Yes, indeed I’m walking.
Now I am not saying this to just solicit your well-deserved sympathy but from kindergarten and all the way up to my senior year in high school I walked to school. Almost every day. I walked approximately two miles each way. Walked to elementary, junior high, and high school. Our grandkids don’t believe me. My dad and his car left too early going to work for me to ride. My mom did not drive nor have a car.
The school district said I live too close in to ride on the school bus. I would have to walked about a mile further away to catch the school bus. To ride the city bus, I would have to walk about a mile south to catch a west bound bus and it would let me off a fare distance from the school. Plus, I couldn’t afford the ten-cents for a daily ride. “Oh, how sad.”
But as a result, I was fit and trim. I was one of the few six-foot tall boys weighing 150-pounds. Now look at me, retired and weighing a bit over 200-pounds. Perhaps I should go back to school. Walking to high school that is. Do they still have cute girls there. I’m in!
Leaving the parched farm for fertile ground.
In search of the promise.
It was not an easy decision. There were those who wished they would stay. But seven souls pushed off from the motherland in search of the promise land. It was on this date in 1941 and the voyagers were determined to find a new life elsewhere.
Life was a mighty struggle where they had lived. Drought, sky’s covered in crimson dust and the land was parched and baren. There was really nothing to lose except the tug of kinfolk. But hopefully the wayfaring pilgrims might return someday to family and welcoming hugs.
So, they left in the midst of tears. Leaving to lands unknown and not easily charted by the voyager’s captain. It was mostly a gamble of one’s future.
For some in the venturing westward it worked out and a new home was established. And for others well, they came back. Today it would be like rocketing to the moon. Uncertain and possibly dangerous. My dad and mom, older sister and brother, my aunt Pauline and her new husband David, and Arthur my dad’s teen brother all boarded their land vessel and headed west to parts unknown. Destination? Southern California. It was more like “Grapes of Promise.”
No parents just adult siblings.
Send your problems to
Pastor ChazzDear PC,
Our 12-year-old boy twins seem to have their own agenda. Homework is not getting done and too much time is spent online gaming and who knows what all else. I keep telling them they most likely will remain in middle school for like if homework is not done and handed in. Plus, they keep collecting stray animals and allow them to live in their rooms. One has what appears to be a rather old 3-legged pot belly pig which nests in the one twins lower chest of drawers and is creating an enormous stink. The other twin has 3-ferrets he got from three different friends whose parents suggested they get rid of. So, my son took them in. No matter what you do with ferrets, they are a bit wild and have a tendency to bite sometimes. To say the least I stay out of their bedrooms. Their father is a 12-hour a day Hospitalist and rarely sees them. So please what is the remedy for these boy’s dilemma? Mom who is stuck.
Dear Stuck,
First of all, do your boys live alone? There doesn’t seem to be any parents living with them. Where are the home rules? Where are the consequences. Have they been this way all their lives? Have you ever heard the old adage, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
You need more rod and less spoiled boys. In other words, mom needs to step up and get involved in their lives and set some rules with real life consequences. Lock away the computers or set some limits. If I were you, I would call animal control and find these critters a home in a zoo or farm. But anyway, you need to be the parent and they need to be the obedient children. You might want to hire a cleaning lady with a strong stomach for one or two days to clean up their rooms. Next you might want to hire a mature older teen boy with muscles to help them with homework and act as mentor and parttime bouncer. Some one with a strong sense of responsibility and maybe a forceful will. You can do it mom. Be a parent and not a door mat. God bless you all and let me know how this turns out.
Pastor Chazz.
My oral history project with Tulsa Historical society.
One of the more interesting oral history interviews was with Robert J Lafortune. Notre Dame grad, former mayor of Tulsa, family patriarch, and successful businessman in Tulsa. Among the many questions I ask him was, how di Lafortune Park come about? For those who don’t know where or what Lafortune park is; it is in Tulsa bounded on the north by 51st Street and 61st Street on the south. Yale Avenue on the west and Hudson Street on the east. Just guessing it is about two to three hundred acres. Home of Memorial High school, a full 18-hole golf course and a 9-hole and lighted par-three golf course, picknick area, playground area, football stadium, baseball complex, a three and a half mile walking trail, and more. Plus, a fairly new library, community center, and an indoor tennis center. It is one of Tulsa’s brilliant gems.
But back to how this park came about. Robert Lafortune’s father Joseph Lafortune wanted this property after it was shut down and abandoned. Then entered into a bidding war with the Warren family. A family with oil resource and the founders of Saint Francis hospital and the surrounding medical complex. Shortly before the bidding began the area in south Tulsa county was formerly know as a “Poor Farm.” An acreage inhabited by families and individuals with no means and in need of a place to live and sustain themselves. There was a large vegetable garden area on the north end and possibly areas to raise cows, pigs, and chickens. Support of the Poor Farm was sometimes paid for by local taxes. If one or his family had not the ways and means of self-support and facing homelessness he or they would be sent to the Poor Farm. Sent there to grow and raise their own food. Charles Dickens spoke of Poor Farms or Poor Houses in several of his famous books.
During the infamous 1930s depression tint camps known as Hoovervilles were established and sponsored by the Federal government in various parts of the country. There were one or two in Oklahoma City. There was one mentioned in the John Steinbeck’s book Grapes of Wrath” called Weed Patch in California’s great central valley. Which was and still is a real place.
But anyway, the magnificent Tulsa county park known as Lafortune was once a place for the poor and homeless. So, going to the Poor Farm was more than a catch phrase. Welcome to Lafortune Park.
Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham.
Book Report
If you are a legal thriller fan as well as a John Grisham fan, well, here it is in this book. It’s what he writes best. But, wait a minute and not so fast judicial breath. FYI, he does occasionally write non-legal fiction. For example, he wrote book titles like Sooley, Playing for Pizza, Skipping Christmas, and others. But never mind all that. Here is a legal fiction thriller book that includes almost every conceivable crime. Murder, vice, mobsters, illegal gambling, illegal booze, skin, prostitution, and a little bit more. You got your good cops and bad cops. FBI on the hunt, state police policing the local police, local cops on the dole from the mob, and much more. Then you have not only bullets, but you get bombs and arson as well. Everything including even cock-fighting. All of this starts with two high school buddies where one goes one way and the other his own way. It all began on the Coast of Mississippi in the town of Biloxi. A town with a questionable if not dubious past.
Title: Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham, legal fiction and crime thriller, 2022 best seller.
Library of Congress annotation:
“For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends, as well as Little League all-stars. But as teenagers, their lives took them in different directions. Keith’s father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to “clean up the Coast.” Hugh’s father became the “Boss” of Biloxi’s criminal underground. Keith went to law school and followed in his father’s footsteps. Hugh preferred the nightlife and worked in his father’s clubs. The two families were headed for a showdown, one that would happen in a courtroom. Life itself hangs in the balance in The Boys from Biloxi. Read this book soon. It will thrill your socks off. It’s a roller coaster of sequential scary and heart stopping events. Boy howdy, it’s good reading.
There’s walnut in that piano!
Piano lesson.
Now here is a story going back many years into the distant past. Looking back when we first moved to Tulsa in 1974 in order for me to take a radio announcer’s position working on-the-air for a local Tulsa radio station, wife then decided to expand her musical horizons. Since I would be away during weekend hours, my lovely wife thought she would arrange for piano lessons for herself. But first we had not a piano. One certainly needs a piano in order to practice. Makes perfect sense. So, she got out the local newspaper want- ads and began searching for an affordable piano. An old upright would do. Eventually she found one nearby and we drove to take a look at this ancient musical relic. Would it work for piano lessons? It was an old five-foot-tall upright piano covered with a flat off-white latex wall paint. Some of the piano keys ivory was worn off. and to my unexpert ear, way out of tune. They wanted a hundred bucks but without the adjacent nearby piano bench. So, we asked if the benched came with the piano. No, but if we wanted the piano and the bench it was a hundred and ten bucks. The bench too was painted in flat wall paint and with a worn fabric seat cover. So, we agreed on the total combo. Remembering back, I do not remember how we got it home. It weight a ton and wasn’t easy to handle. But anyway, we now had it in our tiny Tulsa living room in our 54th street house.
After lessons began, we decided to sand this hulk down and give it fresh coat of paint. We bought a glossy medium green paint and started to paint. The piano had these oval inserts on the movable front panel over the striking hammers and one down below on the panel covering the lower string action. The ovals, which had this carved and scrolling wood work we painted it a cream color. The colors went well with each other. Did I mention we were practicing Okies? But anyway, we painted the bench as well with the glossy green color. I would have to admit the piano looked much better. Sort of like a new two-tone DeSoto automobile. Now only if it had all its original ivory keys. But we did have it tuned.
As time passed, we signed up six-year-old and only daughter for piano lessons. This wasn’t easy. She continually balked at this notion and she made her own pronouncement that she would only continue lessons but stop when she was fourteen. Well, if you say so.
However, later on we thought of making some repair and refinish the piano’s various surfaces. We had contacted A man named Moose Miller who had refinished and restored older pianos. So, he came and took a look at this marvelous green and cream two-tone music box. He gave it a closer look and when scratching around on the layers of paint and he discovered it had solid walnut below the layers of glossy and latex paint. No wonder it weighed a ton. After doing some math Moose told us for $800. he could strip the layers of paint, put on all new key covers, then replace all the copper-wound bass strings. Then he mentioned according to the serial number inside the cabinet that our junky old piano was assembled in 1912 and was a Hamilton piano that was built in the same factory and to the same specification as the Baldwin pianos.
So, we had Moose do the restoration and refinishing. The piano was gone for about a month but when we got it back from the piano shop, Wow! It looked like something just rolled out from the Baldwin factory. An incredible natural walnut finish, all new piano key covers on all 88-keys, a much richer sound due to new bass strings, and then it increased in value by 2-grand. And that was counted in dollars by the way.
The end result was a spectacular looking and playing music instrument and saw much use when later placed in my recording studio. Many pianists coming to record loved it’s rich sound. Sounded like a baby grand some had mentioned.
After many moves around Tulsa and a move to New Mexico, our youngest daughter now possesses the handsome looking instrument. Now that is well over a hundred years old it is a genuine antique and well worth four or five grand. But I hope it stays in the family after wife and I are gone. Piano lessons anyone?
Book Report.
posted by Chuck Ayers
A book of fiction with romance. Romance with much complication. It starts like this: A young man from Kentucky wants a graduate degree but he can’t afford the tuition. So, he takes a grounds keeping job at the local small college and in turn he receive some free tuition. Then he starts his job and his graduate classes. The Complication starts when this countryfied Bluegrass Kentuckian meets up with a young lady born in Bosnia and grew up in a Washington, DC suburb of Virginia. He a small-town rural Bible belt conservative Christian and she born liberal Muslim. He raised in a working-class environment and she was raised by upper middle-class professionals and she had an undergraduate Ivy League education. And it gets complicated from there.
Title GroundsKeeping, a novel by Lee Cole 2022 fiction with a bit of romance. And we are talking about mere relationship development. But don’t let the romance scare you. There is plenty of complication and angst. I myself don’t care for too much cheesecake romance. Read it. You might like it. I did.Library of Congress annotation:
“In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course. Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks—a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma—who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants—struggles to understand
Owen’s fraught relationship with family and home.”Again, I submit these book reports because I failed to complete my book report assignments in junior high school. So, there Mrs. Cox and Mr. Ryan.
Resume me.
My Resume
For public officeCharles ‘Chuck’ Ayers
10 Fifth Avenue
Penthouse
New York, NY 10001Work Experience:
President of Bank American
Chief Executive Officer and
Board Chairman
From 2010 to 2023
Brigadier General
Army Reserve
Fort Shafter; Honolulu, Hi
Chief officer overseeing Nuclear arsenal
From 2001 to 2010
Head coach
San Francisco forty-niners
Head offence strategist and
Passing coach. Won 96, tied 5, lost 3
1991 to 2001
Fighter pilot
Lieutenant Colonel, first wing
Travis AFB, California
F-16 and A-12 tank killer.
Shot down 27 Vietnam Russian MigsEducation:
PhD, Doctor of Strategical Science
Stanford University
Undergraduate and Master’s degree
Columbia University, New York City.Personal experience:
Won six blue ribbons for rodeo bull riding
Won three bowling trophies for perfect games
Won two and a half million dollars in the California super lottery.
Credited for creating the game of Pickleball.
Saved a woman from almost being eating by a killer shark off the coast of Malibu beach.
Drove my 1963 VW Beetle from Seattle all the way to Tiara del Fu ago, Argentina South America.Now seeking a seat position in the US House of Representatives for the first district of Montana.
Please vote for me.
Who sent this guy here?
Who was this man anyway.
The first thing you notice about this guy he was obviously homeless. I would guess not from around here. The next was he appeared to be middle eastern. Olive complexion, long black unkempt ratted hair, unshaven, large prominent nose, black bushy eyebrows with deep set dark eyes, and if you stand too close you will definitely notice a strong body odor from his short statured frame. Certainly no one I know. His clothing, if you wish to call it that, was torn and ragged. He wore sandals he must had fashioned from discarded animal hide. Certainly, an individual most people would avoid.
He was often observed coming and going into public drinking places. Pubs and bars attempting to create conversation with most bar goers. And bar goers were sometimes put off by his unsolicited guilt laden prattle.
Then if that weren’t enough, he was watched by others going into homes of women of questionable repute. To go in for what reason?
Who is this man anyway? What is his business here? Why is he doing this? He seems to stir trouble in the minds of folks he talks with. He claims he has turned ordinary drinking water into very fine wine. Oh sure, an absurd notion. Then if that’s not enough he has the audacity to claim he is, and I say this in the second hand, he is the son of God. Sort of troubling coming from a homeless person who is no more than thirty-something. Could you imagine this? Absolutely ridiculous. Who does he think he really is!?
Its much easier just to fall asleep.
A Sunday’s slumber.
It seem to always happen while in church. Some people easily fall asleep as a matter of routine. Lots of head nodding and bobbling. My wife was an occasional head bobbler. Some members would be leaning so far forward giving the appearance of almost bumping their head on the back of the pew in front of them.
My favorite church sleeper was Tom Moon. About five minutes into a homily Tom’s shoulders would be up straight but Tom’s chin would be resting on his chest. How he did that without breaking his neck, I couldn’t say. But it happened almost every church time. His snoozing must have been a distraction, if not an amusement for some church goers. Maybe Tom was ahead of his time and was practicing mindfulness and meditating. Not really sure.
Then there was the family, whose name I forget, looked as if someone drugged them all. All, including the mom and dad, would be leaning all over each other’s shoulders and arms along with their dozing teen son and daughter. This happened many Sundays. And they sat up front just steps away from the lecturing preacher.I must admit my head nodded a time or two over the years. But I am almost sure the minister’s exhortation was a bit non-inspiring and running too long in my case. Ten minutes is a good cut off and ending time for any reasonable oratory.
I think this is why in the past we had “hell, fire, and brimstone’ preachers. Animated pulpiteers Feverishly foaming with lots of hand and arm movement along with rubbery facial expressions. Something like a screaming face with wide open eyes and mouth emoji. Anything To keep the congregation alert and engaged. However, our church was less Pentecostal but more accepting of a rational calm and short lecture. With a facial expression like a comatose emoji. I personally like sermonettes with lots of quips and jokes. It seems to help a church sermon if people laugh. Keeps an audience awake.
A pastor a priest and a rabbi came into a bar. All looking like they surely needed a tall foamy draft. Then The bartender aske the three men of morals and principles, “do you gentlemen happen to know a good joke?”
Chuck the Blogger Guy 