They say grand-parenting is grand. So I’ve been told a thousand times by friends whose worlds have been changed by their children’s children. We have names waiting for the tender voices of our grand little ones. My name is Bubs and Karen is Keke. Who knows if those names will stick. The only thing I […]
Karen and I decided to do something this summer that we had never done before. We rented an RV and drove through Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado with our friends Bob & Sheila. Why? Perhaps this western wandering was a grasping after the nomadic ideal, a searching after stories about the land and […]
We have wandered the west lassoing Wyoming, and taking in OK, KS, NE, SD, ID, and CO. My Dad loved wandering vacations so he took his teenage brother, his parents and three Taylor children and drove the eight of us to California in a Chrysler Imperial that looked like a batmobile. My dad had always […]
Last night we slept near Big Timber. I love the cathedral of woods, sunlight scattering through trees on a summer afternoon like smoking lasers. The maternal side of my family came from a misnamed place in the panhandle of Oklahoma, Boise City (Boise is tree in French) which was a lie propagated by real estate […]
Whenever I see a Slow Children at Play sign, I picture kids running in slow motion and I make a comment about children playing deliberately and my wife rolls her eyes. I’m just glad the idea is still alive. Children playing I mean, alone, away from adults, preferably not on streets but near streams of […]
My friends from South Jersey are different than Okies. They eat hoagies instead of subs, dip their ice cream cone in jimmies instead of sprinkles, and they vacation at the shore rather than the beach. And, if they ask you for a drink of water, you might bring them back a lumberjack. Language is fascinating […]
Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder.” Wonder is one of the reasons I stare at constellations, marvel at newborn babes, and hike with my son. We have hiked many miles over the years. Waterfall near Ithaca, NY The best part of hiking has always been wondering what’s […]
We celebrated our parents sixtieth wedding anniversary the day after Thanksgiving and while taking family pictures in the church sanctuary at the Dewey Church, I saw light emanating from the holy of holies, the door leading to the inner room where some of my family changed into baptismal garments before being immersed in living water. […]
Yesterday, sitting in my recliner on a Sunday afternoon, half-awake, my cell phone rang. It was Jimmy. I knew he had just been released from OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City. I jumped from my chair and ran outside because my phone has lousy reception inside the house. I sat down on the diving board […]
I grew up in a home that severely limited my creative outlet of language…I wasn’t allowed to curse, nor was I given the freedom to vent with words that hinted of the real four-letter curse words, the baby curse words like heck and shoot and darn. These were deemed unpolished and tainted by the very […]
Bespoke 