Open Mic Night, February 2, 2026

Ada’s First Mondays Open Mic Night celebrated two years of poetry, short stories, journal entries, notes, thoughts, essays, and abundant talent Monday, February 2, 2026 at the Ada Public Library. “Richard will always read something from his journal.” ~Open Mic regular Samuel Baker Cold Night by Richard R. Barron It’s a cold night. Rain. Wind…

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Open Mic Night August 4, 2025

First Monday Open Mic Night at Kind Origin Dispensary remains popular and successful. Summoning the End by Richard R. Barron What exactly am I trying to accomplish, sitting pretentiously on my front deck, sipping my pretentious coffee, writing in my pretentious notebooks with my pretentious pen? Everything around me is more genuine that I am…

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Maps and More Maps

If you know me at all, you know that I love paper maps. For me, they have a soul of their own. I love paper road maps, paper trail maps, and, of course, paper sectional aeronautical charts. When I am feeling the itch to travel, hike, fly, or just explore the world, I dig out…

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Journey of Hope

File cabinets, carpeting, office furniture and building material are all visible in the demolished northern facade of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City April 19, 1995.

This is the story we published about my experience speaking to Byng, Oklahoma School students about the day I covered the bombing in Oklahoma City. Journey of Hope visits Byng School The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum’s “Journey of Hope,” an effort to share the experience of the 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Building Federal…

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The Room

This is the same corner of the same room in 2012.

My readers know me well enough to know that I am a very well-organized person, particularly when it comes to photography. Part of that is my devotion to keeping things neat (not, as some charmingly unwelcome critics have suggested, “OCD”), and part of it is my fairly sharp memory. I thought of this as I…

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The Pen

I have often said and written that putting pen to paper is one of the best ways to learn, one of the best ways to express yourself, and one of the best ways to keep track of our very complicated lives. You can see some clinical analysis at Psychiatrist.com. and Pens.com. I’ve been writing in…

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August 21, 1990, in My Journal

Although this image was made some years later by Abby, the view is similar to the one I had landing a spritely Cessna 150 named Old Gomer on that cold morning in December of 1992.

Please note: this entry contains descriptions of violence and death that some readers might find upsetting. I read this at Open Mic Night Monday, October 7, 2024… There’s something about seeing freshly-dead, burned-up bodies that puts an air of frivolity around the day’s business. The lives of four people, on a business trip, were rather…

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Task and Purpose

I made this view a couple of nights ago while walking back to the house after bringing some garden fruits and vegetables to the next door neighbors, the Nipps.

This fall has been cool and dry, so I’ve been taking every opportunity to work outside. One of my oddest chores has been efforts to remove chicken wire from the back yard fence. Abby had originally installed it to keep in her Chihuahua Gabby, but we reinforced it when we had goats. The problem with…

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Memories of Dusty Failure

The old truck way back at the back of the property has always been a sign of my long winter walks with my wolfhound. But now, is it a portend? Is this us in ten years?

I visited a friend on the local college campus recently. When we stepped out into the cool late-morning air, I was struck by the memories it summoned. Many college memories center around the start of college, the start of semesters, the start of the school year. Those are often associated with the excitement of the…

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