(From 'Memories 3') It was May 8, 1970. Somehow, I’d managed to fly under the parental radar. Nothing to worry about. Just an eighth-grader going to see freaking Jimi Hendrix! Epic, I know. I was actually more into Chicago and Creedence Clearwater. But, even at 14, I sensed that the Hendrix concert in OU’s tiny […]

If your Mom loved you when you were very little, she would bathe you with Ivory soap, because it was made by angels or something. If your Mom was mad at you, maybe because you and Steve had given each other awesome moustaches using a black Magic Marker, and you had Church tomorrow, she would […]

(From my first "Memories" book, originally blogged May 27, 2013) I’ve been overseas for decades. But last week, in an instant, I felt Oklahoma red dirt in my veins as Mother Nature’s fury destroyed Moore. I was surprised and shaken by the intensity of emotions in my gut. I felt terror and helplessness as I […]

(Book 2) I was just a gleam in my Dad’s eye when he started at the Norman Fire Department, maybe a decade after he did his stint in the Navy during WWII. I didn’t get to bask in the glory, as did my older sisters, when Dad and other firemen visited grade schools to teach […]

(Book 1) 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 […]

(Book 2) 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, […]

(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” […]

(BOOK 2!) 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: At this point, you are expecting me to […]

(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 […]

(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 […]