For some years this document was on the refrigerator door at Mom and Dad’s house in Florida. My sister was discussing Superfoods with Mom, and wrote out this list for her, placing it on the door of the fridge. Not knowing what it was, Dad came along and, thinking it was a grocery list, added…

This image is from the fall of 1982, in my dorm room at Oklahoma University. A few interesting tidbits about this image: Pictured are Michael, Allen, Chip, Chris and me. The color image is a slide made on Kodak Ektachrome Professional Infrared Film. The lens was my first 20mm, and the camera was a neat…

So we are presently digging though lots of stuff that was in Mom’s house, including a large box of photographs. I recognize many of them as my own, but others are pictures of my parents shot by their friends. Even others are of people or places that mean nothing to me. As I searched through…

As many of you know, it has been 40 years since the CIA faked the moon landings. I was just a kid then, and believed that it really happened, until a buddy of mine who shall remain nameless (though we could call him “Negative Guy”, or the guy who was in charge of fixing Y2K)…

In most of his early pictures, our father, Joe Barron, looks a lot like Elvis Presley. But while going through some family photos this afternoon, I found this, and I am struck by how much he resembles Jack Kerouac. It may be his posture, it may be his expression. It might just be his overall…

On the evening of July 4th, my sister Nicole began hearing fireworks outside of our mother’s house in Palm Coast, Florida, and suggested we go out into the driveway to see if we could see any. As we stood there, we observed lightning arcing through the tops of a thunderstorm on the horizon. I remarked…

Abby and I are home after driving 21 hours from Florida in Mom’s car. When we were packed and preparing to leave, the car was so full that Abby said, “you couldn’t get a dime in that back seat.” We made the trip in three days, and with Abby along it was actually pretty fun….

Welcome to the Winn-Dixie International Professional Baloney Eating Championship time trials, day 4. “I don’t understand! How can you not know exactly where the poop is going?” -D Rang tang tuna lung, buy a bottle of hooch. Real sign: “We have a urine-mobile!” “…realizant.” -S Real sign: “Smoked jerky ahead!” “…efulgent.” -S When bees copulate,…

Every year at Christmas for the last 20 years, Mom and Dad, and later Mom, had a big sandwich, called a Ring Leader, made for us by Publix deli, which would be our staple diet when there was no meal, like Christmas dinner, planned. We always got a big kick out of having the big…

Now that Mom and Dad are both gone, it seems very likely that Nicole and I will not be returning to Florida. We have nothing against it, really; it’s just that this state, and particularly this part of the state, doesn’t mesh with our styles. Originally developed by ITT Community Development Corporation, Palm Coast was…

Please join me in celebrating the life of our mother, Sarah Jo Barron, who died early this afternoon at a hospice facility in Palm Coast, Florida. She was 74. The Episcopal religious experience was very significant to Sarah Jo, as it was to Joe, her husband who died in 2005, so Nicole suggested the title…