When I was a kid, the Florence Park Neighborhood in Tulsa where I lived had a city park.
The park included tennis courts, swings, a merry-go-round and a sprinkler during the summer months.
        It was located about four city blocks south of my boyhood home. I spent a good deal of time during the summer months at Florence Park playing in the sprinkler.
        I’m sure there have been many changes to the park since I was a kid.
     And across the street was the Florence Park Library where I attended summer reading programs and checked out books. I also enjoyed riding my bicycle in neighborhood, stopping to hang our with friends and sometimes staying the night.
       Florence Place was the street I lived on and in the 1970s it was also my paper route along with Florence Avenue, College and Evanston streets.
       And a few miles from my boyhood home was McClure City Park. The park featured various rides, swings, picnic tables, tennis and basketball courts and restrooms. It also featured a large public swimming pool that was always filled to the brim with youngsters on hot summer days.
         It was the first place that I jumped off a 10-foot tall diving board. I had a blast in the pool.
        I knew most all my neighbors and to this day can remember their names. I’m sure most, if not all, have passed on since I left Tulsa many moons ago.
        Mr. Wolfe, who lived a few houses south of me, tied my tie for me when I had my senior photos taken in August 1977. Back in the day, the photographer took two indoor poses and that was it. 
           My next door neighbors to the south were Frank and Lucile Watson. Growing up, it wasn’t Frank and Lucile, it was Mr. and Mrs. Watson.
           They were the ones who gave me my first camera, an Argus Twin Lens Reflex camera, that used 620 Kodak film. It was their son Johnny’s old camera. I still have it to this day.
            And many times my dad and I would stop and visit with Mr. Watson in his garage. He had an office upstairs that we would often check out.
            Mr. Watson loved Ford automobiles and the old LTD model was one of his favorites.
          The vehicle was wider than his driveway, so when he backed toward the street, he would drive the vehicle wheels into the grassy area between our driveway and his.
            If it was muddy from a rain storm, he’d make big ruts.
        My dad was always working on that strip of dirt and digging up grass from behind our garage and trying to patch the mud holes.
            It was all to no avail as when Mr. Watson had somewhere to go.
           I was probably about age 7. I had a small red bicycle with solid rubber tires. They were like riding on rocks.
         I was riding up and down the street when my dad cautioned me not to drive through his mud hole, as I called it.
          Well in true J.O. fashion, I drove through his mud hole and was he ever mad. He yanked me off my bicycle and proceeded to tan my hide as we marched to the back garage.
            I put up more of a fuss and scene than the actual spanking.
            My mom carried the belt in our home growing up and when I got in trouble at school, she met me at the front door and would tan my backside.
            I’d usually jump around and yell until it was over with.
         When I got older and in trouble, they’d take my 10-speed bicycle away from me for a month. I did get to ride my Schwinn bicycle on my morning paper route, but not to school. I had to walk.
           I built a club house in our garage and it fully furnished with a cot and sleeping bag, bean bag chair, games, lights, a big fan, a coffee table, posters, including a Raquel Welsh one.
           My neighbor to the north was Mr. and Mrs. Belknap. Mr. Belknap, who was born in the late 1890s, was raised in northwest Iowa in the small community of Harris in Osceola County. He attended college at TCU in Fort Worth where he met his wife, Marge or Mrs. Bell as I called her. 
         I enjoyed stopping to see Mr. Bell and playing dominos or just visiting. He had season tickets to the minor league Tulsa Oilers and later the Tulsa Drillers. He’d often take me to a game and I still have a mini baseball bat he bought me as a youngster.
           Mr. Bell would fix me popcorn on occasion and we’d sit at the kitchen table and eat a bowl full together. While the popcorn popped, Mr. Bell would sometimes cusp his hand and slap me on the knee. I’d usually jump a foot off the stool I was sitting on.
          Mr. Bell sold advertising trinkets such as ink pens, keychains, rulers, calendars and such. He’d let me go the garage and take all of the goodie samples I wanted.
           When I was little, I would stop and feed the birds at Mr. Bell’s place. He used a trash can lid to place the seed and had a bird bath.
           I went to his house on my birthday at age 7 and inside was that brand new red bicycle that I mentioned earlier.
        In later years, I mowed Mr. Bell’s front yard as our yard and his were connected. I sometimes would mow his back yard. I mowed other yards on my street, a business I took over from my dad and grandfather before him.
Often times I would cut through Mr. Bell’s yard to walk down to Dixon’s Grocery Store.
            It was an old neighborhood grocery store where I would get a Pepsi in the bottle, a candy bar or a big bag of Taco flavored Doritos for $.49. I sometimes would pick up pop bottles and sweep the store to earn a dollar or two.
            They also had a two-pump gas station out front.
            One year I was cruising the neighborhood in my 1959 Chevrolet Impala when I ran out of gas a block from the store. I shifted into neutral and coasted a block and pulled right up to the pump. In those days you could fill your tank for just a few dollars. 
           All my neighbors where some of the best friends and role models and I’m thankful to have grown up in the Florence Park neighborhood.
           Always remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.

         It was three years ago when Debbie and I were featured in a display entitled “Love Stories at the Fair – Campground Love.”
         That year marked 20 years since we met at the Iowa State Fair in 2003. The display featured our photo, a copy of our Iowa State Fair book and a story about our lives together.
         We were one of about a half dozen Iowa State Fair attendees who met at the state fair and were featured in the display located in the Ralph H. Deets Historical Museum behind the Pioneer Hall. 
          And this year, we celebrate another milestone.
        It was 20 years ago in 2006 when we published our first book, “Iowa’s Tradition: An ABC Photo Album of the Iowa State Fair.”
          We took all the photos in 2005 and spent most of the next year laying out the book.
          Having grown up at the Iowa State Fair, Debbie came up with the book idea.
We met with Gary Slater, the now retired CEO of the Iowa State Fair, that spring and were given the official OK on the book project.
        We spent most of the fair working on the project. I took the photos using my film camera and Debbie took notes and got signed releases.
        After developing the film, Debbie edited the photos and we started laying out the book at the old Montezuma Republican office at night when I was off the clock.
          We self-published the book and had it printed at Sutherland Printing in Montezuma.
Somehow word about the book hit the airwaves and we received a call from Partners, a now closed book distributor in East Lansing, Mich.
         And through them, we got our new book in Barnes and Noble and also Borders, which is now closed, and other bookstores.
        We had author events at two Barnes and Noble stores and the Borders store in West Des Moines a few years ago. And we have also showcased our book at numerous craft and vendor shows. It was even available at the Machine Shed Restaurant in West Des Moines.
          One year later at the 2007 fair, we had a table set up in the food building where we sold our book and also sponsored a food contest entitled, “Fair Favorite Foods.”
           The contest centers around folks who have a special recipe they make and serve during the fair in their camper or at home. The contest is still going. It costs us a few dollars for prizes, but we feel it’s good publicity. We look at it as a way to advertise all of our books.
            We also sponsor a contest for kids to make a dessert based on their favorite book. The top prize receives a $25 Amazon card. And in the past, we had a contest centering around a food that would have been served during harvest time when steam engines were in use. We don’t sponsor that contest any longer.
         We have now published eight books. Debbie has five novels, including a novella entitled “Mr. Christmas,” and I have my book of newspaper columns along with our two Iowa photo books, one about the state fair and one about the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion, which was released in 2008.
           Debbie is currently working on her sixth novel, which is number five in the Hope Series.
There are a lot of opportunities to showcase your work at the state fair. I always enter antiques. I’ve done it for at least 15 years.
         The best I have done is winning a purple Best of Show ribbon for my Will Rogers mantel clock in 2019. And I’ve had years that I didn’t win anything.
           I’ve entered a little bit of everything from postcards to a cowbell, old barbwire, singletrees, glassware, photos, books and Iowa State Fair memorabilia.
          This year, I am entering an old Am/Fm tube radio that I inherited from my dad along with some postcards, a glass cornbread pan and an antique stereoscope viewer.
            I always thought it would be neat to create and display a doll house at the fair. 
And some years ago, I won third place in the black and white adult division in the fair photo gallery show in the Cultural Center.
          I’ve thought about entering photos again, but the deadline is in June and I don’t get around to getting my photos together that early.
          My favorite food at the fair is Beatties Watermelon Stand next to where the old giant slide was once housed. They make some of the best ham and roast beef sandwiches and pork tenderloins for fans of that tasty Iowa delight.
         The best part of the fair is meeting folks and sitting for spell and visiting, especially in the campground. Enjoy the fair and enjoy life.
           Always remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.

        I stood by my mom’s bed and reached my hand over and placed it on a baseball-size lump on her head.
       It was late September 2009 and I knew time was short for my mom. Cancer had taken over her body and the diagnosis wasn’t looking good.
       It had been 12 years earlier in August 1997 when doctors first found cancer in one of her breasts. Mom opted to have it removed.
        At the time, my mom chose not to have chemo administered after the surgery. She recalled an uncle and aunt in Tulsa who both died in their 60s a few years apart, and both had cancer.
        They sought the best treatment possible and the cancer won.
        My mom always said, “What the cancer didn’t do, the chemo will finish it off.”
       In the years that followed, Mom would give me a call and update me on her cancer diagnosis following each checkup.
      It wasn’t until 2008 that the cancer started moving again. She’d developed gallstones and was in the hospital in Tulsa at the start of the year.
       I wasn’t until February of that year that doctors tried blasting the gallstones and that didn’t work. I believe doctors tried a second time and it worked.
       It was shortly after the gallstone episode that the cancer started spreading again. It quickly moved into her liver and then her bones. She underwent cyber knife surgery in November 2008 in Tulsa. The surgery is a non-invasive radiation treatment called stereotactic radiosurgery that uses a robotic arm to target cancerous tumors.
        The cancer quickly moved into her brain, thus the lump on her head.
       My folks didn’t let the cancer stop them. Mom, dad and my sister-in-law made the trek from Tulsa to Iowa and spent Thanksgiving that year with Debbie and me. My brother wasn’t able to come as he was hauling fright in an 18-wheeler.
       Family on Debbie’s side came and we had a great celebration. My folks went shopping and bought some new pants, a shirt and some shoes for my dad at the outlet mall in Williamsburg.
       In June 2009, we took Mom to Cancer Treatment Centers in Tulsa. They ran a few tests and said they might be able to help. She agreed to a couple rounds of low dose chemo. It’s didn’t help.
       My mom died on Sept. 27, 2009, one day after my 50th birthday. I’m thankful that she hung on that one extra day for me.
        I was not in Tulsa when she died, but had been there about a week earlier.
      I knew when I left that I wouldn’t see her alive again. That was the toughest part, but I needed to go home. I had been in Tulsa for a week. She was receiving the best care possible from my family and hospice.
      I had earlier written my mom a letter and thanked her for raising me right, taking me to church and teaching me the Good book.
       She was a hard worker and loved her family. She could be stubborn, but she always stood her ground and fought the good fight for what she believed in.
        It’s never easy to lose a parent, especially at 72-years of age.
      My dad died nine months later on July 10, 2010, mostly of a broken heart. He had had some issues with cancer, Dementia and Alzheimer’s as well.
       I made a trek to Oklahoma in the spring of 2010 to see my dad and start the process of cleaning out 52 plus years of life packed in every nook and cranny there was.
       My brother woke my dad up and he saw me and said, “It’s good to see you, son. I got a lot of stuff I want to do around here, but I need to take a nap.”
       He was moved to a hospice house in Tulsa on June 9 that year.
      I was in the room the next evening when he passed and I watched as Jesus himself came down and took him to heaven. That was a peaceful and an awe-inspiring experience.
      I wanted to share this story as I know there are people out there who are fighting battles with no end in sight. I’ve heard the stories and I’ve heard the good reports and the victories.
      Our youngest nephew had cancer two years ago and he is cancer free to this day. I was diagnosed with cancer in March 2025 and I’m cancer free to this day, too.
      Those who see this story, don’t be disheartened. Don’t give up. Keep fighting, keep praying, keep getting up every day and doing good for others.
      If something in your body doesn’t seem right, see your doctor or visit a specialist. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
       In my case, I was suffering from some severe stomach pains and at the urging of Debbie, decided to see a specialist. I’m so glad I did.
      My cancer was found early and it hadn’t broken through the wall of my colon. I had a great surgeon who took good care of me.
       I read a story some years ago about a woman in Houston, Texas who got cancer. Every day she got up, got dressed and went out and prayed for others who were sick. She was healed by faith and lived at least another 30 plus years.
       There is hope!
      Always remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.