Made by Graves

02/05/2026

The best time for ice cream is always.
B-MA knows what she’s doing. 🍦

01/17/2026

Back when summers felt longer and photos came in envelopes. Before cell phones — just family, lake days, and country radio. Some memories stay right where you left them.

Music video by Merle Haggard performing Kern River. (C) 1985 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENThttp://vevo.ly/6t15rA

10/28/2025

Headlights crawl along the fence line.
The road don’t quit. The night won’t shut up.
Out here you sweep countryside
and the signal still holds.

05/23/2025

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ4GKYxAjms

Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupThe Front Porch Song · Robert Earl KeenThe Live Album℗ 1988 Sugar Hill Records, A Welk Music Group CompanyRelease...

03/17/2025

The Redhead

Soozi entered my life during a time of transition. She was an Irish Setter, full of energy and wild charm, and her name—Soozi—carried a weight I didn’t fully grasp. My father, newly separated from my mother, named her after his soon-to-be ex-wife. At the time, I didn’t question it; I just accepted it, a small constant in a world suddenly turned upside down. To me, she was simply my dog.

Soozi had a way of showing up both in love and in trouble. She was intelligent and affectionate, yet mischievous, always testing the boundaries. More than once, she ignored my father’s calls, trotting off with a steak lifted straight from the barbecue or darting into the street with a stubbornness that could only be matched by her grace. My father, usually patient, would mumble under his breath and call her back, only for her to turn her head slightly, as if considering whether or not to obey. Their relationship was a mix of affection and frustration—he adored her, but her antics kept him on edge.

Her defiance wasn’t loud. It was subtle, almost sneaky—just enough to be noticed, just enough to get under his skin. But in those moments when he’d had enough, when his patience wore thin, Soozi would still find a way to be close. She’d nuzzle up to him, with us, her broad, fading yellow collar hanging loosely around her neck, and just like that, the tension would dissolve. She was a constant in my changing world, a reminder that life didn’t always follow the rules, but still had room for love.

Eventually, the transition came again. We moved, and Soozi was left with a family friend, a temporary arrangement until things settled. But in that in-between space, the worst happened. She was hit by a car. Just like that, her wild spirit was gone, taken abruptly. There was no dramatic ending, no final lesson—only the silence that followed her absence.

I’ve often thought about getting another Irish Setter. They’re stunning animals, full of fire and life, but they demand a certain kind of attention—patience, structure, and a willingness to accept their unruly nature. Maybe that’s the irony of it all: the very things that make them remarkable are also what make them complicated. If I were to bring one back into my life, it would mean embracing both the joy and the frustration, the love and the challenge. In a way, maybe that’s exactly what Soozi was meant to teach me: that beauty and chaos can coexist, that love isn’t always easy, and that some things, even if they disrupt us, leave marks that never fully fade.

09/02/2024

Looking back to Saturday, December 2, 1950: the day my father, Benjamin Franklin Graves Jr., birth announcement was printed in the Salinas Californian Newspaper. A lifetime of stories since that day and many more to come.

02/03/2024

Found a vintage advertising blotter for ACME Oilfield Construction in Bakersfield, CA — cowboy and steer artwork, pure old Valley.

My grandfather, Frank Graves Sr., worked for ACME in San Ardo when my aunt Frances Marie was born in 1952. On that job he met Swanson Coffman, who talked him into moving the family to Bakersfield. They ended up as neighbors on 28th Street and spent decades working side by side at Oilfield Construction, Inc.

My dad, Frank Jr., went on to put in 30+ years with the same outfit.

That’s how we got here. That’s how the Graves family came to homestead in Bakersfield, California — 71 years and counting

12/31/2023

Sage-Stained Mosaic: Echoes of Greenwood

When the day's time runs out and goes dark, I see

A modest ranch-like structure hemmed in careworn grape stake fencing.

Crack-laden blacktop, its hollows and fissures, each colored with a story in hues of wear and tear.

The discerning rooster weather vane, poised atop the pinnacle, overseeing the state of the venerable shake-top roof.

The sprawling mulberry tree casts its expansive shadows, its roots and canopy establishing an undisputed reign over the verdant landscape below.

A perennially fractured spring, and when unbarred, the weighty wooden door leaned askew, beckoning the support of a sturdy pole.

A door welcomed without a window, only a leftward crank casement, frosted and ajar—its position then inherent to the architecture.

Landmark piping with rustic finished capping dangles a box with slanted and reflective gold-trimmed numerals.

Diorama of a matchbox, discreetly nestled in the bottom left corner hill, the languid water hose beneath the unkempt hedge beseeching the touch of a rake... while the Setter frolics.

These impressions of black and white are brought to life through mosaic memories of sage-painted wood and combined for the exterior essence of Greenwood Place.

11/11/2023

My sincere, faithful, and dutiful brother. Thank you for your service!

11/11/2023

Graves Generation 168 Veterans.

11/11/2023

To my paternal and maternal grandfathers, Frank Graves and Johnnie Beard, who answered our country's call and served in its Armed Forces to bring about the enemy's total defeat, I extend heartfelt thanks from our families and the grateful Nation. As one of the Nation's finest, you undertook the most severe task one can be called upon to perform. Because you demonstrated the fortitude, resourcefulness, and calm judgment necessary to carry out that task, even in your absence, we look to you for leadership and example in further exalting our country in peace.