think the size of our worry should match the size of the problem.

But that’s like bringing a teacup to catch Niagara Falls. You’ll only end up wet and miserable.

My grandma used to say, “Worrying is like carrying an umbrella indoors. It don’t stop the rain, but it sure makes it hard to move around the house.”

That woman had a way of boiling complicated things down to cornbread and beans. If you’ve control over a situation, then do something about it. If you don’t, well, fretting won’t make the clouds part any faster.

I wish I could sit with that young lady over a plate of pancakes and tell her about the time I nearly gave myself an ulcer worrying about Y2K.

Remember that? They said the whole world would shut down at midnight.

Banks would collapse, planes would fall from the sky, refrigerators would quit, cold turkey. I filled the pantry with enough canned beans to feed a small army.

Well, January 1st rolled around, and guess what? My toaster still worked, and I had beans until Easter of last year. That’s what worry bought me: heartburn and a wife who still teases me about the “Beanpocalypse.”

The truth is, life gives you two baskets. One’s labeled “Things I Can Do Something About.” The other says “Things That Ain’t Mine to Fix.”

Most of our anxieties come from mixing up the baskets. You’ll notice the sun still comes up, grass still grows, and the dog still needs walking, whether you pace the floor or not.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about the world. Of course, we should recycle, vote, and do our part to be good neighbors on this planet.

But there’s a difference between doing your duty and putting the whole globe on your shoulders like Atlas. That’s not noble—that’s exhausting, and exhaustion doesn’t change anything except your mood.

What I want her—and anyone else knotted up with anxiety—to know is this: peace comes from learning the fine art of letting go. It’s okay to set the heavy things down.

It’s okay to admit you’re not the grand puppet master of history. Most of us are just trying to keep the car gassed up, the bills paid, and the cat from scratching the couch.

And you know what? That’s enough.

So if I could tell Kamala’s daughter anything, it would be this: Plant yourself a garden, real or imagined. Weed it when you can, water it when you’re able, and then sit back in the evening and admire the marigolds.

The world’s problems may still loom like thunderclouds, but at least your little patch of earth will be in order. And here’s the kicker—sometimes tending to that little garden does more good than all the worrying in the world, because a peaceful person spreads peace, and that’s the only climate change we can truly count on.

It’s funny how silence can scream. Used to be, the quiet was something I craved—especially after a long day of deadlines, bad coffee, and folks who insisted on forwarding every email twice, just in case I missed it the first time.

But lately, silence doesn’t feel like peace. It feels like a door that was once open and now won’t budge.

I noticed it first after the phone stopped ringing at night. I’d call and get the usual, “You always call right when I’m about to eat,” followed by twenty minutes of them not eating because they were too busy telling me about the neighbor’s new truck or the birds at the feeder.

Somehow, their voice made the world smaller, more manageable, like I wasn’t just out here trying to steer my ship alone in a sea of noise. And then one day, it was quiet.

When someone you love slips out of your daily routine and into memory, it leaves a shape behind—like a pothole in your favorite road, just big enough to rattle your bones every time you hit it. You keep driving it anyway, even though you know where it is.

Buddy, my dog, doesn’t understand any of this, of course. He knows I’ve been sitting too long and sighing too much.

He’ll nose his leash and thump his tail like, “Time to get back to the land of the living, boss.”

Dogs are better than people at moving forward. They grieve, sure, but they don’t wallow.

They sniff, they wag, they keep going. So, the other day, I followed his lead.

We walked to the river, where the cottonwoods rustled like an old record playing just out of tune. I sat on a bench that still bore initials carved into the wood—someone else’s way of marking that they, too, had once been here, once loved someone enough to leave their names behind.

And I thought, maybe silence isn’t just an absence, it’s a place where something new begins. It’s kind of like the space between breaths, or the pause before the first note of a song, where one listens instead of talking.

I heard the river that day—not just the splash, but the rhythm, a meadowlark in the distance, and the sound of my boots settling in the dust. And I heard myself whisper, “I miss you,” not because I thought anyone could perceive it, but because I needed to say it out loud.

When we got home, Buddy curled up beside me, like he always does, and I did something I hadn’t done in weeks: I played a voicemail I’d saved.

Their voice. Just saying, “Hey, it’s me. Call when you can.”

It still calmed me. Still reminded me that love doesn’t disappear just because someone’s gone quiet.

And now, in the loudest kind of silence, I’m starting to hear life again—not all at once, but enough to know that tomorrow holds a bit of hope. That maybe grief, like music, has rests between the notes for a reason.

So, if you’re there—sitting in the silence—don’t rush it. But don’t fear it either.

Let it speak to you. Let it heal a little of what it broke.

And when you’re ready, lace up your shoes, grab the leash, and let the dog lead the way back to living because we ain’t supposed to stay still forever.

Every morning when I slide into the studio chair and flip on the microphone, I remind myself that not everybody is awake yet. Some folks are just pulling on socks with their eyes half-shut, while others are nursing that first cup of coffee like it’s an IV drip straight from heaven’s percolator. My job is to nudge them into the day gently—like tapping a snooze button that tells a joke.

Well, this morning, the calendar whispered something I couldn’t resist sharing: National Bad Poetry Day.

Now, most holidays are about food. You get hot dogs on July Fourth, turkey on Thanksgiving, and Candy Canes at Christmas.

But bad poetry? That’s a feast of a different sort. It’s calories for the funny bone.

So, I did what any red-blooded, sleep-deprived radio host would do. I picked up my pen, scribbled a few lines, and unleashed upon the unsuspecting public my masterpiece of terrible rhyme:

My shoe is loud.
It screams like cheese.
Hanging on a mashed potato cloud,
Flapping in the garbage breeze.

I let it sit there a moment, like an old dog fart nobody wanted to claim. The studio went quiet except for the air conditioner humming like a nervous cricket.

Then I chuckled, because if you can’t laugh at your bad poetry, you’re probably taking yourself too seriously. The phone lit up.

“Tom,” said one caller, “what exactly does cheese sound like when it screams?”

“I reckon it’s somewhere between a cat with a hairball and a screen door in a windstorm.”

That seemed to satisfy him, though I’m not sure why. Another caller said my poem reminded her of high school cafeteria lunches. She wasn’t clear if that was a compliment, but I’ll take it.

Now, here’s the thing about bad poetry: it’s honest. Nobody sets out to write a bad poem; it just falls out that way, like when you try to fold a fitted sheet.

You give it your best, and it still looks like you wrapped up a toddler in a cotton burrito. And somehow, that effort makes it better.

Way back in the day, my grandma used to write little rhymes on scrap paper. She didn’t call them poems—she called them “notes for the soul.”

Most of them didn’t rhyme right, and sometimes they drifted off without an ending. But they always made you feel something, even if it was confused.

That’s the spirit of National Bad Poetry Day. It’s not about impressing anyone with Shakespearean sonnets or Emily Dickinson’s wisdom. It’s about giving words a chance to tumble out, crooked and clumsy, and letting them wobble around like toddlers learning to walk.

Truth be told, I think we all ought to celebrate more bad-poetry days in life. Perfection is overrated.

Imagine if every biscuit had to come out of the oven perfectly round and golden. Imagine if every family photo had to be frame-worthy.

Imagine if every joke had to land. We’d all be starving, pictureless, and humorless.

Instead, life’s better with a few burned biscuits, crooked smiles, and clunky poems about squealing cheese on potato clouds. It keeps us humble.

It keeps us human. And it sure gives us something to laugh about.

So after my little poetic performance this morning, I invited listeners to call in with their own. One man recited a heartfelt ode to his lawnmower that always quit halfway down the yard.

My lawnmower wheezes, sputters, and stops,
Right in the middle, where the grass still flops.
Half the yard’s tidy, the rest looks wild,
Like a barber who quit on a screaming child.

A woman shared a dramatic haiku about her husband’s socks.

Holes grin at my face,
laundry basket overflows,
footprints of defeat.

By the end of the hour, we’d filled the airwaves with some of the worst poetry ever spoken into a microphone—and it was beautiful. As I packed up to leave, I realized something: bad poetry might be the truest poetry of all, because it’s not trying to be perfect.

And that, my friends, is worth more than any polished sonnet ever written. So here’s my advice: grab a napkin, grab a pen, and let your thoughts tumble out.

Write the kind of lines that would make your high school English teacher wince, then read them out loud to someone who needs a smile. Because in the end, life ain’t perfect stanzas—it’s measured in mashed potato clouds and garbage breezes.

I woke up this morning determined to tackle the day. Not with energy, exactly, but at least with pants on. That’s progress at 65.

Buddy, my ever-faithful mutt, stared at me like he wasn’t buying it. He’s got this way of watching me—head tilted, eyebrows doing half the work—that makes me feel like I should explain myself. So I did.

“I’m going to get going. Right after coffee. Maybe shave. Maybe not.”

He blinked.

The truth is, lately, I’ve been dragging. Not sad, exactly, just off.

Like my get-up-and-go got up and left without so much as a note on the fridge.

I blamed the heat, the news, the neighbor’s rooster—but mostly, I think I’ve just fallen out of rhythm, my days blending and no clear beat to walk to.

So I sat outside with my mug and Buddy curled under the bench, panting like he’d just run a marathon in his dreams. I watched the shadows shorten, thought about the weeds I wasn’t pulling and the laundry I wasn’t folding, and I heard myself say out loud, “Maybe today just needs one good thing.”

That was it. One thing, and not a to-do list, or a life overhaul. Just one good thing.

I started small. I watered the plant that’s somehow survived our benign neglect. Then I texted my son a dumb joke about jalapeños—something about Hollapinos being the kids of a Dutch-Filipino couple.

He responded with three crying-laughing emojis and a “Dad, no,” which made it feel like a win.

Later, I found myself putting on real pants—not the good jeans, mind you, but not sweats either. That led to a slow walk with Buddy, who sniffed every bush like it held state secrets.

We waved to the new mail lady. She waved back. And wouldn’t you know it, the day didn’t feel so heavy anymore.

Now, sitting on the porch as the sun slips down behind the hills, I’m sipping a splash of whiskey and thinking about that one good thing. It turns out, when you aim small, you still move forward.

And if tomorrow feels sluggish too, well, I know what to do. Just one thing.

That’s enough to keep the beat.

We wanted to be adults so bad. I mean, who doesn’t remember those wide-eyed dreams of independence—the freedom to eat cereal for dinner, stay up late, and buy all the soda we wanted without anyone telling us “no”? We thought adulthood was a ticket to the good life. Now look at us: stressed, broke, tired, and downright excited when the laundry’s folded.

There I was the other morning, standing in front of the washer and dryer, feeling a curious kind of triumph. Buddy was nearby, sprawled out, giving me the look of someone who wasn’t sure if he should celebrate or hope I’d share some of that freshly folded sock magic.

You see, laundry is one of those chores that sneaks up on you, especially when you’re juggling work, family, and the constant hum of everyday life. It piles up faster than you expect, and suddenly you’re staring down a mountain of shirts, socks, and whatever that mystery sock-less sock was doing under the couch.

But this time, instead of grumbling like I usually do, I paused. I took satisfaction in crossing that task off my list.

It wasn’t just about clean clothes—it was a small victory in a day that otherwise felt a bit out of control. I found myself smiling at the simple rhythm of life—sort, wash, dry, fold.

It felt oddly grounding.

Later that night, I poured myself a glass of straight whiskey—not the polite little sips, but the kind that warms your bones and clears your mind a bit. Buddy gave me the side-eye, wondering why humans make things so complicated.

I told him, “Sometimes, buddy, it’s the little things. A clean shirt, a full tank of gas, a good dog by your side—that’s what keeps the wheels turning.”

Then, I thought about how many of us are chasing things—better jobs, bigger houses, more stuff. And in that chase, we forget to celebrate the small wins, the quiet moments where things are working just enough for us to breathe a little easier.

The solution, I realized, isn’t to sweat every little stressor or dream up some grand overhaul of life. No, it’s about breaking the day down to manageable pieces. Like laundry: don’t let it pile up until it’s a mountain. Wash a load. Fold a load. Celebrate it. Then do it again tomorrow.

I know it sounds simple, but sometimes simple is what we need. I shared this thought with a friend the next day, someone who was feeling overwhelmed by work and family demands. He laughed and said, “Tom, maybe I need to start folding my laundry with a little more joy.”

That’s the spirit. Life’s not going to slow down for us. The bills, the meetings, the endless to-do list—they’ll keep coming. But if we can find little anchors—small victories to remind us we’re handling it—it makes the weight lighter.

So, when you face that next chore, the annoying task, try seeing it as a small win rather than just a thing to get over with. Celebrate the little victories—clean laundry, a hot cup of coffee, a smile from your dog or a friend.

Those are the moments that build a life worth living. And if that feels like too much today, then start with folding your socks, pouring yourself a real drink, or telling your dog he’s the best.

Tomorrow, try another.

We wanted to be adults, alright, but maybe being an adult means learning how to celebrate the small stuff. And that’s not so bad after all.

Buddy and I tried to sit out on the porch this morning, but we didn’t make it far past the first cup of coffee. The air was so thick with smoke you could chew it. I swear it smelled like somebody had tossed a wet pine log on the world’s biggest campfire.

Now, I grew up in places where the summer sky was supposed to smell like hayfields, barbecue, and maybe the occasional whiff of cow. But here we were, sitting there with our eyes watering, looking like we were crying over a country song, and all because some fella thought it was a fine day to grind metal in the middle of a tinderbox.

Don’t get me wrong, I know accidents happen. Still, I can’t help but think there’s a kind of common sense that says, “Maybe don’t throw sparks around when the grass crunches under your boots.”

It’s the same brand of common sense that tells you not to fry bacon shirtless or poke a sleeping rattlesnake with a stick. Simple rules. Life-saving rules.

The Rancho Haven Fire was chewing up 1,400 acres by the time I poured my second cup of coffee. Crews had stopped forward progress, thank the Lord, but it was still burning hot and heavy.

There are 175 fire personnel and a whole squadron of aircraft out there, beating back the flames. That’s 175 families waiting at home, praying, while their loved ones were out doing battle with a fire armed with nothing more than courage, sweat, a Pulaski, and maybe a shovel.

I don’t need to imagine what kind of grit it takes to run toward fire when the rest of us are running the other way. I worked the line for two seasons back in the early ’90s.

When I looked over at Buddy, he had his bandana around his nose like some outlaw who got lost on the way to a train robbery. His eyes were half-shut from the smoke, but he wasn’t about to go back inside.

That dog has the stubborn loyalty of a mule in boots. I reckon if the fire ever got too close, Buddy’d stand guard with the garden hose while I packed the car.

We sat there listening to the planes overhead. You don’t know how comforting the sound of a helicopter can be until you hear it carrying water instead of tourists. Every thump of those blades sounded like a promise, “We got this. Hang tight.”

Now, Buddy doesn’t understand much about acreage or containment percentages, but he does know when I’m worried. He pressed against my leg, looked up at me with those eyes that say, “It’s alright, boss.” And right then, I figured he was right. Worrying wasn’t going to help the fire crews one bit. All I could do was pray for their safety, keep the coffee hot, and maybe be ready to lend a hand if neighbors needed it.

The truth is, living out here means you accept certain risks. Wildfires are one of them.

You keep your grass trimmed, clear your brush, and stay ready to load up the important things—family, pets, photos, and maybe that one cast-iron skillet that’s seasoned better than most people’s marriages.

But you also learn that neighbors will show up with trailers, casseroles, and chainsaws the minute you need them. It’s the unspoken pact of country living.

By the time I finished my coffee, I decided to move us back inside, where the air didn’t sting so bad. Buddy followed, grumbling about giving up his porch watch.

I promised him we’d be back out there as soon as the air cleared, and maybe I’d even grill us up some burgers. He perked up at that.

Funny thing about fire—it can scare the daylights out of you, but it also reminds you what matters most. People, pets, home, and a good cup of coffee to steady your nerves.

Everything else is smoke in the wind. So we’ll sit tight, say our prayers for the crews out there, and keep an eye on the horizon.

And when the sky finally clears, Buddy and I will go right back to the porch, coffee in hand, grateful for the simple gift of clean air.

I was out on the back porch yesterday afternoon, sipping a cold beer and throwing the ball for Buddy, when it hit me—not the ball, thankfully, but the absurdity of it all. We own our home.

At least, that’s what the paperwork says. The deed’s in our name, the mortgage is up to date, the fence, the flowerbeds, and the creaky screen door—ours.

We built half of it and cursed at the other half while maintaining it. And yet, every year, the county sends us a little love note, politely reminding us that if we don’t hand over a few thousand dollars in property taxes, they’ll take it all away.

I showed that bill to Buddy. He sniffed it once, sneezed, and wandered off to roll in something unholy.

I know taxes keep the lights on—the roads paved, schools open, emergency services ready. But it’s an odd feeling, knowing you can spend a lifetime working for something, finally call it yours, and still have to rent it back from the government.

Doesn’t feel like ownership. Feels like a hostage negotiation.

I got to thinking about my granddad, who built his house board by board. The man could make anything out of nothing.

A pair of sawhorses, a handsaw, and his own two hands. The house was his pride.

But even he had to scrape together money for taxes every year, right up until the day he died. My dad said it best, standing in front of that house at the funeral, “Turns out, you never really own land. You just lease it from the ones with guns and pens.”

That’s a bitter truth, but I don’t want to stay bitter. I’ve got better things to do, like trimming the lawn or brewing a fresh pot of coffee for whoever wanders by.

So, what’s a fella supposed to do?

Well, I figure if we can’t change the rules overnight, maybe we can change the way we play the game. Some of my neighbors have started setting aside a little envelope labeled “Property Ransom”—their words, not mine—where they drop a few bucks every week.

It’s small stuff—skip a burger here, skip a beer there. And just like that, by the time the tax man comes calling, the money’s already waiting, tucked away like emergency chocolate in the back of the pantry.

We’ve started doing it too, with the added incentive that if we come in under budget, we get to spend the leftovers on something fun. Now, I’m not saying that makes it right, but it does make it easier.

So here’s our challenge to you: find one thing you can do today that makes tomorrow just a little more secure. It doesn’t have to be big.

It could be dropping coins in a jar or planting tomatoes instead of buying them. It could be writing a letter to your local rep and asking, kindly but firmly, “Why am I paying rent on something I already own?”

And if all else fails, grab a beer, throw the ball, and tell the dog your troubles. He may not answer, but he won’t judge you either.

As I get older, I’m trying my best to live my life in a way that “feral” gets used in my obituary.

Now, I don’t mean feral like biting folks or rooting through trash cans—though I admit there was a stretch in my twenties that could have gone either way. What I mean is the kind of feral that makes people at my funeral raise their eyebrows and nod slowly, like, “Yeah, that tracks.”

There’s something beautiful about that word. It says, “He didn’t go quietly.”

It hints at barefoot mornings, shirtless yardwork, and the kind of man who might’ve hollered at the moon once or twice to see if it hollered back. A man who didn’t shave for church, not out of rebellion, but because he forgot there was church.

Now, I wake up and do whatever I want, so long as it doesn’t require a password or pants with a button. There’s a freedom in that.

Dogs understand. My Buddy—half German Shorthair, half question mark—knows exactly what I mean. He doesn’t wear pants or obey instructions unless treats are involved, and no one’s ever called him anything but a good boy.

I like to think I’ve earned the right to be a little unpredictable. After all, I paid my taxes, raised a son, loved one woman consistently, and never backed into another vehicle—on purpose.

Surely the Good Lord grants some leeway to those of us who survived dial-up internet and rotary phones. I have no interest in growing old gracefully. I want to slide into my golden years sideways, coffee in one hand, whiskey in the other, covered in dog hair and slightly sunburnt.

The trouble is, feral folks don’t leave behind neat filing cabinets or organized garages. No, we leave behind mystery keys and unlabeled cords that look important but aren’t.

We have spice racks filled with expired potions and canned goods so old they remember Y2K. My son will one day sort through my belongings and say, “Why did Dad have a drawer full of single screws and one roller skate?”

Because, son. That’s the kind of man I was.

I once tried to explain this to a young friend who asked what my “retirement goals” were. I told him I was working on my obituary.

That, and I hoped it would contain at least one tale of mild trespassing, a feral chicken, and something about a hot tub not belonging to me. The kid blinked at me, then blinked again.

Look, not everyone’s cut out for the straight-and-narrow. Some of us wander a bit.

Not lost—just on a different trail. Mine has fewer road signs and more squirrel crossings, but it gets me where I need to go, eventually.

Besides, the detours always have better stories.

When the time comes, I don’t want folks to say, “He was a good man.”

That’s fine, sure. But I’d prefer, “He was a handful.”

I want someone to shake their head at my photo and mutter, “That rascal.”

I want there to be laughter through the tears and maybe a small fire in the backyard for old times’ sake.

And when they get to the part about who I was, I hope some brave soul leans into the mic, clears their throat, and says, “Tom Darby didn’t pass away. He just wandered off. Feral to the end.”

One of my wife’s friends—let’s call her Kim, because that is her name—once asked Mary, “How did you meet Tom?”

Now, Mary didn’t blink. She didn’t crack a smile or offer up one of those polite chuckles folks use when they’re buying time to tell the truth gently. Nope.

With a face so flat and serious it could’ve passed for a pancake on Ash Wednesday, she said, “He burned me at the stake in 1642, and I swore revenge in another lifetime.”

And I’d like to point out—because I feel this is important—neither one of them had been drinking at the time.

Kim just sat there blinking, probably wondering if she ought to Google “reincarnated witch revenge” or call for backup. I sipped my coffee like I hadn’t just gotten accused of witch-burning in mixed company.

Mary carried on like she hadn’t just implied we were locked in some cosmic payback loop. It was, all things considered, one of the most romantic things she’d ever said about me.

Now, it’s not entirely far-fetched. I do tend to light fires.

Campfires, mostly, sometimes, our barbecue grill, and once, I tried to start a fire in the fireplace without opening the flue, and I ended up smoking out the living room so badly that the dog hid in the bathtub. Historically, I have had a complicated relationship with flames.

But I never burned anybody, not even in a metaphorical sense, unless you count overcooked toast or forgetting our anniversary that one time. But to be fair, I didn’t forget, I just misremembered it by 24 hours, which doesn’t qualify as “close enough” when you’re married.

Still, there’s something oddly comforting about the idea that Mary and I have been at this for centuries. I picture us back then—her with a pointy hat, me with a torch and pitchfork—only to end up here, sitting across from each other, arguing over whether the thermostat should be at “warm” or “desert inferno.”

You have to admit, it puts things in perspective. That dishwasher argument we had last week? Probably just a continuation of something we started long ago.

The way she always knows when I’ve had one too many Cowboy Coolaids? It could be centuries of practice.

And her uncanny ability to remember every dumb thing I’ve ever said? After a few lifetimes of mistakes, they can pile up.

Truth is, though, I wouldn’t mind if it were all true. If the whole ride—this long, strange loop we call love—is just another go-round between the same two souls trying to figure each other out, then I must’ve done something right. Even if that something involved kindling.

We never did explain the joke to Kim. She left with that unsettled look folks get after a ghost tour or a family reunion. But Mary winked at me when the door closed behind her, and I thought, Maybe I did burn her at the stake in 1642.

But if I did, she sure got the better end of the deal this time. I take out the trash, I rub her feet when it rains, and she’s got the Wi-Fi password.

If that ain’t karmic balance, I don’t know what is.