We bought new tires for one of our vehicles yesterday.
I took a memory train back to the first time I bought new tires after I was married.
That would be 1975. The car was a 1968 Camaro. Sweet, small, fast car. RS, 327 V8, automatic. I bought it for $1100 after I arrived at my first permanent duty station in my Air Force career, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio. Paid cash.
I married later that year. My wife and I have wonderful memories of being together in that car.
Buying new tires for it was a major financial decision. Recaps were cheap, $20-$25 each, installed. But recaps? I distrusted their safety and reliability.
That meant new tires: $40 each.
$160.
Ouch.
We didn’t have credit cards, so we’d need to buy the tires with cash. I had that in savings but that would severely reduce the balance.
I remarked about this to my wife at dinner last night.
She remembered, adding, “Yes, the things we couldn’t afford then that we needed, and the things we buy now, that we really don’t need.”
I paid for the dinner with my credit card. Leaving, I thought, I could have bought two new tires for the price of that dinner.
Of course, I could have bought the Camaro for the price of the new tires I put on the car.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, May 5, 2026.
Today’s is a picturesque spring day, Ashland edition — sunshine, clouds, 56 F. They say we’re heading to the lower eighties. We cracked 80 at my place yesterday.
I caught up on some local news last night. A rural hospital crisis is affecting the United States. Been going on for years but getting worse.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill worsened the situation. By removing healthcare subsidies, healthcare premiums shot up. Many people had no choice but to severely cut back.
Asante is already reducing many services at Asante Ashland Community Hospital in my town. Now operating in other southern Oregon cities such as Medford and Grants Pass, they note that they’ve lost money in the first six months of this fiscal year and cut personnel. Part of the reason why they’re losing money is buried in a paragraph down in the story:
“Patients covered by private insurance are at the lowest percentage in Asante’s history at just over 14% of all patients so far in 2026.”
Oregon saw average premium hikes of nearly 10% for individuals after Trump’s OBBB took effect. Asante’s CEO noted that many local businesses are being priced out of offering health insurance due to these rising costs. Medicare and Medicaid barely cover the costs they say. It’s not a sustainable model.
Yet, with this crisis going on, Trump pretends to worry about the Iranians having nukes and attacks them.
Trump worries about his own security and image, naming things after himself, wrecking part of the White House to build that ridiculous Epstein ballroom, which went from ‘costing Americans nothing’ to $1,000,000,000.
Trump screams freedom! Security! Peace! Then he has the military attack and kill more people in boats.
So much for law and order.
Waiting to see what Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! brings today.
Your Trump Quotes of the Day.
He’s so consistently inconsistent!
Today’s song was another one inspired by Papi, my ginger furbrother. I was petting him after giving him his meds. He was purring like mad. But his personality requires that he be given space. I wouldn’t let him go, keeping hold of him until he gave me an annoyed look. Meanwhile, I laughed and sang the lines from “Magic” by The Cars:
I’ve got a hold on you I got a hold on you Got a hold on you
I’m off for my cystoscopy to see what’s going on in my bladder. It’s being done at Asante in Medford so I better do it before they close.
I hope the best possible day of grace, peace, and joy finds you and carries you on through life on a great wave.
I drove down Siskiyou Boulevard under bright sunshine. Traffic was light. We traveled at 30 MPH, just over the speed limit.
The blue Subaru in the left hand’s right turn signal began blinking. The driver started over. Realizing that my car occupied the space, they veered back into their lane.
I dropped back to give them turning space. Seeing that, they completed their turn, and gave a big wave of thanks out the window.
Laughing, I waved back and headed on toward the coffee shop. That simple exchange gave me a shot of happy energy.
Things go so much better when we cooperate and don’t turn everything into a competition.
I was prescribed post-surgery meds and went to the drug store to pick them up.
Walking through the drugstore parking lot to buy them, I saw a small yellow car. Circling closer, I confirmed, 1964 Dodge Valiant, just like my stepfather drove. Might have been a different year but it was the same model and color.
I remembered him bringing it home although I don’t recall what he drove before that. I rarely rode in it. This was ‘his car’, something to commute to work and go off to bet. George was a gambler and went to the horse races five or six days a week, trying for a big score. He won big twice. Once was a $25,000 Daily Double payout, providing the down payment on a newly built brick ranch in Penn Hills.
Later, he won enough to buy a new 1976 Chevy Camaro. Like his Valiant, this was pale yellow, three-speed on the column and a black and white checked interior. Sis hated that car.
All of us disliked driving with George. Tending to drive about five miles an hour below the speed limit, he also liked to get into the faster lanes but not go faster. This terrified us as other drivers pulled up, slowed down and then sped past with blaring horns. Mom would often snap, “My God, get out of this lane.” George wouldn’t budge, though, sailing on without regard to others’ opinions.
The yellow Dodge in the drugstore parking lot had tiny tires and petite chrome bumpers, appearing small and fragile among the huge SUVs and a couple of ‘compact’ Toyotas and Hondas. All the modern vehicles were white, black, gray, or silver. Nowhere was another yellow car.
Seeing it still brought a smile as I walked on, reflecting, what a different world. And yet, back in the 1960s, that Valiant would have shown up as so much different than the preceding decades.
Who knows what our 2026 cars will look like compared to the cars of 2086.
I was in the coffee house, deep into writing, when a casual coffee shop acquaintance stopped and said hello. Now a choir direction, he’d spent most of his life as a master mechanic. Cars somehow became the topic.
I mentioned that I was a sporting car kind of person. Car ownership was about BMWs, a Porsche, Mazda RX-7, along with a Camaro and a Firebird.
His response pivoted me to remembering Dad’s cars. Dad mostly drove Corvettes, Mustangs, and Thunderbirds. Aging, he also began driving a pickup, and then a Cadillac. Both were so unlike him.
That’s just like me. Those car choices were ‘needs must’ decisions, exactly why I now drive a compact SUV.
After finishing the conversation, though, I realized that this was the first time since Dad died on the last day of 2025 that I remembered him without grief. Instead, there was fondness and a reflective smile.
My wife’s car died on her the other day. Absolutely no power — lights, radio, engine, etc., a very disconcerting event. Fortunately, she was in a parking lot and easily steered to a safe place. It started right back up, but you can imagine the alarm a car dying without warning can give you.
A 2003 Ford Focus purchased new, 110,000 miles are on the car’s odometer. It’s been garaged for all of its life and pretty well maintained. She only uses it for local buzzing around, usually driving just three miles in any direction. Once a month, she might go further, up to twelve miles away.
Now, though, she’s working on a project that requires her to meet with others, pick up things, all that. The big event is Feb. 1. She’s been working on it for months, pulling it together.
I’ve been trying to convince her to trade in the Focus for new wheels for years. In fact, when we bought our CX-5 over ten years ago, it was supposed to be her car to drive. We would then purchase a second car for me and trade in the Focus. She reneged on the agreement and kept her car.
I told her to take the Mazda but, she doesn’t want to drive it, having driven it once since we bought it.
So, it’s a drop everything, change my schedule day to get this resolved. I drove her to her appointments and local garage will check it tomorrow. I have my suspicions about the cause, but we’ll wait for the experts.
It was the weirdest damn thing. I backed out of my garage and drive this lovely Saturday morning. As I straightened the car and drove down the street, a gray Tesla 3 pulled from the curb, preceding me. We were close enough and angled right that I noticed the driver — an older-looking, white woman, short gray hair.
She went down and stopped at the hill’s bottom. As I pulled in behind her, another gray Tesla 3 cruised by. Hand to Dog, that Tesla’s driver looked just like the first two.
The Tesla ahead turned left, falling in line with the first gray Tesla. Gasping with delighted surprise at such serendipity, I pulled up to the stop sign. Another gray Tesla 3 went by with another white, female, gray-haired driver.
No way, I thought. It was almost like a surreal dream.
Settling behind the three gray Teslas with their gray-hair white drivers, I wondered. Is this a trick of my mind, or triplets driving identical cars? I also imagined that an elaborate ruse was being pulled, but who was the intended victim?
Temptation arose to follow them and see if the three cars ended at the place and if the drivers really looked alike. But coffee, writing, and routine called, and I peeled away, leaving the mystery to be solved by another.
Eating oatmeal remains a little messy and problematic. It almost slipped off the spoon and down my chin.
Wait, I should set it up right: I’m talking about reverse days. That clarifies it, doesn’t it?
Maybe if I go further back, this will begin making sense.
I’m right-handed. Years ago, I decided that I would be right-handed on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’d be left-handed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Sunday was dealer’s choice.
I began easy and worked my way into more difficult efforts. Along the way, I grew deeper appreciation for what left-handers must suffer in order to cope with our right-hand biases. My house feels specifically set up for a right-hand user. I never thought about that when I bought it; I accepted it as ‘normal’. I realized that many things can be changed to accommodate a left-hander, matters like how the faucets are oriented, and the way the dryer and refrigerator doors open.
After my practice with reverse days, I can only imagine how difficult daily life must be for natural left-handers. Learning to drive must require a Herculean effort.
Beyond those, I’ve become fascinated with how my right and left hands have negotiated into who does what. Holding and eating a banana, for example. I found that I hold my banana in my left hand so I can peel it in my right. Yet, I continue to hold it in my left hand while I eat it.
The most daunting task for reverse days: definitely shaving. I can shave my face okay with my left hand. But my left hand hasn’t earned my trust for trimming my mustache and beard. An electric razor is used for that task. Using it to shape things requires careful movement and concentration. I like it just so, you know. Although I’ve picked up my razor with my left and braced myself to do it and yet…wincing, returned it to my right. Yes, I am a chicken.
I’m sure I’ll someday summon the courage to permit the left hand to give the electric razor a go. Until then, the left hand won’t know what the right hand is doing.
Married while they were young, divorced while I was young, Mom seemed to give Dad a bum rap, something I didn’t appreciate until I was older and knew Mom and Dad better as adults.
Dad married three times. He sired seven children, two girls and five sons. Only two of his sons lived to adulthood.
One son tragically died in a car accident when he was just five years old. Dad was at his saddest and most silent then, and I was beside him at his son’s funeral.
I only lived with Dad twice: when I was very young until I was about five years old, and then again between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. I’d run away from home. Dad, in the Air Force and just returned to the U.S. from assignment in Germany, gave me a place to live. I was at his wedding with his second wife.
I’ve seen and visited him sporadically throughout the years. We talked on the phone more during the last few years, something that he actively pursued, trying to mend and improve our relationship.
Dad at 92, August of 2025.
Dad taught me to pee behind a bush. We lived in Arlington, Virginia in a rented house on a cul-de-sac at the top of a hill. Dad was in the Air Force; Mom was a telephone operator. Mom was working, and Dad, with the children, was locked out of the house. I announced that I needed to pee. Dad led me behind some bushes by the side of the house and told me to go. I was horrified but did it with his encouragement.
Mom came home just after I finished my business. I rushed out to her to inform her of my milestone. She was shocked and angry. Dad just laughed and laughed. He would’ve been in his mid-twenties.
I also give Dad credit for teaching me how to wrestle, how to catch and throw a ball, and how to ride a bike. He gave me his baseball gloves and bats when he came home on a visit and realized that I didn’t have either.
He also gave me his love of automobiles and encouraged me to think about problems and find my own solutions. Looking back, he was surprisingly patient and positive.
I don’t remember any Thanksgivings with Dad. We did share a few Christmases, and some July 4th celebrations. Most of those, though, were with Mom. He did take me on a fishing trip and gave me my first and only fishing rods.
Like many of us, Dad was a balance, a study in life, striving and trying, learning, and sometimes failing. But he always got back up and went on. I haven’t seen him much since he turned 85 seven years ago. I’ll miss him.
Frida, November 14, 2025, has gracefully entered Ashlandia. Accompanied by an entourage of blue sky and sunshine, we’re at 50 F and expect 60 F. It’s appreciated that the wailing wind has taken its thrashing away. The calm is, well, calming.
Today’s music comes from touching myself. Oh, get your head out. I was touching my three surgical incisions on my abdomen. Just gently, because it’s been ten days and the film sealing them is beginning to darken and peel. Gross and fascinating, the process causes new sensations as the film rolls and pulls away when it comes in contact with my shirt. All this is to schedule, BTW. Anyway, while I pause to inspect them in the mirror and touch them, I told myself enough, get going. From those little moments, The Neurons came up with “Touch and Go” by the Cars for the morning mental music stream.
Predictably, Dozy Donny directed the DoJ to investigate Epstein’s connection with prominent and popular Dems.
So, first, Dozy Donny says he’s gonna release the Epstein files as soon as he’s in office.
TACO — Trump Always Chickening Out — backed off of that promise and tried yugely to command everyone to just pretend like there was nothing there. Forget the files is what he more or less said.
Then he pivoted and tried another tack. Lying Lame Donny claims it’s a “Democrat hoax that never ends.”
To which we all reply, then be a stand up individual and release all the files, as are, without the cost and distraction of new investigations. But Donny knows how bad he looks in those files. He had FBI agents combing it for mentions. Since that was done, he’s been more of a shambling wreck than over.
So the record-setting Trump Epstein Shutdown (TES) of 2025 has ended. Now the wreckage machine responsible for new levels of enshittification are the ones who are supposed to fix it. Hell, they can’t even get it together enough to release labor statistics that have been routine forever. Can’t get it together to keep their lies straight. They were firing people and then hiring them back after realizing the folks were needed. Now we’re expectin’ them to fix the shit they broke? And just in time for the holiday season to start bigly! Get the popcorn because this will probably be a mess. As it gets messier, Dozy Donny will want more distractions. “Look! Venezuela!” Hope Trump doesn’t kill too many as his regime flails and crumbles.
Got coffee. Watching out the window for peace and grace to show up. Here we go, another Frida is underway. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 