Getting My Money's Worth

 

January 2, 2025

General Manager Laird Noller Ford
Topeka, KS          

Since 1993. I have purchased three brand new and one used vehicle from your business.  I purchased a 2024 Ford Escape September 10.  I had decided what car I wanted long before I came in.  The day I came to Topeka to see the car, I was not quite ready to wheel and deal.  I was experiencing a foggy day, something old people experience.  Once I got to the lot, saw the car, and decided that I would get it, there really was no reason for me to delay.  BIG MISTAKE!

I was there for HOURS, talking to one person after another.  I found out there was no room for a full-sized tire in that model.  I live down miles of gravel road in the Flint Hills and have flat tires about 4 times a year.  Different men were helping the young saleswoman seal the deal with offers.  I settled for a full-sized tire and rim.  At long last, I was in Guy's office writing the loan papers. I have excellent credit, money for a down payment, pre-approved by my credit union.  Should have been easy!  But Guy went down an EXHAUSTIVE list of warranties, to which I said “no” to.  I must have said “no” seven or eight times.  I could not think clearly, was tired and just wanted to get this horrible experience over with so I could go home. 

I came back the next day to pick up the car and turn over my old car. After another day or so, I finally sat down to go over the papers.  To my absolute horror, I had been charged for ALL the warranties I had specifically refused when Guy offered them, $5783 and something labeled “Nitro” for $750.  I was almost sick to my stomach.

I knew I had to return to get my tire/wheel on September 24, so when I returned, I made a point to speak to the manager.  I do not remember his name.  He has a southern accent, wears a ball cap and green sneakers.  I was so angry.  I said he needed to go down the line items, one by one, and explain to me how a $25,000 car ended up costing me $33,943 with a $2500 down payment and $1000 trade in allowance.  He knew all about the issues I have with flat tires and he knew good and well I would never have any use for nitrogen in my tires!  He told me that his stomach fell when he saw the Nitro on the paperwork. 

After almost four hours, I was signing to cancel all the warranties.  I believe I remained pleasant and polite but I was subjected to Guy’s thinly disguised sullen and passive aggressive attitude.  I did not care.  He literally added thousands of unwanted dollars to my loan! 

After I left, I realized I did not get any paperwork for what I had signed.  I called the saleswoman to ask her to ask Guy to make sure I got copies of the paperwork I had signed. Never heard back and never received any paperwork.  $6323.71 was refunded into my loan account on October 1.

 Because Guy had made a point to tell me that another person was supposed to take care of the warranties, the next time I called, I asked to speak to the person who took care of the new car warranties.  Whoever I spoke to that day told me that normally that warranty cannot be canceled but he would cancel it for me.  October 10, I received a voice message from Guy informing me that it takes a few weeks to cancel that particular warranty. That was the last I ever heard from Guy, the warranty guy, or anyone I have spoken to since.  I have left voice messages two or three times, and I have spoken with at least three different people since mid-October.

Amazingly, Guy actually answered when I called the number from the voice message about two weeks ago.  He told me he no longer worked there and to talk to Nick, or the “higher ups” about cancelling this warranty.

Your people assure me they will call me back but they simply do not.  I have been ignored in this matter.  Stonewalled, is what it is.  Clearly, no one has the time or the inclination to take care of this issue.  I believe I have been patient and polite.  But I am also angry.  I did not agree to the $750 Nitro charge warranty.  I would never have wanted it. Nitrogen will do me no good on these gravel roads! No one even bothers to call back to say, “Sorry, but we are keeping your money.” 

I realize you have thousands of customers and losing one is not a big deal, but I will never buy another vehicle from you.  Apparently I will not hear from Laird Noller Ford regarding the unwanted warranty nor have my money refunded.  I figure $750 plus tax, plus interest bought me all the bad reviews I can share by word of mouth for Laird Noller Ford in Topeka, KS. I am already pretty old, but my grandmothers both lived to be 99 and some.  I quite likely have nearly another 30 years to get my money’s worth. 

Signed with Retribution!

We Need More Freshly Baked Bread

 

Almost every morning I have the idea that I will quickly finish the chores so I can drive to Manhattan for freshly baked bread and a flat white. It requires very little to change my mind - too cold, too tired, too far, too wasteful, too fattening.  It also elicits a touch of depression.  A genuine bakery does not exist in Topeka. A bakery is too woke, I guess.  

Next, inevitably, I think I could bake my own bread.  There is enough time in my day, every day, that I should get in the habit of baking my own bread. I wonder if I lived on freshly baked bread and whole milk, would I eventually weigh a thousand pounds or would I lose weight? Become young again? Be happy despite the "generally wretched times" we live in?

My grandmother often made bread, baked in the oven of a large wood burning stove.  The aroma of the rising dough was an elixir of comfort and love that I experienced no where else in my life, not then and not since. The yeast and baking bread and burning wood created a deeply satisfying warmth that nourished me to my very center.  Grandma loved me.  Simply.  And never once in her long life did she ever hurt my feelings or make me feel bad about myself.  She was the only one.  Maybe that is why freshly baked bread is disproportionately delicious.  It is, after all, merely yeast and flour.  Hardly a complicated list of ingredients. 

My grandmother was a loving old woman. The worst thing I ever heard her say was to call a particularly unpleasant woman an old heifer.  There were several women she deemed old heifers. I think an old heifer is a double insult, as a heifer is actually a cow that has not yet given birth. You had to be a horrible person to have my sweet old granny say such a thing about you.

She was a musician, an accomplished pianist.  There was a long list of songs she could play from memory. Once in a great while, when the whole family was gathered, she could be persuaded to open the parlor and play for us.  The old piano was so terribly out of tune, but it mattered not.  The longer she played, the livelier the tunes and the more complicated the music.  A brief island of light and ease in all of our lives. She outlived her music and piano playing skill, but I was not around for all those years that she surely filled the air with her joyful music.  It was not until her funeral that I learned that one thing she did to earn money as a young woman was to break horses for people. How did I not know this about her?  That was important information that someone should have told me! I never had the chance to ask her a thing about it!

She rode a horse to school. She explained to me what those enormous horse blanket pins were for.  (You pinned the horse blanket closed over your legs when riding in the cold.) She often told of her father hauling a piano home with a team of big work horses and a wagon.  It must have been one of her favorite memories.  He father called her Babe.  When she cut her long hair off the way the young women were doing, he was shocked.  He said, "Babe what have you done to your hair?"  She said she never cut her hair again. She was the oldest daughter of ten children.  I wonder if he called all of his daughters "Babe", or if that was his name just for her. She clearly loved her father dearly and missed him her entire long life.  Just like I have missed her.

Another year passes into the mystery of wherever time goes.  We consume our time whether we wish to or not.  Such a strange state of affairs for a sentient being to find herself in.  People we love so deeply and dearly, like our fathers and our grandmas and our children and grandchildren, all strung along a deep river of time.  Some come and go quickly and others stay the distance but ultimately we are all separated.  Someone can be gone for a lifetime yet we love and miss them as acutely as when they lived.  I am not sad about this, though it seems tragic from our point of view here in our finite lives.  Once we are gone, either simply vanished into the ethers or expanded into an infinite knowing, it is all good because:  what a gift a life is... how delicious freshly baked bread is...how clearly music is joy made manifest...how dearly we love one another.  

As is my custom, I wish:

Peace on Earth and Good Will to (some) men.  From the old lady, the supreme beings, and the German Shepherds of Spiritcreek.

 

What Does Consciousness, Horses, and Holes in the Ground Have In Common?

What is wrong with a mind that meticulously transcribes every word of a quote from a YouTube video but then fails to note who said it?  I have spent a huge amount of time trying to find that video again so I can attribute this, but alas... I cannot find it.  I entered all of the quote, and parts of the quote, into a Google search.  It returns a host of discussions and names and refers to videos and substacks, none of which is THE video I watched.  I did discover that this idea is called panpsychism. It is not a new idea, so maybe the attribute is not quite as important.  It was the first time I had heard something that so closely matched what I have long felt.

"This view is that consciousness is actually not an emergent property of evolution.  In fact, evolution is driven by consciousness.  Consciousness is non local.  It is transcendent.  It is eternal.  It is the ground state of the universe from where everything emerges.  And, being prior to time, and transcendent, it is not subject to birth or decay."

Now that is something to think about when I am tending the horses, the supreme beings of my little patch of earth.  They are the smartest beings on the planet - well, at least around here they are the smartest beings.  

Speaking of horses, by their very nature, they engender in a person a wish to still the static and stress, to listen carefully to that motionless, immutable silence that speaks, that unmoving center we so often overlook in favor of football, or politics, or failing hot water heaters. 

Next up this week, I want to shout out to the Y chromosome carriers in the human species.  Yes, I am speaking of men - those guys who do not say much but get stuff done!  They have tools and know how to use them.  And, thanks to our species' long evolution as hunter/gatherers, if a man doesn't have a certain tool, he by God knows a guy who does! 

Oh yeah.  All the weeds, rotten hay and horse manure was scraped out of the stalls and from around the barns, pushed into a surprisingly small pile.  (Of course, the horses are busy replacing as much of the manure as possible!)  The drive way has new gravel and some serious grading in an attempt to stop the deep ruts in one particular spot. All the overgrowth around the old garage and the barns was mowed with an industrial machine that saved a single human probably 100 hours of truly hard clearing work.  In less than an hour, that machine cleared all that troublesome timber and underbrush.  In the hot summers that is a fire hazard.

The old decorative rail fence was falling down, aided by trees falling across the drive and dropping big limbs.  I wanted it removed and hauled off and was going to install something cheap just to keep people on the lane between the two ravines!  But no, the guy said, "This is solid!"  The next time I went to get my mail, the entire fence had been repaired! In addition, a pipe rail panel is now installed at the most dangerous spot, where the water has washed out about a 15 foot hole that would swallow a car if someone did not see it in the dark.  And 20 tons of big rocks were delivered and thrown into that gaping hole in an effort to slow the loss of the bank there.

An eyesore of a planter left over from the old house, and the hole left by the demise of the twin hackberry trees was removed, hauled off, smoothed over in no time.  The entire barbed wire fence around the pasture was tended to, and any trees or impediments removed. 

I was charged for 11 hours of labor for all of this work!  I paid for the dirt, the gravel, the rip rap, and the big mower time, but still a mighty bargain.  One guy talking to other guys, and then, just like that, all that work is done.  The XX chromosomes thank you XY's.  You guys built the world and keep it running.

In addition, my son's favorite football team since he was just a tot, the Kansas City Chiefs, are so darned good that people are starting to hate them the way we all grew to hate the Dallas Cowboys and later the Denver Broncos.  It is wonderful when your team wins and wins... and wins.  Especially when your team was good for a long time, but never won the whole shootin' match! 

Just a reminder to give those Y gene carriers a big hug for being our fathers, sons, husbands and friends.  They work hard.  They deserve to have their teams win once in awhile.  

Before 

After

  

Going for Supplies

Driving to town for groceries - for supplies, like Ma and Pa Ingalls - can be entertaining.  I had to pick up pre-ordered groceries, fill the gas tank, refill the drinking water jugs, and get a flat white at Starbucks.  Sometimes I have to go to the post office, just like the old-timey days.  I also have to make the heavy duty supply run for giant bags of dog food, 50 pound bags of horse feed, sometimes for salt block, and sometimes for bags of water softener salt (whenever I realize I haven't put salt in the bin for awhile).  That is a lot of running around all over Topeka, or sometimes Manhattan.  Going to town can be a little adventure, even a bit entertaining. 

Yesterday I noticed an old 90's Ford Ranger truck.  It was brightly painted metallic lime green - with a deep red junkyard replacement tailgate.  One end of the rear bumper was still bent and wonky.  The little-engine-that-could was smoking just a tad, and it sounded as if the exhaust system needed some work, but it was rolling on down the road like a brand new $75,000 Ford Truck, thank you very much!  

Those small Ford Rangers were GREAT trucks!  I had two, each driven off the lot with less than 50 miles on the odometer.  Both were still running when I sold them with very high mileage.  The second one had close to 275,000 miles on it, I think.  I hated to see the new owner drive it away.  Seeing the little green Ranger still chugging along, dutifully fulfilling its engineered destiny as reliable American transportation, made me smile.  I fondly recall my Rangers.  And, now that I have traded in the old car that doubled as a farm truck, I need a truck.

The Ranger's color scheme was the key to this little adventure.  It reminded me of another vehicle I once owned and loved - a Volkswagen Beetle.  Its red paint was deeply oxidized, and it had junkyard replacement lime green doors!  Someone had put a Native American beadwork design decal on the bottom of both doors.  It was the hippie mobile.  Seeing the same color scheme on the Ranger reminded me, and I was grinning like an idiot.  I resolved to say something to the driver if we came to a red light together. I wanted to know how long he'd had his truck and if he loved it.  I was even thinking of asking if he would sell it, but he eventually changed lanes ahead of me, ending that silly idea.  

Sometimes even the Universe is curious where such impulses might lead!  The truck pulled into a Subway drive-through.  Since the traffic was very light, and I was in no hurry, and yeah, I had been stalking the guy for several miles, I impulsively pulled into Subway, too.  There was room to pull up beside the little green Ranger.  The poor guy driving looked over at me, wondering what level of crazy might be grinning at him through the window.  I motioned for him to roll his window down.  He started to then shrugged his shoulders as if to say he couldn't.  (I know for a fact a big ol' guy like that could have easily reached to roll down the window because I could do that in my Rangers.)  We are teetering on total anarchy right now, so I do not blame him.  I just cupped my hands and yelled, "I love your truck!" 

I drove away, smiling to myself when I regretfully thought, what if he did not realize I was goddamned serious about that?  Then I thought, he owns a Ford Ranger.  He understands.

Later the same morning, I noticed a personalized license plate that read: BRATIT.  I am aware that my mind is not the tightly wound, well oiled thinking-machine it once was.  The wiring seems to have loosened a bit.  There is some play in the connections, allowing for thought processes that are not entirely reliable. I said out loud, to myself, "What a dumbass! Bra Tit?  Really, you adolescent boy?"  

Sad to say, I thought about this for more than a few miles on the drive home, being mildly scandalized by it.  (As if I have nothing better to worry about!) It finally came to me that they most likely meant "Brought It", as in "I brought the Heat!"  Also rather "adolescent boy", especially on a totally non-hot rod truck with Grandpa Farmer vibes, but still better and far more understandable than BRA TIT. 

What's for Dinner?

It is a difficult time for half of the voting country, and a Make-America-Great-Again kind of day for the other voting half.  I cannot speak for the MAGA crowd, but I can certainly sum up the general feelings on my side with this quote from Justin Halpern's Dad:

"We're having fish for dinner.  Fine, let's take a vote. Who wants fish for dinner? Yeah, democracy ain't so fun when it fucks you, huh?" 

I still believe that as Americans, we basically all want the same things:  a safe place to raise our kids. A job that pays a livable wage.  Affordable health care (not interference from for-profit insurance companies). Safe schools.  Reasonable gun laws.  A working, humane, timely path to citizenship.  We all need protections from corporate greed and avarice, as consumers, tax payers, and employees.  We just disagree on which path to get to those things.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why it was the worst man in America that the MAGA crowd rallied behind.  When my brothers and cousins were enlisting in the military in order to have some small choice in light of the Vietnam draft - when my classmates and the boys from my hometown were either enlisting or being drafted, Trump's father paid for a bone spurs exemption, not once but a few times.  Trump then became a man who spent his entire adult life, among other things, stiffing the working contractors who built his big hotels and casinos and golf courses.  Small businesses that did not have the time or money to fight him in court.  It is information easily available online from scores of various sources, so it is not "biased  media".  

By chance or by election interference, he became President, this crass, fatuous, classless, pathological liar, cheat and confirmed lecher.  Somehow, all these enormous character flaws were dismissed by his followers, and that allowed him and his family to flagrantly enrich themselves via the office of the United States Presidency.  The same voting crowd tolerated the obvious, outrageous power-mongering and clearly illegal wheeling and dealing of the worst First Family in the entire history of the United States.  The Trumps did not even attempt to hide their lucrative personal gains made possible by their blatant disregard of the Constitutional clauses meant to protect the Office of the President from undue influence.  Not to mention the nepotism that turned the stomach of almost everyone.     

So, that was the first time.  This time?  A man who kept classified government documents in the bathroom of his night club estate, where anyone who wanted could access them.  The same crowd of voters who were almost dying of personal outrage that Hillary Clinton used the wrong hard drive for her emails apparently do not have the same concern for boxes and boxes of classified documents left out where anyone who might need a quick buck could copy and sell anything interesting.  This time they knew exactly what kind of guy they were voting for. A convicted felon.  An obviously guilty insurrectionist. A man on public record speaking 30,537 lies in four years.  And they are okay with it.

How in the world can any thinking person believe rounding up people for wholesale deportation is going to be good for anyone?  Just a quick look to our own history will remind us of the enormous tragedy and loss in the dealings with Native Americans, enslaved peoples, Japanese-Americans citizens during World War II. 

Imagine if the MAGA government put the enormous resources at its disposal to actually fix immigration, to work with the entire elected House and Senate to actually fix the problems at the border, instead of opposing every single attempt anyone has made in the last 50 years?  Rather than causing untold suffering, they could chose to be humane, helpful, and even kind. 

I hope the mass deportations are as successful as his "build a wall" efforts were - that is, an utter failure.  Trump has some very radicalized minions who are certainly capable and very willing to inflict enormous suffering on people who are as hardworking and honest as the rest of us.  The immigrants pay in to a system they cannot benefit from.  MAGA people are willing for this horrible act to happen while not being concerned that the same politicians are actively dismantling consumer protections, riding roughshod over civil liberties, inexorably squeezing the life from the USPS, Social Security, Education, Environmental Protections - the list is endless and tragic.  It is all out there, plainly documented but somehow the MAGA people cannot see it.  They overwhelmingly voted against their best interests. 

It is too late now.  The people have spoken.  They want fish for dinner.  I respectfully decline.  

Quote from the book "Sh*t My Dad Says" by Justin Halpern, published 2010

My Corner of the Earth

Sometimes I forget exactly what it is I have to be thankful for, what I appreciate in my life.  Sometimes I forget what an extraordinary experience it is to live on this earth, even just an ordinary life.

I do not live in an area that is considered dramatic or spectacular, though the Flint Hills are quietly beautiful in their final dying gasp as the last of the tall grass prairie.  To quote a prairie aficionado, Willa Cather, "Anybody can love the mountains.  It takes a soul to love the prairie."

Enjoy these few photos of the hundreds I have taken over the 25 years I have lived in my quiet little corner of Earth.  They were mostly taken within a couple of miles or less from my front door.

Peace on Earth and Good Will to (some) men.  From the old lady, the supreme beings, and the goddamn German Shepherds of Spiritcreek.

Early summer when everything is green and it is easy to believe in a heaven.

A genuine waterfall.  

When every single thing you see on the prairie is green, a splash of color is exciting!

No one knows why these are called Missouri Primroses.  Unfortunate, indeed, but one of my favorite wild flowers.  I do not see them at roadside now in the spring - I assume from the herbicides dumped and sprayed, another act of killing the prairie.   

The Lesser Supreme Being, Wally, when he was younger - before he became the old white horse he is now.

It would not be Kansas without the remnants of the stone fences.  This was taken a few miles from home.

Wild swans I happened upon a while ago, just up the road.  They are so large that they made the pond appear small. 

The summer shade over Snokomo Creek

I do not know the secret of taking a photo of distance.  This is an expanse of Wabaunsee County where you can see for likely 20 miles, at least. If heaven is this simply beautiful - assuming I end up there - I will be happy, and count myself as blessed.

No photo montage of Kansas can be complete without the State Art Forms - bullet holes, barbed wire and horse shoes.

Snow has to be very, very deep to cover the tall grass.  Luckily for me, I have not had to endure a winter when the snow is deeper than the grass is tall.

Upland Plover, also known as a large sandpiper.

I cannot tell what birds these are but who cares?  They were so cute together on these twigs.

A typical Kansas sunset.  

The main gate to my little pasture the morning after the ice storm.

My new house was not yet built but this is a typical Kansas sunrise.

The wild strawberries that grow on the top of the little hill where the barn is.  Even after the horses' hooves have chopped up the soil and churned the mud all winter, these little plants grow every spring.  I see them every single day but in 25 years I have yet to harvest a single wild strawberry. Other strawberry lovers get to them first.

Sometimes fall is a spectacle of brilliance in the Flint Hills!

This is the pond that I secretly call the sacred pond.  It is on the corner from my house.  Coming home from work day after day after, I welcomed the beautiful sight of this little pool of water reflecting the general splendor of the Kansas sunsets. For many years there was a heron who lived in this pond.  I assume the fish and frogs kept it there.  A terrible draught caused the pond to dry entirely up and since then there has been no heron.

Permian Sea fossils found in the gravel of my little creek and a very large feather - all gifts.

The russet color of the big blue stem gives the prairie life even in the dead of winter. 

More color from the prairie plants and grasses.

 

The sacred pond frozen in winter.  My house is tucked down in the creek, out of sight, at the far right end of the trees. 

Kansas, Cattle and Thunderstorms.   

When it rains hard.  This is draining into the deep ravine next to my drive.

A beautiful thunderstorm building in the southeast, taken from my pasture.

It would not be Kansas without a rainbow!

A sight that I never though I would see in Kansas in my lifetime, but this was taken less than a mile from my house! 

You did not think I would forget to include sunflowers!

Good prairie management includes spring burning.

The Supreme Being, Ginger, the beautiful little red Quarter Horse, a bossy mare.  I love her so!

In the spring, the redbuds light up my front door.

The sweetest dog, my Mattie.  She sits like this, so proper!

The brattiest German Shepherd I have ever had in my life!  She can be sweet but she assumes she is the supreme being around here.  Neither Ginger nor I agree. 

The beginning of the end of the prairies, the symbol of the destruction of the bison and the old buffalo hunters' way of life.  It is a deadly device that ushered in a new world view, one of dominion, individual ownership, and subjugation of the natural world.  I count myself lucky to be here for the finale.  

Fairy In the Garden

 I was talking on the phone to an old and dear friend, someone from long ago and far away.  He was telling me that he is catching glimpses of animals and other spirits from the corner of his eye as he is working in his garden these days.  

The last few years have been a series of one medical emergency after another for him, including a dream or a vision wherein he spoke with someone exceedingly dear to him who has already crossed over.  The veil is thin for him now and he does not have to be in medical crises to perceive these secretive inhabitants of this world, (or those of the next).  He and I have always believed in mysterious experiences, in those precious few times when the truly sacred reveals itself.  It is partly why we remain friends six decades on.

As we were talking, I was looking through the window where I spend an amount of time every single morning watching the sunrise, watching the birds and rabbits, greeting my day.  This strange plant, one I do not recognize, had became noticeable just a day or so before this photo.  It was brown, apparently dying, unlike all the plants around it, and it caught my eye. 

Our conversation turned from my friend's new-found perception of animals or energetic entities to Findhorn, Perelandra and other sources of serious discussion regarding fairies and elves and nature spirits.  The very unusual multicolored plant began to gently wave and sway in the breeze, but not in unison with the other vegetation surrounding it. It seemed to take on a life of its own.  Of course, I knew it was a plant, though an odd one.  As I watched, it transformed and appeared to be motioning to me.  I acknowledged my Westernized scepticism but also refrained from any judgement as to what I was experiencing because it was delightful.

As soon I hung up, I took this photo through the screen.  I put the phone directly up to the screen hoping to get a clearer photo but the phone would not focus at all then.  I was a bit shocked when I looked at this photo close up.  I can see a distinct face, clearly an elven ear, and a crown with a bright "light" above her face.  She is bent forward with her right arm and hand forward, and appears to be wearing a gown or at least a long, full skirt.  I see a pair of wings behind her, and I see a silhouette of a smaller figure behind her.

I sat watching through the window for a while - until the plant became just a dying plant, waving in the breeze like the other plants you see in the photo.  The next day the yellowed leaves had all fallen.  

I do believe I was visited by a fairy.