The Year of Service That Never Ends

This year's Fireball Classic medallion is impressive. The event is slated for July 4 in Wintersmith Park in Ada.

Today Ada Sunrise Rotary presented the 2023-24 President appreciation plaque to me, which was an honor to receive. And while I did serve as Sunrise Rotary’s President for a year, it was fun and productive, and, for anyone familiar with civic clubs, another chapter of, as the Rotary International motto says, “Service Above Self.” I…

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Memories of Dusty Failure

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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The Perfect Drug

My father, who was a genuinely funny man, referred to this his entire life as a "hypodeemic nerdle."

I just finished watching both parts of the newest motion picture iteration of Dune, and I had fun. I got to thinking about the spice melange, what it was and how it worked. Sidebar: if you read the Frank Herberts Dune books in high school, please go somewhere else. I’m not up for a “but…

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A Single Wish

There is a song by This Mortal Coil called A Single Wish. The lyrics to it are difficult to hear, and neither the liner notes nor the internet seem willing to define them. So I decided to write them down as I hear them.   I wonder, alone here The sound The living now The…

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The No-Fly Zone

I made this image from an airplane descending for landing in New Orleans. There are people who spend their entire lives in the swamp, making a living from all it offers.

Sometimes flying on a Saturday is the most fun you can have, and sometimes factors as fickle as the wind and the weather bring that all to a halt. Today was one of those Saturdays. I was invited by General Aviation Modifications Inc. President and fellow pilot Tim Roehl to be the photographer for a…

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A Day of Chaos and Mystery

Readers probably know now that tornadoes struck across Oklahoma Saturday night into Sunday morning. I listened to non-stop amateur radio and public safety communications, and when tornado warnings were issued for my location, I brought Hawken, my Irish wolfhound, inside, and sheltered in the center of the house with him and my Chihuahua, Summer. Those…

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Eclipse Postscript

This map shows the path of the April 8, 2024 total eclipse.

As we all wind down from the excitement of Monday’s total solar eclipse, I thought I would weigh in on what worked, what didn’t, and what was fun and what wasn’t. For more than a year, Tulsa photographer Robert Stinson and I planned to travel to the Moon. The drive from Ada to Moon, Oklahoma,…

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The Season of Hollow Soul

Pam poses for my medium format camera at her desk in the newsroom in the spring of 1992.

I just returned from a trip to Arkansas, the central purpose of which was to attend a memorial dinner for Pam Hudspeth, a fellow journalist and one-time girlfriend who died in November at age 58. I will have much more to say about her, especially the things she wrote, later. I made a few notes…

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Some Sci-Fi Gripes

Engines: most science fiction depicts spacecraft with their engines running the entire time they are shown on-screen; Prometheus, The Martian, Star Wars, Star Trek, and on and on. This is probably because the graphic designers were in love with the deep blue glow they created in the engine exhaust. Why this is a problem: aside…

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Gallery: Open Mic Nights 2024

Am I drinking from the fountain of wisdom, or pissing in it?

Unsafe by Richard R. Barron What do you keep from me to spare me? The countless ways to say goodbye? The action that is filled with light and darkness? My selfish little tragedies? The moment of darkness between us? Remorse? Chaos? Vulgarity? Clarity? Rage? A beautiful moment of tenderness that I ruined by merely witnessing…

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Mission Accomplished!

Branches from dead trees around my pond hang off my brush pile fire last night, with our house in the distance.

There is a joke I used to tell. Robert Oppenheimer and Erico Fermi are in the bunker at the Trinity test in New Mexico in July 1945. After the bomb goes off, they turn to each other, high-five, and Oppenheimer says, “fission accomplished!” I stopped telling that joke because so few people got it or…

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Slow Motion Clean-Up

Readers might recall that the town where I live, Byng, Oklahoma, was hit by a severe thunderstorm in the predawn hours of July 11. We were fortunate that very few structures were damaged, but a huge number of trees, including some of the trees on the patch where I live, were damaged. The neighborhood is…

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The Spider Paradox

I am living in an uncomfortable paradox, and I am sure I am not alone. The issue: spiders, and more specifically, the paradox that spiders in my yard and garden are more than welcome, yet spiders in the house instantaneously and intensely trigger my fear response. I shared this with a neighbor, who said his…

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