The Tip Nobody Left wasn’t money. The table was cleared. The check was paid. The dollar bills were there under the edge of the coffee mug right where they were supposed to be. The tip nobody left was something else entirely and it didn’t cost a thing.

I watched a table clear out one morning. Four people. Long breakfast. Lots of refills. The kind of table that spreads out and settles in and keeps the waitress moving for the better part of an hour. They laughed a lot. They were having a good time. When they finally got up and gathered their things and headed for the door not one of them looked back at her. Not a word. Not a nod. Not a thank you.

She came over and cleared the table the way she always cleared it. Efficient. Quiet. She’d been doing this long enough to not need the acknowledgment to get through the shift. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have mattered. That’s the tip nobody left. The look back. The thank you said like it meant something. The thirty seconds it costs a person to acknowledge that another human being just spent an hour taking care of them. This week’s Roadside Notes is about that tip. The free one. The one that follows somebody home.

📖 Read the full Journal entry: https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/10/22/the-tip-nobody-left/

🎙️ Roadside Notes is a reading series from the Faith and Good Courage Journal, stories of grace, grit, and second chances written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain.

#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

More Than a Thursday is something I’ve been wanting to say for a while now. A year in, fifty two episodes behind us, and somewhere along the way this counter stool became more than a weekly stop. It became a place I keep coming back to because the writing won’t stay in one lane and the road keeps handing me more than one journal can hold.

So I opened a few more doors. Same diner. Same voice. Just more seats at the table.

Grace To Go lands every Sunday morning before most people are fully awake. A short scripture rooted reflection written the way I’d say it if we were sitting across from each other over coffee that’s still hot. No church background required. Grace on the Ground is the Wednesday companion. One small act of kindness tied to Matthew 25 Lives. Something real. Something anybody can do. And Still Pouring is me stepping behind the counter and telling you what I see from this side of the coffee pot. My story. My road. The things chaplain work teaches you that don’t show up in any training manual.

All of it lives at roadsidenotes.substack.com. All of it is free. All of it is yours. The counter is bigger than it used to be but the coffee is always on. Pull up a stool anytime.

📖 Read the full Journal entry: https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/10/15/more-than-a-thursday/

🎙️ Roadside Notes is a reading series from the Faith and Good Courage Journal, stories of grace, grit, and second chances written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain.

#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #GraceToGo #GraceOnTheGround #StillPouring #KindnessForTheRoad #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

The Loop Ends When You Do. I didn't come up with that. I heard it years ago from someone who said it the way people say things when they've lived it rather than read it. It stayed with me the quiet way the useful ones do. Until the right moment pulled it forward.

That moment showed up at a diner counter on Route 66 sitting next to a truck driver named Frank. Same dispatcher. Same reassigned load. Same promotion that went sideways fifteen years ago. Same slow burn that hadn't cooled one degree in all the time I'd known him. Frank wasn't a bitter man by nature. Funny. Sharp. The kind of road veteran who could read weather and traffic and people with equal accuracy. But he had this one loop he couldn't find his way out of and every time I saw him he was still in it.

A friend had once tried to help by pulling out the definition of insanity. Frank didn't receive that well. He told me the whole story with the same energy he told the dispatcher story, which was a pretty good illustration of the very point the friend was trying to make. Truth delivered like a judgment closes doors. That's not the quote's fault. That's just how people work. This week's Roadside Notes is about the version that lands different. And the day the loop finally ends.

🎙️ Roadside Notes is a reading series from the Faith and Good Courage Journal, stories of grace, grit, and second chances written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain.

#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives