Millard Don Carriker

An Unusual Ticket to the Movies

In the 1930’s, Central Oklahoma would have made any film director looking for an “On Location” site for a movie depicting the seven plagues of Ancient Egypt drool with desire.   Most of Oklahoma, after enduring the destruction of the Dust Bowl, foreclosures on family farms and double-digit unemployment had one...
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JUSTIN ERIK CORMIER

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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Diane Mason Gray

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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JUSTIN ERIK CORMIER

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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JUSTIN ERIK CORMIER

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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Millard Don Carriker

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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Millard Don Carriker

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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Millard Don Carriker

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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Millard Don Carriker

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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Jeri J Steele

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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Childhood Education Growing up
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Millard Don Carriker

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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Michael Wendel

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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Millard Don Carriker

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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Millard Don Carriker

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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Rachel Johnson

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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Education Childhood School Days
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Legacy Blog

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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Tom Cormier

Childhood Chores Taught Me Plenty

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

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Darwin Spradlin

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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Darwin Spradlin

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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Darwin Spradlin

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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