New Cars, Used Cars and Getting the Most for Your Money

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote? Because you were the TV remote? Remember when music sounded like this?

Remember when social media was truly social? Hey John, how's it going today? Well, this show is all about you. This is Fifty Plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances, good health, and what to do for fun.

Fifty Plus is sponsored by New Promise Neuropathy. Lose the pain and numbness, get your life back. newpromiseneuropathy.com. And by Honestly Texas Rice, taste the Texas difference. honestlytexasrice.com. And now Fifty Plus with Doug Pike.

Doug Pike (0:52)

All right, here we go. Welcome one and all to another episode of Fifty Plus, a show that is at least by intention, gonna keep us all informed and entertained. And I truly hope, curious to find out more about some of the things we discuss on this show. And before I go any farther, as if any of us didn't already know, today marks the 25th anniversary of the worst terror attack on our country throughout its history. It was on this day in 2001 that hijackers deliberately crashed four planes full of innocent people.

Two into the Twin Towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon, and the fourth into the ground in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to regain control of that aircraft. Nearly 3,000 people died as a result of that attack, carried out by Muslim terrorists. And I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news began to wash across America.

I was on my way to the CCA offices, Coastal Conservation Association, to do some work on the next edition of Tide Magazine when news came over the radio on KTRH. A plane has crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York City. That's about all anybody knew at first. And that in itself was odd, but there still wasn't much detail. Was it a small plane, a large plane? We weren't getting much of anything in the very beginning. And when I got to the office, everyone was gathered around a small television we had in the break room, just staring in disbelief at a gaping hole in that tall building. Smoke billowing from inside. And then we and most Americans watched in horror as a second plane came into view and was flown deliberately into the other tower, setting off a tremendous fireball. And I just can't imagine what that must have sounded like echoing throughout New York City. Then the Pentagon, then the Pennsylvania Farm, and then perhaps most disturbing, and a memory that is still all too vivid today for me, images of people stuck on higher floors of that building, fire below them, coming up toward them, on those two skyscrapers burning out of control. And as the fire and smoke began to consume some of those higher floors and people felt the inescapable heat, they made the gruesome decision, the very hard decision, to just step out of the broken windows and accept their fate. Those memories haunt me to this day, they really do. Such desperation, such great loss for so many families.

I will never forget what happened that day, and I can never forgive the people who heaped that evil upon us. That's just pure evil. And that same level of evil still exists. Never forget that. The world is a balance of good and evil, always at odds with each other. Good people can never stop watching over their shoulders either, because evil wears a lot of disguises.

Take a minute today, if you haven't already, to sit down, maybe close your eyes, and remember what happened on that day. Not to make you sad, but to remind you how important it is that we keep fighting evil wherever we find it.

God rest the souls of all those who perished unnecessarily that day.

Picking up where I left off with this one yesterday, traffic into work on 59, knocking wood.

I can barely make it do it on this microphone, it has this big fuzzy cover. In the KBME studio, I can tap it, and it sounds like I'm knocking on wood, but I'm not. In any event, so far so good, traffic again on the Southwest Freeway coming in, quite light, and has been for about a week. I've hardly had to scream at more than two or three drivers on the way to work for quite some time now. No explanation for it, for there being fewer cars on the road, and I'm leaving about the same time as I always do. Traffic is just lighter, and that's a little something on which I can start my day with a smile until I get all the way to 610