The Road Home

Leaving California traffic.  Yeah, I'll miss this. 

Eastern Oregon…gateway to zzzzzzz.

It's soggy in eastern Washington.

At home at last in the panhandle of Idaho

New Beginings

     Dear Michael & Stacey,

Congratulations on your new home.  You're going to like living here.  It will be a terrific place to start your family.  Linda and I have loved this place and find it almost impossible to believe we've spent nearly ten years enjoying its cozy confines.  It's warm in the winter--well, what passes for winter in San Diego--and comfortably cool in the summer months.  We've never had to run the air conditioning more than a couple of weeks in either August or September.  The neighbors are nice and we'll miss them but it's time for us to go.  In 46 years we've packed and hit the road 17 times and this has been a longer than usual stay.  Southern California can be seductive that way.

Our kids are grown and it's time for us to go ride bikes, play in boats and--who knows--maybe even mess around with the old game of golf after an extended layoff.  We'll come back to San Diego often since our youngest daughter and her family live here.  It would be impossible to stay away from our one and only grandson for very long.  (Who else but grandpa can pull candy from his ears?)  Grandchildren are the icing on the cake of a lucky and very blessed life.  You'll see what I mean in another twenty or thirty years.

I wish you many happy years in the home that will now only exist for us in old photos and misty memories.   As we now embark on what is no doubt our "senior tour" I invite you to stop and see us if you should find yourselves in the Lake Coeur D' Alene area of the Gem State of Idaho.  We should be settled in before the year has ended and unpacked sometime in 2016.

Al, Padre fan and genuine alligator lizard

Pay no attention to the psychotic barking of the mutt next door.  You'll get used to it after awhile and the little bastard will no doubt head for that big bone yard in the sky in a couple of years.  Oh, while you're at it, please say hello to my little pal Al the alligator lizard who lives on the west side of the patio.  Al is, like me, a longtime Padre fan (see, Cub fan of the western U.S.) and will commiserate with you throughout the many sad and gone bad seasons waiting to be endured.  Toss him a spider or grub if you get the chance.  Unlike most of us wearing Padre gear, he can catch.

So, enjoy the house: raise your children and have some laughs.  One day, when the kids are gone and your hair is either gone or gray, I've got a beautiful little place on the shores of Lake Coeur D' Alene I can probably offer you at a bargain price.

Sincerely,

Ken Copper

Getting Too Old For This

Having spent the past couple of weeks in whirling dervish mode as we prepare to leave California for the pristine beauty of Lake Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, I have come to the conclusion that timing truly is everything.  In two or three more years my wife and I wouldn't be able to make a move of this magnitude.  It's just too tough.  What was once a part of our lives as radio gypsies now seems to be overwhelming.  Neither of us has been able to sleep much as we worry about all the little things that go into an interstate relocation.  How did we ever do it when the kids were little?!

This project has reminded me that maybe the most significant reason most of us are only allotted a maximum  eighty to one-hundred years on the planet is that is about all the change we can handle.  Change, increasingly at warp speed for us, becomes more difficult as our people odometer rolls up maximum numbers.  Whoa! Why can't things just hold still for awhile?  It's not only harder and harder to register all the technological change around us but emotionally the transformation of America's social mores seems more difficult to accept as we age.  Embracing my inner (and outer) grumpy old man grows easier every day.

Case in point:  Recently I read a report of a new survey of 2,000 people from  a dating website for singles that smacked me between the eyes with just how different our society is since my dating days in the 1960's.

According to the findings, single girls now wait until the fifth "date" (or whatever it's called today) before having sex.  Even more shocking--at least to a man of my years-- is what makes up their mind about sleeping with a guy.

Here is their list:  1. Two gifts or tokens of affection
                            2.  Five social media messages
                            3.  12 text conversations
                            4.  Five phone calls
                            5.  Three DVDs watched
                            6.  Seven passionate kisses
                            7.  Five heart-to-hearts or meaningful conversations
                            8.  Four meals together
                            9.  One bunch of flowers
That's it!  Really.

I honestly can't imagine what this list will look like in another fifty years.  All I know is I'm getting WAY too old for this stuff and am more grateful than ever that my wife has seen fit to put up with my   ever more irritating personality and painful inadequacies for the past forty plus years.

You see, in my day, boys and girls,  there was a tenth item on the list.  A wedding ring was part of the deal back then.  No token tally of social messages or DVDs in common, just plenty of passionate kisses and ring seemed to work just fine. Well, maybe flowers didn't hurt either.

As I said, I'm getting too old for this b.s., and I'm grateful.
Don't get me started on the designated hitter or political correctness either.

Funny Lady

She didn't need the plastic surgery.

I've often wondered what Joan Rivers would have looked like if she had not fallen in love with plastic surgery.  Better, I think.  Looking at old pictures of her I wonder why she was so afraid of a few wrinkles.  She was an attractive woman whose marvelous sense of humor made her downright beautiful to me.  The broad was FUNNY!

In an age of political correctness, Joan Rivers decidedly was not.  She knew that being funny meant being offensive.  ALL humor is offensive.  If you're not offending someone or something you're not being funny.  Only morons refuse to grasp this and, naturally, they always seem to be offended by nearly  everything.

I interviewed Joan Rivers about ten years ago just prior to a show she was booked to perform at Humphry's in San Diego.  My then radio partner, Cynthia Heath-Kerrigan, and I approached the interview with some trepidation.  Comedians can be some of the worst people on the planet to deal with and both of us thought that Joan might be a bit of a handful.  We were prepared for a hard time.  Boy were we mistaken.  She was not only entertaining but pleasant, considerate,polite and damn funny  for the better part of an hour conversation she really could have skipped.  Her performance was already sold out.  She talked with us like we were old friends and was hilarious throughout the interview.   A class act all the way.  I came away an even bigger fan than I had been before.

I believe it was P.J. O'Rourke who said:  "I've always thought that solemnity was the principal feature of a low I.Q., and that earnestness is just stupidity sent to college. "  A fantastic line.  Joan Rivers was a comedic genius who made the world a better place with humor.

Thanks Joan for lightning the load.  Tell George Burns, Robin Williams, Johnny Winters and the rest of the gang now playing the BIG room hello, and thanks again for all the laughs.