Book review: Thor casts ‘Shadow of Doubt’ as thrilling spy adventure

 

In the world of espionage, trust is the currency upon which everything trades.

When it comes to trust, superspy Scot Harvath is nearly broke. Manipulated by his past on two fronts – foreign and domestic – Harvath must choose between serving his country or spying on his fiancé, Solvi Kolstad, a deputy director in the Norwegian Intelligence Service. She has just taken into custody a high-ranking Russian official whose secrets can alter world events and either trigger or prevent nuclear war between Russia and the West.

Complicating things are the secret transport of a suspicious cargo from Russia to Belarus and the murder of a French intelligence officer who was about to crack the case wide open. With the CIA pressing on Harvath and the Norwegian Intelligence Service hunting Kolstad, the two must play the Russian agent’s wily game or lose everything.

Scot Harvath is at his best when taking on former Soviets but this time it’s personal and political on many, overlapping levels. Author Brad Thor winds his hero breathlessly through a tangle of heart-pounding adventures and intrigue in “Shadow of Doubt.” The 23rd book in the Harvath series retraces the past and blazes new trails in a mirror image of events yet to play out in real life. Ever the student of global politics, Thor has a knack for predicting future events and wrapping them in his fictional thrillers. By the time real events unfold, it’s old news to Thor’s readers.

“Shadow of Doubt” doubles down on the stakes by blending love, trust, and loyalty in a tight cord that is woven through a web of betrayal and deceit – all on a backdrop of nuclear tensions with dire global consequences. Not knowing where the twists and turns will take you in this page-turner makes “Shadow of Doubt” the biggest and best thriller of the year.

(Shadow of Doubt: A thriller by Brad Thor, Emily Bestler Books/Simon and Schuster, 360 pages, available Aug. 6, 2024, $29.99/U.S.)

Why are Christians supporting Trump?

I have a question for my fellow Christians who ardently support former president Donald Trump in his bid to return to the White House.

What on earth are you thinking!?

Have you compartmentalized your faith from your politics or lost your faith altogether?

Seriously. As a Christian I fail to see how anyone who professes Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior can support Trump. The man is as deceptively evil as they come and yet he has hordes of evangelicals and other Christians throwing themselves and their cash at his feet and turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the truth.

Before I go on, I know many of you have wrongly pegged me as a RINO (Republican In Name Only). That’s fine. Name calling is part of the Trump game. I get it. But before you go, please take a minute to clear your head, open your mind, and hear me out. (And no, I’m not saying you should vote for Joe Biden. More about that later.)

Donald Trump is not the antichrist, but his words and actions show that he is the opposite of Christ. He purports himself to be a Christian, but that is just another one of his lies.

Who am I to judge his Christianity? I’m not qualified, but his words and actions are plain to see and understand. For example, let’s start with the 2024 election campaign and Trump’s recent convictions on all 34 felony charges in his hush money trial. Notice that Trump shows no remorse whatsoever for having an affair with a porn star, paying her money to keep it quiet, and conspiring to cover up the payments so none of it would negatively affect him in the 2016 campaign. He takes no responsibility for any of these actions.

What we do see from him is the equivalent of a magician’s slight-of-hand trick. He creates massive distraction with one hand while performing his magic with the other. Rather than face the facts, he distracts everyone by calling it a politically motivated sham trial. (Notice he never called Hunter Biden’s gun trial politically motived or a sham trial.) He distracts by badmouthing the court, the legal system, prosecutors, the judge and other court personnel. He was fined for multiple violations of a gag order in the case. Rather than respect the court of law and our legal system he has disparaged it and trampled on the good names and reputations of those who make it work. With that distraction on one hand, he hopes to get voters to forget his crimes and turn their backs on one of the cornerstones of American democracy with the other hand.

Not only is Trump a convicted felon, he is also one of three presidents to have been impeached (and not once, but twice). Trump now wears his felonies as a badge of honor and vows revenge not only on those he blames for the trial, but against those whom he feels didn’t do enough to support him in the process. In the days after his convictions, Trump repeatedly suggested that he could prosecute his political adversaries if elected in November. In a televised interview with Dr. Phil McGraw, the host said revenge and retribution are bad for the country and that Trump will not have time to “get even.” Trump replied: “Revenge does take time. I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified. Phil, I have to be honest – sometimes it can.”

In another interview Trump instead said that “based on what they (Democrats) have done I would have every right to go after them.” He has also tried to deny his frequent calls in the 2016 campaign to “lock up” Hillary Clinton.

More recently Trump has suggested that corporate leaders should be fired if they don’t support him.

“Business Executives and Shareholder Representatives should be 100% behind Donald Trump! Anybody that’s not should be FIRED for incompetence!” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social website.

Face it, Trump is angry, vengeful, hateful and overflowing with contempt. The Bible, however, commands us to respect authority, even if we don’t agree with it.

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” Romans 13:1-2

Right after the verdict there was a popular meme going around on social media that said “Jesus was convicted in a sham trial and I still follow him.” That may be, but there are huge differences. Jesus did no wrong. Trump did multiple things wrong. Jesus accepted his punishment, even though he was innocent. While dying on the cross, Jesus asked God to forgive his tormentors. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

Trump has done just the opposite. He has lambasted the courts, the legal system, court personnel, and witnesses in the case. He has vowed vengeance. He has been blaming everyone and everything he can except himself.

Those who follow Jesus know he gives us a much different directive. “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:44

Trump is unrepentant and refuses to take ownership of his crimes or to show any remorse, regret, or shame for what he has done and the harm it has caused. What’s worse is he has legions of his followers – including Christians – who believe his lies and spread his hate. Are you among them?

Let’s explore some more, shall we? Trump uses derogatory terms and name-calling when he speaks about anyone or anything he opposes. The Bible gives multiple warnings about taming the tongue. Among them:

“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.” – Jesus, Matthew 15:18-20

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29

Trump also lies – a lot! During his presidency he was caught making false or misleading claims 30,573 times according to the Washington Post. The Toronto Star calculated that he made an average 6.1 false claims per day between 2017 and 2019. Most everyone knows that the Bible speaks very clearly about lying. It is most famously stated in the ninth of the 10 commandments: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Exodus 20:15

Also: “Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another. Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:11-12

1 John 1:6 says, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.”

Trump claims to have fellowship with God but walks in darkness. Remember during Holy Week before Easter when Trump started selling $60 Bibles tainted with copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance, and the handwritten lyrics to the chorus of Lee Greenwood’s song God Bless the USA? All of those documents are great for America, but not for Christianity. They are not part of the holy scriptures and should never be mixed with them.

“Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.” Deuteronomy 4:2

“Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again,” Trump wrote in one of his Bible sales pitches. “As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible.” (By the way, you cannot make anyone pray. It’s unconstitutional.)

He also prattled on with fearmongering rhetoric that is lacking truth.

“Many of you have never read them and don’t know the liberties and rights you have as Americans, and how you are being threatened to lose those rights. … Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country, and I truly believe that we need to bring them back and we have to bring them back fast,” he said.

Religion and Christianity are missing? Since when? That last I looked they were in abundance and being freely practiced everywhere in America.

Trump was photographed holding up a copy of his Bible, saying, “It’s my favorite book.” If it’s his favorite book, he obviously has not read it, or if he has, he definitely did not understand it. It’s my opinion that the purpose of his book sale is to fundraise and propagandize. He said the proceeds from the sale of his book will not go into his campaign, but where else are they going if not to him?

In addition to being convicted of 34 felonies and twice impeached as President, Trump also faces more felony charges for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his part in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, among other things. He faces four federal charges for attempting to obstruct the certification of the election on Jan. 6, 2021. He faces 10 indictments for attempting to overturn the election results in Georgia. And he faces 40 counts for possessing classified documents at his home after leaving office.

In the Georgia case, a recorded telephone conversation has Trump demanding that election officials find him more votes in order to overturn the result.

“So, look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” he says in the recording.

His charges in the Jan. 6 case stem in part from him imploring Republican senators and Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the election. He also failed to call off rioters for hours despite numerous pleas from aides and his own children. Since then, he has gone on to praise the rioters as “warriors.”

The one thing that has been consistent with Trump is his lust for power and wealth. He is an egotistical megalomaniac hell-bent on holding the highest seat of power in the world. It’s not about making America great again; it’s about making Trump great. That in itself goes against what the Bible says in Philippians 2:3: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”

If you don’t believe me that Trump is only in it for himself, he said just as much on June 22 while addressing the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference in Washington, D.C.

“You have to get out and vote, just this time. I don’t care, in four years you don’t have to vote. But Christians can’t afford to sit on the sidelines. If Joe Biden gets back in Christianity will not be safe in a nation with no borders, no laws, no freedom, no future.”

Did you catch that? In one breath he said evangelicals must get out and vote, but they don’t have to when he’s not running. Then he implies that Christianity will not be safe if Biden is re-elected.

Wow! Just – wow! How can anybody believe that?

So again, I ask you my brothers and sisters in Christ, how can you get behind this man? Is moral character not important in a leader? You might argue he is the lesser of two evils. I wouldn’t say that President Joe Biden is evil, but I do think he is misguided in his politics and policy and suffers from dementia and other ailments of advanced age. I do not believe either man is fit for the presidency. As American Christians we should not be forced to choose between these two men – the lesser of two evils. Why can’t we choose between the better of two good candidates? There have got to be alternatives. Which Democrat and which Republican are worthy and how do we get them on the ballot? I don’t have that answer, but I pray they can be found in time.

(Joe Southern is a professional journalist and columnist with more than 36 years of experience in weekly and daily newspapers.)

Full house, empty nest, it’s all good

Two meals and a church service.

That’s all we had together and then it was over.

It wasn’t until it happened to me that I realized just how important it is for parents to have their adult children over for a visit. Wesley, our oldest son, just spent a four-day weekend with us, visiting from Florida. Luke, our middle son, came up for the weekend from his home in rural Fort Bend County. Joining their youngest brother, Colton, we had all three of our sons together for a couple days. Only the absence of their sister, Heather, who lives near Seattle, Washington, kept us from being a complete family.

Since Heather lived mostly with her mother growing up, it was usually just the five of us at home. As a parent, having children around is something you get used to. It’s a comforting feeling having a house full of kiddos. And then one by one they leave. Colton is still at home while he attends Texas A&M. After next year, however, he will be gone – probably to pursue his master’s degree elsewhere – leaving Sandy and me with an empty nest.

We’ve never had an empty nest before. I came into our marriage with Heather and she had Wesley. In our 24 years together, we’ve always had children at home. We have had a taste of the empty nest on occasion, but nothing longer than a week. Last weekend, however, it finally hit me just how much I miss the kids.

Even with Wesley and Luke here, we were all scattered to the four winds. I spent Saturday at The George Ranch (formerly known as George Ranch Historic Park) with the Texas Army doing 1830s camp and shooting demonstrations in honor of Texas Independence Day. Sandy and the boys were busy working on a number of mechanical projects. They raided a junk yard for car parts and worked on Colton’s car. They also tuned up our riding mower and tackled some other broken machines.

When I got home that evening, we all sat down together for dinner. It was the first time in a long time that the five of us were seated around the table for a meal. I nearly choked up thanking God for bringing us all together as I said grace. Listening to the boys cutting up and joking around during dinner warmed my heart. It was though as if nothing had changed, including the maturity of the humor.

We didn’t eat breakfast together as we all got up at different times. We were together for church and lunch at home afterward. That was it for time with the family. Two meals and a church service. Luke had to leave and the rest of us went to work on various projects. On Monday afternoon Wesley headed to the airport and his home in Florida. All of a sudden, the house is quiet and everything is back to normal.

Fortunately, our schedule this month is excessively busy, so there will not be a lot of time to dwell on the emptiness. On the contrary, I’m embracing the fullness of life and all of the challenges and opportunities God has provided. I’m very grateful for the brief time we got to share together and look forward to more good times ahead.

At the same time, I’m looking forward to finally having an empty nest. The few times I’ve had alone with Sandy have been very enjoyable. We are both eying Colton’s bedroom once he’s gone. I want a man cave and Sandy wants a craft room. I have little doubt that after logically talking it over and reaching a reasonable compromise that it will be a craft room.

Don’t get me wrong, we love the kids and they’re welcome home anytime. It’s just that we’ve rarely had the house to ourselves. Having random days without kids has shown that we really enjoy each other’s company. Working to build our hobby farm has definitely brought us even closer together. We share hopes, dreams, thoughts, and ideas as we shape our property into a functional farm. It’s exiting to see things go from concept to reality knowing we did it together.

Now that our children are grown and branching out on their own, we look forward to seeing them marry, start families, and pursue their hopes, dreams and adventures. And someday we will once again have all of them back home with their spouses and children, hopefully for visits that last longer than two meals and a church service.

Eggs are expensive and chickens ain’t cheap

The price of eggs at the supermarket is high – as is everything else – but let me tell you, the cost of raising chickens ain’t cheap.

At the time of this writing we do not own any chickens, but that will soon change. When Sandy and I moved to the Bryan/College Station area last summer, our goal was to turn our little 2.76-acre homestead into a hobby farm. We spent a lot of time and treasure getting the ground ready for the first phase of our project. In the last couple of weeks we have tilled our two gardens and are now transplanting the vegetable sprouts we raised in our kitchen and in our greenhouse.

In the meantime we have been slowly building a chicken coop. It’s basically a big wooden box on stilts built with old pallets, discarded plywood, leftover 2x4s, and some old wooden fence slats. It has that old, rustic look and feel that you get at really good barbecue restaurants that are decorated in repurposed barn wood and rusty corrugated tin siding.

Even using freebee scraps of wood we have had to sink a small fortune into it to buy nails, screws, roofing materials, hinges, latches, and 4x4 boards to make the stilts. We built it inside a 10-foot by 10-foot chain-link dog kennel the previous owners of our property left behind. About all we have left to do is wrap it in hardware cloth to cover the sizeable gaps we left for ventilation. When all is said and done, our scrap pile chicken coop will cost us upward of $300. And we still don’t have chickens.

The other day we shopped around for chicks at several places and wound up at Tractor Supply, where we utilized a Christmas gift card to purchase brooder box supplies, bedding, and some feed. That set us back another $80 – and still no chickens. After shopping around, we have come to learn that the price of a baby fuzzball chick is about $4-5. We want at least a dozen, so that will come to about $60. When you figure in the cost of more feed and bedding throughout the spring and summer, we will have spent about $500 before we even see the first egg.

Fortunately, we are doing the work ourselves, so we don’t have labor costs involved. Hobby farming itself is a real labor of love. It’s therapeutic to be outside working the soil, planting vegetables and trees, using power tools to build things, and appreciating the nature all around you. Now that we’re getting things in the ground, nature is becoming a bigger concern. We will need to put fences around the gardens very soon to keep the critters out.

I enjoy having wildlife on our property, but I don’t want them eating the fruits of our labor. We get excited when we get deer sneaking up to drink from our pond, but now I’m leery of them with the seeds and sprouts in the ground. In a couple months when the chickens christen the coop we will have to be vigilant against varmints such as raccoons, opossums, and certain snakes. I’m pretty sure the red-shouldered hawk living nearby will be a concern as well.

When we do finally buy our baby birds, we are being very picky about the breeds. We want chickens that can handle the hot Texas summers and also produce a whole passel of eggs. That narrows it down to just a few types and they’re not easy to come by yet. I’m thinking we may have to special order them, especially if we want to avoid getting roosters. The chicks at the stores are not always sexed, so you can’t tell what you’re getting. They also tend to be hybrids, and we’d prefer to have hearty, traditional breeds such as black Australorps and barred Plymouth Rocks.

In doing our shopping and research, we have learned that a lot of people are getting into backyard chickens. We’ve been told that the number of people buying chickens and chicken supplies is up significantly this year. It’s not only chickens that are popular. We’re on a bandwagon of people buying ducks as well. They’re a little harder to keep than chickens, but we have the advantage of owning a small pond for them. So, once the chickens are going we will turn our attention to ducks and building a duck house. They will be followed by rabbits.

Eventually in a couple years we hope to add alpacas or maybe goats and/or sheep. No pigs! I hate raising pigs. I’ll buy bacon but I won’t raise it.

I’m also thinking very seriously about getting back into beekeeping. If you can keep your hives alive it can be a very profitable venture. The trick is keeping the bees going. With so many pesticides and industrial crops engineered to be pest resistant, it can be very difficult for bees to survive. I live in an area where those threats would be very minimal.

I’ve rambled on long enough about things other than chickens. The thing is, farm fresh eggs from pasture raised chickens are not only better for you than the plain white eggs in the store, they taste a whole lot better. The up-front costs to get started may be high, but eventually they will pay for themselves in terms of dollars, good nutrition, and a great experience raising them. I can’t wait for September when I’m selling fresh eggs to customers or cracking them into my omelets.

What will your obituary say about you?

When I was studying journalism at Adams State College, my instructor Richard Joyce challenged us in one of our classes to write our own obituary.

He was dead serious about it. For a bunch of kids barely in our 20s, if even that old, it was hard to take the assignment that serious. Our whole lives were ahead of us. Few of us had actually accomplished anything of significance by that point and even fewer were certain where we wanted to go in life.

I don’t remember what I wrote but have often wished I kept the paper. The purpose of the assignment was to make us think not only of the future and what we wanted to accomplish in life, but also about the kind of person we wanted to be. I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, yet I had to imagine having a wife and kids. I didn’t have a job, but I had to imagine my career.

Since we were learning how to write obituaries, we decided to have some fun with it. In our small class there were plenty of Pulitzer Prize winners, multi-millionaires, famous celebrities, great athletes, and so on. A couple of my buddies and I did some brainstorming over some adult beverages, but then came the sobering realization that in addition to predicting our future, we also had to predict the day we would die and what our cause of death would be.

I do remember predicting that I will die on Oct. 31, 2065. I was going to live to be 100 and I was going to die on Halloween because I had been through a stretch of bad things happening to me on Halloween. I felt superstitious about it. I don’t know why I believed I would live to 100, it just seemed like a reasonable old age. I don’t recall what killed me.

I recently wrote my obituary again, this time for real. No, I’m not dying or planning to die. It’s just that obituaries have been on my mind a lot lately. After moving to Bryan/College Station last summer, one of my side jobs has been writing obituaries for Texas Aggie magazine published by The Association of Former Students at Texas A&M.

Truth be told, writing is kind of a misnomer. I glean key details from obituaries and but them in an eight-line summary that appears in the magazine. I read a lot of obits and learn some fascinating things about people I’ll never know. I also see a lot of signs where family members have struggled to fill in the dash between the birth date and death date. Having been the designated obit writer for my family – coupled with years of obit writing experience in newspapers – I know very well how hard it is to adequately summarize someone’s life when you’re grieving and preparing for a funeral.

I don’t want my family to have to struggle with my life story when my time comes to pass. It will be in a document on my computer desktop. All they will need to do is provided the day of death and add the funeral information. The rest of the details are in place. I plan to make regular revisions to it as needed because there is still a lot of life left to live and hopefully grandchildren and great-grandchildren to add to the survivor’s list.

Another reason I want an accurate obituary is because of the struggles I’ve had researching my family tree. There is so much conflicting information that I may never truly know for sure which ancestors are mine and what information about them I can trust. I want the generations that follow me to have a clear, concise record they can depend on.

The idea for writing my own obituary sprouted from a seed planted at a funeral I covered about 20 years ago. I don’t remember his name, but he was a firefighter with a sharp wit and a hilariously twisted sense of humor. He had a terminal disease and knew his time was short, so he wrote his own eulogy. He chose who would speak, and each speaker played off his cues. It was hilarious! Everyone left feeling uplifted and entertained – just the way he wanted it.

As I work my way through batches of obits each month for the magazine, I have become impressed at the quality individuals the university produces. There are a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners, veterinarians, doctors, captains of industry, and so on. Many of them are Christians and dedicated to their family. Sure, there are a few losers, but they are few and far between. Most Aggies live to be north of 75 years of age and the oldest so far was 102. The youngest was a college freshman who died in an accident.

In doing the obituaries, you get a deep appreciation for how short and fragile life is. Every day is a gift and you never know which one is your last. That’s why you should make today the best that it can be. Taking risks is better than living with regret. Ultimately, dedicating yourself to God and your family is the most important thing you can do. They are the only ones who are going to care once you’ve breathed your last.

Oh, and by the way, one of the benefits we learned in writing our own obituaries in school is that it’s the only way you’re guaranteed to get in the last word.

Football is over, bring on fair season!

With football season over, it’s time to embrace a short-lived but wildly exciting season as the Wharton County Youth Fair and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo get underway.

Fair and rodeo season is a time of fun and intense competition. The youth fair and the livestock portion of the HLSR are proving grounds for farm kids. If you don’t think raising animals is competitive, you ought to come out and watch the judging sometime. Unless you have a personal stake in the show, the judging can be pretty boring to watch. When you realize, however, what these kids have invested into their projects and the rewards they can reap, you begin to see just how important these contests are.

These kids (and their parents) spend a long time raising their project animal(s). For most of a year they will be out twice a day or more feeding, watering, grooming, and working their animals to prep them for show. There is no time off for bad weather, sick days, or even vacation. Not only do the animals require a lot of grooming and training, but the kids must learn how to show their animals and discover the characteristics judges are looking for. They also have to work on themselves (and their record keeping) as much as they do their animals because showmanship counts.

For the kids, there is a three-tiered investment in their project animals. The first is financial. Raising an animal – even something as small as a rabbit – isn’t cheap. You need land, cages/pens, food and water dishes, plenty of food and water and other nutrients, veterinary care, the required tagging or marking, all on top of the initial purchase price of the animal.

The second is the investment of time. A lot of FFA and 4-H members are up extra early each morning and oftentimes up late at night caring for their animals. Sometimes it means sacrificing other things, such as sports or other extracurricular activities, weekend outings, time with friends, time to goof off, and so on, in order to prioritize the care of your animals.

The third investment is emotional. It’s easy to get attached to an animal that you have raised, especially when you have spent so much time and money on it. Knowing that your animal will be sold and likely eaten can be tough to handle, although that is the goal of the competition. It’s also emotional because as badly as you want to win, you want your friends to win as well.

So, while watching the judging may not seem exciting, once you factor in all the behind-the-scenes stuff, it gets really intense. Victory can bring a pretty penny along with pride and bragging rights.

But getting back to the fairs and rodeos, they are just plain fun. Rodeo action is as exciting as any sport out there. Unlike the cushioned and padded athletes on the gridiron, rodeo stars can have life and limb on the line, especially in the rough stock events. Outside the rodeo there are carnival rides, exhibitor booths, home economic and art/craft booths, and a host of other entertainments.

This year the WCYF runs March 16-23. The HLSR runs Feb. 27 to March 17. When most people think of the Houston show, they think of the nightly rodeos and concerts. The rodeo is among the best in the world, featuring the best athletes, both animal and human.

This year’s concert lineup, while it doesn’t excite me personally, features some of the top touring acts today. I like Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, and For King and Country. Most younger people are going to get excited about Luke Bryan, Lainey Wilson, 50 Cent, Jelly Roll, Hank Williams Jr., Nickelback, Jonas Brothers, and the Zac Brown Band, to name a few.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of the Boulder County Fair in my hometown of Longmont, Colorado. In 4-H I showed rabbits and bees. My brothers had pigs, calves, and sheep. They made money. I had fun. We all got ribbons. I also loved going to the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo each January in Denver. That’s where I developed my love of rodeo.

The sights, sounds, and smells of a fair and rodeo all stir the soul. It’s family friendly and reflects traditional, homegrown rural America. It’s as grass roots as it gets – our heritage in a nutshell. If you haven’t been to a fair lately – or at all – this would be a great time to get out an experience what you’ve been missing. You don’t need boots and a cowboy hat, but it helps. And the bottom line is, in addition to having fun, it supports the kids and the future of American agriculture.

Chiefs vs 49ers again – at least it’s not the Cowboys

The stage is set for Super Bowl LVIII (58). The big show will feature the Kansas City Chiefs against the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium (home of the Las Vegas Raiders) in Paradise, Nevada.

On Sunday, our country will come to a standstill for the big game (or for the commercials for non-football fans or for glimpses of Taylor Swift for all the Swifties).

It’s hard for me to say which team I’ll root for. As a diehard Denver Broncos fan, I don’t want to see a division rival find success. And also as a Broncos fan, I can give you 55-10 reasons why I don’t want the 49ers to win. Given the choice, I’ll probably have to go with the Chiefs because I can’t bring myself to forgive the 49ers for Super Bowl XXIV.

The first Super Bowl I ever watched was Super Bowl XII when the Denver Broncos played the Dallas Cowboys. It was also the first football game I watched in its entirety. Although Denver lost to the Cowboys, that game made me both a football fan and a lifetime Broncomaniac. It also made me a Cowboys hater. I’ve come to loathe any team that beats the Broncos in the Super Bowl, and that’s become a long list!

Whenever the Broncos make it to the Super Bowl, I find that the longest, most agonizing weeks of my life are the two between the AFC Championship and the big game itself. As a Broncos fan, the most agonizing two months are usually those after the Super Bowl. Although the Broncos are 3-5 in the Super Bowl, it’s still much better than being 0-0. And, for the record, Denver is 3-1 in the Super Bowl since the Cowboys last played in the game. Just sayin’.

But you probably don’t want to hear about the Broncos (shame on you!). This is Houston Texans country with widespread support for that team in South Oklahoma. I am a huge Texans fan, which is another reason to not like the Cowboys. I’ll be the first to admit that I thought rookie quarterback CJ Stroud was going to be a draft bust given the way he played in the preseason and the first few games of the regular season. I have since learned the errors of my way and am now a fan of that kid.

I just hope that he learns the lessons lost on so many professional athletes who suddenly come into fame and wealth. Most of them can’t handle it. Given Stroud’s strong Christian faith, I have hopes that he will keep a level head and not be sucked up into the trappings of fame and fortune. The same for Tank Dell, Will Anderson Jr., and a lot of the new players on the Texans roster.

This team has the core personnel to go a lot further next year than they did this year when they came out of nowhere to reach the Divisional Round of the playoffs. They will be a lot of fun to watch next year.

In the meantime, we have Super Bowl LVIII coming up. The Super Bowl has become an unofficial national holiday. Even a lot of people who purport to be boycotting the NFL will tune in. It’s interesting how the NFL can manage to stay mired in controversy yet draw huge support. With the 49ers back in the big game there will undoubtedly be more reminders of their former quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, and his highly controversial kneeling during the playing of the national anthem.

Kaepernick did a good thing by raising awareness of racism in this country, but he went about it the wrong way. He taught millions of people to disrespect the United States and its symbols. That lack of respect remains today as players and many fans either refuse to stand for the anthem or otherwise refuse to place their hands over their hearts while it is played. I find that to be intolerable, un-American, and disrespectful. Yet I’m still a fan of the NFL and find myself cheering those same players once the game is underway. It’s hypocritical, I know.

Despite all the controversy over that and other issues in the NFL, I do greatly respect that they allow the players to be open and bold about their Christian faith. This is one of the things I love about CJ Stroud and the two starting quarterbacks in Sunday’s game. Stroud is quick to praise God every chance he gets (even if the networks edit out his comments). No, the NFL isn’t perfect but it does a lot right and it’s fun to watch. Even Major League Baseball – which has a longer and more storied history – can’t bring the nation together for a single game like the NFL does. The world doesn’t stop for seven games of the World Series like it does for the Super Bowl.

Don’t get me wrong, I love baseball and miss photographing the games of the Houston Astros and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys. One of my greatest experiences photographing professional sports was covering the World Series in 2019 when the Astros took on the Nationals.

I hope someday to be able to photograph the Broncos or Texans in the Super Bowl. The closest I came was in 2017 when Houston made the playoffs and the Super Bowl was being held at NRG Stadium. I did get “week of” credentials to cover all the activities related to the game, but did not get game credentials.

Oh well, that just leaves something to look forward to. Meanwhile we have a rematch of Super Bowl LIV coming up. Here’s hoping for a similar outcome.