Category: Current events


Some Mysteries Remain

Filed under: Communications, Current events, writing — Leave a comment
May 29, 2025

by Dan Roark

A friend and fellow songwriter, Allen Larson (on the far left in the picture), posted about a band he was in in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Nightchase. I recognized the guy on the far right that Allen identified as a short term member whose name escaped him. That is Joel Nichols. Elton Goodner is the one in the middle who resembles Jerry Garcia.

Let me give you some background first. Allen and I have been friends and members of the Dallas Songwriter Association since around 2013. We’ve supported each other at shows. When he had the Allen Larson’s Project, I knew a few of them had played together for years. But not once did I think anything in Allen’s history would intersect with mine.

Now for me. In 1976, Cyndy (married now, dating then) introduced me to Joel Nichols

Joel Nichols, Dan Roark, Bruce Gibson

and Bruce Gibson on Super Bowl Sunday. We became Southern Plains. Sometimes it was the three of us. Most times over the years, it was Joel and I. In either case, if the gig paid enough, we had a bass player and drummer. George “Allen” Turner was our friend, and drummer on occasion. I opened for, and played with, Allen’s bands over the years. He even played when we couldn’t afford to pay him.

Southern Plains – Nashville Edition Joel Nichols, Cat Waldeman, Dan Roark

But I digress. Joel had one year left at college in Nashville. I moved out there with him. For one reason, to help him finish school. For another, to see what we could do in Nashville music-wise. Which is an entirely different post. Cyndy and I lost touch after I moved to Nashville (still another post).

By ’79, I was living in Ft. Worth, managing Famous Ramos in Ridgmar Mall. In ’80, I married my first wife, Janice, and we moved at one point to help Joel open up his sandwich shop in Commerce in East Texas. Janice and I lived in Greenville. I drove back and forth. At the sandwich shop, I did the advertising and any other thing that needed doing turning the space into Lindy’s. As it turned out, when the college was out during the summer, the shop was unsustainable.

Janice and I moved to Denton, where we lived when Jennifer was born. We moved to Dallas when I became assistant manager at Pizza Inn. Which would have been sometime in ’81. That would have been when I met Elton, but I’m still not sure how. Joel was still in Commerce at the time.

Elton and I talked about being a duo, “Ruf ‘n’ Redy.” We co-wrote a theme song, which was the only song we wrote. It was called, oddly enough, The Ballad of Ruf and Redy. I have the lyrics in my hand written songbook. I don’t remember if we had any shows.

That winter we were at a party – either Christmas or New Years – at an apartment. Joel and I played. I don’t remember if Elton and I played. But I do remember Elton asking me if it was okay if he asked Joel to be in his band. Between jealousy (both about Elton not picking me and him wanting to ask Joel), alcohol and other things, I didn’t take it very well.

It wasn’t too long before Joel and I were playing shows again. I never knew what happened with Elton and the band and I never asked. Until Allen posted a couple of weeks ago about his band back then and I recognized Joel in the pictures.

I wonder how close Allen and I came to meeting back then. It may remain a mystery. Joel and I continued to play together until his death in 1999. Bruce and I played at his funeral.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

 

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign, Pt. 2

Filed under: Communications, Current events, travel, writing — 1 Comment
February 18, 2025

By Dan Roark

There are signs other than road signs. Posting on bulletin boards and other written paper notifications that are not permanent or near a road. Then the kind of signs that are simply sayings, texts, or whatnot – although we don’t know exactly what they are signs of. We’ll discuss it because, well, why not?

Today we’ll have one of each of two of the sign categories listed above. The first is the assumably permanent sign pictured here. As you can tell it was a cloudy day and there’s only so much you can do to a picture taken on a cloudy day.

Forget for the moment the fact that the sign above is technically on a hill to begin with. A smaller hill, but a hill nonetheless. The point I’m making is that you can see the freaking hill. You can’t miss it. You don’t need a sign to tell you there’s a hill.

What would be useful would be a sign telling drivers what is over the hill. Once you’re on top of the hill, it’s a little late to find out any changes in the direction of the road or see obstacles.

_____________________________

I was checking my email the other day and came upon an email from Walmart. I frequently order online and then go pick the order up. So I opened it:

“Thank you for buying lunch meats and deli meats.  Our pick for you today is Smoker Pellets.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand (or sit) before you, amazed and confused. It has been months since I have purchased either lunch or deli meats. We do, indeed, have a smoker. But it is old enough to precede the creation of pellets for smokers or grills. The three grills our family members own are charcoal so there is no grill attached to our name that uses smoker pellets.

I have, in fact, bought charcoal in an online order. So on what planet would you assume I would need smoker pellets? I wonder about the validity of their algorithms.

________________________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

PayPal.me/danroark

 

 

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign, Pt. 1

Filed under: Communications, Current events, travel, writing — Leave a comment
February 7, 2025

By Dan Roark

There are signs you see all the time, but ignore, because you either already know or it makes no sense. Then there are the signs you pass all the time, but don’t actually notice – or it doesn’t affect you (at least at the time you see it). So you quit noticing it.

We’ll begin with digital signs that may or may not change what it says. The picture above actually says “New Traffic Pattern.” I was taking J.D. – our youngest grown son – to work and back for a while. I took a picture with my android phone one day. J.D. took a picture with his iPhone the next day. The next day I had the 35mm camera.

What you see above is the best we got. That is not what we saw with our eyes. Since we could see what it actually said, it ruled out hackers. Hackers would change the message. It had to be a force that kept the correct message from being recreated in a picture. And it would have to be an electric/static force. Which would come from where, exactly? Certainly not the gas station across the intersection.

That is a rabbit hole we are not going down today. Take it at face value – New Traffic Pattern. Here’s the deal: in the numerous weeks we made the trip, the pattern NEVER changed. They did add a stoplight at one point, but the pattern never changed. It went on like that for weeks, not just the week we tried taking the picture. It alternated with Drive Slowly. Those that are going to actually slow down were slowing down regardless – whether there was a sign or not. Either way, New Traffic Pattern would have done the trick. If they weren’t going to slow down anyway, same difference. Whatever way you slice it, it’s using taxpayer money.

Every time I drive somewhere, I’ll see a sign (the electronic signs are relegated to high traffic areas in the city) that seems to be irrelevant or makes no sense. I think, crap, I need to get a picture of that. Then I remember that I’ve got signs on the list to keep me busy long enough to take the pictures. I just need to remember where they were.

Come along on the journey of stupid or useless signs. It’ll be fun!

______________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

 

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It’s Just The Way You Do It

Filed under: Communications, Current events, Food, writing — Leave a comment
January 23, 2025

by Dan Roark

When you’ve been doing something the same way for years, chances are it would be difficult to get you to change. It’s hard for anyone who’s been doing something for a number of years to learn “new tricks.” Not just “old dogs.”  Take folding t-shirts, for example. I’ve been folding shirts the same way for years. I can’t tell you why I fold them the way I do – see picture (not my best work). My mother is the only one who folded my shirts before I did and I don’t think I fold them the way she did.

I think Cyndy folds t-shirts the way my Mom did. I don’t know how my daughter by my first wife, Jennifer, folded her t-shirts, even if she did, before she passed away. And I have no earthly idea how her mother folds t-shirts – to my recollection, she didn’t. Mostly because she didn’t wear t-shirts. But her sons by the husband after me I’m sure wore t-shirts. But I don’t know how she folded them.

Of Cyndy’s and my three boys, Cameron folds his shirts like my Mom, I think. He wishes his wife, Julia, would fold t-shirts like he does. As the three boys were growing up, to my recollection, folding wasn’t required. As far as I remember, the boys just shoved their shirts into a dresser drawer.

The point is, none of us will ever change the way we fold shirts. And, among other things, we all grill differently, too. We grill the same meats, just our methods and spices differ. Even Cyndy and I grill differently although we aim for the same basic results. However, we’ve been using the grill my parents gave us years ago that was old at the time. It is just a basic charcoal grill.

Now we have Cameron’s grill/smoker because he got a more advanced smoker he could operate with his phone. But we haven’t been able to use it because, for one thing, the weather has sucked. That, and J.D. lived here until he moves completely into his new apartment, so his grill/smoker is also in the back yard. He grilled more than we did while he was here.

Our oldest son, Conner, lives in Des Moines, Iowa, so grilling isn’t really a thing for him. But if he did grill, it would be different from the rest of us. Cameron and J.D. don’t eat each other’s barbeque. Cyndy and I will gladly eat barbeque from any of our sons, but, like them, we prefer our own.

There are any number of other things that we all either learn, or just do, differently that it will be tough to get us to change, whether it would be more efficient to change or not. But chances are that we’ll never change.

What do you do, in your own way, every time you do it (and have been doing it for years)?

_____________________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

 

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Daily Triple Threat

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January 19, 2025

By Dan Roark

It is a daily occurrence. In the picture, the mouse, the Fire Stick controller, and my cell phone are neatly placed. That was for the picture. They get moved quite a bit. With the exception of the mouse, I never put them back in the same place after using them. The mouse does, however, get moved on occasion, but it basically stays on the mouse pad. However, it’s a big mouse pad and the remote will fit there as well. So I am constantly grabbing the wrong thing for what I want to do.

I want to change shows for background noise and find I’m trying to do it with the mouse. Then I go to do something on the computer screen and grab the Fire Stick remote. Or the phone rings and it takes me a minute to figure out what to reach for.

I’m usually lost in my thoughts so I get confused easily with sudden reality. Like suddenly realizing I’m trying to use the mouse to change the channel. Or trying to click on something on my laptop with the remote.

I move each of them to different places on the desk. But that doesn’t freaking help. It just pisses me off more when I still grab the wrong one. It’s acerbated by the fact that I change the channel less frequently. Followed by my phone which I only check when getting certain notifications or a call from someone I want to talk to enough to answer it – I get some notifications on my watch, but I check them on the phone.

So far I lack any viable solution. I’m not sure at this point that there is one. But it illustrates that multi-tasking is a fallacy. You can only truly do one task at a time. If you try to alternate between several tasks, you never do any of them as well as you can one at a time. And it takes longer to complete each task.

Most importantly, it makes my damn head hurt changing from task to task. I can think about a few things at the same time, yet I can only act on one at a time. That still doesn’t keep me from thinking about a task I’m not working on – making me switch again. Which is why it makes my head hurt. At that point, calming down and thinking of nothing is an impossibility.

So I simply grab my mouse and try to change channels.

_____________________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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The Phantom? Horse

Filed under: Communications, Current events, live, Music, travel, writing — Leave a comment
January 2, 2025

By Dan Roark

I was coming back from my show at The Barrel House in Winnsboro last Wednesday night – the night of the torrential rains. When I left, there was a misleading pause in the rain. It was not long before it came back with a steady, vicious, vengeance.

The weather people were not wrong about the flash floods. The rain was freaking relentless. Which rendered the GPS as useless as the empty cracker wrapper that ended up in the floorboard. I found myself in the middle of nowhere East Texas on two lane roads that weren’t really safe on a good day, much less after near continuous rain for hours on end.

I’m not quite sure exactly how it happened. Suddenly, I was careening off the road to the right. It would have helped if the tires were actually connecting with the ground. I turned the wheel and was headed to the left side. I think the van may have actually made a 360 degree turn. I remember praying that it wouldn’t end up on it’s side. When the tires caught the dirt and the van finally stopped, I was facing to the right. As I tapped the gas to make sure the van was still running, I was staring at a fence I was very happy was not closer. (The happiness was masked at the time by shear fear mixed with absolute confusion.)

With no other cars on the road, I took time to breath and a motion caught my eye. A brown horse was running from my right to my left. There was enough light to know it was brown. She was running like she was frightened, or at the least agitated, with mane flying. She looked and acted like a mare to me. The constant rain with occasional lightning and thunder had probably gotten on her nerves and the noise of the van skidding certainly didn’t help.

But it was a few seconds suspended in time. Just me and the mare. She looked like a phantom horse, with every thing else a seeming shadow. It seemed as if every move she made was directed at me.

I had no idea where I was. Actually, that’s only partly true. I knew where all the relatively bigger towns in East Texas are located. On a sunny day, with the light combined with my sense of direction, I could have gotten home with considerably less problem. But it was pitch black with hard rain. My sense of direction was on vacation.

When I finally came to the conclusion that I had to completely abandon GPS, I stopped at a 24 hour gas station/convenience store that seemed to be the outermost corner of a street that resembled more civilization than I had seen since leaving Winnsboro . The couple operating the store was friendly, helpful, and East Texas to the core. The man had a moustache and a beard down to his chest. He had a high voice and her voice was lower. She even unlocked the bathroom to let me use it. That’s how friendly they were.

As it turns out, I wasn’t so far off after all, even though most of my sense of direction had washed away in the constant rain assaulting the windshield after my frightening carnival ride on a rain soaked section of East Texas backroad. A stop sign and a stop light and I was on Hwy 80 headed to Dallas. It wasn’t much longer before I was home, drinking beer with the drive back running through my head on repeat. Not too long after that my nervous system calmed down enough to let me go to bed, comfortable in the knowledge that I was still alive and the van was still running like it should. I was also remembering a good show. So naturally, I dreamed about the horse.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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Suspicious Activity

Filed under: Communications, craft brewery, Current events, travel, writing — Leave a comment
December 9, 2024

By Dan Roark

There are numerous things that happen that can seem suspicious. Not that they are implied to be inherently bad, but at least enough to be, well, suspicious. And suspicious in different ways. There’s odd suspicious, “what the hell are they doing” suspicious, and holy crap! suspicious. I’m sure there are more, but we’re concerned at the moment with these three.

Odd Suspicious

Odd suspicious is simply things for which there doesn’t seem to be an answer or solution. I was driving north on I-35 from Farmers Branch to across Lake Lewisville. Traffic was moving, but slower than the speed limit. Naturally, people were being stupid in every lane, braking at the slightest thing that surprised them since they weren’t paying much attention anyway. Changing lanes made no difference because the morons were doing that first – ad nauseum – which was causing the problem in the first place. There was no lane to change to that wasn’t occupied by someone not going the speed limit for one reason or another.

Then I come around a curve and suddenly there’s no one in front of me for like a quarter of a mile. Where did they freaking go? They didn’t exit. They didn’t speed up. So where did they go? Did they get sucked into the ethos so fast I didn’t notice?

“What the Hell are They Doing” Suspicious.

I turned onto Trend off of Beltline. Trend is a short street with a turn that becomes Arapaho after the light at Marsh. Most of Trend is trucking companies with docks everywhere and trailers in front of a lot of them with small businesses on the west side. When I turned onto Trend I saw two cars following each other slowly into a parking lot with trailers at loading docks. And they didn’t seem like they were supposed to be there. But they were definitely following each other and about to get out and meet outside the cars.

At least they didn’t pull in between the trailers at the loading docks. That would have been creepy. I thought about taking pictures for this post, but that would have been even more suspicious – someone following another person into a dark parking lot – or someone trying to take a picture of them doing that. They weren’t just meeting for beers. There’s plenty of places in the vicinity to do that. One of those places is Bitter Sisters Brewery, where I was headed.

They weren’t there for that. But who knows what they were there for. Probably not anything legal.

“Holy Crap” Suspicious

There are several places where construction is in process in the area (Dallas and Denton Counties) that have a sign preceding them that says “New Traffic Pattern.” I have no doubt the situation is repeated in other counties. And when I say construction is in process, I mean that there are fifty to one hundred pylons or traffic cones (the terms are interchangeable, but in my mind traffic cones are the ones that actually look like cones, and pylons are the other ones) but, in a number of cases, there are no machines  or personnel present. And the patterns rarely change, if at all until progress had been made enough to move the sign – which seems to take forever.

Over three days of taking J.D. to work every day, we both tried to a get a picture of the sign saying “New Traffic Pattern.” It alternated with “Slow Down.” It is at a traffic light so we had to get there at the right time to get the picture. And each time we had a chance to take a picture, the result was similar to what you see in the picture here. We used a camera, an android phone, and an iPhone. But that was not what we saw with our eyes – or through the cameras for that matter.

So it wasn’t a matter of being there and then being gone. And it wasn’t exactly an optical illusion – except maybe for the camera. I’ve been taking pictures for years. I’m not an amateur, but I’m not a professional. And I’ve never had this happen before.

Is the sign haunted? Not likely. Why would extra-terrestrials, if they had superior intellect (which has not been confirmed), screw with our traffic signs? Even if they didn’t have superior intellect, why would they screw with our traffic signs? Our traffic is so screwed up now they would only be able to wonder what the hell we were thinking.

Which is why it’s holy crap! suspicious. Some forces from somewhere were at play. But from where no one knows…

 

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark 

 

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Kumakawa – Book Review

Filed under: Book Review, Books, Communications, Current events, writing — Leave a comment
November 22, 2024

By Dan Roark

The story of Kumakawa is written by his former and current owners, Ross Hartshorn and Helen McCarthy. It’s written from the point of view of the horse, which makes it interesting. Throughout the book there are things told in the book that a horse could not possibly know – even if he is told it by a border collie. But it makes the book a captivating read.

It begins with Kumakawa’s lineage. His grandfather was Nijinsky, who was named after the acclaimed Russian ballet dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky. As a three year old in 1970, he became the first triple crown winner since 1935, then continued winning to be confirmed one of the greatest flat horses of the century. Kumakawa was named after Tetsuya Kumakawa, an illustrious Japanese ballet dancer who was 26 years old at the time. To complete the theme of the lineage names, Nijinsky was sired by the incredible stallion, Northern Dancer. Kumakawa’s father was Dancing Spree.

While the authors do drag things out more than necessary – and you’ll see “to make a long story short” a number of times – it is still a very readable book. For one thing, it’s about horses. Kumakawa and his owners are located in Wales, so the British terms sometimes require a little research. Speaking for myself, that’s not a bad thing, it’s a learning experience. I find horses fascinating – I’m writing about them after all.

Terms such as horsebox, rather than horse trailer. “Come a cropper,” which means falling from a horse heavily. “Hacking” is riding a horse for fun or exercise. “On the naughty step,” which is basically in time out. Acclimatised rather than acclimated.

While it appears Kumakawa, in the book, knows more about the human things going on around him, the authors didn’t have much choice, other than interjecting themselves into the story – which would be unsettling and eventually annoying. It does, however, put the life of Kumakawa in historical perspective.

Over all, it’s a fun read. It’s not an “in one sitting” type of read. Some of the longer years when more things go awry can take a couple of sittings themselves. But, again, it’s about horses – with insights about horses galore. Then there’s the animal interactions. Kumakawa’s relationship to his border collie pals – Leah first, and then Daisy.

The interactions with Daisy are written and illustrated in three additional children’s books with more to come. The overall title of the books is The Adventures of Kumakawa, The Horse That Will Try Anything. The current three are Today It’s Karate, Today It’s Ballet, and Today He’s Australian.

Each book involves Kumakawa, Daisy, and a couple of friends. The overarching purpose of the books is to give children the confidence that they can do anything they put their mind to.

Which is perfect for those younger therapeutic riders and any child with societal issues.

 

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

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Traffic, A Show and Being Stopped

Filed under: Communications, Current events, live, Music, travel, writing — 1 Comment

By Dan Roark

So I left at 5 p.m. for my show at 7 at Pilot Point Coffee House. On a usual day, it would take me 45 minutes to an hour to get there. Even on a Friday, it shouldn’t take a lot longer than that. But there was nothing usual about this Friday night.

Heading north on I35 from Farmers Branch, things went as expected, even exiting and turning on Swisher and heading for the Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge. About two thirds of the bridge when fine. Then we slowed way down. We never stopped completely, but we were moving irritatingly slow. Turns out the right lane ended just past the bridge.

Once we got through the lane closure and it turned into Eldorado Pkwy., things ran smoother. I turned onto Oak Grove Pkwy. and seemed to be making up some time. Then there was a half-mile back-up at 380 and again at the light for 424 leading to 377, which went smoothly.

I parked at the coffee house about 10 ’till 7. After two trips from the van, and sound check, I started the show at 7:05. Not bad for having incurred hellacious traffic.

Despite the inauspicious start, it turned out to be a great show. I even gained new fans. It was a community event and I was the entertainment. Apparently, I didn’t disappoint them.

So I’m heading home. I’m going through small towns on a Friday night so I’m paying attention to speed limit signs. In my mind, I’m back home having a beer. I’m cruising right along, going through the show in my head when, suddenly, it looks like I’m being followed by a flashing Christmas tree – minus the green lights.

I pulled over immediately, which has been my reaction for years – I am an old hippie after all. I asked him if I missed one. He said “what?” I said, “speed limit sign.” It seemed to confuse him for a minute. Then he explained that he stopped me because my license plate light was out. He took my driver’s license and way too much time checking me out, then came back with a written warning. Are you kidding me? I haven’t gotten a written warning in years! Not that I haven’t received warnings, just not written.

To be honest, I didn’t even know the van had license plate lights (I changed them the next day – turns out there are two). They obviously hadn’t been changed in years as dirty as they were and as hard as it was getting them out. I watched a YouTube video to keep from snapping them off by twisting them the wrong way.

But the kicker is that I’ve been driving thousands of miles a year for a number of years now in more than half a dozen states and that was the first time I’ve ever been stopped because the license plate lights were out. I’ve been stopped for a lot of stupid reasons – and a few good ones – but not for lack of license plate lights.

And now I have – within an hour from home. Go figure.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

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Things That Happen When You’re Stuck in Traffic

Filed under: Communications, Current events, travel, writing — Leave a comment
October 8, 2024

By Dan Roark

I was driving J.D. to work yesterday when we came upon a quarter of a mile or more of pylons which eventually brought us down to one lane on the other side of the median on Plano Parkway. We were heading east before coming up the rise toward the light at Alma.

When we came down to one lane, we also came to a complete stop. A man in a hard hat popped between the two tower type “arms” of the crane and strung a cable from between the two to the large part on “our” end.

He climbed down and began the process that led to the next picture.

It was quite interesting watching the arm that the guy had walked across raise up and the two original arms split in separate directions. We were wondering what it was they were going to lift.

About that time, traffic began to move again. On the other side of the crane was a bridge on a flat bed truck. Traffic had begun to move so we didn’t get a picture of the bridge on the truck.

But this morning, I took the following pictures of the bridge installed.

 

The moral of the story is, if you’re going to stop traffic, at least have something for the drivers and passengers to watch to get their minds off of running late.

 

 

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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