I joined a group of writers publishing journal posts every day during the month of June. I thought it would motivate me to write but I just ended up feeling guilty for not writing like I said I would. When I’m staring up at the ceiling at night I have so much to say. So, I get up and go...
“I’ve been praying since I was five years old. Nothing’s came, but that ain’t gonna stop me. This is what goes through my mind. God has to be busy with everyone else. Eventually, He will come into my life, and help me. I hope it happens. It’s gonna break my heart if it don’t.” –From the movie Rich...
Are Gen Xers an Unlucky Generation? I came across an infographic recently that highlighted food culture statistics for Baby Boomers and Millennials. Much to my surprise — or not — there was zero mention of Generation X. Maybe the food industry doesn’t think we eat. I’ve...
This is me on my Sunday morning walk before church. Back in the early 90s, that apartment building behind me was a crack house. I stopped by it one time to talk to the residents. My brave days when I thought I could save the world from itself. Times change, and a lot has changed, but those...
Last week, my kids celebrated the last day of school. I vacillate between gratitude and sadness. I’m grateful we made it safely through another year, but sadly it all goes so fast. I regret that I have to focus so much energy on making a living that I’m often not able to make the life...
Twenty years ago this month, Oklahoma teenager Monique Daniels was reported missing. About a year ago, someone who knew Monique wrote to me about her disappearance. A few months later I wrote this commentary for KOSU Radio, the text of which I’m publishing for the first time today on this...
“Sometimes on the autumn blows, when it comes through like this, when the evening air has just a faint idea of chill about it and the first musty tangs whip up in the first of the fallen leaves, I remember a life entire and it makes me sad and ecstatic in turns…” So writes Shane...
Bletchley Park and Code-Breaking In August 1938, a group of men showed up to a Victorian Gothic mansion in the town of Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. It was a couple of weeks after the Glorious Twelfth, the start of hunting season in England. Ten bucks say they were all wearing tweed knickers...
This post originally aired as a commentary on KOSU Radio in 2012. Teenage Wasteland Indulge me while I extol the virtues of my idyllic childhood summers. This way you can understand the absolute misery of my idle youth. In the late 60s and early 70s, I played on Huntington Beach. After sunset, we...
[KOSU Commentary] Good morning, Oklahoma. The ticker-tape parade of autumn is right outside your window. The days are getting shorter, football is in full swing, and leaves are changing color. Welcoming you to the season is the growing spectacle of pumpkin-flavored drinks. Let the battle between...
[KOSU Commentary] Oklahoma City Arts Festival | Do you believe in signs? At the Oklahoma City Arts Festival this past spring, I took a picture of a painting of a woman smoking a cigar wrapped in brown paper. When I got home and I downloaded the picture there in the frame was a lady walking by....
This post was a commentary that originally aired on KOSU Radio in 2012. During the war in Iraq soldier Alex Horton wrote the popular blog, Army of Dude. “There was no whimper, no cries for mother or last words when Chevy died. The explosion that blew him out of the Stryker made him, for a...
[…] with minimal disruption, echoing the parenting attitudes of previous generations, such as the latchkey kids of the 70s and 80s. This…
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Hello, Jill! It's so nice to receive a message from a majorette. No doubt, it was a grand experience for…
I was the majorette at my Catholic high school (William V. Fisher Catholic) in Central Ohio. Fall 1993-97! Loving these…
Thank you so much. This post was one of the hardest I ever wrote because the trip was difficult. I…