Tag: People

• 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 was a father, my children grown and flown, an elder at our church back in…

  brent taylor

  February 12, 2023

  Children, community, Family, Life, School, Spirituality, Teachers, Uncategorized

  books, children, heroes, inspiration, People, religion, Roger Hladky, stories, teachers, youth

• Buying Crayons for Charlotte Ann

  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…

  brent taylor

  July 5, 2022

  Uncategorized

  children, community, daughters, family stories, Fathers, memoir, People, weddings

• This Land That I Loved Young

  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…

  brent taylor

  August 17, 2021

  community, Family, Life, Nation, Nature

  Beauty, community, family stories, People, Spirituality, Travel

• RV 7 . Coming Home: These are the Days

  

  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…

  brent taylor

  July 23, 2021

  community, Life, Memoir, Nation, Spirituality, Uncategorized, writing

  Beauty, community, family stories, inspiration, memoir, Memory, patriotism, People, Spirituality, Time, Travel, writing

• RV 4 Greybull WY to Livingston MT

  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…

  brent taylor

  July 20, 2021

  Family, Life, Travel

  family stories, People, Travel

• Butch, Sundance, and Jimmy

  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…

  brent taylor

  May 19, 2014

  Family, Life

  family stories, memoir, People, Spirituality, youth

• The Color of God

  The bus crossed the 7th street bridge and I peered over the rail through an open window at the eddies of a muddy river, swirling coffee relentlessly shaping the bank of naked earth. On my first day of junior high ringing bells punctuated my hourly class schedule. This change in my academic life assaulted my…

  brent taylor

  April 6, 2014

  Arts & Culture, Spirituality, Sports

  basketball, civil rights, diversity, Ferguson, heroes, People, sports

• Thanksgiving Man

  Yesterday I experienced two moving moments. One was simple, a man walking along a sidewalk in my hometown. He was arguing passionately with someone, but he was totally alone, his actions said that he was invisible, and I felt sad. The second moment was poignant and filled my soul with warmth. It happened after my…

  brent taylor

  November 28, 2013

  Children, Family, Parenting, Poetry

  community, diversity, Faith, family stories, Fathers, People, Thanksgiving

• Whenever I See Your Smiling Face

  Jenna and Lauren express Duchenne smiles while framing my nephew David sporting a retro-eighties mouth-only male smile James Taylor did not sing Whenever I see Your Smiling Face about professional athletes…unless of course he was referring to Phil Mickelson or Magic Johnson. Has scowling become endemic to the upper echelon of sport? Lebron James reaction…

  brent taylor

  September 20, 2013

  Arts & Culture, Philosophy

  community, Faces, health, People, Philosophy, psychology, Smiles, Well-being

• It’s Sweet to Play Like You Are Loved

  One of the most memorable rounds of golf I’ve ever played, I played angry. And it came on the heels of an exchange with a man we called Sweet, even though decorum and his given name, Edward Muir Sweet, demanded we call him, Mr. Sweet. The elimination of the honorary title, Mr., was not an…

  brent taylor

  May 17, 2013

  Golf, Life, Memoir, Sports

  family stories, heroes, People, playing angry, sports, writing