(SNEAK PREVIEW FROM BOOK 3. WATCH FOR IT ON AMAZON IN EARLY 2024!) I spent a significant part of my childhood totally blind, with glowing red eyes and a blank expression. We have a drawer full of Christmas photos to prove it, somewhere. They’re probably at my oldest sister Lynn’s house. Or at Cathy’s. Or […]

The world was a better place when Wacker's, not Walmart, was the place to buy your stuff, especially at Christmas! The Wacker's in Norman was on the corner of Crawford & Comanche, sort of round the back from Main Street, in the low rent part of downtown. It was always busy. You had to park […]

(New Book!) When I wasn’t being a sheriff-cowboy, kicking Black Bart’s buttooskies and roping stampeding cows, I was showing off my Potawatomi heritage. That meant roaming the vast prairie at 851 Nebraska Street, wearing my Indian headdress and killing buffalo with my trusty bow and arrows. I think bow-and-arrow sets cost less than a dollar, […]

When I was growing up, our family’s Thanksgiving ritual was more carefully planned and executed than the Battle of Normandy. A couple of weeks before Halloween, my Mom would buy a frozen turkey about the size of our German Shepherds and harder than a bowling ball. Then she’d start planning. And worrying.  Because making huge […]

(New Book!) I had dreamed about it my whole life: running onto Owen Field as a Norman Tiger. I finally got to do that my Junior year at Norman High, and it was the most exciting thing I had ever done. As little kids, my best friend Steve and I had snuck onto the hallowed […]

(FIRST BOOK!) Well before anyone knew about Global Warming, we had it on Nebraska Street. Trying to sleep during July and August in Oklahoma, back before air conditioning, was nearly impossible. Your PJs and sheets would get soaked in perspiration. The only respite came when the attic fan was on. It would suck outside “cool” […]

(NEW BOOK!) I loved the 4th of July! Every year my Dad would buy a smallish bunch of firecrackers, smoke bombs, bottle rockets, Roman candles, sparklers, fountains and snakes.  And every year, my Dad, the Fireman or Fire Marshall, would give me The Speech. Thou shalt not: Throw lit firecrackers like hand grenades Shoot bottle […]

(FIRST BOOK!) The annual Lions’ Club Carnival always came to Norman in late April. It was tucked way back in the grotty, southwest corner of Main Street and the railroad tracks, and it must have attracted a million kids every year. Music and laughter and squeals of glee filled the air, along with the smells […]

(FIRST BOOK) I may have implied in the previous Memory that defensive players like me were never allowed to hit Dean Blevins because of the Pink Quarterback dress he always wore. That's not entirely true. I did pole-axe him one time in the meeting room. I wasn’t made a starter for Norman High until I […]

(FROM FIRST BOOK) If you played football at Norman High in the early Seventies, you had to behave on and off the field, or risk getting benched, a fate worse than death. But after our senior football season in the fall of 1973, we grew our hair long and thought we had a licence, if […]