I first interviewed Mike Rhyner a few days after his shocking retirement announcement at the beginning of January. We had a long talk over lunch, and I probably had more than enough to work with for the profile I’d end up writing about him in our April issue. One of the founders of the The Ticket and the longtime host of its flagship show, The Hardline, Mike was open to all lines of inquiry and answered all of my questions thoughtfully.

We met again a few weeks later—another long lunch, another long talk. My initial idea was to catch up with him at various stages of retirement, check to see how it was going, if he had regrets, if he had made plans. I ended up abandoning that idea, mostly, but not before I met with Mike again, this time for a walk in downtown, where he lives and I work. We’re both walkers, and I figured a bit of motion would make for a good ending. By then, I’d exhausted my questions, pretty much, and I’d gotten thousands of words of good answers, about the radio business and sports and music and whatever else.

Over that weekend, with an assist from Mike’s ex-wife Renee, I spoke with his younger sister, Patti, who lives in California. Maybe half an hour or so after we’d hung up, after talking about their growing up in Oak Cliff, I got a text from Mike: “Wanna go for a ride Wed?” I, of course, said yes. He said he was going to take me by the three houses in Oak Cliff where he and Patti lived, the neighborhoods, the schools. “It’s become quite clear that you’re putting a shit ton into this thing … and I’m going to get with the program.” Which made me laugh because what had he been doing all this time? It certainly felt like he had been with the program.

It turns out he had plenty more to offer, and it’s to his credit that the story turned out the way it did. I guess it should not come as a surprise that a man who has spent almost all of his adult life talking for a living is pretty good at it. You just have to be there. It’s online now.

A letter went out to Morning News employees today from president and publisher Grant Moise. It outlines how the company is cutting costs to weather the pandemic. Most of the newsroom will take an 8 percent cut. There are a few issues here at which one could raise an eyebrow if one were so inclined: that Moise earns somewhere around $800,000 in total compensation, that CFO Katy Murray was promoted last week to executive vice president despite having overseen an embarrassing accounting snafu in November that has yet to be straightened out. But the really disturbing part of this announcement, the thing that makes my blood boil? Moise is a two-spaces-after-periods guy. Disgusting. Here’s his letter:

Texas Discovery Gardens launched a new digital garden series on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, since they can’t currently open their doors to the public. There are two episodes so far, and they both star Dick Davis, TDG’s executive director, who is so incredibly soothing and endearing that he can only be described as Dallas’ answer to Mr. Rogers. The first video is a sweet animated poem great for kids. But the second, which starts and ends with a classic dad joke, will brighten your Monday.

Judge Clay Jenkins wants Gov. Greg Abbott to know that Dallas County is still planning for the pop-up hospital at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. He also wants the governor to pick up the phone.

Jenkins has responded to a letter sent yesterday by Luis Saenz, Abbott’s chief of staff, that threatened to take away the pop-up hospital from Dallas County. Saenz wrote that he’d heard from federal officials that they were considering locating the hospital elsewhere because Jenkins had said he didn’t want it. Jenkins says that was not true, adding that that nobody called him to discuss this alleged claim, which originated in a voicemail. Mayor Eric Johnson quickly piled on, saying he was “stunned and deeply disappointed” about “Dallas County’s position on the pop-up hospital.”

Johnson did not call the judge either, basing his reaction off Saenz’s letter.

Saenz, meanwhile, wrote, “I have been informed by federal government officials that if you cannot make clear the acceptance of these facilities by 5:00 on Monday, April 6, the federal government may be forced to relocate these healthcare facilities to other regions.”

Jenkins in his letter reiterates that the county is planning for the hospital and preparing for its activation.

“If anything in this letter or any information not contained in this letter will be used as a reason to steer the FMS from Dallas County or jeopardize Dallas County’s ability to receive or obtain resources from the federal government, please contact me immediately and I will work to provide answers and a resolution,” Jenkins writes.

He has spoken about the hospital’s purpose for the last week, that it would be a release valve turned on when hospital capacity takes a hit from COVID-19 cases. It would start with 250 beds but have the ability to grow to as many as 1,400. It would serve as a “step-down” facility for patients no longer needing critical services. Rocky Vaz, the city’s director of emergency management, shared that belief. And suddenly, the governor is threatening to pull the services altogether.

I felt like last week I was falling into the rhythm with my sometimes remote schedule. Thursday morning, I drove up to Spring Creek in Garland for a hike before I headed into the office. We are all working remotely unless we need to deliver critical aid to our clients. It was a nice 60 degrees as I headed up Shiloh. I put a travel mug of Cultivar Coffee in my day pack and drove off.

I started down the paved trail and then headed across a patch of native prairie. It burned this last fall, and it’s fun to see the entire area covered in green now. The Yuccas are starting to send up stalks, and the first of the Indian Paintbrush is blooming.

I took the trail under Garland Avenue. A few months ago, a large Pecan shed a big piece of its trunk and pushed another large tree all the way horizontal to the ground. I stood looking at it, and noticed that the tree is sending new growth straight vertical from the now horizontal trunk. The tree is adapting to a new reality. That’s what we are all doing. Perhaps you are adapting to a layoff and figuring out how to survive, or you are my friends Matt Tobin and Josh Yingling, who overnight revamped their entire business plan and shifted to a new name: Good Citizen, with a new menu and curbside delivery. Or you’re the crew at Cultivar Coffee, who had to shut one store and shift to curbside delivery.

Our agency has had to shift quickly. We are, like many of you, doing all meetings as Zoom meetings. We just conducted our first virtual training of lawyers by Zoom. We have set up tables outside to distribute grocery cards and toiletry bags to our clients. We started investigating how we could do remote legal services for individuals stuck in Mexico. The point is, we are all adapting. We are all accepting new realities and surviving, just like the big Pecan tree.

I made my way up a hill, and entered a great hardwood Oak forest.

Lowest Greenville has been justifiably quiet in the wake of the city’s coronavirus measures. No more M Streets-dwelling SMU alums sashaying into Steel City Pops in athleisure, no couples filing into Teppo for robata-grilled yakitori.

The normally well-frequented, boisterous stretch has gone silent. Save for a group that toils in the formerly hopping HG Sply Co., its presence discernable only in the evenings from the back parking lot. Where once there were rooftop-bar shenanigans, now something entirely more serious is occurring. Until recently, they worked while we played. But the times have changed all that. It’s time we drew back the curtain.

Every weekday since March 23, Evelyn Aloupas, Denise Apigo, and Randall Braud have filed into the kitchen of the now-shuttered HG Sply Co. on Lowest Greenville to cook for their own. This is the skeleton crew that puts together the nonprofit Heard That Foundation’s Staff Meal program, which launched on the Monday following the city-mandated ban on in-room dining. Such a move, however necessary for the health of diners and workers alike, devastated the service industry landscape for those who were let go from both front-of-house and back-of-house jobs.