(This Memory is from the Okie Boomer's reporting years in Texas) I must have seen a million Willie Nelson concerts when I was a reporter in Waco back in the 80s. It even feels like I knew him personally, because I interviewed so many people who did. Like Marge Lundy, who was one of those […]

(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 […]

I’m driving back from town with take-away dinners. I slam on the brakes on our gravel road when I see a dead ferret in the road. Why? Because they pose a serious threat to our wildlife! And every year, Hunting and Fishing NZ stores host a contest that gives away $45,000 in goodies to customers […]

Hobos used to be sort of like leprechauns in downtown Norman. We talked about them a lot, but nobody ever saw one. One time a guy told me that the awful smell at the annual Lion’s Club Carnival, held on the southwest corner of Main Street and the railroad tracks, was a Hobo who’d been […]

(New Book) Before I started school, there was nothing, and I mean nothing, better than watching "Lunch with Ho-Ho" on KOCO Channel 5. When the theme song started, Pokey the Puppet would start wildly jumping all over the place. Jeanie the Boston terrier would chase her rubber ball into her doghouse. And then the fun […]

(From 'Memories 3') I spent a significant part of my childhood totally blind, with glowing red eyes and a blank expression. We have a drawer full of photos to prove it, somewhere. They’re probably at my oldest sister Lynn’s house. Or at Cathy’s. Or in somebody’s attic. But I know we kept all the old […]

(From 'Memories 3') ...Woe be it to thou and thy household, for a thousand generations, if there was no Cain’s coffee percolating away when Dad got home. I guess that was fair because most firemen were sort of addicted to cigarettes and coffee, maybe because they were so often sleep-deprived. When we kids would visit […]

(From 'Memories 3) ... Sometime later, when my sister Cathy was away on a hot date or something, I suffered a significant error of popcorn-related judgement while cooking Jiffy Pop. In my defense, I was starving to death and had maybe three minutes to get the popcorn popped before Rawhide came on. Obviously, I needed […]

(From 'Memories 3') We’ve all got them. Relatives who we never met, or sort of met, or maybe just heard about for so long that we felt like we knew them. Like Aunt Katrina, who was a legend in our family. She was always brought up when an adult wanted to lecture us about always […]

(From 'MEMORIES 3') The Giant Slide on Lindsey Street, by the Taco Bell, was unanimously voted “Entertainment Facility Most Likely to Snap Your Spine and Smash Your Head Like a Coconut.” It towered over everything and stood as testament to two basic truths. First, hordes of class-action lawyers had yet to descend on Norman. Second, […]