Steve Oliver

Bad Poet, Storyteller & Dabbler | Living life with gratitude|Slightly Charming Curmudgeon|Mostly Harmless

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

Life Unfolded

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

Should you start that business?
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[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

Rule No. 2 of Modern Etiquette for Mostly Decent Men: Concerning the Conveyance of Groceries

A gentleman shall make every reasonable effort to carry every grocery bag from the car in a single trip.

Whether this is wise is beside the point.

Plastic handles may cut off circulation. Gallons of milk may leave permanent shoulder impressions. Bread may be balanced beneath the chin. None of this shall deter him.

A second trip is not a failure. It is simply an admission that physics occasionally wins.

The Real Lesson: The groceries were never the point. The point is that someone is waiting inside, and carrying a little extra is one of the quiet ways we say, "I love you."

What's an unwritten rule of modern etiquette that deserves its own post?

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

The Half-Decent Man's Guide to Modern Etiquette

Rule No. 1
On the Proper Holding of Doors

A gentleman shall hold the door for another whenever practical. He shall do so quietly, without expectation of thanks, applause, or a public debate on modern social customs.

The challenge, however, is one of timing.

Hold the door too early and you've accidentally sentenced a stranger to a thirty-foot speed walk while apologetically repeating, "Thanks... thank you... almost there..."

Hold it too late and you've created the dreaded Simultaneous Reach, in which both parties lunge for the handle, insist the other go first, and perform a polite dance that neither rehearsed.

Should two gentlemen arrive at the same moment, each shall defer to the other until someone behind them sighs loudly enough to settle the matter.

Proper Conduct
Hold the door from a distance that requires only one sincere "Thank you."
If the other person begins jogging, you started too soon.
If no one thanks you, continue being the sort of man who holds doors anyway.

The Real Lesson

Good manners were never about the door.
They're about noticing another human being.
Sometimes the smallest kindness says, "I saw you," and that's enough.

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

You would say, "I miss you." but I say:

"I don't miss you all at once. I miss you in a thousand small moments... when something makes me laugh, when the coffee is especially good, when the sky turns the color you would have noticed. It is never the whole day that belongs to you. Just the best parts of it."

What ordinary thing unexpectedly reminds you of someone?

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

My contribution to the bandwagon.

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

You might think I'm crazy, but I'm genuinely excited.
Last week, 4 complete strangers took the Founder Diagnostic.
Knowing I was able to help people I've never even met is exactly why I built it.

If you're a business owner, give it a try. It's free.
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[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT... 📷
Most of you know me as the guy who's always traveling somewhere, writing random stories, or chasing the next adventure.
But Monday through Friday, I help businesses keep their people safe, their facilities running, and their electrical systems out of the "this could get expensive" category.
If you own a business, manage a facility, work in maintenance, or know someone who does, I'd love the opportunity to help. My team at Guidant Power provides electrical infrared inspections, arc flash studies, NFPA 70E training, engineering services, and a whole lot of practical solutions that reduce risk and improve reliability.
And if I can't help you directly, there's a good chance I know someone who can.
So if you've ever thought, "I wonder who I should call about that..." I'd appreciate the chance to be your first call.
If nothing else, give this post a share. You never know which friend might need it.
Thanks for putting up with the occasional shameless self-promotion. Now I'll get back to writing about truck stops, small towns, and life's big questions. 📷

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

I was young once, and like most young people, I was convinced everyone else knew something I didn't. I spent years chasing a version of myself who always seemed to be standing just over the next hill. One more job, one more town, one more chance to get things right. The funny thing about getting older is discovering that the successful people, the happy people, and the ones who look like they have it all figured out are mostly guessing too. That's why I trust old farmers, linemen, truck drivers, and waitresses. They've buried dogs, lost friends, started over, and learned that life rarely follows the plan. At a farmer's memorial, his wife looked at the rain and smiled. "It's raining, so we can go." I've thought about that ever since. Maybe wisdom isn't controlling the weather. Maybe it's recognizing when the weather has already made the decision. These days, when I look in the mirror, I don't see a man who fell short. I see a man who survived every version of himself and kept moving. After everything that tried to stop us, maybe the remarkable thing isn't whether we've arrived. Maybe it's that we're still on the road at all.

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

My sister and I all cleaned up.

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

The Founders' Vision for America: Why We're Still Reaching for It Today

I have always thought we misunderstand the founders when we judge them solely by where they started instead of where they pointed us.

They did not describe a perfect nation. They described an aspiration.

They set the bar so high that nearly two hundred and fifty years later we are still reaching for it.

Think about that for a moment.

A handful of men gathered in a hot room in Philadelphia and dared to write down ideas that were bigger than themselves. They declared that our rights come not from kings, governments, armies, or wealth, but from our Creator. They proposed that ordinary people could govern themselves. They insisted that liberty belonged to the common man.

Were they imperfect? Of course they were. They were human beings. Every generation is.

But the miracle is not that they fell short. The miracle is that they aimed so high.

America has spent nearly two and a half centuries trying to close the distance between those ideals and our reality. We have stumbled. We have argued. We have made mistakes. We have corrected some and are still working on others. Yet through it all, the direction has remained remarkably consistent. More freedom. More opportunity. A wider circle of citizenship. A broader understanding of what it means to be equal before the law.

That is not the story of a nation abandoning its founding principles.

That is the story of a nation growing into them.

For all our faults, and there have been many, I remain grateful to live in a country where generations of Americans have believed that tomorrow can be better than today. A country where farmers, factory workers, immigrants, teachers, soldiers, business owners, and dreamers have all contributed their small part to an unfinished project.

America is not great because we have always gotten everything right.

America is great because we were given an impossible standard and, generation after generation, we keep trying to reach it.

That seems worth celebrating.

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

Oh, the thinks that a thinker can think,
while sipping a cold drink by the edge of the brink.
He can think of a castle,
or think of a kite,
or think of a dragon
that sleeps in the night.
He can think of ten planets,
or twenty, or more,
with upside-down oceans
and fish that can soar.
But oh, the prisons
a thinker can make,
with bars built from worry
and locks built from ache.
He can think he's too old.
He can think he's too late.
He can think every door
has been sealed shut by fate.
He can think every stumble
is proof he should stop.
He can think every mountain
is too tall to hop.
And the curious thing,
as strange as can be,
is the jailer and prisoner
might both be he.
For the walls are not brick,
and the chains are not steel.
They're made from the stories
a mind learns to feel.
So think all your thinks,
both the foolish and wise.
Build ladders, not cages.
Build wings, not disguise.
For the thinks that can trap you
can also set free
and the key to the prison
is just a new "maybe."
Stephen Ango Oliver 06/02/2026

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

**It's Raining, So We Can Go**
I attended the memorial service for a man I once worked for this past weekend. Dennis was a farmer, and as farmers often do, he seemed to understand things the rest of us miss.
The day was overcast with a light drizzle falling from time to time. Not enough rain to be miserable, just enough to make you notice the sky. Right before the service, his wife JoAnna made an observation that has stayed with me ever since.
She said Dennis would have approved of the weather because it wasn't a good haying day.
Then she added, "It's raining, so we can go."
Everyone smiled. Some laughed softly. It was one of those simple comments that doesn't sound particularly profound until you let it settle in your mind.
For most people, rain is an inconvenience. It changes plans. It interrupts activities. It keeps us indoors. For a farmer, however, rain means something different. Rain means the work can wait. The hay won't be cut today. The baler stays in the shed. The tractor remains parked. Nature itself has made the decision.
It's raining, so we can go.
The more I think about those words, the more I realize they weren't really about the weather.
They were about permission.
Permission to stop working for a few hours. Permission to leave the endless list of things that need doing. Permission to gather with family and friends and remember someone who mattered.
A farmer's life is measured by responsibilities. There is always another field to tend, another repair to make, another task waiting tomorrow morning. Yet on that day, under a gray sky and a gentle rain, the work paused.
Perhaps that is why the moment struck me so deeply.
We spend much of our lives in motion. We rush from one obligation to another, convinced that everything is urgent and everything requires our attention. Only later, when life forces us to slow down, do we find the time to reflect on what truly mattered.
Wordsworth wrote about "emotion recollected in tranquility." He believed we often understand our experiences only after enough time has passed for reflection. Standing there that day, listening to JoAnna, I wondered if memory works much the same way as a rainy day on the farm. The storm passes, the noise quiets, and suddenly we have the space to see clearly.
Dennis spent his life tending fields. On the day we gathered to remember him, the fields could wait.
The harvest that day was memory.
The crop was gratitude.
And the rain, falling softly from a gray Maine sky, seemed to be saying exactly what Dennis would have understood all along:
It's raining, so we can go.
-Stephen Ango Oliver 06/09/2026 See less

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

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[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

Flowers In Ink
Playing with some flowers and my ink stamp. What do you think?

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

Your Mom deserves a letter.
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[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

Stomping Grounds

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

If someone came to mind while reading this…
That’s probably who it’s for.

[Steve Oliver @SteveOliver67]

I just earned the Starter badge in the beehiiv recommendations network 👋
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via @beehiiv