If I could go back and change something.....

I wish I studied harder in school! My folks were not pushy in the "gotta get ultra educated" department when my brother and I were groing up.  Both of them came from blue-collar working-man families and they really didn't understand what it was like to be college educated and how that...
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1320 Views
7 Comments

Grandpa, Tell Me About The Good Old Days

The song sung by the Judds, "Grandpa, Tell Me About The Good Old Days" makes me yearn for my Grandpa Higgerson. Although he departed this life in 1973, in so many ways, he lives on. In 1952, Grandpa was involved in a serious automobile accident and suffered several broken ribs. While...
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  3 Comments
2851 Views
3 Comments

I put my face through the rear window!

Well, I was about 6 years old and I had been riding my first bike for about a year.  We were living in a small town in N.H. called Conway.  We had a driveway that was about 100 ft. long to the main road and was two cars wide.  My younger...
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1235 Views
5 Comments

My front tooth

When I was a boy about 12 years old I was in the band and I played the Trumpet.  I was outside one day practicing in the backyard when my brother came up from behind me and quickly jumped in front of me and intentionally whacked the front of the horn. ...
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  5 Comments
1214 Views
5 Comments

A Mother Can Take Only So Much

The strain of being a single parent living in poverty at one point proved to be too much for Mother.  One day when I was tagging along behind Willard and Gene as they roamed around playing in a field across the highway someone came to tell them to come home quickly. ...
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1206 Views
1 Comment

The Storm Cellar and a Budding Showman

To her dying day, Mother had a terrible fear of “storms.”  Soon after moving onto an oil company lease near Drumright OK, she gave my brothers Rudy, Willard and Gene the job of digging a storm cellar.   It would be a refuge for her and her brood when the always-expected tornado...
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1345 Views
2 Comments

My X-Rated Friend Jimmy

When we lived on the Thomas Long Lease I had a friend, Jimmy Cargill, whose family, unbelievably, was even poorer than mine.  Jimmy and I took turns riding my tireless, pedal-less bike until we both learned to stay on it as long as we wanted to.  But Jimmy’s biggest contribution to...
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1342 Views
2 Comments

It wasn't a Schwinn. . .

Our house on the Thomas Long lease sat back about a hundred yards from Oklahoma Highway 33 which was surfaced with walnut-sized rocks.  A few times a year a road grader would come along to smooth out the ruts and level the high and low spots.  The roads that branched off...
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1154 Views
2 Comments

Teachers that Influenced Me Negatively

In school you can be influence both negatively and positively by teachers.  ..... In the new school, one day for a spelling test we had the word, "Of".  Now you would think that word would be pronounced the same most places here in the united states.  The teacher pronounced it nearly identical to the word "Off".  I could not distinguish the difference between how she was pronouncing the two words. Both 'Off' and 'Of' sounded the same because she didn't sound like a "Texan".

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2193 Views
3 Comments

A Lesson in Theology

The school term had started before we moved to Caney.   I went into Miss Toner’s third grade classroom and endured the misery of being “the new kid” for whatever time it took my classmates to divide into their “He’s okay, he’s a loser”, groups.  Then life went on.  I made friends...
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1265 Views
2 Comments

Thoughts on My Pre Adolescent and Teen Years

When I think back to those years during the 60's I had a very good life. Of course at the time I was probably self-centered and didn't realize how wonderful it was. Like most young people I was in a hurry to grow up. And I remember my father always telling...
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1420 Views
1 Comment

Making Do: And a Scientific Experiment

I passed easily into second grade, but shortly after school began, we moved again.  This time onto a large tract of land about three miles east of Drumright that had oil wells scattered here and there on it. It was called the “Thomas Long Oil Lease.”    I don’t know why we...
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  2 Comments
1181 Views
2 Comments

The Iceman Cometh

We were now living in the fourth house we had occupied in the same number of years of my life.  This house sat on a dusty unpaved road on the eastern edge of Drumright, Oklahoma.  Calling it a “house” is a compliment. It was little more than a shack.  My Grandma...
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  1250 Views
  4 Comments
1250 Views
4 Comments

I was a Tom Boy When I was a Little Girl

I was a Tom Boy.  I liked to catch mice in the woodpile and show them to the neighbor, climb trees and fight with the boys in my neighborhood.

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2269 Views
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Childhood Jobs and Chores

“A kid will run any errand for you if you ask it at bedtime.” Red Skelton, US comedian.

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1317 Views
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Childhood Chores Taught Me Plenty

Trying to get 10 kids to do chores was like herding cats...

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1595 Views
1 Comment

Traveling

Traveling
Traveling                   The nice pleasant days of Spring had come.   The weather was grand for play outside.   My sisters and I were taking advantage of our opportunities.   One day we were out with our umbrellas, very large “witchy” black umbrellas, playing rainy day.                 We had toured...
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1357 Views
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The Claws that I Shall Never Forget

The Claws that I Shall Never Forget
The Claws that I Shall Never Forget   Many years ago I lived in a little log cabin under a large maple tree.   It was on a little mountain road where all the travelers had to pass, and they would stop to rest under the maple tree.   I had...
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1461 Views
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My First Fish

My First Fish
My First Fish                   Spring was bursting out all over the place.   The Redbuds, dogwood and Apple trees bore witness to this fact.   I began to get in the swing of things, too.                 The urge to go fishing was uppermost in my mind.   I knew I...
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1349 Views
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Camping at Hickory Nut Gap Cabin

Camping at Hickory Nut Gap Cabin
Camping at Hickory Nut Gap Cabin   One day in early spring, I heard a conversation that was not for my ears.   It went something like this, “It’s time to plant the potatoes at Hickory Nut Gap Cabin.”   This cabin was located in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park,...
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1673 Views
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