The Parker house has been filled with March Madness craziness of late.
       Over the course of the last five days, Thursday to Monday, Debbie and I have watched all or part of at least a dozen or more basketball games.
       At times, we have had three or four games going at once while listening to another on the radio.
      There have been plenty of missed calls, nose punches, foul words, knock downs, great heart-stopping plays, last minute comebacks, flamboyant colorful coaches, know-it-all commentators and crazy fans who spent hundreds of dollars and traveled all over the country to watch college basketball.
       The craziness always starts with selection Sunday when the committee, whoever they are, sets up the games. We all complain about who is playing who and who got left out, but in the end, there are always some great games and upsets.
        This year’s tournament has been no exception!
       And every year we fill out on-line brackets, only to have them busted in the first round. As Debbie says, the experts don’t know what they are talking about.
       And for the Iowa teams, the Hawkeyes and Caitlin Clark pulled out a nailbiter against West Virginia, rallying late on Monday night in the 64-54 win to advance to the Sweet 16.
      We are all rooting for and love Clark and the Hawkeyes. I kind of think a lot of basketball fans across this nation are rooting for the Hawkeyes.
      And what a great Iowa State women’s team. What a performance that was by freshman Audi Crooks scoring 40 points against Maryland, who is coached by Brenda Frese, a former ISU player. The lady Cyclones season came to an end in a tough loss to number two Stanford, 87-81.
        What a great season for them.
      On the men’s side, the Iowa State Cyclones are like a runaway freight train, mowing down their opponents with Big 12 Tourney wins over Kansas State, Baylor and number one Houston. They opened tournament play with a 82-65 win over South Dakota State and a 67-56 win over Washington State to advance to the Sweet 16.
      On the other side of the state, Iowa is out of the NIT and ready to regroup for next year. And Oklahoma, my favorite team, declined an invitation to the NIT after being the first team out of the big dance. All I can say is that the Sooners should have accepted the invitation and moved forward in life. In my thoughts, it’s about the game, not being left out.
      Kansas is out after a tough season and Kentucky, Florida and so many other good teams have bit the dust this year. I love to watch the no names take a bite out of the big boys.
      And don’t forget to toss in Oklahoma softball, our favorite team, and their games against Baylor. It has been a weekend and more of sports craziness.
      This is the best time of the year for watching sports from NASCAR to golf and professional baseball, which gets underway soon.
      As for Debbie and I, we love to watch the Sooners play softball. They currently hold a 31-1 record this season and are three-time national champions.
     The Sooners fell in early March to a tough University of Louisiana at Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns softball team in their new stadium, Love’s Field, to end the team’s 71-game winning streak. The Sooners didn’t let the loss bother them as they have bounced back and heading into the next round of games at Kansas, hold a 13-game win streak and are perfect in the Big 12 conference.
      Last year, Debbie and I got to see the Sooners in Ames play against the ISU Cyclones. The stadium was packed and broke attendance records for two straight days. That was the fourth time we’ve seen the Sooners in Ames. I even got coach Patty Gasso’s autograph one year.
      I have been a Sooner football fan since I was in high school in the late 70s and a basketball fan since the days of Billy Tubbs in the 80s. I will never forget the national championship basketball game in 1988 between the Sooners and Kansas. The Sooners had won against Kansas twice in the regular season, but in the championship game, it was all Kansas and Danny Manning. They took it to the Sooners.
      When watching a Sooner football game, I’ve been known to pace about, talk to myself and talk to the television. I’ve watched some great Texas vs OU games in the Red River Rivalry and back in the day, there was nothing much better than the Sooners and the Cornhuskers going head-to-head in Norman and Lincoln.
      I remember one game when OU traveled to Lincoln. All the Husker kicker had to do was kick a field goal and Nebraska would win. He kicked the ball and hit the goalpost and the Sooners won. Another time, the Sooners, down seven points, scored 10 unanswered points in the last two minutes of a game to win 20-17.
        Enjoy the games and take time to breath and on occasion say hello to your family.
        Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.

           The hum of water spinning in the dishwasher was music to my ears.
       It had been more than two years since we last used the dishwasher. An ongoing leak put a stop to washing dishes the modern way in the Parker house.
           Sometime back, I noticed water had run on the kitchen floor. It even soaked a small kitchen rug.
         On occasion it ran through a hole in the floor to the utility room in the basement. The last time it was as if someone had dumped a bucket of water into our basement. The subfloor under the dishwasher showed signs of a leak.
         We had an appliance fellow come look at the dishwasher sometime back. He pulled the bottom panel off the machine and watched it run for a while.
         “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he assured us. “It’s not leaking.”
        We gave him a check, thanked him and I filled the dishwasher with dishes, thinking that it was one of life’s mysteries. 
        That’s when the big leak happened. It was enough water that we had to take a bath towel and wipe off the washer and dryer in the basement. Thankfully it didn’t short either machine out.
         Since then, we’ve been washing dishes the old fashioned way, by hand.
         Neither Debbie nor I enjoyed the task of washing dishes.
       We often would let them pile up and spill onto the kitchen counter. Sometimes, we ran out of forks and spoons and had to wash dishes to eat supper.
        It didn’t help that I had a bad habit with good intentions of washing the dishes. I would fill the sink with hot water and dishes. I’d wash a few dishes and then leave the rest for later. Sometimes it would be the next day. It drove Debbie nuts as she uses the sink to fill her old milk jugs with water for the animals.
       At first, we thought the problem with our dishwasher was a clogged drain. Another fellow I visited with said it was the door seal. He even went into detail, telling me about an experience with a new dishwasher that he had purchased at one of the big box stores that leaked.
        Finally, we decided to call a different repairman earlier this month.
       He and another fellow showed up at our door on Monday a week ago. They looked the dishwasher over, checked the drain and tested the door seal.
        They discovered that the dishwasher wasn’t level and that water was possibly pouring out of the bottom of the door.
        They asked me if I saw water on the kitchen floor and told them yes.
      The dishwasher has two small wheels on the back to make it easy to move. To hopefully remedy the problem, the repairman took the wheels off to lower the dishwasher in the back and then leveled it up in the front.
        It’s been working great since. No water running on the floor or pouring into the basement.
        It’s nice to have some of the luxuries of life.
        I don’t take them for granted.
     I grew up in the 1960s and 70s with a dishwasher. My mom wanted one and somehow on a limited budget, bought one for our Tulsa home.
        It was a basic dishwasher and did a great job.
     It malfunctioned one year when a switch broke and the heating element stayed on. It melted the silverware basket and my mom had to toss it in the trash, silverware and all.
        She bought another dishwasher to replace the damaged one and it worked great.
     We also enjoyed having a washer and dryer and window air conditioner for those hot Oklahoma summers.
      I missed having a dishwasher when I moved to Missouri to go back to school. My duplex didn’t have a dishwasher. When I moved to Iowa, there was no dishwasher in my first apartment in Millersburg nor in North English when I lived on Main Street in a converted apartment.
       My first apartment in Montezuma didn’t have a dishwasher. The counter in that apartment was lower than standard. Washing dishes by hand was a guaranteed backache from stooping over.
         It wasn’t until I got married and lived in a small house with Debbie on Jefferson Street in Montezuma that I had a one again when someone gave us a portable dishwasher. The landlord let us plumb it into the house as a permanent fixture.
         After moving to the country, our house had an old dishwasher. It was a clunker and at times, I wanted to toss it out the door for the birds to land on.  
        We replaced it with a new Maytag dishwasher in February 2015.
         I’m happy to have the dishwasher working again. I’ve washed three loads so far and it’s working great.
       I thank God every day for the many blessings and luxuries in life that I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy to this day.
         Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.

  ​       I was at the BGM Kiddie Carnival earlier this month to take some photos. I was milling about the large gathering of area youngsters and their parents when I noticed a young boy with a green tractor on his shirt.
       “Do you like John Deere tractors,” I asked.
       “No,” the young lad replied.
       “Red tractors,” I asked.
       “No,” he said again.
       “How about blue tractors,” I asked a third time.
       “No,” he said.
      Puzzled, I waited while his mom whispered something to him before I asked what his favorite tractor was for a fourth time.
      “Orange,” he replied.
      “Alias Chalmers,” I said. 
      “Yes,” he said.
      “Do you have an Alias Chalmers tractor,” I asked.
       “No, but my dad does,” the little fellow said as I smiled.
       I didn’t have a tractor as a young fellow growing up in the big city, but in junior high, I wanted a motorcycle. Atlas Cycle in Tulsa was a few blocks from my school and home.
       My friends Brain C. and David B. had motorcycles and I wanted one, too. They had newspaper routes and delivered papers on their motorcycles.
     Atlas Cycle had a Bridgestone 60cc motorcycle and I loved that bike, especially the dirt bike model for $250.
      That’s not much money these days, but to an eighth grader making $100 a month on a paper route in 1974, it was a lot money. 
      I stopped at Atlas after school on occasion and would sit on the motorcycle and pretend I was riding the trails. I tried to convince my folks to let me buy it, but it was a no go. I even promised to leave it at my grandparents and only ride it there.
      My folks knew how much I wanted it, but their concerns regarding me getting hurt outweighed the cost of having the motorcycle.
      Looking back, it was all good.
      I may not have had a motorcycle, but I did have a number of bicycles through the years. I took piano lessons starting in second grade and by the fifth grade, I was taking weekly lessons at Mrs. Murry’s Piano School in west Tulsa. 
     There was a resale store on West Edison just outside of downtown Tulsa a few miles from where I took my piano lessons. My mom stopped one day while I was taking my piano lesson and bought me a bicycle.
     I don’t remember the brand, but it was an ugly bicycle. I added a banana seat and sissy handlebars and it was still ugly. I rode that bicycle for a couple years before trading it in for a refurbished Schwinn Stringray bicycle.
       Mr. James was a local bicycle repair man who worked out of his garage a few blocks from my boyhood home.
     Stepping into his garage was like visiting a bicycle museum with bicycle parts hanging from large nails on the garage rafters to a variety of bicycles for sale. 
     Mr. James would scour junkyards looking for Schwinn bicycle parts and he’d build bicycles from the ground up.
     I traded in the bicycle my parents bought me and even Mr. James said he’d never seen a bicycle so ugly.
       My first Stingray, a gold color model, cost $35. I added a newspaper basket on front that my aunt Alice bought me. During the spring of my seventh grade year, I didn’t lock my bicycle at school and someone stole it.
       It was a big school and unlocked bicycles were easy prey for a thief.
       I bought a second bicycle from Mr. James, a green colored version, and after the frame broke, I got another one, a yellow version.
    My bicycle had no fenders or a chain guard and I rode it delivering newspapers, going to school and hanging out with my friends.
     I’m thankful for the all the memories and experiences as a youngster. I’m also thankful for the all the opportunities that life has afforded me.
    I love talking to kids and I have taken lots of photos of youngsters and their prize-winning animals at the county fair, in school productions and at community events enjoying life. And I’ve been around long enough that I’m now photographing kids of kids who I photographed years ago.
What a blessing!
      Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.

​        I enjoyed being courtside at the Iowa Girls’ Basketball Tournament at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines on Wednesday, Feb. 28 to cover the number 8 Montezuma Bravettes game against the number 1 North Linn Lynx.
        Even though the game didn’t turn out in Montezuma’s favor, the experience for those young ladies will last a lifetime and hopefully fuel them to get back to state next year. And for me, it’s a blessing from the Heavens to have the opportunity to be there and share my God given talents with my readers, friends and family.
       This was the fourth time I have covered the Bravettes at state and the fifth trip for the team in the last seven years. I was in attendance, but not on the sidelines, during the 2018 trip to Des Moines.
        I also covered the Montezuma Braves courtside in 2019, 2020 and 2021, when they won a Class 1A state championship. Being there capturing the raw emotion and excitement of the game, the fans and the players is something I will never forget.
       I’ve had the opportunity to cover the Grinnell Lady Tigers at state basketball in 2019 and the Grinnell Tiger boys at state basketball in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
       In addition, I’ve covered Montezuma, BGM and Grinnell at state football in the UNI-Dome a half dozen times over a period of years. And I’ve covered state track several years.
       And in 2014, during halftime of the Boys’ Class 1A final at Wells Fargo, I was honored with the Iowa High School Athletic Association’s (IHSAA) News Media Award. Debbie joined me as we walked to halfcourt where the announcer shared a short story about my career followed by the presentation of the award and photos.
It’s a coveted and special honor to be named among some of the top news media and journalists in the State of Iowa.
       And just to think it all started with a camera I won in a weight loss bet in the winter of 1983. I was working as an assistant route manager for newspaper printing corporation in my hometown of Tulsa at the time.
      A good friend and co-worker of mine, John C., and I decided to go on a diet. We went to a local Mexican restaurant the evening before the diet started and stuffed ourselves with tacos, enchiladas, chips and tasty sopapillas, a fried treat that I poured honey on to eat.
      I ate so much, I thought staff might have to roll me to the car after the meal. When I got home, I took a short two-block walk through my neighborhood.
      We started the diet the next morning and two months later, we both stood on the scales. I lost 39 pounds to John’s 26.
       The secret to my success was exercise and cutting out Pepsi and sugary drinks.
       The bet was for $50, but instead, John had an older Konica brand 35mm camera that he gave me in lieu of the cash. It was one of the best gifts I could have received, as a few years later in 1987, I enrolled in a black and white photography class at Rogers State College (now University) in Claremore, Okla., the hometown of Will Rogers.
       It was there that the world of possibilities opened for me. I started believing in myself and thinking about my purpose in life. 
      I attended RSC part-time for four years, two of which I studied photography and the last two years that I took humanities, speech, science, English, history and more. I earned my Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree in Graphic Technology (photography) in May 1991.
     One of my favorite courses, outside of photography, was humanities. The professor was excellent and made the class interesting, educational and fun. The final was a 100 slide identification of the various time periods in the world of art. I received an A in Humanities I, missing three slides, and an A, by one point, missing seven slides, in Humanities II the following semester.
     I attended community college back in the day when film was king. I learned to develop both black and white and color films and make prints in a darkroom. I learned a lot about photography working in a darkroom. 
       From there, I went on to the University of Missouri-Columbia where I worked my way through school, first with the US Postal Service as a part-time casual clerk and later as a custodian on the MU campus. MU is a great school that challenged me and gave me many open doors and opportunities.
        I believed my way into journalism school, failing the entrance grammar exam twice before passing it with an 82 on the third try, which happened to be my 36th birthday. I needed an 80 to move on. I spent hours in tutoring sessions in both grammar and math and went on to graduate in December 1997 at the age of 38.
        I then landed in Iowa and for the last 26 years, outside of three years when I took a brief retirement and did freelance work, I have been sharing news and features stories and covering community events, high school sports and county fairs with my readers. 
      I met my wife in this fine state and have spent nearly half my life in Iowa. I wouldn’t trade the experiences for anything in the world.
Thank you to the fine folks in the communities I have worked in who have opened their homes, shared their stories and fed me. Everyone has a story to tell and I’ve got time to share them with others. I’m always looking for unique stories to write and share and plan to continue in that role for many more years.
Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.

       I do a lot of the cooking in the Parker house.
       As hard as I try, I have a limited menu of foods to offer on a daily bases.
       One of my favorites is anything with taco meat. I’ve been known to serve a taco-based meal several times in one week.
       If not meat and cheese in taco shells, I sometimes make a taco Frito pie. It’s taco flavored beef with Fritos and cheddar cheese mixed together.
      Another of my favorites is taco meat, cheddar cheese and sour cream wrapped in a soft wheat tortilla. I roll it over on the plate and eat it with a fork.
     And then there is our old standby, taco casserole. It consists of crushed nacho cheese or taco flavored chips layered across the bottom of a butter-coated Pyrex dish. I then pour a mixture of taco meat with cream of chicken soup and spread it in the pan. I top that off with a layer of cheddar cheese, more crushed nacho cheese chips and another layer of cheddar cheese. I cook it uncovered in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
      A few weeks ago, I switched up the menu and made a meatloaf. It turned out much better than my first attempt at cooking a meatloaf when Debbie and I started dating.
      I invited her to my apartment for supper. I pulled the meatloaf out of the oven only to discover I had burnt the darn thing.
       We ate it anyway and all was good with the world.
       Other favorites include sausage casserole and beef goulash, booth cooked in the oven.
       Another meal I like to cook is placing hamburger patties in a Pyrex baking dish, adding salt and pepper to taste and pouring two cans of mushroom soup over the top. I cover it with tinfoil and cook it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes in the oven. To top it off, I add a vegetable or mashed potatoes.
      One of my favorite meals is pork chops. I love them grilled or fried. I coat them in milk and egg mixture and add flour. Back in the day I could eat a half dozen pork chops in one setting with mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas, a southern favorite.
     I enjoyed having friends over and cooking a meal of grilled pork chops, mashed potatoes and all the fixings. It was good food and good company.
      Tenderized pork loin chops cooked in mushroom sauce is another of my favorites. They also taste good coated in a crunchy coating. Toss in a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes and it makes for a great meal.
I always enjoy grilling out and have cooked on both a gas grill and charcoal grill. Last summer, I purchased a Blackstone Grill.
       Using the Blackstone has taken some getting used to. I saw a demonstration of someone cooking sausage gravy on a Blackstone. I might have to try that sometime.
      Hasty Bake charcoal grills are an Oklahoma-based grill company. They are as rugged as a semitruck. My dad had one that he bought in the late 1950s. It included a rotisserie for cooking a chicken.
     When I was a young lad, we used to enjoy big family cookouts at our Tulsa home. I have lots of good memories of those days. 
       Anyway, I’ve never been a big fan of exotic foods outside of beef, chicken, pork and fish.
       I once tried goat meat chili and that was okay.
      Another time, my mom fried a rabbit. It was ok, but it didn’t make it into my weekly menu. And I’m not a big fan of deer meat.
      My good friend, Rob, in Tulsa and I went rabbit hunting in southeast Oklahoma one Thanksgiving weekend in the late 1980s.
     I had a single shot 410 shotgun and he had a 16 gauge. We shot a couple rabbits and Rob decided we should gut them. We didn’t have a knife, so I knocked on the fellow’s door that let us hunt in his timber. He gave us a knife and Rob proceeded to gut a rabbit while my stomach was turning from the smell. While all this was going on, I looked into the homeowners window and there he was enjoying a good Nebraska and OU football game.
      I said never again would I miss a Nebraska and OU football game so I could go rabbit hunting on a wet, dreary and cold day.
       It didn’t help that the rabbits we shot were filled with buckshot. I froze them and later had my mom boil them and gave them to the dog.
        I think a 22 rifle would have been a better gun to use.
       Another time, I was invited to join some newspaper folks and business leaders in the area to a turkey fry at Lake Ponderosa.
       Those old boys had an oil deep fryer and they were cooking turkey fries by the bucket loads. I bit into one and ended up spitting it out. Yuck!
      I asked the host if he had something different. He dug into the freezer and found me some brats and graciously fixed me a meal.
       One of favorite meals is beef chili cooked with no beans or tomatoes. To me, chili is a meat dish and not soup. A fellow once asked me what makes the juice. “Lard,” I told him.
        Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.