In March 1993, I was most of the way through my private pilot training. I was acing the whole program, flying a bunch, and felt I was ready for my check ride any day. I had just been named Oklahoma Press Association’s Photographer of the Year for the second time. It was a very upbeat…
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My readers know that one of my favorite hobbies is hiking in the wilderness, especially the wild places in the American Southwest. This week we saw President Trump reduce the amount of protected lands in the Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase / Escalante National Monument. This reduction was pretty significant; sources cite…
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Life Notes I hate it when I come up with what I imagine is a great idea, only to discover that someone I despise has thought of it also. How many good ideas have I killed for this reason? Life is like a soggy, greased electric eel. I want to hold on, but ELECTRIC EEL!…
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Sometimes it seems like humanity is a race of amnesiacs. We forget very important life lessons very quickly. My favorite example is the COVID-19 pandemic. Who remembers the embarrassing hoarding that took place? Toilet paper, bread, bottled water, hand sanitizer, soap, canned goods, even prescription medications, all became like fetish properties to keep and store….
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“Rejoice O young man, in thy youth.” ~Ecclesiastes “Youth is wasted on the young.” ~George Bernard Shaw “It takes a very long time to become young.” ~Pablo Picasso A close friend of mine recently wrote a very touching piece about breaking up with her significant other. She talked about their romance feeling “lonely” while they…
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I am not generally a collector the way some people are. We’ve all known collectors of all stripes. Some collect old license plates. Some collect Coco-Cola stuff. Some collect jewelry. On the more serious side, there are some very serious car collectors in the world. And there are some very neat airplane collections. You might…
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Poetry on Lost Street is a monthly collaboration of some of the most dangerous, volatile and talented poets and essayists from around the Durant, Oklahoma area. Poetry on Lost Street, possibly the best-named poetry gathering of all time, usually meets on the third Sunday of the month at 2 p.m. at Lost Street Brewery at…
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First Monday Spoken Word Open Mic Night is a monthly gathering of writers, poets, essayists and creatives. We meet at the Ada Public Library at 6 p.m. on the first Monday of each month. JoJoe and the Stick by Richard R. Barron Joe and Sarah Jo life the quiet life of retirees on the east…
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Who Are You by Richard R. Barron Are you a photographer, or a shopper? Are you an artist, or a dilettante? Do you really want to make pictures, or are you following the crowd? Are you into photography for the right reasons? I’m going to go down a rabbit hole here – or possibly open…
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For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in radio. My earliest experiences were nighttime AM radio adventures, listening to far-off stations like WLS in Chicago. WLS was a 50,000-watt “clear channel” station Many nights I listened to WLS or WHO in Des Moines, hearing programs like the CBS Radio Mystery Theater,…
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Open Mic Night is a spoken word event on the first Monday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Ada, Oklahoma Public Library. Who might find this notebook in 100 years and toss it aside as garbage? Who might dig up this book in a cave in 50,000 years and build a faith from…
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Updated April 2026 As some of you might know, I am a licensed amateur radio operator. My FCC-assigned call sign is kc5tfz, which is also the custom license tag on my Nissan Juke. I have several friends who are licensed “ham” radio operators. Almost universally, we use our amateur radio privileges less and less. I…
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Something I have observed since the death of my wife in March 2022: women who lead our interactions with a sentence that refers to me as “friend.” “Leena” did that to me recently, and I’m sure it was because she knew I was single and might be interested in scoping her out, so she closed…
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Open Mic Night is a spoken word event on the first Monday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Ada, Oklahoma Public Library. This Cloak of Darkness by Richard R. Barron “And in this cloak of darkness the world I will embrace…” I listened to the Kansas song The Pinnacle for the first time…
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Trigger warning: if real things that happen in the world and are depicted on a website trigger you, perhaps the internet is the wrong place for you. So, cover your eyes, snowflake. We are calling this thing The Oklahoma Chainsaw Massacre, The Great Botched Tree Caper, or The Stoppable Force Connects with the Movable Object….
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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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In the age of rabid social media ghosting, hating and canceling, I have an opinion about something that will likely be unpopular to many because the webscape has become so eager to feel self-righteous, particularly when they can call you cruel and unfeeling about the dead. My opinion is this: Jenny Blalock, who ran the…
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A Story of Gravity, Miscalculation, and Consequences Last July, a severe thunderstorm roared through Byng. Damage was light to moderate. On my patch, the only damage was confined to the north side of the huge, 150-year-old black walnut tree, a third of which fell away from tree. Since the downed trunk and branches fell into…
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Poetry on Lost Street is an open mic event held on the third Sunday of each month at the Lost Street Brewing Company in Durant, Oklahoma. The featured poet for this session was David Thornburgh. I wrote this about someone who once said I was “the one that got away,” but really I was the…
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Is it possible to stop one of the most pernicious habits of the last 10 years: “doomscrolling?” This activity is the result of many factors, including being surrounded by too many screens, being manipulated by the curators of the content of those screens, and these screens showing us too much bad news. I know we…
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Here are a few snapshots of me from the late 1990s and early 2000s. They were made by a longtime friend of mine Michael.
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I want to weigh in on an awkward truth that has been brewing the last few years: the perception that most people, especially younger people, can’t afford to buy a house. Consider this: my parents’ first house had four rooms, one bathroom, no air conditioning, and no garage. They had one phone, which was a…
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First Monday Open Mic Night has found a new home, the Ada Public Library. The two pieces I read were Ashes to Dust, and Praying to the Thanksgiving Duck, both published on this blog Monday afternoon. The lenses I used for this event were the AF-D 85mm f/1.4 and the Altura Photo 8mm f/3.0 Fisheye.
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My friend Courtney has told me in the last few years that her favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, and recently, it has become mine as well. But it wasn’t always this way. Traditionally, Thanksgiving is a feast holiday, featuring the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I have no problem with a nice meal, but it seldom works out…
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A popular joke on the Interwebs right now goes like this: “One of my favorite hobbies as a child was making sand castles with my grandfather, until my mom took the urn away.” The reason I thought about this recently is that a friend of mine asked me if she could spread the ashes from…
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Our open mic band of poets is searching for a new home. On Monday, October 6, we met as we had the previous month, in Ada’s Wintersmith Park. The Night Always Seems to Win by Richard R. Barron Memories of being a sick child, laying on a couch made up with sheets and blankets, the…
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Poetry on Lost Street is an open mic event at Lost Street Brewing Company in Durant, Oklahoma. The event includes a featured poet. September’s featured poet was Molly Sizer.
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A last-minute issue moved us to Ada’s Wintersmith Park, but it was a beautiful evening, and it felt like we all read well. Chapter 11: Moral Bankruptcy by Richard R. Barron Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. I need to be more chaotic, so I think, “You can dance on my…
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Poetry on Lost Street is an open mic gathering at Lost Street Brewery in Durant, Oklahoma on the third Sunday afternoon of each month. This was the first time I attended, but it has interested me for a while. I am very glad I went. First Monday Spoken Word Open Mic Night organizer Cody Baggerly…
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