Author: Kyle Hayes

  • Theo, Memory, and the Echo of Us:

    Theo, Memory, and the Echo of Us:

    A Reflection on the Life of Malcolm-Jamal Warner

    I was born somewhere between the echoes of soul and the static of the evening news. Gen-X, they call us—the in-between generation. Raised in the analog hush before the digital howl. We were the kids who watched the world through wood-framed Zenith televisions and learned the rhythm of our lives by what shows came on and when.

    For me, Thursday nights in the ’80s were sacred.

    I didn’t know it then, but I was being handed a blueprint—not perfect, not without fault, but something close to a possibility. The Cosby Show wasn’t just a sitcom; it was a cultural phenomenon. It was a seismic shift. A reimagining. A refusal.

    And right there, in the middle of it, was Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Theodore Aloysius Huxtable “Theo”.

    He was the older brother that many people didn’t have. The one who made mistakes but got up again. The one who was cool but also flawed. And most importantly, the one who was allowed to grow. To cry. To fail. To be seen.

    He was not a trope. He was a thread in the tapestry of our adolescence. In a world that rarely afforded young Black men emotional complexity, Theo existed as something softer than stereotype, something more human than punchline.

    Today, I heard that tragedy struck.

    And something inside me stopped. Not just for the man himself, but for what his presence meant. For what it awakened in me.

    I didn’t know Malcolm-Jamal Warner personally. But like many of us, I felt like I knew him. Because we watched him grow. From the 14-year-old kid with the sideways smile and nervous charm, to the man who—quietly, steadily—kept showing up for the culture, even when the cameras weren’t rolling.

    He wasn’t just Theo.

    He was Alex Reed in Reed Between the Lines, trying to reimagine Black fatherhood again—this time as a present, emotionally available, professional Black man navigating love, children, and the complexities of a blended family.

    He was Dr. AJ Austin on The Resident, standing in hospital scrubs, saving lives on-screen while continuing the legacy of representing us in spaces we are often denied in real life.

    He directed. He produced. He narrated. He spoke. And always—always—with that same centered, grounded presence. A voice that calmed. A gaze that carried weight.

    Off-screen, Malcolm gave just as profoundly.

    He spoke out on Black mental health before it was trendy, before the hashtags and the mental health awareness months. He lent his voice to poetry, to jazz, to Black men’s healing circles. He didn’t just want to be seen—he wanted to help others see themselves.

    He supported literacy programs, youth mentorship, and countless initiatives for young Black creatives—always with an emphasis on empowerment through self-awareness and discipline. Not flashy. Not for headlines. Just because it was right.

    When people discuss legacy, they often refer to its impact in an abstract sense. But for me, Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s legacy is personal. It’s quiet. It’s the way I felt seen, even when I didn’t know I was invisible.

    That we could joke without becoming jokes. That we could learn without being reduced to lessons.

    He reminded us that being cool didn’t mean being cold. That we could love our families and still carve our own paths. That we were enough.

    As I sit with the weight of this loss, I think about the strange intimacy of mourning someone you never met. It’s not celebrity worship. It’s not nostalgia.

    It’s something more profound.

    It’s about the ghosts we carry in our cultural memory. The people who shaped us when we didn’t yet have the language to understand how. The ones who offered their craft like a mirror. And dared us to look.

    So tonight, I light a candle for the boy I was. And for the man who helped him feel like maybe—just maybe—he could be more.

    To Malcolm-Jamal Warner: thank you for your grace. For your growth. For choosing to live in alignment with something bigger than applause.

    You were art. And anchor. And example.

    May your family find peace in the love you gave so generously.

    May your work echo long after the credits roll.

    May your name be spoken with the reverence it deserves.

    Please send Prayers for his family.

    —

    Kyle J. Hayes

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  • “Smoke and Silence: A Juneteenth Reflection”

    “Smoke and Silence: A Juneteenth Reflection”

    They said we were free. They said June 19, 1865, was the day we finally heard it out loud—that we were no longer property, no longer counted like cattle or taxed like tobacco. Two years late, but freedom, they said. They say.

    But what they don’t say—what’s often left in the silence between fireworks and food trucks—is that Juneteenth wasn’t just a date on the calendar. It was a memory passed like tongs over hot coals, shared in backyards, in neighborhoods carved from red lines and resilience. It was a whisper of freedom held between ribs and potato salad before there was ever a hashtag or a plastic cup with red, black, and green printed on the side, “Made in China.”

    Before it was named a federal holiday, Juneteenth was ours. Foundational Black Americans. The descendants of those who labored resisted and died without so much as a headstone to mark their names. It was celebrated not with grandeur but with soul. Small parades down streets we paved but never owned. Sunday choirs echoing freedom songs older than the Constitution. Fathers firing up grills, uncles telling stories that turned mythic over time, and grandmothers seasoning more than just food—seasoning identity, memory, grief, and joy into every bite.

    We didn’t need permission to celebrate. We needed remembrance.

    But now? Now, the world has discovered Juneteenth like a new flavor of soda—for a limited time only, available at your nearest big-box retailer. There’s a profit in our pain. A market for our memory. You can buy a Juneteenth T-shirt from the same store that called the cops on us last month. You can eat a “Freedom Day Cupcake” sold by hands that never once lifted a tray at a family reunion.

    Even in celebration, they find a way to own it.

    Federal recognition was supposed to be acknowledgment. But somewhere in the process, it started to feel like appropriation. As soon as it was made official, they also made it theirs—to monetize, to control, to parade around with branding guides and Instagram filters.

    They charge us for permits on our own blocks. They raise vendor fees at parks we once filled for free. They line the streets with booths and banners but ask none of the elders to speak. No stories. No truth. Just commerce.

    What once felt sacred now feels staged.

    And so I offer this:

    Celebrate quietly. Celebrate deeply. Celebrate honestly.

    Not with mall sales and glittered slogans, but with memory. With reverence. With fire and flesh and laughter and smoke curling upward like a prayer.

    Light a grill in your backyard. Share a story with your child. Tell them about the General who rode into Galveston with two years of truth in his mouth. Tell them about the cotton and the blood. About the chains. About how some of us never made it to June 19 but dreamed of it in our final breath.

    Gather your family close—not for spectacle, but for sanctuary.

    Reclaim the sound of laughter in the yard. The creak of old lawn chairs. The gospel hum of freedom echoing off brick walls. Let the smell of ribs and spice be our resistance. Let the rhythm of our joy be the sermon.

    Because Juneteenth isn’t for sale.

    It never was.

    And if they ask where the parade is, tell them it’s right here—

    in the circle of Family and friends , under the tree, where freedom still sings low and slow.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • “The Weight Beneath the Mask: On Patience, Rage, and the Quiet War for Empathy”

    “The Weight Beneath the Mask: On Patience, Rage, and the Quiet War for Empathy”

    Every morning, before the sun gets up and the world begins to call itself civilized again, I sit with myself. I try to be better than I was the day before. That’s the promise I’ve made, not to the world, but to the little boy I used to be—the one who deserved more tenderness than he received. The one who saw too much too early and still had the nerve to keep dreaming.

    I learn patience.

    I try to learn empathy.

    And most days, it feels like trying to catch rain in a sieve.

    Being a Foundational Black American in this country is to walk a tightrope stretched across a minefield. You must smile with your teeth clenched, laugh without humor, and nod when what you really want to do is roar.

    I try to treat everyone equally.

    That’s the goal, isn’t it? That’s the thing we’re taught to believe in. Equality. Fairness. The golden rule and the silver-tongued lies that follow it. But some days, it feels like I’m trying to hug a fist. Some days, the evidence of this country’s contempt for my existence is not anecdotal—it’s algorithmic. Baked into news cycles, comment sections, and the careful silence of the people who walk past injustice without blinking.

    You hear it. You feel it.

    There is discomfort in their voice when you speak with authority.

    The glance at your hands when you’re simply reaching for your ID.

    The way your masculinity is questioned when you don’t perform it on their terms, and criminalized when you do.

    Empathy feels dangerous some days.

    Softness feels like an invitation to be taken advantage of. And still, I reach for it. Not because I believe I’ll be met with it in return, but because I know what happens when you let anger do all the talking. You lose the part of yourself that still believes in healing.

    But let me say this plainly, because it needs to be said:

    Empathy is not weakness.

    It is resistance in its most refined form. It is the choice to keep your humanity intact when the world insists on stripping it from you.

    Still, I struggle.

    I struggle not to let the bitterness set in.

    I struggle to hold my tongue when my dignity is disregarded.

    I struggle not to internalize the weight of microaggressions—those paper cuts that don’t bleed but never quite heal either.

    And underneath it all is a rage most people don’t want to acknowledge.

    Not because it isn’t real. But if they acknowledged it, they’d have to admit they helped cause it.

    What would they think, these coworkers and strangers and casual acquaintances,

    if they knew what it takes for me to walk through the world as calmly as I do?

    What would they feel if they could feel the heat I have to suppress just to make them comfortable?

    What if they knew that beneath this patience is a warrior holding his sword with the blade facing inward?

    We are not angry without reason.

    We are angry because we are still here, and still treated like ghosts.

    We are angry because we know what our fathers swallowed.

    Because we watched our mothers turn crumbs into miracles.

    Because we are still expected to smile while being slowly erased.

    And yet…

    We rise early. We go to work. We raise children. We love.

    We choose empathy when anger would be easier.

    We wear the mask, not because we are afraid, but because we know the cost of taking it off.

    Some mornings I fail.

    I lose my temper. I withdraw. I despair.

    But most mornings, I try again.

    Because the work isn’t just surviving.

    The work is staying human in a world that profits off your dehumanization.

    And so, I practice patience.

    Not because the world deserves it.

    But because I do.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • When the Earth Trembles and the Sky Weeps

    When the Earth Trembles and the Sky Weeps

    There are moments in a man’s life when his words feel like a betrayal.

    This is one of them.

    Because anything I write will not do justice to the raw wound stretching across Texas and New Mexico. No sentence—no matter how well-shaped—can describe the homes washed away, or the destruction left by Floodwaters. This is not simply weather. This is a humanitarian crisis, quiet in the way only American suffering can be—because it often happens without proper cameras or compassion.

    I’ve kept them all in my prayers.

    Both Texas and New Mexico were battered by floods.

    People fleeing rising water, families praying for missing loved ones, whole communities reduced to rubble or memory.

    I’ve also held someone closer in prayer—a dear friend in Houston, a healer by trade and by nature. I believe she and others—doctors, nurses, caregivers—are already mobilizing. They are the ones who step forward before anyone asks. The ones who show up while the nation debates. They pack their scrubs, their gauze, their quiet courage, and go. Not for politics. Not for applause. But for the people.

    I often think about how place shapes perception.

    In the Quad Cities—my home—we know natural disasters like we know the back of our hands. Tornado sirens were the lullabies of summer nights. Flooded streets were rituals, almost seasonal. You learned early to measure trauma in feet and inches of water. But even familiarity doesn’t dull devastation—it only makes it expected.

    But for many in New Mexico, in regions where floods aren’t expected to reach their porches, the pain strikes differently. It’s not just loss—it’s betrayal. It’s learning, in one cruel stroke, what it means to live at the mercy of something larger and more indifferent than government. It is learning, quickly and violently, that Mother Nature is not a metaphor.

    She does not negotiate. She does not plead. She comes as she is—rage wrapped in water.

    So, no—I will not speak of politics. Not today. I won’t debate climate policy, relief budgets, or federal negligence. Not now. Because the water is still rising. And people are still missing.

    This moment belongs not to partisanship but to compassion.

    To the man who lost his house in the flood.

    To the families who have lost loved ones in Ruidoso.

    To the nurse flying into Houston, not knowing if there will be enough beds or time.

    To the child who will never again see their bedroom, their bike, their favorite tree.

    And perhaps to you, reading this, holding grief for strangers you’ve never met.

    If this country is worth anything, it’s worth the way we show up for each other when the ground gives out and the sky collapses. Not with slogans. Not with red or blue hats. But with hands, and hearts, and quiet, necessary acts of grace.

    Because when disaster comes, it doesn’t check party affiliation. It doesn’t care about borderlines or building codes. It comes for the breathing, the working, the praying—the living.

    And when the winds still and the waters drain, all that will remain is the memory of who showed up. And who didn’t?

    May we all, in whatever way we can, show up.

    With our money.

    With our time.

    With our healing.

    With our humanity.

    Because that’s the only thing strong enough to rebuild what’s been broken.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • “The Disappearance and the Dreamers: A Return to Small Town America”

    “The Disappearance and the Dreamers: A Return to Small Town America”

    I could start this in a few ways.

    I could tell you about the beauty of small-town America—how it smells like earth after rain, how it feels like old denim, soft at the edges and worn in all the right places. I could paint a picture of local parades, gas stations where they know your name, and corner stores that sold glass-bottle soda as if they were dealing in gold. I could start there.

    Or I could tell you about the slow death.

    About how it creeps in not with a scream, but with silence. A corner shop goes dark. The comic book store fades into memory. That one spot that always had a single cook and a single delivery guy—hollowed out by time, or worse, by convenience. We didn’t even get to say goodbye. One day it was there, and the next… it was nowhere to be found.

    That’s how I found it, this town that raised me. A shell and a fight. Graying at the temples but still kicking. Still trying.

    I returned home with a chip on my shoulder and an axe to grind. My past visits had been disappointments—full of quiet judgment and half-empty shelves. I began to see the town as Lucy holding the football. I, the fool, forever falling for a nostalgia that never delivered.

    But then I noticed it.

    Not a rebirth exactly. More like resistance. Quiet. Stubborn. And beautiful.

    A locally brewed beer sitting proudly on a shelf next to Budweiser, daring you to taste something made here. A sushi place—yes, sushi—in a town where raw fish used to be called bait with a laugh. A barista pulling espresso in a repurposed mechanic shop, poetry on the walls, and indie jazz in the air. It didn’t look like the town I left, but it was trying to feel like the one I loved.

    The resistance is no longer being led by factory foremen or overtime heroes. It’s the dreamers.

    The artists. The comics shop rebels. The coffee shop philosophers. The chefs, brewers, and boutique owners who aren’t just surviving small-town America—they’re redefining it.

    I keep thinking about that comic book store.

    The one where I spent more time than I did money, though God knows I wanted to spend more. That store helped shape the person I am. Not because of what I bought, but because of what I learned.

    Inside those walls, you weren’t just reading stories—you were being trained in how to dream.

    You met other kids who knew backstories you didn’t, who taught you how a single issue could reframe an entire arc. You learned how to imagine better. To think in color. To expect the impossible and call it plot development.

    Sure, comics still exist. There are still conventions. Online communities. But they don’t replace the bike ride to the store on release day.

    They don’t replace the smell of fresh ink. The thrill of a new issue in your hands. Or seeing the store owner, and knowing him, not as an employee, but as a keeper of stories.

    That’s what we’re losing.

    Not just the stores.

    But there is humanity in the transaction.

    I was prepared to write a eulogy.

    To mourn the death of small-town America.

    But what I found instead… was a kind of defiance.

    Maybe it’s not dying. It could be changing. Perhaps the overgrown trees and cracked sidewalks aren’t signs of decay, but rather Mother Nature is taking her seat at the town hall meeting. Maybe she’s in on the plan.

    And maybe—just maybe—the artists are saving it.

    Not by keeping it the same, but by daring to imagine it differently.

    In this era, I don’t need to fly to the Quad Cities for a box of Lagomarcino’s. It’s a click away. That’s the gift and the curse. Accessibility without presence.

    However, some places still require in-person visits.

    Not for the product, but for the chance. Because on one of those visits, you might notice something new. A new mural. A new flavor. A new owner with an old soul and a dream too stubborn to die.

    So go. Walk the street you used to know.

    The one who forgot your name and then remembered it.

    The one still fighting, in ways you didn’t expect.

    The death of small-town America may still be in progress.

    But so is its reinvention.

    And I’d bet everything on the dreamers.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • “Fireworks, Smoke, and Silence: Reflections on the Fourth of July”

    “Fireworks, Smoke, and Silence: Reflections on the Fourth of July”

    I remember the Fourth of July not as a lesson in civics, but as smoke thick in the backyard, children running with sparklers and paper plates bending under ribs and deviled eggs. I remember laughter louder than the cheap boom of fireworks we lit off in the alley. We didn’t talk about the Declaration or Jefferson—we talked about who made which potato salad. About the music. About the person who brought store-bought chicken and tried to pass it off as homemade.

    We were celebrating something, though. Maybe not independence. But togetherness. Perhaps not the country. But the neighborhood. The people who showed up. The people who still knew your middle name.

    As I grew older, the smoke remained the same, but the fire changed. Firecrackers instead of sparklers. Bottle rockets fired off in the street like we were challenging the sky. Then it became more refined—city festivals, parades, sanctioned firework displays. You’d drive out to the river or a stadium or the edge of town and watch lights bloom over the landscape like temporary stars. And for a moment, we all looked up. Together. That was something.

    Now? Now I watch the fireworks on TV.

    I sit in the quiet of a home I pay for with work that doesn’t rest. I flip past news coverage, see red, white, and blue glossed over a nation that feels exhausted by its own reflection. The fireworks crackle through speakers. But there’s no smoke. No laughter. Just the echo of something I used to understand.

    Small Town America still gets it, in a way.

    There’s a rawness to how they celebrate. The Fourth feels like a living thing there—felt in parades with tractors draped in bunting, kids waving flags the size of dish towels. It’s in the grill smoke curling behind churches and VFWs. It’s in the fire department pulling double duty—hosing kids down for fun in the morning, standing ready for emergencies by nightfall.

    In these towns, the holiday doesn’t ask for an explanation. It just is. A ritual passed down like recipes and stories told on porches. Patriotism feels personal—tied to the land, the local, and the lineage.

    But drive two hours into the nearest city and it’s different.

    You feel the tension. The mix of celebration and scrutiny. Fireworks punctuate protests. Red, white, and blue merchandise is sold alongside T-shirts that read “No Justice, No Peace.” The holiday is no longer a question of tradition, but of interpretation. Who gets to feel free? Who was never meant to?

    Region matters, too.

    In the South, it’s often steeped in performative pride. The flags wave bigger, but the air feels heavier. History isn’t just remembered—it’s reenacted. For Black folks, it has always been a complicated celebration. Independence was declared in 1776, but our freedom didn’t come until almost a century later—and even then, it was on paper, not in practice.

    In the Northeast, there are more ceremonial historic towns holding colonial parades, bell ringings, and readings of old speeches. It’s a curated memory. A museum brought to life. Patriotic, yes, but distant.

    Out West, the holiday is looser, more abstract. Backyard cookouts in canyon shadows. Fireworks flaring over desert skies. The patriotism is quieter, more tied to the land and the idea of independence—something rugged, something wild.

    The Midwest—my home—straddles it all. Here, it’s a mix of deep-rooted ritual and growing skepticism. It’s the county fair and the protest. It’s the American flag hanging next to a Juneteenth banner. A place that still wants to believe in something, but is no longer sure what that something is.

    And that brings me to now.

    To this country.

    To this moment.

    Divided doesn’t feel like a strong enough word. We’re not just on different pages—we’re reading different books. For some, the Fourth is still sacred. For others, it’s hollow. Some wave flags with pride. Others burn them. Some pray for peace, others brace for chaos. Will we celebrate with barbecues or barricades this year? Will the fireworks light up the sky—or drown out the sirens?

    I’m no longer sure what the Fourth of July means anymore.

    I’m not sure if I ever truly did.

    But I know what I miss.

    The simplicity of smoke.

    The smell of burnt meat and the smoke of firecrackers.

    Family laughing. Adults yelling, ” Don’t blow your fingers off.” The way we all stopped for a moment to look up, not at a country, but at the light. Together.

    That’s what I try to hold on to now.

    Not the promise of America. But the possibility.

    Not the history. But the humanity.

    Because if there’s anything left to celebrate, it could be the small things. The gathered ones. The moments are too ordinary to lie about. The fireworks we make just by showing up.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • “Sugar, Memory & Mercy at Largomarcino’s”

    “Sugar, Memory & Mercy at Largomarcino’s”

    A man who’s tasted disappointment in the places that once defined him learns to guard his nostalgia like a brittle heirloom. After Happy Joe’s went corporate cold, I flew home to Albuquerque, full of disappointment and regret. But the Quad Cities still keeps a few sanctuaries, and chief among them is Largomarcino’s—the century-old candy counter where sugar still gets its hands dirty.

    Walk through the front door, and you feel the floorboards remember you, even if the staff doesn’t. The glass cases shimmer with rows of turtles, truffles, and creams—each one lined up like choirboys who secretly spike the hymn wine after service. Behind the marble counter, brass soda taps glint under amber pendant lamps that refuse to be updated. The air smells like vanilla bean and sweet cream spiked with a quiet note of fryer oil drifting in from the lunch nook in the back. It is, mercifully, the same as it ever was.

    I once brought a girl here on a first date, sure that the scent of caramelizing sugar and the soft clink of long-handled soda spoons would say things my teenage vocabulary couldn’t. We shared a sundae, so overloaded it listed starboard. She laughed; I tried to look like the kind of man who casually knows about old-school candy parlors. Truth? I just needed to show her a place that felt like honesty in a world already hustling counterfeit cool. Largomarcino’s obliged. That date briefly made me king of a realm where chocolate crowns are handed out freely, and the only recession is the one your dentist warns you about later.

    On this recent visit, I half-expected the specter that haunts old favorites: the new logo, the laminated menu, the weary cashier whose corporate smile never quite reaches the eyes. Instead, I found the latest generation Largos still behind the counter, still calling regulars by name, still Loading chocolate into various little boxes. The soda fountain stools squeaked the same protest when I sat down, the way old friends groan but scoot over to make room.

    Lunch was a club sandwich—no reinvention, no aioli, just Midwestern humility between slices of white bread—followed by Diet Coke (Yes, I see the irony). I picked handfuls of candy bars and orange-covered chocolate for the friends back in Albuquerque who have heard me sing this place’s praises like late-night gospel. I bought a bag of Bourbon caramel bites for myself, just in case hunger struck early and I regretted it later.

    Is it worth the eventual dental bill? Absolutely. Is it worth the added miles on the treadmill? Hell yes. But more than that, Largomarcino’s is worth the faith it restores—that somewhere, beyond the safe neon glow of fast-casual chains, flavor, and family can still stubbornly share a roof.

    I carried my haul out into the Midwest humidity, sugar sweat already forming on my brow, and realized something simple: places like this don’t just sell candy. They sell mercy. A soft reprieve from processed sameness, a reminder that craft and care can outlast the quarterly report. You taste it in the snap of a dark chocolate almond bark and in the carbonic tickle of a handmade phosphate. You taste the persistence of people who keep stirring copper kettles because machines can temper chocolate, but they can’t temper the soul.

    I will keep coming back as long as there is a back to go to. And suppose the world ever swallows Largomarcino’s the way it swallowed Happy Joe’s. In that case, I’ll tuck the bourbon bites in my pocket, let them melt down to sticky echoes, and remember how good it felt to stand in a room where sugar, memory, and mercy still mingled, still mattered, and still refused to sell out.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • “When Special Ain’t Special Anymore”

    “When Special Ain’t Special Anymore”

    We all have those sacred little spots from home — the places you carry with you long after you’ve left, even if they’ve forgotten your name. Places that stitched themselves into your identity not with grand gestures but with greasy napkins, familiar neon signs, and food that tasted like it was made just for you. Not because it was fancy. Not because it was famous. But because it was yours.

    I hesitate to call Albuquerque my hometown. I live here. I breathe here. I’ve found my people here. It’s where the aroma of green chile clings to the air the way morning dew does in other places. It’s one of the few towns where saying “Christmas” doesn’t summon tinsel and ornaments — it brings red and green chile poured over everything from burritos to cheeseburgers like edible stained glass. That’s home, too. But not the only one.

    You see, I grew up in the Quad Cities — a borderland of sorts in the Midwest where blue-collar sweat runs thicker than politics and where local business meant something before the world corporatized your sense of taste. It wasn’t glitzy. It wasn’t Instagrammable. But it had a soul.

    There, we had our pizza joints. Sure, we had the big chains — Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, all the familiar mascots of American mediocrity. But we also had Happy Joe’s. Not a chain. Not a franchise in the traditional sense. It was ours. And to this day, the best pizza I’ve ever eaten — the only one I compare all others to — was their Taco Pizza.

    Now, when I say taco pizza, I don’t mean some limp pie scattered with taco seasoning and sadness. I mean crunch and spice and shredded lettuce that somehow made sense on a pizza. I mean pizza that didn’t just feed you — it made you feel like you were in on a secret. And try as I might here in Albuquerque, I can’t find one that hits the same way. I’ve made my own, come close, even thought I had it once — but nah. It’s not the same. And you can’t show people a picture to explain it. Taco pizza is like faith — you either grew up believing in it or you didn’t.

    I recently went back to the Quad Cities. Just a visit. A pilgrimage, really. And, of course, like any prodigal son trying to recapture the taste of memory, I made a beeline for Happy Joe’s. But something was off. The restaurant was nearly empty. No smell of oregano clinging to the ceiling tiles. No laughter echoed from the game room. And when the pizza came — it looked the same. But it didn’t feel the same.

    It turns out that the place had been sold before the founder passed away. Sold. As in: acquired, folded into the machinery, sanitized for profit. The sauce still had spice. The crust still crisped. But the soul? Gone. I sat in that booth, chewing nostalgia like stale bread, realizing what I already knew: the places we love change. And sometimes, they don’t take us with them.

    But not all is lost.

    There’s still Lagomarcino’s — another one of those rare places that refuses to become generic. Still family-run. Still wrapped in its own history, like a gift, it doesn’t have to be opened to be appreciated. Still local. Still proud. It’s so good It deserves its own post. Its own reverence.

    What I’ve learned — what I keep learning, usually the hard way — is that we carry our special places like we carry scars, not because they hurt now, but because they mattered. They shaped us. And when they change or disappear, it’s not just the food we mourn. It’s the kid we were. The world that made sense. The version of home we thought would always be there.

    And so I write. Because writing is how I preserve what can’t be frozen, franchised, or flavored in bulk. It’s how I remember. Not just the food — but what it meant to be fed.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • “Gas, Grit, and Grease: The Rise of Breakfast Pizza”

    “Gas, Grit, and Grease: The Rise of Breakfast Pizza”

      Some revolutions don’t come with fanfare. They come with sausage and scrambled eggs baked onto dough, passed across a counter next to a stack of lottery tickets and a bottle of windshield washer fluid.

    Somewhere between Des Moines and nowhere, in a town stitched together by grain silos and family plots, Casey’s joined the great pizza debate. No press release. No rebranding campaign. Just a warm box, steam slipping out the corner, handed to you by someone who probably went to school with your cousin.

    It’s gas station pizza.

    But it’s also breakfast.

    And—maybe more surprising—it’s good.

    Really good.

    Casey’s didn’t ask for the spotlight. But in the vacuum left by Happy Joe’s—the once-beloved Midwest institution now hollowed out by corporate ownership—someone had to carry the flag. And who better than the corner store where people already stopped each morning? For gas. For coffee. For smokes. For a moment of stillness before the engine of the day kicks in.

    Add breakfast pizza to that mix, and you’re no longer just fueling your car. You’re feeding something more—something rooted in routine, in comfort, in community.

    This isn’t fast food. It’s small-town sustenance.

    The crust is soft but holds its weight. The cheese stretches like it’s proud of itself. The eggs—fluffy in a way that shouldn’t be possible from a gas station oven—mingle with sausage, bacon, and a whisper of gravy or ranch, depending on your luck or your location. And there’s something about eating it hot in your car, with the windows cracked, that makes it feel like a secret you didn’t know you needed.

    It’s not trying to be New York thin or Chicago deep. It’s not partisan. It’s not aspirational.

    It’s accessible. And in places long forgotten by the chains and the trendsetters, that matters.

    In these parts, you learn not to turn your nose up at a place just because it sells motor oil next to chicken wings. I’ve had some of the best-fried chicken of my life at a gas station where, for a while, they sold more legs and thighs than unleaded gasoline. The fryer was old, the breading was loud, and the line wrapped around the soda machine.

    The food wasn’t about food. It was about necessity turned into art, about making it work with what you’ve. That’s the ethic here. That’s what breakfast pizza at Casey’s represents—not just a meal, but a moment.

    And maybe that’s what makes it stick.

    Because when the big brands pack up and leave—when the last neon signs flicker out, and the downtown diner turns into a boarded-up memory—it’s places like Casey’s that stay. The ones that evolve without losing their soul. They understand people need something hot in the morning, something easy, something satisfying. Something theirs.

    So, yeah. Put Casey’s in the pizza conversation.

    Not because they outdid Brooklyn or outbaked Naples.

    But because they showed up for the Midwest.

    And sometimes, showing up is everything.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • Bread and Memory: A Loaf, A Legacy

    Bread and Memory: A Loaf, A Legacy

    By Kyle J. Hayes

    Some smells don’t just linger—they haunt. Not in the way a ghost knocks a glass off a table, but in the way they slip beneath your skin, settle deep in your chest, and curl around your ribs like something half-remembered.

    For me, it’s bread.

    The scent of dough rising—warm, yeasty, patient—takes me back to a church that no longer smells like bread and a family that no longer lives above it. The first name I knew it by was “True Faith.” Later, it became Penson Temple Church of God in Christ, named after my great-grandfather, George Penson. It sat sturdy in Chicago, a place where Sundays were long and the sermons longer, but there was always a rhythm to it. Scripture, music, prayer… and the rising of bread.

    Upstairs, above that sanctuary, lived my grandparents. And on certain Sundays, before the Holy Ghost stirred the congregation, something else stirred first. A batch of dinner rolls, tucked under a clean towel, warming in the silence. The smell would drift down into the pews, enveloping the base of the pulpit, blending with the scent of lemon polish and the aroma of old hymnals. And somehow, in that mingling, the church felt even more sacred.

    That recipe is gone now. Nobody wrote it down. Nobody learned it.

    We lose it to time, just as we lose so many things we assume will always be there. We didn’t think to ask, or we didn’t know it mattered. And now, when I bake bread, I am not trying to recreate it exactly. I know I never will. What I am doing is chasing a feeling. Trying to knead memory into flour, water, and salt. Trying to bring back the ghost of a moment I didn’t know I needed to preserve.

    In that pursuit, I’ve learned more than I expected. About precision. About patience. About what happens when you try to rush something sacred.

    And I found this recipe—a humble, sturdy loaf. Nothing fancy. Just good sandwich bread. The kind that makes you feel like the house is full, even when it’s not.

    My Favorite Sandwich Bread Recipe:

    • 350g (1.5 cups) warm water
    • 3g (1 tsp) instant yeast
    • 530g (4 1/4 cups) bread flour
    • 12g (1 tbsp) sugar
    • 20g (1 1/2 tbsp) olive oil
    • 125g (2/3 cup) ripe poolish or sourdough starter
    • 11g (2 tsp) salt

    To Make the Poolish (Preferment):

    • 65g (about 1/2 cup) bread flour
    • 65g (about 1/4 cup) water (room temperature)
    • A pinch of Active Dry yeast
    1. In a small bowl, combine the flour, water, and yeast.
    2. Stir until the ingredients are fully incorporated into a smooth, wet dough.
    3. Cover loosely with plastic wrap or a clean towel.
    4. Let sit at room temperature for 24 hours or until bubbly and fragrant.

    Once your poolish is ready, use 125g (about 2/3 cup) of it in the recipe above.

    Instructions for the Dough:

    1. Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix on low for 3 minutes until just combined.
    2. Increase to high and mix for an additional 6 minutes until smooth and elastic. (To mix by hand, knead vigorously on a floured surface.)
    3. Place the dough into a bowl, cover it, and let it rise at room temperature for 2 hours.
    4. After 30 minutes, do a strength-building fold. Cover.
    5. After another 30 minutes (1 hour into rise), repeat the fold.
    6. Let rise for the remaining hour.

    Prepare a 13″x4″x4″ Pullman loaf pan by oiling it with olive oil or butter.

    1. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and gently de-gas it with your fingertips.
    2. Shape into loaf and place seam-side down in Pullman pan.
    3. Cover and let the dough rise for 1 hour or until it has reached 3/4 of the height of the pan.
    4. If using the lid, slide it on before baking. If baking uncovered, lightly score the top of the cake.
    5. Bake at 425°F (218°C) for 40-45 minutes. Remove the lid after 35 minutes if the top is covered and brown.

    Cool completely before slicing.

    The bread will speak for itself. But it will also say more if you let it.

    It might remind you of a kitchen you haven’t stood in since you were eight. Of someone who made space for you in a world that didn’t. Of a church that held both gospel and gluten.

    I bake to remember. I bake to reclaim. I bake because the world is loud, but bread rises in silence.

    And sometimes, that silence smells like home.

    By Kyle J. Hayes

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