Author: Walt

I’m going to guess I first heard the song when was 12 or 13. I fell in love with its hook. I don’t know where I heard it first, though. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear the whole song—just the first few lines of the chorus. But it burrowed deep into my soul—that tone, that melody was captivating.

What song?

See, that’s the problem. In 1992, as a young boy whose tractor radio only picked up country or lite-rock stations, I never knew what the song was. I didn’t know the title or the singer. Or if it was a band, for that matter. It was a man’s voice, and kind of had that singer/songwriter vibe—although I wouldn’t have known to use the term “singer/songwriter”—or “vibe,” for that matter.

So, what did we do in the Dark Ages when we had a question like this?

Who sings the song that goes “…..”?

Years. I’m not exaggerating. I went years not knowing the song was titled—

“For What It’s Worth” and the band was Buffalo Springfield.

Plus, it’s a weird title to the song we all know by its opening line, “There’s something happening here.”

If memory serves, it was 1997 when I finally found out the name and title—by happening across a compilation cassette tape of oldies music, maybe named “Summer of” something? I don’t remember. But I do remember that when the JVC tape deck in my car started playing it, my eyes lit up. I had finally discovered it! I grabbed the cassette case and read the 5-point typeface on the back flap, and my quest was finally achieved.

I always attributed this void in my musical past to the fact that we were in the Dark Ages, before the advent of the internet. We had knowledge, sure, but the way we shared it—the way we acquired it—took effort. And sometimes, even with effort, we just had to give up on knowing some things.

How could I have figured out what this song was? I don’t remember asking my parents. I was either a teen or a pre-teen, so obviously my parents were useless.

No one my age knew what I was talking about when I tried humming the tune or the lyrics I could recall. Possibly because I was terribly off-pitch. But also, they might never have heard the song—remember, country and dentist’s office pop was all we had on the radio. I would say that many people in Quitaque, Texas knew the song, but the ones who did were not the ones around me when I thought about wanting to know its identity.

This was not a knowledge problem, but a blinders problem. I didn’t go looking for an answer because I immediately forgot I had the question once the song was over—wherever I heard it or snippets of it.

I consider myself a curious person. In fact, it is the thing that has become my best skill in the past few years. I doubt it is a new talent. I bet I was at least an above-average-curious kid. So I don’t think it’s a result of intellectual laziness that I had a lot of unanswered questions at that age.

I think the world I lived in was just smaller.

We have a child gate at our house. Our children are too old for a child gate, but we use it for the dogs. The gate is probably 18-24 inches tall. We prop it against a doorway to keep the dogs in our out of a room depending on guests or messes or whatever. It works. Always has. Our dogs are about 50 pounds each, and back in my ranching days, they could jump from flat-pawed into the bed of my pickup, which is quite tall.

They couldn’t jump the gate as puppies, so they remain convinced that is still the case.

Of course this applies to humans as well. When we don’t know what we don’t know, it takes either great curiosity or great revelations to shakes us from that state.

Alta Vista was the thing that did it for me.

The Internet began with the great Search Engine Race. Lycos, Infoseek, AskJeeves—if you’re naming more in your head, you were there. These and many more all paled in comparison to the best search engine of them all. That’s right, AltaVista. The dominant treasury of information was contained in the magic files of altavista.com—the biggest search engine of 1997. At least that was the conclusion drawn in the binder at Caprock Public Library.

Volunteering had just begun to look good on college transcripts in the 90s, so I was trying my hand at climate-controlled work for free as a way to avoid the tractor and the cage of country music and LiteRock 97.

I would go for an hour each week and use AltaVista to look up questions that people in Quitaque had—or something like that. I don’t remember scanning for much—because people didn’t come to the library for answers to questions no one else in town could answer, they came to the library for books. Research was its own separate world. It was not by reading that you found answers, it was by scouring giant encyclopedias, WorldBooks, Atlases and who knows what else—literally—who knows? Microfiche?

The world was not yet full of information then—it was devoid of it. Little did we know—no, not even little—in no way did we know that we, all of us, were in an information desert. But even if we had known that, we’d have missed the fact that the desert was actually a beach upon which the tsunami of information was barreling toward us, about to drown us all with anxiety parading as “research.”

I love learning, but there are times I miss the desert.

I can know the inner thoughts of celebrities, politicians, pastors and anyone on earth, instantly.

Or, I can learn a new skill in a matter of minutes with just a casual search.

I can be coerced and manipulated into anger and action, all before my mind actually has time to be angry.

Or, I can connect with people thousands of miles a way to support, encourage and learn from each other.

I can diagnose, suffer, listen and tell, again and again and again, daily, hourly, minute by minute.

I can find an answer to any question—right, wrong or irrelevant—at any moment.

I have access to more than my brain can ever think to ask for.

The knowledge is overwhelming and powerful—it is good, it is bad, it is…

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

—Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”

My favorite clothing item as a teenager—maybe ever—was my 1994 Make-A-Wish Car Show souvenir t-shirt. It looked perfect under a flannel button-up worn, of course, with faded Levi’s and Doc Martens.

But it was fine on its own, too. White, the front bearing the ubiquitous multi-logo-and-wordy-moniker of a sponsored event. Car shows, fundraisers, 5ks, all these shirts are hideous, but only less so because they signify your presence. Here I was, world. I was at a thing, I participated. For a brief moment in time, before the ashes of my remains were scattered across the lone and level sands of the universe, I tread this road. I lived and did a thing or two. And here is proof. All who behold my prosopon will know that at a specific point in time, in a specific place, with others—I was.

This is why concert T-shirts—legit ones that were bought at the concert, not online—are treasured. A group of inhibited individuals and I all enjoyed the same sound waves in a hot building one night xx years ago. You did not. I did.

Look on my torso, ye Mighty, and despair!

What was the event? What did the 1994 Make-A-Wish Car Show in Amarillo, Texas, USA mean to me?

Couldn’t tell you.

But I think it was the first one I knew I was at.

Among my favorite songs is Bright Eyes’ “First Day of My Life.” These lines get me every single time.

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway.

Yours was the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you.

Awareness is the thing that becomes true regardless of the experience itself.

I met Lindsey in 1998. I did not come to my senses until late 1999. But when I did, it all became the truth. The experience of that year-and-a-half before dating her is all a preamble now. As I look back half a lifetime ago, I can say now that hers was the first face that I saw.

And now, fair reader, your writer will attempt to make the segue from the love of his life/mother of his children to a car show.

I went to lots of car shows before 1994. But that was the one I became a car guy.

I’m not going to feign my mechanical proficiency, I’m just handy enough to dis-assemble an engine, not put it back together.

But the 60’s, man. Those cars, in the 90s, were everything to me.

I would be cutting donuts in the school parking lot 6 months later in a 1965 Ford Mustang GT, at my absolute peak of self-confidence and self-worth. And self-delusion, sure, but that’s what cars are about after all.

Last Friday night, I helped my dad drive two of his classic cars into one of the showrooms of the Amarillo Civic Center. The 2024 Make-A-Wish Car Show would open its doors for the 39th time the next morning. And in it would be a 1957 Ranchero and a remake of a Shelby Cobra from the blessed 60’s.

The Cobra, a muscular open-top torpedo, had given trouble starting and running smoothly on the drive to the venue. Not enough trouble to prevent some acceleration, according to his co-pilot, my daughter Lily. After parking it in its designated location, we popped the hood to troubleshoot. The little battery would need to come out, either it or the alternator were the culprit.

“It showed to be charging back up to 10 or 12 volts,” dad said.

“Nope. Needs to be 13 to 14.5,” volunteered a neighboring exhibitor who had wandered over, un-beckoned, at the sign of trouble. He had a Ranchero and a girlfriend, but no fine conversational skills. After a few more details about what it takes to be an adequate alternator, dad and I tired of the free advice. We set to removing the battery while Lily polished off the Cobra with a towel. Feeling bad for the cold shoulder, I struck up a conversation with the nosy neighbor and he wound up being a pleasant enough guy, we had some common engine interests too.

Car Show guys are men. And, let’s be honest, old men.

These are my people.

What would possess a person to interfere with a conversation and forcefully, confidently and without prompting, tell the conversants they are ignorant and wrong and lucky to have such a person in their presence?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe the same thing that would possess a person to say hello to every hiker he passes on a trail, or offer one-liners to every cashier he interacts with on a daily basis. Being an old. Being a man.

Look on my inability to sense awkwardness, ye mighty, and despair!

The downside of a collection of old men in the same building? It’s the expertise.

Why do old men love old cars? Because they are, among other things, knowable.

But often, the idea that a thing can be known to a degree exponentially higher than others know is reductive and tiresome.

That’s not the engine it came with from the factory.

Those are after-market mirrors, I’da kept the originals.

Alternator needs to charge to 13.5 or it’s bad.

Look on my expertise, ye mighty, and despair!

And yet, in the same building lives something generative, alive and good.

At their best, classic cars represent a shared knowledge. When we look at a car, we see a common history. We are transported to the roads we tore down on the way to and from school. We are listening to the radio at the drive-in, surveying the other cars driving up and down Main street.

Here we are. Here I am. This vehicle is a representation of my self. I chose it. I drive it. I work on it. I rebuilt it or repainted it or earned enough money one Summer to put a bigger engine in it. I see your car and acknowledge your place in the world—you are a Camaro guy. But reciprocity demands that you acknowledge that I too have a place—I am a Mustang guy.

It is a thing we grasp at, but also a thing we can touch.

It is physical, controllable, breakable, fixable, improvable.

It is self-expression in visual, touchable, movable, audible and smellable form.

It’s nostalgia.

A memory of a time that is personal but shared by people who have never met.

Movies, music, gas pumps, junkyards.

All the same. All unique to me.

It’s color.

Not filters.

Vibrant and alive.

Just like we were.

And the stories. Why did so many of the stories my grandfathers told involve pickups or cars I would never see?

Because they were perfect. Not in the sense of condition or dependability. In the sense of complete and appropriate. Of course the car that broke down all the time broke down at the funniest possible times. Of course he sold the fastest pickup he ever owned, it was too fast to keep.

Of course my old Mustang ran out of gas all the time—it was driven by the most aloof kid in Briscoe County.

Among the vehicles I was most enamored with was a gloriously customized station wagon whose owner, Chris, introduced himself and asked if I could send him a few of the pictures I was taking. Happy to.

While I was crouched down at the tail light studying angles, an old man walked by and said to me, “Heh, looks like that dumb Chevy Chase movie car!”

I mentally scrolled for Chevy Chase movie cars. There’s a 68-ish powder blue Lincoln Continental in Christmas Vacation. Doesn’t sound right.

Oh wait, there’s the Family Truckster from Family Vacation. The hideous green and brown-paneled station wagon switched after baiting the not-old-yet Clark Griswold.

“The Truckster?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeh, heh heh,” he said as he trucked off.

Look upon my inability to distinguish between things I don’t like, ye mighty, and despair!

Of course we are often wrong. We forget the shortcomings. Mostly our own. We are heroes of our own stories. And why not? After all, our enemies are all gone.

We are old men. Not dead men, yet.

---

Ozymandias

by Percy Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Of course, my first instinct is to say “No”.

Years of being an old man in personality, and now physically, have conditioned me to bah-humbug any suggestion of enjoyment—especially when it involves leaving the house. But against my better judgment, when Gracie texted “Weather is going to be nice Monday, we should go to the canyon for a walk,” I relented, for fear that my text messages would be read some day after my death and my legend would be tarnished by the facts of my curmudgeonly ways.

Alas, Monday came. It always does. I wrapped up work by 3 o’clock and headed home. School was out for the holiday, and now that she could drive, she’d had been running errands and seeing friends on her own. We would meet up and head out.

I wondered on the drive home whether this would be a walk or a hike. Walking is for treadmills, anything else is work. At least that’s my ingrained attitude from working on a ranch for so long. If it’s at the ranch, it’s work. If it’s at a State Park, like Palo Duro Canyon, it’s a hike.

So, I wore my work clothes—jeans and a t-shirt.

Gracie, however, was wearing shorts. She mocked my jeans immediately, and I countered that the outdoors were no place for exposed legs. Then, it occurred to me that everyone out there would be in shorts but me. This was, after all, a park, not a set of corrals or a fence line. We weren’t following cattle trails, but well-maintained pathways. So, shorts were her choice, jeans mine. I prepared to be laughed at by the hikers.

President’s Day 2024 was possibly the most pleasant day, weather-wise, in the Texas Panhandle of the year so far. No (!) wind. Warm, not hot. Sun out, but still following its relaxed Wintry low trajectory, not the broiler-element position of the Summer. The low angle light made everything a little more colorful.

We pulled up to the check-in booth and I showed off to her by pulling my state park card out of my wallet. Of course I have a membership, the park is only a few miles from our house and I’m a seasoned outdoorsman—years of ranching, cycling, photography meant I knew all the secrets.

“This expired in September,” the ranger kindly informed me.

Fine, so I’m actually a card-carrying poser. My kids have known it for a while, you should too.

Membership renewed for another year—good intentions, right?—we proceeded down the canyon road—always steeper than you think—always narrower than most tourists are competent to handle.

I accepted the tourist map and day-pass sticker, but I was at least experienced enough to know where we were going to park. On my last visit, does math, 18 months ago, I took a walk off the parking area that serves as a trailhead for the famous Lighthouse trail. If you know anything about the Panhandle, it’s probably either the Lighthouse, Cadillac Ranch or the wind. Unfortunately, just a few weeks later it would become nationally known for catastrophic wildfires because the weather does not stay as calm as it was that day.

I knew the other trails off this parking area were varying levels of difficulty, and that Lighthouse trail was a tough one—I had never even tried it. I hate to admit that, I’ve actually designed logos using other people’s pictures of the landmark, I’m ashamed to admit that despite living just a few miles away for the previous 15 years, millions of tourists had seen it and I had not. After all, the map said it was harder.

I asked Gracie to read the map and tell me if one of the easy ones was near that same trailhead parking area. Sure enough, one was. Valle de Rio. It would be a good one for a fair weather walk—and that’s what we had signed up for.

The lot was busy, but not full, so it looked like a nice enough thing to be doing at 3:30 on a holiday afternoon.

I had packed water bottles in the pickup, but carrying one sounded annoying, especially on an “easy” trail. Lighthouse was labeled “moderate” so, sure, water on that one, not on Valle de Easy. Plus, these were plastic water bottles—I know. I imagined the scornful looks of the seasoned State Park visitors as we sipped from the non-biodegradable bane of the outdoor-conscious person’s existence.

We locked the pickup and headed to the bunny slope.

10 steps in its direction, I said “Oh! My camera!” and turned back to the pickup. The whole point of even going outdoors at this point in my life is to take pictures.

I geared up—the same camera and lens I had taken on our trip to Europe last Summer. I had gotten used to holding it on a record-setting trip, especially in the area of steps per day. Our personal bests were on the day we trucked throughout Paris: the Louvre; the rainy streets; from and back to a hotel in what our French tour guide called “the, how-you-say, sketch part of town.”

Palo Duro Canyon was not sketch this day. And something told me we’d regret not taking advantage of it.

“Hey, let’s just start the Lighthouse trail, go about halfway, so we’ll know what it’s like. We can come back and do the whole thing later, right?” I pitched.

Gracie was game. So we did.

If you leave a parking lot on foot, and everyone you pass walking the opposite direction is smiling, you might misinterpret those as friendly or enlightened smiles, especially when you know there’s something cool on the other end of the trail.

But what they’re actually smiling at is the fact that they can, finally and mercifully, see their cars in that parking lot.

I would figure this out about 3 hours later.

I play up the “old man out of shape” angle every chance I get. But honestly, at that point I had been walking quite a bit—New Year’s Resolution. Plus, I had given up some bad habits and spent more time outside than usual. It helped me to think and be present.

So, walking a “moderate” trail was not too concerning. Besides, we figured the park called it “moderate” to discourage all the tourists from crowding the trail. It was probably just a long walk. After all, all those people were smiling!

The low Winter light cast lovely shadows on the first canyon walls we approached.

I had been trying to work more black-and-white photography into my practice. The shadows and stratified rock were perfect subjects.

Our Apple watches notified us we had walked a mile, though it had taken a while—24 minutes. Mostly because I stopped a lot for pictures, but this was a walk, not a hike, so it was okay by me.

And I was feeling pretty good, Gracie too, so we continued. Wait—we’re halfway to the Lighthouse—seemed silly to stop now!

The frequency of pictures slowed as the walk got more focused. The weather was still lovely, but the ups and downs, rocky trail and sandy crags were adding up, little by little.

There are markers on the trail, tall, thin, blue plastic lines with “L” and the distance from the trailhead stickered to their tops. At “L 1.5” we spotted the Lighthouse.

How cool! This was going to be the day I finally saw it up close!

At “L 1.75” I commented “that thing sure looks farther than a quarter-mile.” To which Gracie replied “It’s not 2 miles, the map said 2 hours.”

Oh

Wait.

Well.

I am the kind of old now that swears I hear—or don’t hear—things that others—especially the women with whom I live—tell me they did or did not say.

Every day, it seems, I hear or don’t hear something. I could dismiss the not hearing—ears being decaying instruments and all—but hearing new things gives me hope that my mind is still creative. After all, it seems to be creating new conversations all the time!

This was one of those. A 2-hour moderate hike is not the same as a 2-mile walk. A 2 mile walk gets you somewhere is 40 minutes or less. That was what I heard, and why I was feeling so confident. A 2-hour hike is nothing I would have ever agreed to. Much less 2 hours out, then 2 more hours back in.

So, the thought crept back in, how far is far enough for today?

I didn’t say anything, just kept plugging along, but it was turning into a hike now, as we passed “L 2” with the goal still in the distance.

Honestly, what kept me going at this point was that each time I hung my head I could still see, between the tears, the imprints of a pair of New Balance shoes. And I thought, “If some old grandpa could keep going, then so can I!”

Trail etiquette is always interesting to me, as an admitted outsider. From the get-go, I had to restrain myself from saying “Hello!” to every one we passed. After being unable to hold it back a few times, the teenage girl in front of me mocked me endlessly, so I tamed it back down. Now, my friendliness was slowed by my rapid heart rate and inability to focus my pupils. That and the constant thought “why didn’t I bring water again?”

We were hiking.

The closer you get to the Lighthouse, the harder it is to follow the trail. It narrows significantly, and the rise to the landmark is substantial, at least compared to the rest of the trail. We were close enough now to hear voices from on top of the plateau. Kids laughing. We couldn’t see them, only the thick brush that moats the upward approach. That, and a few hikers coming the other way—not smiling. On we went.

The blue markers had ended. Now, there were pink ribbons tied to tree branches at each turn in the increasingly steep and canopied trail. Markers for directions or memorials of middle-aged men lost over the years? No way to know.

Gracie in the lead, the trail eventually went past the thing, then wrapped around the side—and it was getting steep. We kept moving, but both made the mistake of glancing down to check our heart rates on our watches—it was going to be a personal record kind of day.

Midway up the steepest climb of the day, we paused. We could still hear the kids above, but then the sound stopped. We were on a narrow part of a steep trail and anticipated those brats coming down soon. Still, we rested, trying to calm our breath and decide whether or not we were facing a decision.

Gracie took a peek while I spoke kindly to my heart and asked it not to explode. She thought maybe it was lot farther than originally understood. Besides, the kids were not coming by us—it occurred to us both that we might not be on the right trail. No view of the Lighthouse, no sign of those laughing punks. Had we gotten lost?

I offered to take a look, climbed a few more feet and behold—through the fog of exhaustion and despair shone the Lighthouse.

We helped each other up the final few feet and there it was.

The fair-weather walk had turned into a bucket-list day.

---

The hike back was long—but in a different way. Everything looked better, clearer. The air felt more real. We noticed the temperature rise and fall with the elevations. We moved quickly, more lightly, though tired.

As the sun descended, its rays turned golden and illuminated the canyon walls in a light that asks to be felt as much as seen.

We smiled a lot.

Especially when we got to the parking lot.

Back in the pickup, halfway out of the park, I commented that 2 hours 35 minutes, my watch’s measurement of the walk, was pretty impressive for a trip that was supposed to be 2 hours each way!

“I think it was supposed to be 2 hours total,” she said, like a nurse consoling a patient.

Kind of wish I had not heard that.

In 2024, I really want to get into playing the lottery. All the suckers play the numbers, so I’ll commit to the scratch-offs.

In 2024, I will delete email. Not just the spam. Not just the endless list of men’s clothing retailers who send bi-daily updates about Japanese socks because I once signed up to get that 5% discount. And not just the work-related emails that have nothing to do with me. No, in 2024, I’m deleting all email.

Even the app.

Can you imagine getting that Sunday night itch to check email, to see what the world/plague of locusts has done behind your back over the weekend, then just not finding the app anywhere on your phone? So you go to the computer and type in gmail.com or hotmail.com or aol.com—I SAY A-O-L-DOT-COM—and get the usually-cursed-but-now-blessed 404 error?

Then you can just go back to scrolling Instagram reels! Until that Slack notification comes up.

Think I’ll delete Slack too.

And as a heads up, I’m deleting social media. This is my preemptive strike in case I block you—you should post this same message to all your followers at the first of the year, just in case.

And while I’m at it, I’ll delete all the apps I hate. Especially Phone. That Phone app stresses me out more than all the others. Surely someone has a hack that will give it that shaky negative sign that gives my thumb tap the power of the Thanos snap over the Phone app.

I probably should not do any of that. And you should not either.

But then again, the only resolution to which I’m truly committed in 2024 is deleting “Should”.

Jessica Abel was the first person I heard refer to the “Should Monster”.

As a coach for creatives, her audience includes folks who write, design, draw, paint, communicate through other media, but primarily, folks who feel, work and express themselves. And she knows that those people often feel the weight of expectation and obligation—not just placed upon themselves by friends, family, society—but by themselves.

“I should write a book.”

“I shouldn’t waste time writing a book when there are bills to pay.”

Just like that, the Should Monster is born.

But the Should Monster isn’t just the guilt we put on ourselves. No, the Should Monster is big enough to share with everyone.

My child should know better.

My spouse should know that I…

My family shouldn’t expect me to…

My co-workers should…

That TPS report should be turned in with a cover sheet.

That solution I offered you should have worked.

You should not make New Years Resolutions.

Should is sneaky.

Although we tend to use it on others, more than we realize, it’s especially harmful when we use it on ourselves.

If I’m telling myself what I should and shouldn’t do, I’m trying to be right and wrong at the same time.

I’m right enough to know the morally superior act, but wrong for not doing it. We are dis-integrating our selves.

I bristle at shoulds when given as free, unrequested advice. Feels like an anticipatory “I told you so” and not actual advice.

What’s the difference between good advice and bad advice? Good advice is about you, bad advice is about me.

There’s no shortage of advice in this Content-generation Generation. It’s funny that the people who are the quickest to dole out health and financial tips are the ones who have learned the least. True wisdom is not trying to impress you, it’s trying to help you. Both my grandfathers told me “Wear sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat”, not “You should probably wear sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat”. They weren’t trying to get a sponsorship deal with complexion-enhancers, they were telling me the hard lesson learned from skin cancer.

Should is not a helping word, it’s a control word. A handle on a weapon. Used to exert power by someone who is afraid they are losing something—control, authority, respect. And again and again, it’s used by ourselves on ourselves. The challenge is how to react. Because the natural response is to say “it shouldn’t be this way”.

Should is sneaky.

So I’m going to stop should-ing and start willing.

When I hear “should” this year, I’ll challenge the idea a little. “Why?” Seems like a lot of should ideas wither with a little challenge. If the answer goes to a negative place, I’ll dismiss it. Trash it. It’s a thing that needs to be gone. I’ll put it away. It’s a thing that takes up space until I do.

If it’s good, true, kind, then I’ll figure out how to make it a “will”. Not out of moral obligation or fear of failure. Just because it’s a good idea that will help.

I’m betting that challenging the shoulds in my mind will reduce the shoulds I hand out to others.