This Land

“I was blown away,” Phillip recalls the first day he met Fiawna at the now-closed record store, Mooch and Burn. “I had no idea where she came from.”

Packed in the back of the 15th and Harvard venue, which was the size of most people’s bathrooms, Phillip had no…

“I have zero ‘gay-dar’,“ Kimmie Michie laughs. ”I can’t tell when people are interested. I’m usually the last one to get it.”

Fortunately for Kimmie, Christy Sanders didn’t suffer from the same misfortune.

“It was instant love for me,“ Christy said. ”She was sitting on the floor of the den,…

Beau Rotramel drives musicians across the country; his job keeps him on the road for months at a time. The man needs companionship. And sandwiches and haircuts.

“I am the sandwich maker,” explains beautician Chrissie Meanwell, describing one of her duties when she visits Beau. She also cuts hair, makes…

I have been reading a good deal in the news recently about your problems with our Mayor. The litany of charges you have brought against him read like the rap sheet of a career felon: the failure to make and keep timely appointments, his acceptance of free gifts and the…

I was twelve years old when it happened, in the 7th grade, attending Victory Christian School on 71st Street in South Tulsa. My grandfather, Oral Roberts, climbed up into a tower and began telling the world on national television that God had commanded him to bring in eight million dollars…

I’ve been teaching high school social studies for 18 years, so it’s hard for me to be shocked by the behavior of students. But every once in a while, someone manages to surprise me. One day last year I looked up at the auditorium stage to hear one of my…

Wednesday, June 9, 1982

In the news in Tulsa, Oklahoma:

“Rotarians change laws to allow black members.”
“She doesn’t like going steady rules.”
“Gelatin salads add pizzazz to meal.”

This month, E.T., Poltergeist, and Blade Runner are in the theater; on Dynasty, Steven is in the hospital with…

At some point during Coach McBride’s four week long excursion into Oklahoma History, I figured out I could sleep on the floor. Napping at the desk was a tricky, painful proposition in a Catholic high school. I drooled on myself and woke up with neck pain. There were also the…

The last time I played for a sports team that wasn’t digital was in the summer of 1989, if memory serves, in the Weatherford, Oklahoma Little Leagues.

I was the smallest boy in my school. That, coupled with a lifetime struggle with allergies, has rendered me a lifelong non-athlete. I…