I meet some of the most interesting people in life.
        Take for instance a couple ladies I met last week at the Grinnell Post Office.
         I had stopped there to mail a couple packages of my books.
         The first lady said she thought she knew me.
         “I am J.O. Parker,” I told her, thinking she might connect me with the newspaper.
         “Do you know who you look like?” she said.
         “No,” I replied.
         “Boss Hogg,” she told me. “You look like Boss Hogg of the Dukes of Hazzard.”
          I wasn’t sure if that was a complement or if I was supposed to run and hide.
         “He’s your twin,” she said. “Everyone has a twin.”
          I told her I had met Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) at a car show back in the day in my hometown of Tulsa.
         She went to list the other characters in the popular 1970s and 80s show, saying that Roscoe is dead and so is Uncle Jesse.
          She liked Uncle Jesse, she said.
         She then explained to me what she was mailing. It was some sort of artwork that she did. I didn’t quite understand it as I finished taping up my packages and she stepped to the counter to mail her items.
          I was next in line and as I waited, another lady came into the post office.
        “You need to be careful,” she told me, referring to the ice melt covered steps outside the post office. “You don’t want to fall.”
          It had been slick earlier in the week and the post office tossed out a bucket of ice melt.
         “It’s tough when you get old,” she went on to say.
         “I’m 65,” I told her, adding that I had just signed up for Medicare.
          She couldn’t believe it that I was 65. I can’t either.
          “You got good genes,” she let me know as I thanked her.
           That’s a nice thing to say and a compliment to my parents.
          The Dukes of Hazzard was a great show and I rarely missed an episode. I remember riding with my dad on many Friday nights to the Chuckwagon drive in on north Sheridan in Tulsa and picking up four wheel burgers and French fries for supper with the family. The eatery was shaped like a covered wagon and their specialty was the wheel burger. We’d go to the take out window and carry the food home where my folks, my brother and I would enjoy supper while watching the Duke of Hazard and Dallas.
        Those were some of the greatest memories of my growing up days as was Christmastime and the many August vacations we took in dad’s 1967 Chevrolet C-10 pickup to places like Nashville, Disneyland and Niagara Falls.
       I was already out of high school when the Dukes of Hazzard started airing. I didn’t go out too much during that time in my life and often hung around at home.
        I also enjoyed watching “The Incredible Hulk” on television. My brother and I got to meet Lou Ferrrigno (who played the Hulk in the show along with Bill Bixby) at a Tulsa mall J.C. Penneys many years ago.
        Anyway, when I got home that evening, I found a photo of Boss Hogg on the internet and a recent photo of me. I posted them on my Facebook page asking folks to share their thoughts if I was the Boss’ twin.
       One person said I was his twin. Another suggested I buy a white cowboy hat and see. One couple said I was way better looking. And another asked if I was letting everyone know what costume I needed for Halloween 2025.
       I have some similarities to the Boss, but I wouldn’t go as far as being his twin. I think I will pass on the Halloween costume, but do like the white hat idea.
      Like me, everyone loved the Boss and his relentless crooked pursuit of the Duke Boys and his on-going badgering with Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane and his dog, Flash.
      I loved his white Cadillac and large white hat with his big cigar and his huge appetite. It was a classic television show from the good old days.
        It was fun to visit with the lady and if anything, I appreciated the memories and a laugh.
       I hope everyone has the best Christmas with family and friends. Take a few days off work and the hustle and bustle of life and enjoy the holidays. Time spent with family is never wasted and the never-ending pile of work and meetings will be there when you get back.
        And always remember, it’s better to give than to receive!
        Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day

          One of my favorite adventures as a community journalist is taking Santa photos.
          This year I’ve captured Santa in Grinnell, Brooklyn, Montezuma and Deep River, where he arrived on the back of a fire truck with sirens blaring.
         I’ve taken at least 75 photos of kids and Santa this year. I love capturing all the smiles of area youngsters sitting on Santa’s lap or kneeling by his side and sharing their Christmas wish lists, while telling Jolly Old St. Nick that they’ve been a good boy or girl.
          However does he keep that list of who has been naughty and nice?
         What’s more special is all of these communities host holiday/Christmastime celebrations in connection with Santa’s visit.
      Grinnell hosts Jingle Bell Holiday while Brooklyn celebrated the season with Christmas Traditions. Montezuma was home to Hometown Holiday and Deep River hosted Santa at the American Legion. Every youngster in Deep River received a gift certificate, a bag of goodies and a free toy. And then after meeting will all the little ones, Santa took off in a Legion member’s pickup and made the rounds across town dropping off goodies for all.
           I always enjoy taking photos and talking to folks during these wonderful holiday celebrations.
        And I attended the Brooklyn Community Theatre production of “Many Things” at the Brooklyn Opera House. The Christmas play was written by Josh Gerard, the Brooklyn librarian, pastor of New Beginnings Church and playwriter and actor.
            It was a great production and I left thinking of all the blessings that life has afforded me.
           I don’t know how Santa does it, sharing cheer and leaving toys, electronics and many other gadgets with boys, girls and those of all ages across the globe, and all in one night. 
           I remember all the excitement of Santa arriving at the Parker house on Christmas eve. My brother, Tom, and I never went without a bunch of gifts on Christmas morning.
            I was so excited about Santa and Christmas morning one year that I went to bed at 6 p.m. so Santa would arrive quicker. As I tried to sleep, a knock came on one of my bedroom windows.
            I pulled back the shade and there was Santa in all his glory calling my name with a ho, ho, ho!
            We had a gas lamp in our front yard by the porch and at Christmastime, my family had a plastic two-piece Santa mask that went around the lamp.
            How that plastic mask didn’t catch on fire is amazing.
          My dad had taken one of the plastic Santa faces and held it up to my bedroom window having some fun. I was so excited to see Santa.
            I finally got to sleep, only to wake up around 2 a.m. I couldn’t sleep anymore, so I got everyone up and we opened gifts and then all went back to bed.
           We always set out a cookie and a glass of milk for Santa’s visit and on Christmas morning, the cookie and milk were always gone.
            We had a fake chimney, so it had to be our parents who let him in the house. I guess I will never know.
          Santa’s gift was always unwrapped and the rest of the family gifts where wrapped and neatly placed under our Christmas tree.
            After marrying Debbie, our first two Christmases, Santa wrapped my gift and left Debbie’s unwrapped.
            That second year, Debbie asked me why Santa didn’t wrap her gift.
            “He never did that when I was growing up,” I told her.
            “He did that when I was growing up,” Debbie told me.
            I sent Santa a note via email, and asked that he wrap Debbie’s gift. And it’s been that way in the year’s since.
         Debbie and I have enjoyed wonderful Christmases together and with family. Our home and garage quickly fill up with shipping boxes and wrapping paper fills the living room. We all check several times to make sure everyone gets a gift or two.
           That’s really what Christmas is about – Jesus, family, friends, giving to others and a time of reflection for life’s many blessings. Toss in some good food and all is well with the world.
            It is the most wonderful time of the year!
            Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.

        I woke to an unpleasant surprise on Monday morning – a light blanket of snow.
        I’ve lived in the state for almost 27-years, and I still don’t like snow and cold.
       Having grown up in Oklahoma, we didn’t get the snow like in Iowa. However, I do recall a few big storms through the years.
      One that comes to mind was in March of 1984, or maybe 1989. There’s been a lot of water and snow under the bridge since those days.
     Anyway, it snowed 14-inches and shut down my hometown of Tulsa for three days. By early March, Oklahomans are usually enjoying 70 plus degree weather, not a big a snowstorm. There was no mail, package deliveries, school and many business were closed due to the storm.
      Tulsa didn’t have snowplows back in the day outside of some plows that the state used to clean off the interstates and main throughfares. The rest was left to melt and refreeze until it was gone.
        It was bad enough that I got stuck in my driveway and had to call a friend to drive his four-wheel drive up and down the driveway to help get me unstuck.
       Some of my fondest memories of snow in Tulsa was when I was a kid. I remember on occasion my dad loading my sled, a gift from Santa, in the back of his pickup and carrying me a few blocks to a big hill in my neighborhood. It was there that I would join some of my school chums and go sledding for a time, until I got too tired.
        And I remember lots of ice storms in Tulsa in the 1970s. I took my share of slips and falls while delivering my newspaper routes and even once, wrecked my car during high school when I backed in to a sign pole on an icy morning.
       My mom was quite upset with me and took my car, a 1959 Chevrolet Impala, to a body shop and had them fix the crash and repaint my car. She also took my driving privileges away, which hurt a lot more than the crash.
        In January 1977, during my junior year in high school, we had a Tulsa blizzard for the books. When we crawled out of the bed at 4 a.m. to deliver our newspapers, it was snowing heavily and piling up quickly. It was also bitter cold and the wind was whipping the snow around like a tornado. My family threw 400 Tulsa World newspapers on Sunday and trudging through that storm was one that I will never forget.
        My dad drove his pickup loaded with newspapers while my mom and I took turns walking a block at a time placing the Sunday news on our customer’s porches. The warmth of my dad’s truck kept us going. We finished delivering the last newspaper around 10 a.m. We typically were done by 7 a.m., but not on that day.
          There have been a few winter-weather challenges along the way since moving to Iowa.
         In the late 1990s, I remember driving my S-10 pickup to see a friend and his family in Princeton, Ill. I never checked the weather when I traveled, so most of the time I had no idea what was happening. If it wasn’t for cell phones and Debbie, I probably still wouldn’t be checking the weather.
         I had stopped in Davenport to top off my gas tank, buy a Pepsi and a Sunday newspaper. The cashier told me to be careful. I thanked him and went on my way.
         I didn’t give it much thought until I was about 10-miles west of the Quad Cities where I drove headlong into a winter snow storm. There were vehicles and semis littering the ditches. With no weight in the back of my pickup, it was a miracle that I made it home without sliding in the ditch. I about yanked the steering wheel out of my truck from gripping it so tight as I inched along the Interstate.
         And another time, after moving to the country northwest of Montezuma, I went to pick up a pizza on a snowy Friday night. At the time, our driveway had quite an incline. It has since had some improvements made to it and is much better these days. I tried driving up our driveway, only to slide backwards and right into the road ditch where I hit the E-911 sign in my yard. I ended up breaking my outside driver’s side mirror in the process.
         My brother-in-law stopped a couple days later with his John Deere tractor and pulled me out of the ditch. That was not a pleasant situation.
           There is one thing about living in Iowa. There are a lot of hardy folks in this state. It’s not uncommon for me to see some fellow with no coat in short-legged britches on a cold, snowy winter night walking across the street into a building or house.
           It’s also not uncommon to drive by some homes and the driveway is full of four-wheel drives after a snowstorm. The good old boys stopped for a few beers and a tasty grilled steak on the BBQ grill. And they like to go ice fishing and hunting in the dead of winter. I enjoy sitting in my easy chair in my warm house.
             I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough snow. I’m already looking forward to spring.
            Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.

            It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas at the Parker house.
            We set up our Christmas tree this past weekend and Debbie decorated it.
        We’ve never set our tree up this early. It’s usually after Thanksgiving and sometimes a week or two before Christmas. A few years ago, we set up the tree, but didn’t get it decorated.
           When we first moved into our country home on Thanksgiving weekend in 2006, we set up a small fiber optics tree in lieu of the new artificial tree we had purchased after Christmas the year before.
          With boxes and furniture everywhere, it was next to impossible to set up and decorate our tree in our new home. Debbie bought the fiber optics tree at Target and we set it in the bay window and all was good with the world.
           I’ve mentioned this in past columns, as a child growing up in Oklahoma, my folks didn’t set up anything Christmas until Dec. 15.
           We always bought a fresh-cut tree and one year we purchased our tree in early December. My dad tied it to the clothesline in the backyard so it stood up straight until Dec. 15, when we were allowed to carry it in the house.
           We didn’t get out a box of decorations, lights or set up the manger until mid-December.
           I still have the manger and figurines of baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the three wisemen, the shepherds and some animals that I placed under the Christmas tree as a youngster every year.
          My mom bought the manger and figurines at TG&Y Five and Dime store in Tulsa. The manger still has the price tag on the backside. I think she paid a $1 or two.
          The old cardboard manger is in sad shape. I’ve thought about having a local craftsman make a new one, but I haven’t followed through with the project.
         A couple years ago, our oldest nephew, Gavin, found a wooden manger at a sale and bought it and gave it to us. It’s a nice addition to our Christmas deorations.
      Christmas was always exciting in the Parker house growing up and each year, Santa would give my brother and me an orange, apple and some nuts in our stockings.
       I asked my mom about it and she said it was a reminder of her growing up years in Southern Missouri when an orange, apple and nuts were all she and her siblings got for Christmas some years. Other times they got a set of new clothes, but nothing else.
       My folks didn’t have a lot of money, but they somehow found a way to give my brother and me the best Christmases gifts and memories possible. I can’t imagine getting a pair of pants and a new shirt and no toy or keepsake. I’m so blessed!
       I still have my Allstate (Sears and Roebuck) train set I got for Christmas when I was age 7. It doesn’t work and the box is somewhat fragile, but it’s priceless to me.
       I keep a running list of Christmas and birthday gift ideas on our home computer that I update each year. Outside of some music from the 1970s and several photography books, one of my top gifts this year is life-long fishing licenses for senior citizens. I will never need to buy fishing licenses again.
      Other items include a Tulsa ball cap, tools, postcards, a new frying pan, old board games and some antiques. 
        Anyway, I’m really looking forward to the Christmas season this year and getting our tree set up early is an added plus.
       I kind of feel like a kid again. Maybe it’s because I turned 65 this year. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that life milestone.
        I encourage folks to take time to celebrate and enjoy life. The holidays are a great time to do something good for someone else.
        Some ideas include making a donation to the local food pantry or giving some funds to a local outreach that helps those who are in need. Montezuma, Brooklyn and Grinnell all have wonderful outreaches that help others.
        Another suggestion is to buy a sack of groceries or a gift card for a neighbor or friend in need. Together, we can make a difference in this world and every gift is important.
        As we all know, the real reason for Christmas isn’t the gifts, it’s celebrating Jesus. He is the reason for the season. Spending time with family and friends and enjoying lots of good food isn’t too bad either.
         Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.