Month: June 2021

That June was the last time he left home. It was the start of the slowest of the slow summer seasons of my life.  Hospice was happening. It was his last time he went down the stairs until he went without his spirit in a black zippered bag.  That June was a decade ago. It had been 11 years since the delivery of the grim cancer diagnosis during which the doctor suggested that our Alaskan family vacation could be our last.  But John defied all odds, doubling down on all things holistic from massage and meditation to wheatgrass juice and coffee enemas. Then as gently as the falling away of the spring blossoms, the day of a new season arrived.  With the passing of this

The smell of cigarette smoke rose off the paper bag wrapped tightly at the top.  Tucked alongside the brown glass quart of Falstaff beer were a half dozen Snicker bars—enough for the six of the eight of us kids still living at home. A true pay day delight. Reading Father’s Day tributes, I’m compelled to give one to mine as best I can. This requires calling forth memories. Dad’s return from the Rinky Dink Bar on Friday nights is one of mine. Also in my memory bank is the time he pulled a splinter out of my foot and the

Nobody mentioned the hundreds of innocent people murdered by angry mobs. No one spoke of the 35 blocks burned to the ground within 24 hours or of the fleeing of tens of thousands left homeless. Oklahomans didn’t know their history. I was a 17 when I traveled to Tulsa. A group of Omahans charged with developing a school desegregation plan went to see how they’d integrated theirs. It was 1973. White flight, years of redlining, and a freeway that sliced our Black community through its center had severely segregated our schools—some 20 years after the Supreme Court declared doing so