Writing – Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

Old?

August 27, 2026

Some of my friends and I have been discussing how we are getting older. Notice that I said “older” and not “old.” Old is a state of mind. I worked with young people for over twenty years when God chose to move me to senior adults while I was in my forties.

I did not feel equal to that task, just as I felt ill-prepared to become a minister as a college student. I decided to change schools and majors and still graduated in four years. That was over fifty years ago. I want to take this column in a different direction and speak of someone that you may think of as old.

Dolly Parton has gone to be with our Lord. Do you understand what that means? Her body is no longer alive; however, she is. She has graduated to a place beyond time and space, where the triune God resides.

Ms. Parton believed His Son when she read that He claimed, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6) How do I know this? There are fruits of His Spirit that she possessed. Her declaration that He is her Lord and Savior is not the proof I present to you.

She exhibited love, which is the first fruit that Paul wrote about in Galatians 5:22-23. If you do not understand this word, Paul defines it for you in 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen, which is another letter he wrote to the churches of his time. Her song that she wrote and sang, “I’ll always love you,” is an expression of how she lived her whole life.

I am not a personal friend of Dolly and have never had the privilege of meeting her in this life. It would not surprise me if she were not singing a new song to her Lord that we will not hear until our bodies fail us as hers did and Jesus takes us as He did her.

I remember when I first saw her on the Porter Wagner show in 1967. This thirteen-year-old boy never knew that twenty-three-year-old woman would become the entertainer that we are missing today. Let’s get back to that list of the fruit of the Spirit Paul gave us. He completes the list with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness. These are things we all strive for, and Dolly did as well.

We saw her joy in her music, her peace in the manner in which she addressed her fans as she knew her time here was drawing to a close. She could not name the date as none of us could, but she tried to prepare us for it. I am sure that those close to her saw her lose patience with them and others from time to time, or if not, I hope I learn that someday.

The kindness and goodness that she demonstrated through her life and philanthropic endeavors will continue as her legacy. And Jesus has recognized her faithfulness to Him, her family, friends, and fans by coming to receive her to Himself as He promised in John 14:3.

Welcome home, Ms. Dolly. Enjoy your coat of many colors that your Father made for you, and I am sure it was on your bed in the mansion that Jesus prepared for you and took you to.

Systemic racism

August 23, 2026

When this term began to flourish many years ago, I thought it was like the phrase youth in Asia from the 1970s. If you are not old enough to remember that decade, I will tell you a story. In history class, one day our teacher asked us to choose teams to debate a topic. I was a debater and was excited about the assignment.

My friend and I easily paired up with two other friends to oppose and choose our topic. We selected pornography and picked a court case about the book “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and discussed the idea of whether the book was pornographic or not. I have yet to read the book.

The humorous part was when the group that selected Youth in Asia began their debate, and it had nothing to do with Asia but was about people being allowed to commit suicide. One of the debaters stated that he thought the punishment for this should be the death penalty. That comment got him sent to the office.

For my younger readers, you can see that our generations are no smarter than yours. I had never heard of euthanasia at that time. If you do not understand a term, do some research or ask someone smarter than you. I could not find anyone who could define the term systemic racism for me. They knew racism; only how the term systemic applied confused them as well.

My research since that time has uncovered the true cause of this problem. It is not the systems in place but the individuals running the governments involved. I think the first I heard of this was in the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. While the officer who killed Mr. Brown was never charged or convicted of a crime, the city police department underwent many systemic upgrades due to the incident.

This type of event sparks changes all over our country. The most current ones involve U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers who have killed innocent people and claimed that they interfered in their investigations. These cases range from Maine, Texas, Virginia, and beyond. There have been problems in Greene County, Missouri, where I live, as well, with this department of the Federal Government.

The point I want to make is that no system is perfect when imperfect humans are responsible for enforcing the laws. Maybe we should eliminate the human element and assign these tasks to Artificial Intelligence? This is an oxymoron because while they may be artificial, they are not intelligent. They make mistakes as well.

You don’t believe me? Try these headlines for size: “Parents sue OpenAI for involvement in teenager’s suicide,” “xAI’s Grok makes antisemitic comments, lays out plan for assault,” “AI coding tool wipes out production database and lies about it.” That last one sounds all too human to me. Could it be that even something artificial designed by us will still have our flaws?

This is the main premise of my book “Cosmic Flatulence.” When we concoct a theory of the evolution of our world coming from nothing and no one, calling it the “Big Bang Theory,” isn’t that like saying God let a fart and all of this happened? I don’t have that much faith.

Cobra Scare

August 15, 2026

August 15, 1953 – A homeowner in Springfield, Missouri killed a 4½ foot long snake with a hoe. The snake was later identified as a deadly hooded cobra. Springfield was soon terrified as one cobra after another turned up. This all happened a year before I was born.

Reo Mowrer, owner of an exotic pet store a block away from where the first snake was found, denied they were his. As the hunt continued, police played snake charmer music through a loudspeaker to lure the snakes out. Cobras are deaf. Music does not draw the snakes through the music except by the vibrations

Frank Pike holding the stick with the cobra. Carl Gustafson is police officer in middle.

The story made national news and was featured in Life Magazine as eleven snakes were eventually killed. Mike O’Brien, a columnist for the News and Leader, reported in the seventies that the mystery had not been solved about the source of the reptiles.

Mister Mowrer had spoken to reporter O’Brien before his death and had admitted that he had a shipment of exotic snakes delivered just before the scare. The cobras were some of this illegal order. This information was not to be released until after his death.

Officers looking for more snakes

Years later, a Springfield man confessed that as a youth he had released the snakes from the pet shop. He was angry that a fish he bought there had died and the owner refused to refund his money. When I managed a pet store, our policy was to give a forty-eight-hour warranty with the return of the dead fish.

Holding another dead snake

If only that had been in effect in nineteen fifty-three this entire adventure would never have taken place. Now you see why enjoy writing non-fiction more than fiction. You just can’t make this stuff up.

Perception or truth

August 8, 2026

One employee is sitting at the computer working on what they were told to do three hours before. The boss is pleased because they are still on the task they were given. He does not know this job will only take them thirty minutes to perform, because he does not know how to do it.

The same official passes another employee who is in a breakroom getting a cup of coffee. He is there with two others who have been drinking coffee for fifteen minutes, and they all go back to their respective desks. “How long have they been in the break room?” he asks his secretary. “Fifteen minutes,” is the reply.

Later that day, the man who was pouring a cup of coffee is reprimanded. He is confused since he had gotten up from his workstation for the first time in three hours and is told he was drinking coffee for fifteen minutes. It is never mentioned to those who were the ones his secretary was talking about.

Perception is the problem in this case. Or, if you have my attitude, the misconceptions of an inefficient supervisor. I hope this has never happened to you. It has been done to thousands of associates at offices and plants all over the world. I know because I’ve seen it here in the U.S., and I believe that people are the same everywhere.

I’ll give you a couple of personal examples. I walked up on the line at a restaurant where I was a manager and saw three people correcting a problem with a customer order. One was out of his workstation. I jumped on him to get back where he belonged.

Once the problem was worked out, the other two informed me that the error was theirs and the young man just came over to help sort things out. I immediately went to him and apologized for my error and thanked him for his efforts.

A few days later, a tray of food flies over his head and hits a wall. The manager who threw it, my boss, storms out of the building. The situation was the same; an order was filled incorrectly. I took this as a sign that I needed to find employment elsewhere and did so. This was my last food service position, and I continued in other industries.

The problem of perception overruling truth is all around us. We often must look beyond what seems to be obvious to us to determine what the reality is. Many companies die because their managers and owners accept perceptions as truth and fail to see the forest for the trees.

I left an employer early on, expecting his business to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and then it took place a few months later. I was a purchasing agent and was constantly having to ask accounting to pay bills that were overdue to clear our accounts to ship new orders. My perception was that our bills should be paid on time.

There are those who have a perception that if they do not pay their bills promptly, nothing will happen. It may take a foreclosure or threat of some catastrophe to correct this erroneous thinking. In business, I’ve made those calls to clients asking for a past-due invoice to be paid. I always considered it a truth that they could pay, if they wanted to. What are your perceptions of the truth, and are you sure you are correct?

You get what you pay for

August 7, 2026

This phrase has been used often to justify spending someone felt was necessary. Sometimes it is a man speaking to his wife about the new boat or car. Other times it is a woman speaking of her new jewelry or dress. Or it may be the Senator, Congressman, or President trying to convince voters that the government’s expenses are reasonable.

In our society, most people, they do not receive the quality and expectations for which they are paying. My career put me in a position to work with manufacturers for twenty-five years, and I ended my career after working at three manufacturers. I learned that the cost of manufacturing products is often a minor part of the retail price.

This is why we have the mysterious MSRP or Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. Sometimes this is not necessarily suggested by the company that made it. Often a major distributor sets this price. In my first purchasing position, I learned that some major retailers have a minimum markup of 35 to 40 percent. I was required to negotiate special pricing from our vendors to meet these requirements.

When I moved to industrial products, our profit as a distributor was often 75%. I also learned how to calculate profits in a suspiciously obscure way. This is how retailers say they are selling at a percentage of their cost and still make millions of dollars. There are also rebates, hidden discounts, and multiple levels of warehouses that each have a markup.

I have spoken before about stores that open each season with sales of thirty percent discounts, and other retailers only give a ten percent discount on sale prices. My wife and I prefer to purchase products at fifty percent or less of the standard price. We also look for clearance sales and occasionally find 75-90% sales after the season ends.

For fifty years, we have bought things that we could afford. We recently purchased a car that was more expensive than we ever bought before. It was a 2016 Buick SUV with about 60,000 miles. God provided a desire for us that He often has done in previous years. We don’t receive everything we want but often find Him giving us exactly what we desire.

The title of this column is correct, and you receive more than you paid for if you allow Jesus to be Lord of your life. I have followed Him for most of my years and hope that you have found the same to be true in your lives.

How old are you?

July 20, 2026

Do you ask people this question? I try to be very careful with this inquiry. Especially with older women. After more than seven decades of life, I have several ways to respond.

You are as old as you feel. If I used that today, I would have to set the chronology in the range of the eighties. After bypass surgery, it requires many weeks to recover. Pain, inability to do simple tasks, and having to be careful not to rip out stiches, it ages one.

You are as old as you act. Want to feel younger? Join some younger folks in their activities. Simply be sure not to participate in anything too strenuous for you. Working as a sponsor for youth activities keeps me young.

You are as old as you want to be. When we were kids, we wanted to be older. Fourteen-year-olds want to be sixteen. Seventeen-year-olds wish they were eighteen. Shortly after you turn twenty-one, it all reverses. Every ten years we want to erase that decade.

Pick the age you liked the best and proceed to consider that is where you will be the rest of your life. Don’t complain when the birthday gifts stop. You asked for it. A friend of mine began celebrating the anniversary of her thirty-ninth birthday. Which one do you want to substitute?

You are as old as you think you are. Refer to the last paragraph. You may want to rethink this one. It is best to embrace where you are. I have outlived my oldest brother and Father. I have some more years to go before I surpass Mom. I hope I will be like her and live every minute to its fullest, but not fear the next chapter of my life.

Is there something that you wanted to do and have not accomplished yet? As I was approaching my sixtieth birthday, I began publishing these columns. I noticed how many were about my family, experiences, and life as a workplace minister. In college, I began studying Greek and Hebrew.

I learned that Doulos meant servant and was sometimes translated as slave. One of the significant scriptures where it appears is Romans 1:1. Paul describes himself as a slave to Christ. As I examined what I had been writing and publishing, I decided to write a memoir and named it “Doulos.”

That was over ten years ago, and I have yet to publish another book. This year, I have set a goal of publishing at least two more books. They are “The Inedible Credible Egg” and “Cosmic Flatulence.” Keep reading and see where we go with these books. I believe you will like what you read.

Jim Bridger Part One

July 10, 2026

He told them he’d found water that boiled without fire and forests made of stone. They called him a liar. Every word was true.

St. Louis, 1822. An 18-year-old orphan named Jim Bridger worked in a blacksmith shop for pennies. No education. No family. No future anyone could see.

Then he saw a newspaper advertisement that would rewrite his entire existence: “Enterprising Young Men” wanted for a fur trapping expedition into the Rocky Mountains. Pay. Uncertain return. Possible death.

Jim Bridger had nothing to lose and everything to prove. He signed his name and walked away from the only life he’d known.

What followed was nearly six decades of exploration that would make him the most knowledgeable man in America about a landscape most Americans couldn’t even imagine.

Around 1824, young Bridger and fellow trappers followed Utah’s Bear River to discover where it ended. When Bridger reached an enormous body of water stretching beyond sight, he knelt at the shore and tasted it.

Salt. Intense, bitter salt.

He’d reached the Pacific Ocean—or so he believed. He was magnificently wrong. He’d discovered the Great Salt Lake, one of the western hemisphere’s largest saltwater lakes, sitting impossibly in the middle of the desert. He was the first non-Native person to document it.

But that discovery was merely his opening act.

In the late 1820s, Bridger ventured into the Yellowstone region. What he witnessed there defied reality itself.

Water exploding from the earth in columns hundreds of feet high. Pools of boiling liquid in every color imaginable. Mud that bubbled like cooking stew. Entire forests of trees turned completely into stone. Ground trembled. Air that smelled of sulfur.

When Bridger returned to civilization and described what he’d seen, the response was universal: laughter.

They called him “Old Gabe the Liar.” Journalists mocked his “tall tales.” Even fellow mountain men questioned whether he’d lost his mind.

He hadn’t invented a single detail. He’d simply witnessed Yellowstone four decades before it would become America’s first national park—before the nation was ready to accept that such a place could exist on Earth.

Every impossible thing he described was real. The world just wasn’t ready to believe him.

For twenty years, Bridger lived as a mountain man, surviving conditions that killed most men within weeks. He learned six Native languages fluently. He married into the Flathead tribe, later marrying twice more after tragedy. He became legendary for reading weather, tracking game, and navigating terrain with supernatural precision.

When the beaver fur market collapsed in the 1840s, Bridger adapted instantly. Thousands of emigrants were beginning the desperate journey west. They needed help.

In 1843, he and his partner, Louis Vasquez, constructed Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming. For a decade, that fort served as a critical rest stop where pioneer families could repair wagons, buy supplies, and gather strength before the final brutal push to Oregon or California.

Thousands of lives were saved at Fort Bridger.

As westward expansion accelerated, Bridger became irreplaceable. Military expeditions needed guides who knew every mountain pass. Railroad surveyors needed someone who’d walked every mile of potential routes. Scientific expeditions needed the man who’d accumulated thirty years of geographical knowledge that existed nowhere else.

He guided expeditions well into his sixties, even as his eyesight deteriorated—the price of decades under relentless sun and blinding snow reflecting off endless white peaks.

The rest of the story tomorrow.

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.

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.

Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

Walk With a Servant

Tag: Writing