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Growing up, the local public library was one of my favorite places to visit.
Florence Park Library was part of the Tulsa Public Library System and was about one-half mile from my boyhood home. I spent many summer days there exploring the world through books or attending a summer reading program. I never knew then that one day I would help write a book, or in Debbie and my’s case, publish two Iowa photography books. Our first Iowa photo book, “Iowa’s Tradition: An ABC Photo Album of the Iowa State Fair,” was published in July 2006. We met at the state fair and when we decided to do a book, the state fair was a natural fit. We learned a lot about the do’s and don’ts of the publishing world. We ended up printing more books than we needed and have since donated at least a thousand books to schools and children’s cancer hospitals in Iowa City and Des Moines. A few years ago, our state fair book was featured in a Des Moines Register article about international students who took part in a summer learning course about Iowa and the state fair. That first year, Iowa State Fair Butter Cow Sculptor, Sarah Pratt, came to the school and taught the students how to make a miniature butter cow using real butter. We ended reaching out to the coordinators of the program and the next year, we were able to sign and donate our books to the teachers and students. It was a lot of fun. In 2008, we published our second Iowa photography book, “Family Reunion: Midwest Old Threshers.” The book was a collaborative effort with the good folks at OTR in Mount Pleasant. That book has been well received and in recent times, has found a renewed interest among farmers and steam engine enthusiasts. Debbie has since published two romantic suspense novels, “The Auctioneer,” released in February 2018 and “Moving On,” a second book in the Hope Series, published in July 2020. The books center around the good folks in the fictional town of Hope, Iowa. Debbie’s has book three in the series at the editor and has written books four, five and six, which she just wrapped up last week. She’s already hit the ground running with book seven. The goal is publish three, four and five next year and if book seven is finished, we might get them all out to Debbie’s fans. She also has written a Christmas novella that she hopes to publish next year. It didn’t work out for this year. The key to having a good book is finding a good editor and proofreader(s). That second set of eyes is money well spent. Down the road, I hope to publish a photo book on the Mississippi River. I want to travel a portion of the river on a barge and take photos. I also would like to write a book on a family who used steam engines to farm. I’m not quite sure if it will be a fictional family with a historical narrative. In addition to our writing ventures, Debbie and I have been attending and selling our books and my photos at various craft shows around the state for more than a dozen years. We’ve had tables at everything from toy shows to larger venues such as the Varied Industry Building at the Iowa State Fair to Carver Hawkeye Arena, which was later moved to the Coralville Marriott Conference Center. This year, we attended a book fair at the Badger Public Library near Fort Dodge in September; the Clarinda Craft Carnival in the southwest corner of the state in October for a second year; the Pella High School Band Boosters Craft show on Nov. 12, and most recently on Nov. 19 at the Pleasantville High School Craft Show. We have one more show this year at the HLV Boosters Craft Show in Victor, the second weekend in December. Sometimes craft shows are a great place to sell books and other times, we can’t get a soul to stop at our table. One show we attended a few years back at a school in southeast Iowa featured their famous cinnamon rolls. People came, bought their cinnamon rolls and went home. On the flipside, at the Clarinda Craft Carnival this year, people where buying our books as we were packing up for the day. That is a great craft fair and worth the drive. Sometimes we sell a lot of books and other times, we don’t even get our table fee back. The greatest joy isn’t always selling a book, but in meeting people and being together doing something we love all while sharing our passion with others. And that sometimes is worth a lot more than what money can buy. I hope you follow your dreams. Today is your day to get started. I encourage you to take a step toward making your dreams a reality. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always.
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A co-worker on my day job the other day called me an encourager. He said that was a gift that God gave me and that I used it to help him and others.
That was really nice that he said that and it made me feel good. A lot of thanks goes to my late parents, who not only believed in me, but taught me the Good Book and used the board on my backside when I was in error. If I got in trouble in school, when I stepped in the front door at home, my mom was there with belt in hand to make sure I understood the error of my way. My folks didn’t have a lot, but they used what they had to make life the best they could for my brother, Tom, and I. I will always appreciate that they took me to church, taught me right from wrong and taught me to do more for others than I would for myself. With that in mind, Thanksgiving is this week and I hope everyone will have a chance to take a break from work and life and enjoy some good food with family and friends. No matter whether you go Black Friday shopping, go hunting, take a trip, watch football and basketball games or clean the garage or work on a craft project, enjoy the holiday. I was around age 7 when I asked my mom if she’d cook a turkey for Thanksgiving. She not only cooked me a turkey, she made mashed potatoes and a pan of dressing. She put a heaping spoonful of dressing on my plate. I took a bite and didn’t like it. No matter, my mom fixed it and she made me sit in the kitchen for what was probably two hours and eat it all. I nibbled on it and finally finished off what seemed like a mountain of dressing. It probably wasn’t much more than a cup full. Many Thanksgivings we spent with family on my mom’s side. My grandmother could put together a Thanksgiving feast in half of the time it took most. She had plenty of experience as she and my grandfather spent several years working on the river barges traveling up and down the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee rivers where grandma worked in the kitchen. She also cooked in schools and nursing homes through the years. My grandparents raised a big garden, had a milk cow and a brood of chickens, which most likely ended up on the dinner table at some point. For a number of years in the 1970s, my grandparents lived in the country near Coweta, Okla., a small town about 30 miles southeast of Tulsa. Their small three-bedroom one-bath house was always full when the kids and grandkids came for the holiday. Grandma would be slaving away in the kitchen cooking a meal for 20 plus. Some helped in the kitchen while others sat around visiting. The old black and white television always had a game or some other show going while the volume was turned down. Some of us kids would run around outside for a time. When the meal was ready, everyone gathered around the table and took time to pray and give God thanks. We then dug in the dishes of food while my uncle or grandfather curved the turkey. I have lot of great memories of a blessed childhood. It is so easy in the world we live in to forget that holidays like Thanksgiving are not always about catching the best deal on Black Friday, but more importantly about taking time to spend with family and friends and taking a break from the businesses of life. I hope you enjoy a blessed Thanksgiving and holiday weekend. Take time to think of others and do something good for someone who maybe doesn’t have as much as you. Invite a neighbor or friend to dinner who doesn’t have family over to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal. When you do good unto others, you’ll never regret it. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. Sometime back, I was talking with Debbie when I mentioned the idea of teaching a creative writing class.
I don’t think the comment came as a surprise to Debbie. I’ve spent my whole life trying new things and overcoming obstacles, why not teach a writing course? It’s no secret that I went from barley passing English in high school to graduating from one of the top journalism schools in the world 19 years later at the age of 37. It took me three tries to pass the required 100-question grammar test to get into the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism. After hours and hours of tutoring and studying, I did it and I’m thankful for the experience. In my course, students would be given a subject or topic and would be asked to interview, research and write a story. I might even toss in writing a newspaper story. I think it would be fun! It reminds me of the news writing course I was required to take and pass to get into the MU School of Journalism. I took the course in the summer of 1995. The professor stepped into the small computer classroom on the second floor of Walter Williams Hall on the MU Campus. After handing out the course syllabus, the instructor told everyone that he gave up his fishing vacation to teach us how to write news stories. He went on to share tidbits of wisdom on the art of teaching journalism, then offered those of us in the class the option to give up. All we had to do was hand in our syllabus and leave. There could be no notes on our syllabus. I had already scribbled all over my syllabus, so the option of quitting was out. Plus, I was on the cusp of good things and my goal was to get into the journalism school and I was one course away. The news writing course that summer took us through life working at a newspaper. One moment we were writing a feature story when a call came in about a fire at the local school. We had to stop what we were doing and piece together a story about the fire from info given to us by the instructor. There was no real fire, just the idea that it happened, like it could at a newspaper. I think I got a B+ on that assignment and had the opportunity to share what I wrote with the class. During another assignment, we were handed an actual press release from the Indianapolis City Bus Service. The press release mentioned that a number of city bus drivers would receive safe driving honors and awards at the upcoming yearly banquet. It then listed the names of every driver. We were asked to read through the press release and see if we could find the “real” story. I didn’t find it, but a couple other students did. Two of the drivers had the same last name. After further digging, it was discovered that these two drivers met and married while working for the city bus company. And they were both receiving safe driving awards. That’s the story! For years, I’ve been digging through press releases, looking at bulletin boards in grocery stores, community centers, churches and elsewhere for story leads. Nowadays, I dig through Facebook and other social media outlets for news ideas and stories. I believe my years of experience qualify me to teach a creative writing course. Should I offer this course, which I would do through an adult learning option at the local community college, my students would write a half dozen stories or papers. Hopefully they would take something from the course to help them become better writers. Debbie’s first book was the result of entry she wrote some years earlier at a writer’s conference. I know that I would take something away from teaching the course. Mainly confidence and growth. I will let you know when I get all pulled together. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. I wrote my first newspaper column, which I titled “On the Road Again,” in July 1998 while working as editor of the North English Record. The title name was based on two over-the-road trips I took in a semitruck with my brother, Tom, in November and December 1997. He was driving for Mayflower Moving Van Lines and it was my job to help load and unload the truck.
I had just wrapped up my BS degree at the University of Missouri-Columbia and returned to the Tulsa suburb of Bixby, Okla., where I lived briefly with my parents, before hitting the road with Tom. The first trip we took was from Nov. 5 - 28. We covered 23 states and 8,000 plus miles on that trip, traveling from Oklahoma through Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and northeast to Maine. We even made a couple stops in New York City and moved a family from southern Minnesota to the panhandle of West Virginia before returning to Oklahoma. The second trip was in early December and took us from Tulsa to north of Detroit to pick up a load and move the family back to Tulsa. It was during that trip that I received a call from Alan Sieve at Marengo Publishing Corp (MPC) to interview for a job at the North English Record. We just happened to be in Princeton, Ill. staying with a friend I met in Tulsa. Ironically, while headed north on Interstate 44, I mentioned to Tom about returning to Tulsa via Iowa. I just happened to have my portfolio on the trip. When asked about an interview, I checked with my brother and then told Alan that I could be in Iowa in a couple hours. We stopped at the Landmark Restaurant in Williamsburg where I was picked up and interviewed in the back seat of a company car by Alan and then Williamsburg Journal-Tribune editor Dan Adix. Tom and I then drove all night to get back to Tulsa where we spent the next day unloading the moving van at a south Tulsa residence. Those were great trips filled with memories of showering and eating in greasy spoon truck stops and sleeping in a semi truck. I was hired as the Record editor one week later on Christmas Eve 1997. As editor of the Record, I started re-publishing columns written by former North English Record editor and long-time owner, Carl L. Hogendorn. I walked across the street to the North English Library where I descended into the basement to dig through Record archives looking for his columns. Carl had been gone nearly a dozen years when I arrived in North English in December 1997. I heard it said that Carl would send his crew of children around town once a week to gather what I called, chicken dinner (local happenings) news. It’s who eats what and where and all the other gossip fit to print Someone brought up the idea of me writing a column. I hadn’t done anything like that in college, but decided to give it a try. My first column was on Texas-style or smoked BBQ During the Fourth of July holiday in July 1998, I made the trek from North English to Van Buren, Mo., deep in the Missouri Ozarks near the Current River, to attend a Jackson family reunion on my mom’s side of the family. My mom graduated from Van Buren High School in 1955, before following an uncle and aunt to Tulsa where she met my dad, who was born and raised east of Tulsa. Out front of the Mom and Pop motel we stayed in at Van Buren for a few days was a Texas BBQ truck. I had to try a sandwich. I got to talking to the owner about Texas BBQ and what makes it different. He said the key was smoking the meat, not cooking it over a fire. The fire is a box on the side of the grill that pushes heat through the meat, he told me. Many of the pellet type grills use that concept these days where the heat is in a box and it moves into the cooking chamber. I’m not much of a meat smoker, but do enjoy grilling out on occasion. I also enjoy sharing many of my life’s travels and happenings in this column. I appreciate the many friends and supporters of my columns, news features and photos and the many kind notes I have received through the years. What makes it even more special is that I barely passed high school English but went on to attend and graduate from one of the top journalism schools in the world. Anything is possible, you know? As a journalist, my goal has been and always will be to share local positive news, stories and photos. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. After settling into our motel room in Shenadoah, home of the Everly Brothers in Southwest Iowa, we enjoyed a carryout pizza from the local Pizza Hut and cold glasses of ice tea.
After a couple slices of pizza, I soon found comfort in the motel room recliner for an early evening nap. I wasn’t asleep too long when I woke up with a desire for a bag of popcorn. With no microwave in the room, I figured I could get a bag out of the vending machine and cook it in the breakfast nook. The only problem was there was no popcorn in the vending machine. I asked the night clerk if there was any popcorn. She shuffled through several drawers behind the counter with no luck before apologizing to me. “I told the manager we should have popcorn,” she said. I was tempted to walk down the street to the local movie theater for a bucket of buttery popcorn before coming to my senses and realizing that would probably cost almost as much as a half of tank of gas. We were in Southwest Iowa to sell our books at the Clarinda Craft Carnival on Oct. 15. The motels there were all booked, so we made the 20 mile trek to Shenadoah for the evening. This was our second year to have a booth at the annual event, this being the 63rd year. We had good success last year and decided to return. The Clarinda Craft Carnival is one of best run events of its kind that we have had a booth and sold our books. Lots of people come from Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and even Kansas to attend as crafters are stationed in five different buildings across town. Craft show organizers bus folks from building to building. Our booth was in the Clarinda High School gym. We’ve been selling our books at craft fairs for at least a dozen years and have had varied success along the way. We have done well at some and not so well at others. The goal is to not only pick up a few extra dollars, but also get our books and my photography in front of others. We met a lot of nice people at this year’s Clarinda show, including a couple from Creston, who just happened to be neighbors with the parents of a roommate of Debbie’s at Central College a few years back. They bought Debbie’s novels and said they would share them with the neighbors. We even met the lady who founded the Clarinda Craft Carnival in 1959. “We started in one building in the Page County Fairgrounds,” she said. That is quite amazing when you think that the craft carnival started the year I was born and is still going strong. This year we opted to take the southwesterly route through New Sharon, Pella, Knoxville, Chariton, Osceola, Creston and then south on Highway 71 through Villisca, home of the famous 1912 Ax Murders, before arriving in Clarinda. I hope someday to tour the Ax Murder House. Being there when the house is open has not worked out, but I am sure it will next year. We’ve been all over Iowa this year from near Decorah in northeast Iowa to Mount Pleasant, Fort Dodge and even south through Bloomfield into the State of Missouri a few weeks ago on my birthday. Iowa is a beautiful state and the colors at this time of the year are gorgeous. Seeing all the combines rolling across the fields adds to the beauty. There are many famous people from that part of the state, including the Everly Brothers and James Blackwood, a founding member of the Southern gospel quartet, The Blackwood Brothers. One of the most famous who was born near Shenadoah was Celestai Josephine “Jessie” Field Shambaugh, an American educator and activist known as the “Mother of 4-H Clubs.” Shenadoah is also the home base of the Earl May Garden Centers, which was founded in 1919, and today has stores in Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Clarinda is home to some famous people as well. Dick Carson, the younger brother of Johnny Carson, was born in Clarinda. He went on to become a television director of such shows as Wheel of Fortune (1983), The Merv Griffin Show (1962) and Get Smart (1965). Another famous Clarinda resident was Meredith Wilson, a composer who wrote the script, lyrics and music of the famous musical, “The Music Man.” I hope before the snow flies, you get a chance to see the beautiful fall colors and tour Iowa, the state we all call home. And while you are at it, dream and look for opportunities to share your God-given talents. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. I enjoy seeing all the photos and reading the stories on Facebook about Iowa farm families passing along the farm to the next generation.
I love the pictures of the little ones in the cab of a combine or next to the family tractor being held by dad, grandpa or another family member. They are precious. These little ones will grow up one day and may take over the family farm and keep that tradition alive. I’ve listened to many stories of families who have survived tough times to build a life, a family and their farm. I am looking forward to sharing more of these type of stories with my readers down the road. Seeing all of this reminds me of my upbringing. Of course, I grew up in the city and not on a farm. It was different, but in some ways the same. I still hold in my heart the many traditions and teaching of my parents to this day. The memories of getting up at 4:30 in the morning to throw Tulsa newspaper with my mom and helping my grandpa and dad mow yards. My mom used some of the money from the paper routes to make a payment on a 20-acre tract of land south of Tulsa near Bixby that she and Dad bought in 1974. They purchased a mobile home and moved to the farm in the early 1980s, later building a log cabin. As I have mentioned before, my mom grew up in southeast Missouri’s Bootheel region where she picked cotton by hand on hot summer days and helped deliver “Grit” newspapers for her brother. Many years later, my brother, Tom, had a “Grit” newspaper route in and around the Bixby area to make extra money. My dad enjoyed visiting and he often took over the route and made the delivers for Tom so he could visit with the neighbors. My dad grew up east of Tulsa where he helped the family raise corn and other crops. I don’t think it was an easy life by any measure. He once told me about the time in the 1940s when the river went over its banks and flooded the area twice. It knocked the corn stalks down, but didn’t damage the corn. My Dad and his brother, Charley, hand-picked the corn that year and made enough money that their father was able to purchase an Allis Chalmers tractor and harrow. My mom followed an uncle and aunt to Tulsa from Missouri after graduating from Van Buren High School in Van Buren, Mo. in 1955. She met my dad through a mutual friend. They had their first date and married three months and one week later on June 15, 1957. My dad always said there was no reason to wait. I didn’t inherit that gene as I was one day from my 45th birthday when I married Debbie. Anyway, my dad loved to fish and my folks often spent the weekends at Oologah Lake northeast of Tulsa in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Later on, we started traveling and camping at other Oklahoma lakes. One of our favorites was Greenleaf Lake southeast of Tulsa. We also traveled and camped to such places as Niagara Falls, Nashville, San Diego and many times, we’d travel to southeast Missouri to camp, fish and spend time with my Mom’s family. My mom cooked on a Coleman stove using her iron skillet and a set of pans by Regal Ware called a Picnic Pack. They were known as “the pans that stack.” There were four utility pans and a skillet. The pans had a removable handle used to move them on and off the fire. They also had a locking handle that held the pans together, making them easy to carry. For some reason, I kept the Coleman stove and opted to sell the set of pans in the family estate auction in April 2011. I think they sold for 50 cents. I kind of wish I hadn’t done that. For several years, I searched for a reasonably priced replacement set and happened to find a brand new set still in the box this past summer for $18 at an antique store in Kirksville, Mo. I’ve seen them for as much as $50 plus at antique stores. The next day, I got on the telephone and bought them with a credit card. Debbie and I made a trip to Kirksville late last month on my birthday and picked up the pans and purchased a few other items. I’m sure I will never use the pans, but I will have them as reminder of the days of my youth and the importance of keeping family traditions and memories alive. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. I enjoy writing almost as much as I do taking photos.
There’s something about doing an interview and taking notes then sitting down at the computer and trying to read my scribbles and craft a story from the mess. For instance, when taking notes and someone says with effort or some other word using with, I write w/… in my notes. I have somehow created my own version of shorthand. I sometimes can’t read what I wrote and I have to reach out to the person I interviewed to help me understand my notes. Most people I interview talk much faster than I can take notes. I often have to ask them to repeat a sentence or I just write down what I hear the best I can and ask questions later. I think my writing has improved greatly in recent years and I give the credit to my wife, Debbie. She has taught me a lot about the use of the comma, sentence structure and making my words flow. She’s a great writer and most who have followed me through the years know she has two published novels, “The Auctioneer,” and “Moving On” in the Hope Series. The novels center around the good folks of the fictional town of Hope, Iowa. She’s written books three, four and five in the series, all of which need to be edited and have a cover created. And she is working on book six. Our goal is to have book three out this year with books four and five to follow in 2023. There is a lot to be done in short amount of time. We are about three months out from Christmas, if you can believe that. I always enjoy listing to Debbie tell the stories in her books. I am amazed at how she keeps track of it all and can come up with the story lines. She credits it to the characters. It’s their story and they are more than happy to have Debbie writing it down for others to enjoy. My tip for any writer or inspiring author – find a good editor. Having barely survived high school English, I often struggled piecing together a story or writing a simple essay. My spelling was awful and didn’t know the first thing about sentence structure. Sometimes I wonder how I passed English. For me to go back to college in my early 30s and get into one of the top journalism programs in the world at the University of Missouri-Columbia is a miracle itself. I had to pass an 100 question grammar test to get into the school. I failed it twice before passing with an 82 on my third attempt. I needed an 80 and I got it. I remember the day well. It was Sept. 26, 1995 - my 36th birthday. I was outside with the other journalism students awaiting their future. Some were complaining about taking the test in the first place. I had been studying and getting tutoring and I was ready to go and I didn’t need any distractions. I decided to find a quit place in another part of the building away from the noise. Sometimes in life to get ahead, you have to get away from all the noise. The television news and the internet are filled with lots of noise and distractions. I ended up down the hall from the testing center and outside on a sidewalk leading up to the building. It was there that I started praying. I put it this way, I didn’t ask God about getting into the journalism school, I told God that I was going to get into the journalism school and I did. I have failed many tests in life and school. Success is never easy and sometimes doing the right thing isn’t as well. If you fail at something, that doesn’t make you a failure. The failure comes when you give up. If I have a tough day at work or struggle with a life challenge, I often remind myself of the journey I have been on and that all things are possible. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. A trip to the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion in Mount Pleasant is always in order following the Iowa State Fair.
I love steam engines and taking a walk back in time and the Old Threshers is always a good experience. Plus, I get to meet and visit with a lot of new people. This year we (my family and I) spent time going flea marketing, antiquing and touring the museums. I started working on a Old Threshers photo trivia contest that I plan to post on Facebook in the near future. The idea is to see if folks know where the photos were taken. Some will be giveaways and others will be more challenging. While visiting the Old Threshers Foundation Office, Debbie and I visited with Melinda Huisinga of Mount Pleasant. Melinda currently serves on the Old Threshers Board. She and her late husband, Alan, who passed earlier this year, worked hard to make the Old Threshers one of the best events in the State of Iowa. Melinda and her family are featured in our 2008 book, “Family Reunion, Midwest Old Threshers.” Debbie and I knew that Melinda’s Methodist Meat Loaf was an Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon winner. What we didn’t know is that the tasty meat loaf earned the honor at the 2017 ISF in a contest that we sponsored for several years. The contest asked entrants to create a food that would be served at a threshing event back in the day. The meat loaf, along with some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten, is served daily at the Methodist Church tent on the Old Threshers grounds. While touring one of the museums on the Old Threshers grounds, I met a fellow from Missouri who struck up a conversation with me. I learned that for about 20 years, he sponsored a farmer’s challenge at the Missouri State Fair. The event was also held for three years at the Iowa State Fair. When asked, he couldn’t remember what years. I found a video from 2011 showing young people participating in a farmer’s challenge at the ISF. It was similar in nature to Ag Olympics where folks flip tractor tires, drive through an obstacle course using a wheelbarrow and roll a large bale of hay. I’m not sure it is one in the same, but it’s fun to find out. I also visited with Kyle Waldeck of Illinois in the stationary steam area on the Old Threshers grounds. Kyle is a yearly volunteer at the reunion and we first met in 2007. A photo I took of Kyle and his mother are featured in our Old Threshers book at the button collector’s forum. The button collector’s forum is held on Sunday morning of the reunion and gives a chance for OT button collectors to talk all things, “buttons” while buying, selling and trading with each other. The reunion, which was first held in 1950, has produced a collector’s button every year. Some of the older buttons, mainly the 50s, bring $200 - $400 each. I have several from the time period, but not the more expensive ones. On Monday, I took the electric trolley to the 1856 Log Village on the south edge of the Old Threshers grounds, where I milled around, took a few photos and met some new people. The log village features volunteers dressed in period clothing, cooking meals over an open fire, spinning yarn, playing musical instruments from the time period and doing things the old -fashioned way. There’s a school, barn, woodworking shop, blacksmith shop and lots of demonstrations and more. While there, I met a former co-worker at Marengo Publishing who was talking with guests about her and her husband’s team of mules. I shared with them the story of my grandfather using a team of horses to build roads in Oklahoma during the WPA days. I also visited with a mother and her two daughters who were churning butter the old fashioned way. I remember my mom had a churn and she’d make butter and cream by hand. That brings back a lot of memories. I met another young lady who grew up in Mount Pleasant but now calls Texas home these days. She was using wedges of various sizes and a sledge hammer to split logs. She was one tough gal who knew how to swing a sledge hammer. If you’ve never visited the Old Threshers Reunion, I recommend it. It opens on the Wednesday before Labor Day with a horse pull and wraps up five days later. There’s lots to see and do. It is the small things in life and connections made along the way that make every day a new venture and opportunity. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. While in journalism school at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I was required to spend time working the Columbia Missourian news desk.
Part of my duties including answering the telephone and helping customers. I was also required to call families of loved ones who passed away. The idea was to learn more about that person and possibly turn an obit into a feature story. Anyway, I called this family and a man answered the telephone. I explained that I was a student at MU and I was calling to learn a little bit more about the gentleman who had passed. “You caught me a little off guard,” the fellow said, explaining that he was the brother of the deceased. I said a few more words and he went on to tell me that he didn’t have much to say. “No story there,” I’m thinking. It bit later that day, I received a call from the son of the deceased man that I had earlier called his brother. Apparently, the brother called the son. The son, who was calling from Kansas City, said he appreciated my call and was honored to share about his father. When it comes to death and religion, people can sometimes get a little awry. I don’t remember much about the story today, but I ended up writing a nice feature about the man. It seems that he was a long-time milk man in Columbia. I think newspapers should do more of that. Calling families and writing about the person who passed. I think it is a great way to honor someone, especially a city leader, business owner or military personnel, who has passed. Someone once told me that way back in the day, local newspaper editors wrote obits, not the undertaker. If they didn’t like the person, they didn’t say anything nice about him or her. I’m glad they don’t do that today. Those who know me, know that I love to visit. I have no problem talking to total strangers. I always say, “you don’t get to know people if you don’t talk to them.” I visited with a lot of people at this year’s Iowa State Fair. On the afternoon of the last Friday of the fair, Debbie and I found ourselves in the Agriculture Building as heavy rains and lightning rolled through Des Moines. Debbie had earlier found a bench and I joined her. It wasn’t long until a family took a seat next to us on the bench. I struck up a conversation and found out they were from Marion and that they had a son who was a police officer in the area. They said they were enjoying the fair and afterwards they were headed to Kansas City to see family. After they moved on, another couple found solace on our bench. It just happened they were from Kansas City and made the trek to Des Moines to attend the fair. There were three of them, two men and woman. I mentioned I was from Tulsa and one of the men said he knew a lot about Tulsa. He said he knew author Jim Stovall, who resides in Tulsa and has written a number of Christian-based books including, “The Ultimate Gift,” “The Ultimate Legacy,” “You Don’t Have to be Blind to See,” “The Executive Entrepreneur,” and much more. He also has several movies out. This fellow said he was a cousin of Jim. He was talking about all he had done and the money he had given to the Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. Stovall, who is blind, donated more than a million dollars to the ORU to create the Stovall Center for Entrepreneurship. According to the website, the vision of the Stovall Center for Entrepreneurship is three fold: to equip entrepreneurs through a blend of both theory and active engagement, to positively impact our city through social innovation projects and to empower change agents to transform communities all over the world. It was nice to meet these folks and visit. We told them about our books and the lady gave us her email and asked us to send her some information about Debbie’s novels. I leave you with this. You may not be able to donate a million dollars, but you can buy a neighbor or family in need a sack of groceries, volunteer at a community event or the local food or clothing pantry, mow someone’s yard or offer to give someone a ride to the doctor or to the store. I encourage you to take time to say hello or share a good word with someone you meet. The world is full of people from all walks of life and some have a story to tell and some just need to hear a good word. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, once said, “Whether you think that you can or that you can’t, you are usually right.”
Life is like that – if you believe in yourself, you can accomplish great things. If you doubt what you are trying to do, you are in for a tough ride or worse, you won’t get off the couch and get going. Thirty years ago on Aug. 13, 1992, I loaded a rented Budget truck and my Chevrolet S-10 with most of my belongings and left my boyhood home of Tulsa headed for new pasture. I wasn’t unhappy in Tulsa, I was ready for a change. It all started in the early winter of 1983 while working in the circulation department for Newspaper Printing Corporation (NPC) in Tulsa. NPC oversaw the printing and distribution of what was then two Tulsa papers, the World and the Tribune. I was an assistant district manager and my job was to make sure the daily newspapers were delivered to the customers on time. I met John, who had moved to Oklahoma in April 1982 from Riverside, Calif. Ironically, John was born in Iowa and lived in Burlington before moving to California with his mom and family at age 3. We had a bet. The goal was to see how much weight we could lose in a two-month timespan. The bet started on March 1 and went through April 30 of that year. The winner would receive $50. I won with a weight loss of 39 pounds to John’s 26 pounds. I got into short-distance running (2-6 miles daily), quit drinking Pepsi and changed a lot of my eating habits. At the time, John didn’t have an extra $50, so a couple months later, he gave me his old camera, a Konica FP-1. The camera paid far greater dividends and opened more doors than $50 could have ever done. I had an Argus twin lens reflex camera that I was given in junior high school by the neighbor family to the south and I used it a lot through the years, but never took the art of photography too serious. This new camera was like a piece of gold. I started with some adult education photography courses through Tulsa Community College and that led me to enroll in Rogers State College (now University) in Claremore, Okla. I started part-time at RSC in August 1987 with a black and white class at the recommendation of the teacher. I then ventured into color photography. This was back in the day when film was king. I learned a lot about photography working in the darkroom developing film and making prints. That led to me taking more classes such as English, humanities, history, speech and science. While at RSC, where I earned an AAS Degree in Graphics Technology in 1991, I begin to believe in myself. Growing up, I was shy and didn’t always see myself in the best light. That was changing. It helped that I was attending a God-centered church where I was learning that all things are possible and that my past wasn’t my future. I learned early on in life that struggles and challenges were there to propel you into a better life. And so was the paddle of love my mom shared with my backside many times through the years. I’m thankful for every spanking I got. Anyway, while at RSC, I decided I wanted to earn a bachelor’s degree. That led to me applying and being accepted to the University of Missouri-Columbia. I never took an ACT test, but somehow got into the school. I enrolled in the Agricultural Journalism program. It took me three tries to get into the journalism school. I worked at night as a custodian and went to school during the day. I got involved in a church and made friends. I listened to Bible teaching tapes while sweeping floors and cleaning toilets. I associated with people who believed in me and prayed for me. And most importantly, I believed in myself. I asked for help and I took advantage of it. Thinking back, I remember the many struggles I had with algebra. At one point, I was getting tutoring from a friend at church twice a week and I was spending Sunday afternoons attending math tutoring at the university. I passed. When I failed, and I did many times, I got up and kept walking. After graduating from MU in 1997 at the age of 38, I returned to Tulsa briefly before making the move to North English, Iowa on Dec. 27, 1997. Looking back on all of this, I’ll never forget Aug. 13, 1992. My brother, Tom, drove the rental van and I drove my pickup on that hot August early evening. We stopped for pizza and then hit the turnpike to Missouri. After spending the night in Springfield, Mo., we rolled north and east and arrived in my new home, Ashland, Mo., 15 miles south of Columbia, in the late afternoon of Aug. 14, 1992. What I great ride these past 30 years have given me. I met my wife at the Iowa State Fair, published two Iowa photo books, co-directed a writing workshop for 10-years, bought a house. I believe I have made a difference through my pen and camera in the lives of many. And there is so much more to come! Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. |
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