Outside of Christmases and birthdays, some of my best memories where my high school days in the late 1970s. On Friday nights, my dad and I would take his 1967 Chevrolet S-10 to the Chuckwagon drive in on north Sheridan in Tulsa and order wheel burgers, as they were called, and French fries for the family supper.
     We’d all sit around the kitchen table eating, visiting and watching Dukes of Hazard and Dallas on television.
We always ate and prayed together at the kitchen table.
      My mom was a great cook. I enjoyed lots of fried chicken meals, fish fries and home raised fresh foods from the garden at the kitchen table.
       During the summer months, I sat on a chair at the kitchen table and helped my mom snap and can green beans and use a tomato spaghetti strainer to smash tomatoes for canning.
        My folks weren’t too tough on me, but they expected me to follow the rules and to behave. When I was in fourth grade and said a cuss word at school, my mom somehow found out. We all gathered in the kitchen and my folks made me say the cuss word, spell the word then I got a spanking. Anytime I got into a scuffle or trouble at school and got swats, I got a double dose at home. I’m thankful for all of it.
        I’ve always been a talker and friendly sort of person. 
       My mom once told me that the dean of boys at Will Rogers High School in Tulsa called her because I was talking too much in class. It upset my mom and she let him have it.
      “You have all those students standing outside smoking cigarettes instead of going class and you’re worried about my son talking too much,” she told the dean.
       I don’t know what came from all that, but I appreciate my mom standing up for me like that.
       I don’t know what made me think about my family and growing up days and the kitchen table.
       Maybe it’s because I miss my mom and dad.
     They were good people who grew up with nothing and took what they had, worked hard, saved and enjoyed a wonderful life together.
        I remember my mom telling me the story of when she first came to Tulsa in the 1950s after high school in Van Buren, Mo.
        She had to catch a bus to work and the bus stop was by a local ice cream dairy.
        “I was so poor that I didn’t have a nickel for an ice cream cone,” she said.
       My dad, who grew up east of Tulsa in the Verdigris River bottoms, dug ditches and chased golf balls in the drink at one of Tulsa’s country clubs before getting a job in the early 1950s at Gaso Pumps. The company specialized in building oil pumps used to move crude oil across the ground after it was drilled. My dad was in charge of building the pumps. 
       I always enjoyed stopping to visit with my dad at the factory on his lunch hour and he’d show me around and introduce me to his co-workers. He spent nearly 40-years at the company before retiring in March 1993.
      Dad loved the old way of life and no one was a stranger. One of his favorite pastimes was being outside working in the yard pulling weeds and later at the family farm where he raised cattle and tended to a garden with Mom. When people would ask him how many cattle he had, my dad would always tell them, “Under 100.”
     He always enjoyed spending an afternoon visiting with the many characters and folks who he grew up around in the river bottoms. When I was a kid, those trips didn’t have the same meaning as they did when I got older. Some of these folks had the most comfy chairs and when we’d visit it didn’t take me long to fall asleep until it was time to go.
      In the 1970s, my mom and I threw the Tulsa World newspapers together for five years and four of those years we threw the Tulsa Tribune evening newspaper. We delivered more than 400 papers on Sunday mornings. Often times, my dad and brother helped on Sunday mornings.
     I’ve spent most of my life in the newspaper business from being a carrier to working in circulation and then returning to school and becoming an editor, reporter and photographer. I wouldn’t trade the experiences and the people I have met along the way for anything in the world.
      I learned a lot about the value of hard work, giving my best, doing good to others, trusting God, following my dreams and doing the right thing in life. I’m so thankful that many of those life lessons and good memories happened around the kitchen table in my boyhood home.
       Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.

​        I strongly dislike winter!
        The only good thing about winter is the cold kills the bugs.
        After this last week’s two rounds of snow and cold snap, I might put up with the bugs.
        I’m ready for spring.
      The original forecast was for two to four inches of snow during the early part of last week. That turned into nearly 20-inches of the white stuff.
    Topped off with upwards to 40 mph winds causing blowing and drifting snow and deep freeze temperatures, it was a storm that I would rather forget.
       Schools, businesses, restaurants and community activities all across the county and the state were either cancelled or closed due to the snowstorms and cold weather. There were hundreds of wrecks and vehicles in the ditches and overturned semis dotted the Interstates and highways across the state.
       It may be weeks before officials and others get it all cleaned up.
     Thankfully, our home heater continued working and we didn’t lose our electricity during last week’s storms. I know that wasn’t the case for others.
      Thanks to the many volunteer firemen, ambulance drivers, police and sheriff deputies, other emergency personal, electrical linemen, county road’s department employees, home repairmen, good old boys driving snowplows and so many others who stayed the course to keep us all safe.
      I missed three days of work due to the winter storms. If I can’t get there safely, I’m staying home. I didn’t have much of a choice. I couldn’t even get out of my driveway, let alone go to work.
       All this nasty snowy weather reminds of a story from back in the day. 
      Seems like it was early December 1975. I had just gotten my driver’s license a couple months earlier. I was in the tenth grade at the time.
      My folks had gone to visit with my dad’s grandmother in Barnsdall, Okla., a small town 40-miles north of Tulsa. I stayed home to attend choir practice at the First Baptist Church in downtown Tulsa that late Sunday afternoon.
       While at choir practice, a sleet and snowstorm hit Tulsa.
      I was driving my dad’s old work car, a 1959 Chevrolet Impala. It was a good car, but the defroster quit working and it was hard to see a foot in front of me.
      There I was, trying to make a decision about what to do. My parents taught me that if I had troubles to drive a certain route home. I decided to head home, driving with my head stuck out the window to see the road all the while sleet and snow was pelting my face. The windshield wipers were slipping back and forth, but it was doing no good without a defroster.
       I made it about three miles toward home when all of a sudden my folks came to my rescue. I was never so glad to see them. I moved over and my dad slid under the steering wheel and got us home safely.
      I remember the time in the late 1990s when I working for the North English Record. It was a cold, icy winter day. A semitruck loaded with hogs had slid off the road east of South English and some of the critters had broken out of their traveling confinement and were roaming about on Highway 22.
       I’m thinking, “What a great photo opportunity.” I took the company GEO Metro and headed south and then east toward the accident scene.
       The roads were icy and awful and I’m thankful I didn’t slide into the ditch. I should have stayed home. Well, I got some great photos and one of them won a state newspaper spot photography award.
          I’ll probably never do that again. 
        If that where today, Debbie (my voice of reason) would have something to say about it if I gave it any thought.
          I’m thankful for her wisdom, common sense and love. I’m a blessed man.
          And, the warmer weather will be here sooner than you think.
          Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day. 

       Growing up in Tulsa, Okla., we used to get lots of ice storms and some decent sized snowfalls on occasion.
           I remember one early March when we got dumped on with 14-inches of snow. It paralyzed the city for three days. That was very unusual for that much snow during that time of the year in the Sooner state. 
          Back in the day there were no plows in Tulsa and I don’t think that has changed. The city didn’t clean off residential side streets and most residents didn’t clean their driveways or sidewalks.
          The morning commute on my paper route or to school was crunch, crunch and crunch.
          Most weather fronts didn’t last more than three or four days and the temperatures went above freezing and the snow and ice turned to slush.
         On occasion, the temperatures could drop to five degrees or so below zero. It typically only lasted a few days.
          I remember a big snowstorm that hit in January 1977, my junior year in high school.
         The snow started falling on a Saturday evening just after dark and by early Sunday morning, there were eight or so inches of the white stuff on ground. And the wind, it was blowing hard.
          That made delivering the big Sunday newspaper on our paper routes quite a chore. With the wind, snow and cold, my dad drove his truck and my mom and I would take turns delivering newspapers one block at a time.  I think we delivered our last paper around 10 a.m. We were usually done by 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings.
         I’ve witnessed a number ice storms and remember as a kid more than once pulling my old metal sled loaded with Tulsa World newspapers down the street as I trudged through front yards to keep from falling on my backside.
         I’ve also slid down a few driveways on my backside due to ice.
      And in December 1983, the temperatures hovered around 10-degrees for a high for about a two week period. Then it warmed up and was in the 60s on Christmas Day.
       I took plenty of tumbles on icy sidewalks as youngster, but thankfully, I never broke any bones in the process.
        Here in Iowa, the culture around snow is much different. Good ole boys love pushing snow in their four-wheel drives and going ice fishing for supper.
        What’s a foot or two of snow? A lot in my mind, but to some Iowans, it’s time to get out the snow blower and take a spin with the kids on their snowmobiles.
       Or maybe firing up the grill and inviting the friends over for a steak or hamburger cookout and some cold brews.
       When I first moved to Iowa in the late 1990s and was living in North English, I heard about an ice fishing derby on Lake Iowa.
         I never heard of ice fishing growing up in Oklahoma.
       I got up early and made my way to the lake. There were ice fishing huts dotted across the lake and people walking on the frozen water like it was Sunday afternoon stroll.
       “These people are nuts,” I said while shaking my head and wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into living in Iowa.
        I decided to return home and go back to bed.
      Some years later, I covered ice fishing derbies twice on Diamond Lake near Montezuma. Going against my better judgement, I actually walked on the frozen water to get a few photos. One fellow said the ice was 14-inches thick. Not enough in my mind!
      One fellow I was photographing was grilling hamburgers while fishing and he gave me one. At least the fish were frozen and fresh.
       Seems like it was around 2007. Debbie and I had driven to Tulsa to see my folks for a couple days. We were driving my mother-in-law’s car. I heard reports of a weather front headed our way. Going against conventional wisdom, namely that of my wife, I decided to head home to Iowa.
       Halfway between Tulsa and Joplin, Mo., we ran into an icy front and the further we got, the worse it got. Debbie wanted me to stop in Joplin, but I wanted to head north. I was thinking Kansas City. We got close to Nevada, Mo. and a truck went flying past us, slide into the ditch and spun around several times in a farm field before coming to a rest. I’m surprised they didn’t flip over.
       “Are you ready to stop now?” Debbie asked.
      “Yes,” I replied as we pulled into a motel for the evening.
       The parking lot was a sheet of ice.
      I leave you with this – stay safe my friends in this nasty weather. Don’t go out unless you have to and make sure you are stocked up on the essentials – milk, bread, butter and a couple steaks and a few pounds of hamburger meat just in case the boys come over.
        Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day. 

        When it comes to college football bowl games, back in the day it seemed to be a lot simpler than it is these days.
      The number one and number two teams in the country went head-to-head on New Year’s Day for a chance to be named national champions.
         When that game ended, the season ended.
       Of course it’s not that way these days with the BCS National Championship format, which started in 1998.
According to Wikipedia, the game was organized by a group known as the Bowl Championship Series, consisting of the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Orange Bowl, which sought to match the two highest-ranked teams in a championship game to determine the best team in the country at the end of the season. The participating teams were determined by averaging the results of the final weekly Coaches Poll, the Harris Poll of media, former players and coaches, and the average of six computer rankings.
    As with anything to do with sports, there are lots of pros and cons that will be argued and debated for years.
    Take for instance Florida State. I’m no fan of the Seminoles, but I thought that was a raw deal for them being undefeated and not making the cut. I’m glad I’m not calling the shots.
    Now this season there are two undefeated teams – Michigan and Washington and two one-loss teams, Alabama and Texas in the running for the championship.
     One of them is going to win it all.
     A change is once again on the horizon. The college football playoffs are going to a 12-team format to name a champion beginning at the end of the 2024 season.
   According to an article from the NCAA, the format will include the six highest-ranked conference champions, which will receive automatic bids. The top four teams will receive a first-round bye to the quarterfinals.
     Even in Iowa high school football, a team in each class has to play and win five games following the regular season to earn the championship trophy. And college basketball has a 64-team format with four additional teams given a chance to make the playoffs.
     It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.
    And of course, there’s the transfer portal for players who leave one school and play at another school. I remember a time if a player transferred to another school, they had to sit out a season. That’s not the case anymore as players are shuffling around like someone playing a game of poker. As one person I was visiting with recently said, the NCAA needs to get this under control. Debbie and I are firm believers that no player should be able to leave a team or school until the end of the season, including a bowl game.
    We were watching a game the other day and started talking about all the various sponsors of bowl games. Apparently, if you have enough money, a company or business can purchase the rights to a bowl game.
    According to info on the internet, the lower-tier bowl sponsorship games played in early-to-mid December cost between $375,000 and $500,000. The more prestigious games, like the New Year’s Day six bowls, can cost tens of millions of dollars each year.
    In some cases, according to one article, the title sponsor can also play a prominent role in the post-game festivities of their bowl game, and their products may even be incorporated into the trophy itself. For example, the victorious head coaches in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and the Duke’s Mayo Bowl are doused with coolers filled with French fries and mayonnaise. The Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl and the Cheez-It Bowl, both sponsored by brands of Kellogg’s, have similar traditions.
    Outside of the top four teams, this year, 80 teams played in 40 bowl games starting Dec. 16 and continuing into New Year’s Day. I looked up the names of the various bowl games and have listed them below for your reading enjoyment.
    Myrtle Beach Bowl, Cricket Celebration Bowl, R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, Avocados from Mexico Cure Bowl, Isleta New Mexico Cure Bowl, Starco Brands LA Bowl hosted by Gronk, and the Radiance Technologies Independence bowl.
    Other bowls included the Famous Toastery Bowl, Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl, Roofclaim.com Boca Raton Bowl, Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla (Pirate Fest) Bowl, 76 Birmingham Bowl, Camellia Bowl, Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, 68 Ventures Bowl, SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl, EasyPost Hawaii Bowl, Quick Lane Bowl, SERVPRO First Responder Bowl, Guaranteed Rate Bowl, Military Bowl presented by GoBowling.com, Duke’s Mayo Bowl, DIRECTTV Holiday Bowl, TaxAct Texas Bowl, Wasabi Fenway Bowl, Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, Pop-Tarts Bowl, Valero Alamo Bowl, TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, AutoZone Liberty Bowl, Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, TranPerfect Music City Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl, ReliaQuest Bowl, Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Cheez-It Citrus Bowl.
    Of course, there is the national championship bowl games at the Rose Bowl presented by Prudential and the Allstate Sugar Bowl. It’s interesting that the top two bowl games are sponsored by insurance companies. I will keep that in mind when getting insurance quotes.
     I hope you enjoyed a game or two this season.
     Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.