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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
If I wrote like my wife talks, I’d write narrative like a kid writing home from summer camp, “I had oatmeal for breakfast and we played softball and I outran all the boys in a foot race and we had hamburgers for dinner…” But, I write like a Red Bull-drinking cat on a hot tin […]
I sat on my hotel bed the night before the opening round and read about notable players including a golfer from Shreveport named Hal Sutton who had already won the Western Amateur that summer. I’m playing with Hal Sutton who would win the PGA in 1983 and was Ryder Cup captain later in his career. […]
Francis Chan put hands over his face and agonized about whether to speak the unspeakable to a traditionally proud and spiritually cloistered group that appeared from his stage perch decidedly gray, liver-spotted hands enshrouding the candle lit flame that once was a raging bonfire. He was speaking to me and to my elders and leaders […]
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 playground from the north wing to the south wing of Limestone School rewarding the win, […]
I grew up alongside Kevin Arnold of the Wonder Years only without a Jets letter jacket. Those neighborhood landmarks and watershed moments and the guys I ran with, through the streets and adjacent woods just a couple blocks north of Limestone School, are etched in the granite of my adolescent memory. So this section is […]
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 in his supply closet. The pine scent floor polish and a strict discipline of machine […]
Bespoke 