Back in the 1940s I went to a place we called Victor. Like so many places in rural Oklahoma, Victor has completely faded away. Oh, there are still a few people strung up and down Highway 270 just East of the Big Caston bridge but the only place left that I know is my Uncle Herman’s place. Herman was a brother to Dad. He operated a grocery-gas-station there. A pretty nice one, too. Did a good business. Victor had a school nearby and there was a church and Maxie Cemetery just south of the junction. My grandparents lived just north on Goat Ridge Road, and the road to Wolf Mountain.
Read moreWalker Ray (Corky) my wife Pat and I made a drive down to Eastern Oklahoma some years ago. Our destination was Maxie Cemetery, about a mile off US-270 a few miles this side of Wister, Oklahoma. We went there to place some new gravestones — the main one marking our grandfather George Washington Boyd’s grave. He was my mom’s dad and he died young in the great pandemic of 1918. May 17 of 1918 to be exact. There was the grave of my great Uncle there too and his was illegible too. So we replaced his too. His name was Mike Boyd. The old sandstones had faded away so bad you could not read the hand chiseled names and dates on them. Corky believed, as did I that families should see to things like this. Neglected graves can become “lost.”
Read moreMay we always remember the long 17 days we just endured. It may not have been as entertaining as the winter of ’48 but so far it sure has my attention. It has been a time of something just getting worse. And yes it could have been worse. For many others it was. For me it started out on the 5. I took Pat to the doctor up in Tulsa that day. It was rainy and cold and when we arrived it was slick, icy and 23 degrees F. But we made it home okay only to watch our weather just grow colder and colder.
Read moreSitting in my cozy den, safe from the howling winds of this cold spell, Pat and I enjoyed watching the Grand Ole Opry’s celebration of its 95 celebration. It was good TV and to two octogenarians it made for many great memories.
Read moreMy old daredevil friend Bobby Newport of Stonewall could figure anything out — if he wanted to. Even in Ms. Elliot’s 5 grade class, while some of us were mastering how to draw (during class) pictures of those little fighter planes the Germans, Japs and Americans flew, Bobby was wondering out loud about which ones had the biggest motors. Bobby knew that the English had installed (in their Spitfire Fighters) a Rolls Royce engine giving it enough speed to shoot down the dreaded German fighter planes. And he was the one who told those of us that the Luftwaffe would soon have jets.
Read moreSo, it was on Tuesday the 2 . Since we do not have any real groundhogs, here in Allen, such as Punxsutawney Phil, I thought I would watch the yard closely on Tuesday. What could I watch for? I have a busy crowd of gophers, moles, and armadillos. I supposed that if I saw one peeking out to see his shadow, I would just shoot it. But none came out. Not sure his shadow would have scared him anyway. For sure, I have not done any good scarring any of them. Not even my resident skunk that boldly strolls around my yard. I do not pay him much attention anymore either. Such is life here on Lee Street in Allen. And it was a sunny morning.
Read moreIt was said, more out of hope than reality back during the election, that Joe Biden was a centrist not a radical. Sounded good. But about what? Being a centrist. He would pay less attention to the extreme right wing. And is Biden “one of them?” Did we at last elect a Truman Democrat? And what did the “warmers” really want? After day one we found out. The Keystone. The pipeline that passed just east of Allen and attracted so much attention from the metro press. How? Because a small band of protesters met the pipeline workers at every convenient highway crossing. They chained themselves to bulldozers, ditch digging machines after calling the TV stations. Hmm.
Read moreSome health advisors are fearing that our current pandemic of COVID-19 could continue on for several more years. That is if we keep on blundering in our fight against this virus like we have been. The hope has been for a combination of factors such as this new vaccine against the virus and hope this would get us to the point of no more COVID-19. Not so. Early results show a big flaw in our plans.
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