Growing Up Oklahoma: Part 2 (read part 1 here)

Saturdays were meant for early morning cartoons.  It was sorta that cosmic law that the best cartoons were saved for Saturdays.  And it also meant brownies.  Before my daddy and momma split up for good, we got brownies every Saturday.  They were the good kind, thick, rich, and gooey.  My daddy was the special cook of the house.  Sure my momma could make stuff, but everything had rice or noodles in way or the other. [Read Column]

My son is sick.  He’s 15 months old and its the first time that he was really sick.  The type of childhood flu, fever, and shakes that adults don’t get.  When Kirin gets scared or sick, he wants either his mum or dad.  It helps him sleep, makes him feel safe.  Last night around 5am, I was holding him to my chest, stroking his hair and listening to the deep, thick rumblings coming from his chest on each little breath.  He was finally sleeping easy, his tiny hands curled into my pajamas.

As I held him, my mind wandered in the darkness and I thought of Michael.  My guardian angel. [Read Column]

My dad had a house on Husband Street in Stillwater.  When my parents were together and we were not roving the country as Army brats, we normally lived there.  The house was old, probably built in the 1920s or 30s.  It was situated on a bit of a hill with an impossibly steep drive-way that perennially held a dull, red Ford Pinto hatch-back with gray furry seat covers.  There was a big tree in the front yard that had a U-shaped branch that we’d sit in and pretend to be Captain Kirk piloting the enterprise while the rest of us where scattered in other branches pretending to be at our battle stations.

The house was just down the street from Hardy’s (which later became Carl’s Jr and then a Thai restaurant and now something else entirely) and a little further from the public library (which was since bought by an IT company).  We’d walk down the block during the summers in our shorts and T-shirts, grab a few mushroom-n-swiss burgers, and then spend an afternoon in the library playing the in large castle playset in the basement.

In the backyard of my dad’s house there was an old, rustic, wooden shed.  And one day during one of those summer afternoons, we set it on fire. [Read Column]

Growing Up Oklahoma: Part 1

My great grandpa had the house built right at the turn of the century when our little town was no more than a fledgling idea.  It was a simple house.  I coulda swore it was the biggest house in town.  It was a two story box with a stone front porch.  The kind just right for a wooden swing and a glass of ice tea.  About a dozen bikes in various states of rust were stacked on the other side.  The backyard was wild, my Granma didn’t have the mind for yard work.  Mowing the front section so the neighbors didn’t holler was all she was up to.

My Granma was not one of them soft grannies, she was a woman of the Depression.  Living in Oklahoma, she never really knew who or what caused it so much.  Her daddy was a postal carrier, one of the few folks in town that had a car, and he had a job through the worst times, thanks be to God as she’d say.  Still she had learned to live lean and had started working at an early age … and had never stopped. [Read Column]

I was working in my yard this week, cutting grass, trimming weeds, fixing my fence, etc.  When I work outdoors I have a uniform that I like to wear.  I wear a heavy pair of cargo pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a dusty old pair of work boots.  Even in the hot Australia sun.  It’s one of my routines as reliable as listening to Cat Stevens when I’m sad or Al Green when I miss my wife.

While I was out there, eating the dust kicked up off of my brier patch and sweating up a storm, I began to wonder when I started wearing this work uniform.  I remember mowing lawns for money as a kid, wearing tennis shoes and basketball shorts.  What sparked the change?  Why did I studiously adopt this change even at my own personal discomfort?

I realized that I changed my work outfit when I met a man named Stanley. [Read Column]