The Door Opener

The Door Opener
Pleasant Hill’s school bus, like those of today, had a lever with a big handle attached to a rod that opened and closed the door.  The younger boys considered it fun and an honor to stand alongside the bus driver to open and close the door at each stop.  The bus...
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1390 Views
3 Comments

Giving the Finger to Oklahoma

The Thomas Long oil lease was a vast playground but it was filled with dangers for kids that no one seemed to notice or tell us to avoid.  The community water well from which several families drew their water sat a couple of hundred yards from our back door.  It was...
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  980 Views
  3 Comments
980 Views
3 Comments

If I could have changed this experience--

This has really been a difficult one to come up with in my memory banks! When I was in eighth grade--the grade that I have taught every year of my teaching career--I wonder what the outcome would have been if my ability to read well hadn't been taken from me! This...
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  631 Views
  3 Comments
631 Views
3 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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  2 Comments
1378 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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  1193 Views
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1193 Views
2 Comments

If you could go back and change an event or experience as a teenager what would it be and why?

Wow... this one is making me dig into the memorybanks... I have often wondered what would have happened if I had made Junior Nationals at the Zone Swim Meet in August 1983..  How far could I have or would I have gone? Instead I missed qualifying by a fingernail...Literally .01 of...
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  1449 Views
  1 Comment
1449 Views
1 Comment

What did I want to be when I was a teenager...

My career goal was to be an attorney... Mom was going to be my paralegal.  I even went to Auburn and earned my BA in Political Science and Philosophy with minors in English, History and Business. (Yes over achiever I know).  I even became a certified Paralegal with Mom. Then I...
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  1578 Views
  5 Comments
1578 Views
5 Comments

The Most I Ever Saw My Mama Hurt

I was in the 8th grade . Didn't hurt for nothing . Had plenty of food . Plenty of clothes . I guess I was just bored . I don't know . Rotten . I was on the way home from school and I stopped in at a small supermarket ....
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  1 Comment
2722 Views
1 Comment

My Parents Corporal Punishment

Before I was thirteen and still living in my hometown our homes were fairly close to each other . My Dad always got home from work about 4:30 PM from the oilfield pipeyard . If I came home from school and the teacher called my mother up before I walked home...
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52505 Views
2 Comments

Playing with Fire

I just read another member's story about playing "alligator" in the red mud and digging holes in the dirt to play marbles as a kid. It inspired me to share one of my favorite "boys will be boys" stories. Me and Jerry Feldman were best of friends at 10 years old....
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  2674 Views
  4 Comments
2674 Views
4 Comments

Moving To A New Town

When I was thirteen my Dad got a notice from his employer which was the pipeline division of Amoco Oil , that he was going to have to move to another town . He was being transfered to a town 50 miles away which wasn't that far but in the early...
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  1758 Views
  3 Comments
1758 Views
3 Comments

Grandma Beavers Pancakes

When i was about eleven or twelve years old I went to spend the night with Grandma Beavers . When I got up in the morning she was making pancakes for breakfast . She ask me " Charles , How many pancakes do you want ? "  I said " I...
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  1213 Views
  2 Comments
1213 Views
2 Comments

My School Memories

I never attended  Public school.  I attended three different Parochial schools. My first seven years was at St. Charles in Waltham, Mssachusetts.  Eighth grade was at St.Joseph's as my family had moved to the other side of Waltham. For the ninth grade and two months of the tenth grade I attended...
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  3512 Views
  4 Comments
3512 Views
4 Comments

My Fishing Trips

When I was young under thirteen years of age my father decided he wanted take up fishing again like he had done when he was a child . He went and bought all of the neccasary equipment and tackle and with in a few years he knew several good fishing spots...
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  1200 Views
  2 Comments
1200 Views
2 Comments

How Spoiled Was I

I was born the youngest of two boys in 1947 . The only chores I had was to get up and eat breakfast ; go to school ; collect rocks ; play with horny toads ; or dig holes in the yard to play marbles . And I couldn't even do...
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  1293 Views
  2 Comments
1293 Views
2 Comments

What one change would you make from your teen years?

What one change would you make from your teen years?
Well without a doubt we make choices when we are young, and most of the time we are unaware that we are choosing one way or another. Despite our parents best efforts we often choose foolishly! Thinking back, the one thing I would change would have been to be more serious...
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633 Views
1 Comment

Ken's Birthday 24th July 2011

Yesterday was my son Ken's 38th birthday (yes, I can't believe it either!) and as well as the Spanish paella pan John and I bought him and the Jewish Cheesecake I baked for him, I wanted to give him something of family significance. I have had, tucked away in my jewellery...
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  2074 Views
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2074 Views
0 Comments

My Darling Jill

My Darling Jill
My Darling Jill Today, when “The F word” has been enshrined by the United States Supreme Court and hard core pornography is but a mouse click away, Erskine Caldwell’s book, “God’s Little Acre” could be read with impunity by any school kid.  But in the `40’s, the mere mention of that...
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2483 Views
0 Comments

The Unseen Force

This is written for all the people out there who are either drug-addicted or who have a loved-one who is held captive by chemical dependency - The Unseen Force.   There is a strange force that lives deep in my soul, and to drive me to madness it's persistent goal.  Insidiously, it creeps...
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  1341 Views
  2 Comments
1341 Views
2 Comments

Who was my Favorite Teacher

I attended St. Patrick's School in Natick, Massachusetts from Grade 1 through Grade 8.  In 1st grade, where a child is supposed to be introduced to the world of knowledge and understanding, I had a traumatic experience due to the insensitivity of one particular nun.  This encounter set me up to...
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  1692 Views
  2 Comments
1692 Views
2 Comments