Bespoke

School

Remembering my school days

  • Roger’s Library Books

    I’m not such an unaware narcissist that I believe that I’m the only one Roger Hladky blessed in a powerful way. I was one among many.  It was long after Roger performed our wedding ceremony, his first to officiate. I… Continue reading

    Roger’s Library Books

  • There is No Middle Ground

    I’m sitting in skybox 306 in the BOK center and the Broken Arrow band is playing Pomp and Circumstance as 1,137 Broken Arrow Seniors stream down eight aisles like ants who have discovered a donut on the sidewalk. This isn’t… Continue reading

  • Limestone School part 6 walking home

    As John Welch’s arm exploded through the safety glass just above the brass push bar he realized the race had been won and the battle lost. Our third and fourth grade classes routinely made the sixty yard sprint across the… Continue reading

  • Limestone School part 4 sliding candy and crooked forks

    Brach’s hard candy slid across the gleaming tile floors of the main hall at Limestone school like tiny hockey pucks propelled by the hand of Rusty the janitor who kept the cinnamon, butterscotch and peppermint treats in a coffee can… Continue reading

  • Limestone school part 3 a time to tear down and a time to build

    When they tore down the limestone walls of my grade school in 2008 part of me came tumbling down into the Oklahoma dust. It was the part of my childhood that soaked into my pores through simple exposure to the… Continue reading

  • Limestone School part 2 paying attention to things we love

    My 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Karbosky, brought a new element of deportment into my informal midwestern upbringing, an air of dignified carriage replete with reading glasses strung around the neck with a silver chain and an erect and sometimes stiff… Continue reading

  • Newtown

    December 24, 2012 On December 14th, I wept for twenty six souls in Newtown, Connecticut. The despair I felt was a sense that we’ve lost control as a nation, abandoned universal morality for individual amorality. Have faith, hope and love,… Continue reading

  • Limestone School part 1 red tab levis and open mouth wonder

    I was five years old as I headed across the undulating back lawns along the west side of Mission road headed to my kindergarten class at Limestone school. The smothering late August Oklahoma heat of 1964 dictated my dress, white… Continue reading