The 405 Coffee Break Aired Sept 5th, 2025
I wanna again welcome you to the 4:05 coffee break, guys. The weekend's almost here. It's Friday. Get your cup of coffee, tall, cool glass of lemonade, bottle of water, whatever it is you'd like, and let's see what's happening. Spring wheat, $5.27 a bushel, 550 pounds steer calf, $4 to $4.15 a pound.
OK Solberg:Did you hear me? $5.50 times $4.15, that's $2,282.50. Holy catfish, Batman. A butcher hog in Iowa, 65ยข a pound, and a fat lamb in Billings weighing a 100 pounds, $2 and a penny. But guys, there's more, much more.
OK Solberg:Now, yesterday I read you a story I found online, and I got another one. I wanted to share it with you. I didn't write it. I did not write it. But I sure had similarities in my growing up years.
OK Solberg:Don't you just love the Internet? You can find other people telling their stories and we can relate to them. Here it is. Listen. It's titled the long cord.
OK Solberg:You know, when I was about 13 or so, must have been around 72 or 73, we finally got a long cord on the telephone, black rotary wall mount in the kitchen, just like everyone else in the neighborhood had. But that cord, that changed everything. Before that, you had to stand right there by the wall if you wanted to talk to anyone, which meant everyone heard everything. My mom frying chicken three feet away, my little brother running his mouth about nothing, and dad rustling the paper and sighing loudly anytime someone dared to use the phone longer than two minutes. But then came the cord.
OK Solberg:Oh, a glorious coiled stretch of black plastic freedom. My dad brought it home one Saturday. Still had the hardware store twist tie on it and hooked it up. That thing must have been at least 12 feet long, maybe more. For the first time, I could pull the receiver into the hallway and sneak up to the top of the stairs.
OK Solberg:There was a little landing there just before the attic door, and if I pulled it right, I could sit on the third step, shut the door behind me, and almost pretend I had a private phone line. Well, kind of private. We were still on a party line, of course. If missus Dunbar from next door picked up during one of my marathon calls, you'd hear her puffing into the receiver like a grumpy walrus. Sometimes she'd clear her throat real loud as a warning shot.
OK Solberg:Other times she'd say something like, some of us need to make important calls, you know. I just laughed and whispered back, okay. Okay, missus Dunbar, just saying good night. But in that little hallway nook, with the door shut and the sound of my mom's vacuum muffled in the distance, it felt like the world got smaller and quieter just for me and her, Tammy, my first real girlfriend. We didn't have much to say, really.
OK Solberg:Mostly just laughed and asked each other what we were doing. I nearly always had a cherry Tootsie pop in my mouth, mostly because I thought it helped me not sound nervous. I never bit those things, not once. No, sir. I'd just sit there, letting it slowly melt down to that tiny little dab of Tootsie Roll in the center while we talked about school and the weather and her annoying brother.
OK Solberg:I still remember one night. I'd been on the phone so long, the sucker was nothing but a shiny stick and the ghost of chocolate was on my tongue. She said, okay. I should go. And I said, me too.
OK Solberg:But neither of us hung up right away. I could hear her breathing. She could probably hear mine. It wasn't much, but to a kid like me back then, it felt like love. Funny how a long phone card and a cherry sucker could make you feel like you had the whole world figured out.
OK Solberg:Nowadays, kids have phones in their pockets. They don't know what it meant to stretch that cord just far enough to close the door behind you and have ten minutes of borrowed privacy. But I do, and I'm glad for it. Thy end. I like that.
OK Solberg:Flashes me back to those days gone by. Time enough for a bible verse. Think of the boy sitting in the stairwell talking to his girlfriend. Now listen to this bible verse. Behold, you are beautiful, my love.
OK Solberg:Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves. Song of Solomon one fifteen. Yes, sir, it's really in the bible. It really is.
OK Solberg:I didn't make it up. The book right after Ecclesiastes. You know, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, then comes Song of Solomon. Chapter one and verse 15. So until next time, as you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.