Retreat to the Front

Retreat to the Front

When life gets to be a bit much, I retreat to the front porch, my grandparents’ porch. It isn’t far–just a thought, a smile away. The porch is cool and shady, the rocking chair is comfortable. I see past the rock steps at the foot of the yard. I see across the road to Pappy’s […]

Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, and Me

Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, and Me

Where would I have been without them? Dick and Jane, Baby Sally, Spot, Puff, Mother and Father–they people the paper back books of my first readers and I remember them fondly. They were good friends. “Oh, oh. See Spot. See Puff. Oh, oh.” Such simple little sentences, but leading on to other, bigger, greater things–the […]

The Secrets in the Summer Twilight

The Secrets in the Summer Twilight

  What is there about a soft, summer night, just after the sun goes down and before full darkness tiptoes through the town? Leaves stir with a passing breeze and flowers lift glistening blossoms to feel one last ray of the sun’s warmth.  The rabbit who lives under the storage building gives last minute instructions […]

Do We Speak the Same Language?

  Don’t you love it when you find someone who speaks the same language as you? I don’t mean language peculiar to any ethnic group, but people who have similar interests and enjoy talking about them. For example, history. I love history! Particularly, I love American history because America is my beloved country and I […]

Winds of Change

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 […]

The Peggs Tornado

Since it is the 99  year anniversary of the Peggs tornado, and although I re-published it last year at this time, I do so again today. For a time, I wrote feature stories for The Tahlequah Daily Press. On May 5, 1985, The Press published an article I wrote about the tornado that destroyed Peggs, […]