My Dad, My Rock

My Dad, My Rock

His character was as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.  He was stubborn and he could be stern. He didn’t talk an awfully lot but he had a keen sense of humor and liked a good joke. And whatever he said, I knew was the truth. The whole world might be wrong, but not my […]

Thank You and God Bless You

Thank You and God Bless You

How can I write about Memorial Day and the importance of honoring those valiant young people (yes, for the most part, they were young) who stood between their beloved homes and freedom? A simple thank you to these courageous men and women seems completely inadequate. If I knew nothing at all about freedom, if I […]

Captured By a Wild Flight of Fancy

Captured By a Wild Flight of Fancy

Have you ever seen a picture of a person or thing that just captured your imagination and sent your thoughts into wild flights of fancy? A house listed in Old House Dreams did that for me this morning. The mansion is white, large, imposing and beautiful. It could have been lifted from the pages of […]

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow at Our Family Cemetery

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow at Our Family Cemetery

Yesterday, I thought a lot about long ago yesterdays, years past, people who are no longer with us, and the promise of tomorrow. The weather smiled on Decoration Day at our cemetery, a cemetery that six generations of my family have honored through more than a hundred years. The weather was perfect–so chilly yesterday morning that […]

Mom

Mom

I can see her as a little girl, dark hair in braids, running down that dusty road at Etta, hoeing weeds out of the garden, her bonnet dangling down her back, or picking wildflowers for a spring bouquet. She was the middle child in the Latty family, the mischievous one who was always busy but […]

Winds of Change: Conclusion

Winds of Change: Conclusion

This is the second and final installment of my May 5, 1985 Daily Press article about the tornado which destroyed Peggs, Oklahoma on May 2, 1920. In 1920, Walter Neel lived with his parents, brothers and sisters on the Gid Morgan farm, two and a fourth miles southeast of Peggs. The storm went a mile […]