Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

We don’t want it

June 27, 2026

I just heard another commercial that bothers me. Have you heard about the companies that don’t want your money for what they are selling for a certain period? Most of these offers are for delayed interest payments.

Cindy and I enjoy these offers of no interest payments until a future date. What you may not know is that many of these contract’s state that the interest is only waved if you pay off the debt before the specified date. We use this to our advantage.

We accept the free interest period and divide out the total cost of our purchase, so it is paid off before interest is accrued. This is an easy way to establish credit when you have had problems or are new to being a responsible adult.

Sometimes these offers include a credit card that you can continue to use. Do not fall victim to this trap. The issue with credit cards is that they do not expire like individual loans. After the limited date offer expires, you may only have 30 days to clear your account to prevent being charged interest.

This is the concept of getting you to take out a charge card at stores. Our first Discover card was issued to us when we made a purchase at the Battlefield Mall Sears store. Recently we were given a Home Depot card on a similar type of deal.

We had a plan to clear up this cost within the allotted months. No, it and the Lowe’s card are in the lock box and kept until this type of offer comes again for another purchase. Stop and think for just a minute before you pay cash that is in savings when this type of offer is available.

If something happens and you need to use those savings for purchases that do not have this kind of deal, they will still be available. Being an adult is great isn’t it. The commercials I was talking about at the beginning of this column are from vendors that act like they are benevolent.

Everyone must earn a living whether you sell products or services like producing advertising commercials. We do have a capitalistic economy and buying and selling things is a legitimate way of making a living.

They are just marketing, but not as good at it as those companies that tell you openly that you will pay more if you do not pay it off entirely by the end of the offer. This is simply their tactic of choice. Honesty is the best policy. I’ve lived my life by this motto and I still endorse it.

You must act now

June 26, 2026

On the news last night, the representative from the Better Business Bureau told us that scammers push you to act quickly. This morning, a commercial said the above phrase. There is a relationship between these two concepts. One of my first positions was as marketing director for a small company.

As I have done throughout my career, I read everything I could about my job. We used mailings, including catalogs, to encourage customers to call us. This was in the early days of the eight hundred numbers. We used one, and our owner thought we ought to have the operators offer buy-now deals to callers.

One chance to get a special price, and then the cost went up. I thought this tactic cost us more sales than it gained. Years later, as a sales service specialist, I advocated keeping prices the same until our vendors raised theirs. I believe you lose credibility when you pressure someone to make an immediate decision.

I know how to interpret sales at retailers. Some businesses begin each season with thirty to fifty percent off seasonal prices. At the end of each season, these same stores clearance these products at up to ninety percent off the original retail price.

My experience tells me that this is probably their cost of the merchandise. I say this because most companies would rather sell at cost than donate overstocked items for tax write-offs. Another thing I notice that most shoppers do not is that many businesses have private label items that compete with name brands.

Think about a few other things when you buy these store brands. Someone must manufacture them. It may be different companies, or it can be the same product that is sold by the original brand name with a different label. I’ve been to plants where I saw products with many labels in the warehouses.

My wife worked at a dairy many years ago, and this was the only brand of milk we would buy, even before she started there. She learned that they packaged another brand that came from the same tanks, and the only difference was the brand and the price. We still buy that lower-priced product when we can. Some of the plants I called on told me that there were differences in their product line and the store brands that they manufactured. The only way to determine this is to try the cheaper products and decide if they are as good.

Another fact I have noticed is that some retailers will suspend selling name brands to boost the sales of their own brand. Others simply refuse to sell higher-priced brands and stock only bargain-priced merchandise. We’ve noticed over the years that buying these cheap products can cause problems.

Certain brands of appliances and electronics in the big box stores are all made at overseas plants, and none of these products last as long as domestically made goods. When I was a kid, you did not want a Japanese-made radio, and many Chinese-made products are well known to have more frequent recalls than goods from other countries.

A Latin saying, “Caveat Emptor,” that you should know. The English translation is, “Let the buyer beware.” Become a perceptive consumer and learn as much as you can about how and why things are priced the way they are. It is a good idea to remember that we have a free market economy. That means companies set the prices at what they want. Market demand affects pricing, and we should always look for a sale.

Mountains and molehills

June 22, 2026

I’m one of those baby boomers, and I am proud of it. Unlike some of you, I grew up in a time when things were much easier. We weren’t worried about gunmen at school or in the streets. All we had to be concerned about was whether the USSR would decide to drop atomic bombs on us.

It never happened because we had the first nuclear devices and had used them in Japan. They knew our work. Some of the phrases we oldsters use may sound like your teenage speaking does to us. I thought I would discuss them descriptively.

We all know what a mountain is, even though in the Ozark Mountains, they are only hills. Not ones made by moles and yet they are not mountains, either. A mole digs in the ground and tunnels close to the surface, making small, raised patches of earth that are called mole hills. The saying is, “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.”

The point of the saying is not to blow things out of proportion. We all tend to give extra power to people and things that are not that important. I have had many bosses over the years who were not liked by some of their employees. This was one of the complaints that often reared its ugly head.

Why were such trivial things so important to those in charge? Many times, the smallest mistakes seemed to be those that management stresses about the most. I have another one that you may not know. “Putting the cart before the horse.”

This one sounds easy to interpret to me, but I have heard it all my life. We all know that if the wagon is ahead of the horse, it cannot push it. He must pull it to move it. What it means is to keep things in their properly ordained places. One time I heard this was when a neighbor’s son got his girlfriend pregnant. That was not accepted in the 1960s.

Another horse saying was, “Hold your horses.” This goes all the way back to when my grandparents were responsible for securing the livestock in their teens. When I was eight, I never thought of them being that young; today, it is much easier. This one means that we need to wait patiently.

“Minding your P’s and Q’s” is a throwback to the days of British public houses. Ale was served in pints and quarts, and the bartender would warn overactive patrons by using this phrase. Get it, Pints and Quarts could be knocked off the bar or tables. In my day, it meant that we should behave. As a child, I heard it a lot.

There are sayings about saving money and not being ripped off. We need more of these today with all the scammers around. “Don’t take any wooden nickels” is the way we said it. Springfield, MO, where I live, had a restaurant called the Wooden Nickel, and I still have one of their basswood nickels with an Indian head on it.

The last one I will mention is “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” That is an expression of surprise like “Just shoot my foot,” or “When hell freezes over.” By the way, or BTW, I am old enough to have gone to see “Disney’s Monkey’s Uncle” when it first debuted in theatres. Check that one out on Disney Plus.

Improving brain power

June 20, 2026

Did you know that you can increase your mental ability with an app or a pill? That’s what they tell you about on the TV commercials. I am getting tired of companies pushing medicines, supplements, and phone applications to fix situations we should see a doctor about.

Last year, I had been trying one of the over-the-counter supplements to aid memory, and it was not working. I was concerned about Alzheimer’s or dementia and decided to ask my doctor to determine if it was what is expected for my age. After a few tests, I was given a prescription that works for age-related memory loss.

There are prescription drugs that a neurologist can prescribe for this type of situation. I’ve been on one of these and have had significant improvement. Another way to benefit your brain is by playing games such as Sudoku, reading and writing, and practicing mind-expanding exercises.

One of these ads I have seen promotes an app that helps you build your vocabulary. Put the phone down and pick up a book. Call a friend or family member and have a nice mind-expanding conversation. I have always enjoyed all these activities. I sat in the break room at work for lunch and discussed current events with some fellow workers.

Some of my aunts were constantly on their phones talking to each other in the days when phones had cords and were attached to wires in the wall of your house. These ladies were the ones who kept the rest of the family in the loop better than social media ever has.

Take a walk with a friend and discuss problems with children, spouses, or even in-laws. I remember how many of us have had mental health problems since the shutdowns and quarantines of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve lived long enough to see all types of fads and supplements that were supposed to work but seldom did.

Just because they sell it on TV does not mean that it will work for you or that it is worth what they want you to pay for it. You know how much companies pay for the advertising that they use to convince you that you need that app or whatever they are selling.

I spent a short period of time in marketing and over twenty years in sales. My time in purchasing taught me that I should not trust everything that those who want my money tell me. Have you noticed how many people who want to sell you something call themselves influencers?

You are the one who should decide if you want to be influenced into buying, using, or doing anything. You have a brain, use it to make decisions for yourself, and stop believing the words of others until you check to be sure they know what they are talking about.

250 years and counting

June 19, 2026

On July 4^th of 1776, Thomas Jefferson and others signed their own death warrants when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Let’s look at that statement and how this country has proven and tried to refute that statement.

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were ratified and came into force on March 1, 1781. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were instrumental in proposing a radical new concept, a constitution that was finally accepted by the thirteen states and became operational in 1789.

That was the year that George Washington and John Adams became the first President and Vice-President of this nation. The Constitution originally had the two top candidates filling these offices. Amendment twelve modified this, and the electoral college voted for both a President and a Vice President in 1803.

The Bill of Rights was the first ten amendments to the document, which were ratified by the states in 1791 and guarantee personal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, the right to publish, practice religion, possess firearms, and to assemble.

What most of us do not know is that the Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” These were originally referred to as States’ Rights and are continually opposed by many in the federal government.

In 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected as our sixteenth President, the Confederate States of America was formed in February of 1861 by South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In April, hostilities between these and the Union began with an attack on Fort Sumter by the Confederates.

After the war began, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina decided to join the Confederacy. The major reason for cessation was the belief that Lincoln’s administration would support the abolitionist movement’s desire to end slavery nationwide. This was considered one of those states’ rights issues mentioned in the Tenth Amendment. When the conflict ended in 1865, the Union had declared the ownership of other humans a violation of our Constitution, and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation effectively ended this practice.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution sealed this as law and solved some of the problems still in the former Confederate states. The assassination of Lincoln again tested our resiliency as a country.

One last test for our land that happened before I was born was on December 7, 1940, when the Japanese attacked our naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, forcing Franklin Delano Roosevelt into requesting Congress to declare war on the Axis powers. Many believe that without the U.S. involvement in World War II, even more countries would have fallen.

Ten steps to love

June 16, 2026

This is the title of a Hallmark romcom my wife and I recently viewed. It was an excellent film because the man and woman disagreed about her list-making. I am not a list maker. I do not create any kind of plan for my articles or books. I don’t ever outline a book before starting to write one.

There are many twelve-step programs that you can follow from AA, NA, or any other type of addiction you can imagine. I am constantly reading articles with numbers in them. Five Character Types for Your Novel is just one of them. Numbers seem to be something that a lot of people worry about. I don’t.

My focus is on listening to what my Lord and Savior is trying to tell me every moment of my life. One of the things that I have been working on for a while is a book that I have entitled “Douloi Marriage.” It is a manual for how to serve your husband or wife.

As I have been writing different chapters, one that has developed is Steps to Love. It is based on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians from the Bible. You know the one that says love is patient and kind. This is the love that Jehovah has for us, and it is the best kind of love for married couples.

Patience is the first step to love because a marriage will not last if you cannot wait for your spouse. Longsuffering is the word in the King James Version. Kindness is next, and a marriage without kindness will never endure.

The next step toward love is to avoid envy. This ugly green monster shows its head when one of the partners feels the other is in a better role. I’ve seen wives who thought that they were required to do all the housework, and the man spent too much time on himself. This can also be reversed in other couples.

Some of the other things that love is not are boastful or proud. Humility embodies these ideas and is our fourth step, which is one of the attributes of Jesus that we all should emulate. Being selfless is another part of our path that we must follow in our marriages.

Getting angry with the one you love is the next emotion that we must avoid in our family life. Keeping records of wrongs can also destroy a relationship. Some of us like lists, and if you are the woman in the movie, the only lists you should have for your spouse are positive characteristics.

The last three steps that must be taken to keep love alive are truth, trust, and continuing to persevere in the relationship. We all know couples who have failed in these steps. These ten methods to keep our love alive can be a great deal of work. As you walk this path, keep in mind that you are a team and together with the Lord, you can accomplish anything.

Shadows or reflections

June 15, 2026

Think about the difference between these two concepts. A shadow is what you see when the light is blocked. Reflections are what we see when the light bounces off a reflective surface. It is reversed. Look deeper.

Another difference between the two is that a shadow has little definition of an image. Reflections may be well-defined or not. We think of reflections as being seen in a mirror, but they can be seen in other reflective surfaces like shiny metal or water.

I enjoy seeing the reversed image of the sky in a pond or lake and have even tried to duplicate this effect in landscapes that I have attempted to learn to paint. Bob Ross was always much better at this than I am currently. I continue to follow his tutelage in hopes that I can approve.

There are recordings from the 1960s that I recall from my top forty listening days called “Silhouettes on the Shade.” This is a shadow caused by a light inside that is formed on a solid surface or even a window shade. In this song, a guy thinks he sees another guy kissing his girl. I like the humorous twist in the last verse.

Speaking of reflections, I always like to ask folks if they’ve ever looked in the mirror and seen their parents watching them. I am not speaking of ghosts or spirits, but I mean it to be a funny way of asking if they believe that they look like their parents. Some will say that they do not, and others have never noticed one way or the other.

That makes me think of the question, “Are you becoming your parent?” I think that depends on whether you think they are decent human beings. I used to have reasons that I did not want to be like mine in certain ways. I have overcome their influence in some areas of life and failed in others.

Are you a reflection of your parents or only in their shadow? I once thought that I had surpassed my mother and father in many ways. For many years, I have seen that I am learning to reflect their values in new and different ways.

They were members of labor unions and voted a straight democratic ticket. This taught me to view each candidate for their own opinions. The decisions they make might not be good for me personally, but they need to be of benefit to most of us. Votes that are self-seeking are not good decisions.

When I was in college, I took a job at the factory where Mom worked. After ninety days, I would have to join the union. I told my mother that I would not stay that long and would give my notice before that happened. The closer that day came, the more I told her that I would never work in a factory again.

I have worked in several factories but never in one that was a union shop. I understand a lot about why some believe they are good and why management does not appreciate them. My biggest problem with labor organizations is their inability to allow dedicated employees to go beyond expectations.

I reflect my parents’ loyalty to their jobs and cast a shadow on ignoring individuality in everyone. We need to become who we and our Lord wants us to be without getting in the way of anyone else. God bless your reflections, and let others step out of your shadow.

Getting caught in the draft

May 31, 2026

Fifty years later, another generation is going to be signed up for military service without being asked if they want to serve. In 1974, my number came up. At that time, there was a Selective Service registration that was required for all young men. We also had an active draft process.

This was because of the Vietnam Conflict. It was never a declared war, much like the current Iranian conflict. President Trump started this action without Congressional approval. It needs to end within a limited time or receive the funding and approval needed.

When the draft ended in 1974, registration continued until it ended about a year later. In 1980, President Carter reinstated the registration during the US action in Afghanistan. The draft has not been started again, even with all the military actions we have involved ourselves in.

Recently, this was back in the news because our government will automatically register eighteen-year-olds without them having to do anything. This is because many of our youth seem to be forgetting to do this. We have the technology to help them with this.

This does not mean that the draft will be reinstated any time soon, we hope. This is purely a development of our technology being applied to this situation. There is no evidence that the government is planning to institute a new draft. Hopefully, our all-volunteer forces will continue to provide the protection we need.

For most of us, we do not know what it means to live in a society where our young people are forced to serve in the military. I believe that if we have a requirement to restore a draft situation, a provision could be made for those such as myself.

President Kennedy began the Peace Corps in the early 1960s, and since then, other organizations have been formed to allow youth to serve here in the US or overseas. In his book “Starship Troopers,” Robert Anson Heinlein described a society where you were not considered a citizen without serving in the Armed Forces.

While RAH is one of my favorite authors, I disagree that everyone who wants to vote must serve their country in the military. Other provisions for those who have personal convictions against fighting can be made. AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, and similar groups can provide training in skills that will benefit all of us.

Those who come here as immigrants are required to prove their knowledge of our government and culture to become citizens. Having the right to vote should also require education and commitment. It will take a great deal of discussion and preparation to make any changes of this kind. We have a great country, but it could be improved with those changes on which we all agree.

Discoverer extraordinaire

May 30, 2026

I’m guessing that few of you have ever heard of a man named Jim Bridger. In 1822, this 18-year-old orphan was working in St. Louis, MO, as a blacksmith when he heard about a trapping expedition to the Rocky Mountains. They promised no glory and a lot of risk. He took the chance.

In 1824, he thought they had found the Pacific Ocean because the water went as far as they could see and was extremely salty. He was the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake of what is now Utah. His journals record that later that decade he discovered fountains of boiling water shooting from the ground in what is now Yellowstone Park.

Back in civilization, they called him mad or crazy. Bridger spent two decades as a mountain man, learned six Native American languages, married into the Flathead tribe, tracked game, read the weather like a book, and could lead others through terrain only he and his red brothers knew.

In 1843, he and Louis Vasquez, his partner, built Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming. Pioneers going to Oregon or California made this their stop for supplies, directions, and rest to complete the dangerous journey. As westward expansion increased, Jim was called on by the military to lead military expeditions into uncharted territory.

Railroad surveyors and scientists relied on his knowledge of these areas to keep them safe. Into his sixties, he was known as the man who could find anywhere in these territories and get back safely. He showed others the wonders he had discovered.

In the late 1860s, he retired to his daughter Virginia’s farm near Kansas City, Missouri. He died on July 17, 1881, at the age of 77. Few knew or cared who Jim Bridger was by then.

When geologists, scientists, and other experts began to compare what they found in the great expanses of the western United States, they discovered his journals were surprisingly correct. Except for that mistake about the Pacific Ocean being in the deserts of Utah, he seemed to have recorded the terrain accurately before others knew it was even there. This man, who saved thousands of travelers’ lives and led scores of immigrants to places no one had ever been, is remembered in the land he knew.

Fort Bridger State Historic Site, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Bridger Peak, Bridger Pass, and Bridger Wilderness Area all bear the name of a young man who took a chance where others would one day wish to settle. The settlement of these US territories would have taken much longer without his guidance.

The next time you tell a friend what you have seen and know is true, and they laugh at you, just say, “That’s OK. They laughed at Jim Bridger.” If they ask who he was, tell them to look him up on the internet. History cannot be forgotten if we want to learn.

Love knows no boundaries

May 29, 2026

That is an excellent statement, until I tell you where I heard it. It was an ad for one of the local sex stores. I’ve not been to this establishment, but from the commercials I’ve seen for years, they have anything you need to stimulate your sexual activity. Videos, magazines, provocative garments, and sex toys are some of the things pictured.

Basically, what they are telling us is that sex should have no boundaries. The Old Testament Law sets many limits for sex, only between a man and a woman who are married. No premarital or extramarital relationships are allowed. Some say that the Hebrew scriptures allow multiple partners through polygamy.

That is not the true story that is in the Bible. The Israelites, as well as their neighbors, used these techniques to have large families to work the land. This also happened here in this country until the U.S. law restricted the practice. Utah had to restrict polygamy before it could be granted statehood.

Many Greek words are translated as the English word “love”. One that isn’t even in the New Testament is Eros. This is sexual love, or what I refer to as lust. I’ve covered this before: lust is an emotion, and I define love as a verb.

Phileo is what we consider to be brotherly love. Hence, Philadelphia is called the City of Brotherly Love. Brotherly love is the admiration that we feel for relatives. In some cases, this emotion can also be felt by friends. Once again, it is an emotional type of love.

Family love is Storge in Greek. Again, this is defined as an affection for not only those you are related to, but can also be for friends. C.S. Lewis also included a fifth type of love in his book “The Four Loves.” This fifth is what he defined as the likes that we make into love. That is what it is when you say, “I love chocolate,” or something else that is not really a love.

The fourth love is the Greek Agape, which is the love that Jehovah has for us which is an unconditional love. Paul tells us in First Corinthians chapter thirteen what Agape is. Patient and kind are the positives, and then there are a lot of negatives. He also tells us it is not envious, boastful, conceited, selfish, or acting improperly.

He lets us know that this type of love never ends like the others can. This Agape is what we should strive for with our spouses, family, friends, and even those we consider just acquaintances. Jesus does not restrict His Agape to only those who accept Him as their Savior and Lord. This is why He accepts you if and when you are willing.

Walk With a Servant