Watercolor, 140# paper
6" x 12"
6" x 12"
Where there is hope amid isolation
Friday, May 14, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Mothers' Day Memories
Francis Faye Culp Clark
I'm usually on the road on this day every year, traveling south on U.S. 81 to the windswept hilltop cemetery at Waurika, where Mom is buried.
Jerry, Mom and Terry ready to board the train in Albuquerque
There are usually birds singing, and the wind is blowing. Sparse Sunday morning traffic whizzes by. I'm usually alone. Plastic flowers and cut flowers adorn many of the graves.
Mom and I talk for a while. I occasionally sit down in the grass and write a letter to her. Then I get the water, the trowel and the flowers from the car, dig a small hole at the top of her gravestone, pour in the water and plant the flowers. Oh, I know they won't last long, but that's ok. She deserves live flowers.
Mom's Southwestern Bell basketball team, 1929. She's front row, right.
Francis Faye Culp Clark
1909 1980
It takes longer to evaporate, like the memories that linger year after year. Mom and I talk some more. Then I wander through the cemetery, recognizing the names of many of the people I used to work with or know. I come back to Mom's grave, almost all the moisture gone, bend down and kiss her name, say goodbye and start heading north.
I didn't make it this year, but will one weekend soon.
Mom's family...Mom, sister Vera (Sissie), her mother Elizabeth, sister Gladys, brother E.T. in Sissie's Dallas apartment, 1950s.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Blog, blog, blogging along
One week down as a freelance reporter for the Journal Record, the daily business newspaper in Oklahoma City.
No, it's not permanent, just a one-month gig until a new reporter shows up.
Story count so far--10 stories--many about first quarter financial and operational reports from local energy companies. What an education. One about Fort Reno. Several on tap already for next week. Not bad for a geezer who immediately found the coffee pot, but could barely find the bathroom on Monday.
Yesterday, deadline writing on Devon Energy putting up for sale its downtown headquarters building. 2 pm news conference and then walk back to work. Turn out a short web version in 15 minutes, and complete story by 5 pm for Monday's paper. Former student, friend, and Oklahoman Real Estate Editor Richard Mize was there, covering it for today's Oklahoman. No way I can match his experience in the field or scoop him in print, since "we," the Journal Record, don't publish on Saturdays. BUT...thanks to the web, we had the news out first, on the website! And our photographer, Maike Sabolich was there too, so we have an exclusive photo of Devon CEO Larry Nichols and real estate agent and guru Mark Beffort.
It's interesting to me that after all these years, I get excited about a "scoop."
And, then on a whim, not knowing if they'd use it, I took JR Editor Ted's Streuli's email suggestion and wrote a blog: http://journalrecord.com/2
There are other stories here...getting used to a morning commute, becoming familiar with the downtown geography and the downtown business culture, working with the relatively small Oklahoma media profession when you know many of the journalists since I've been around a long time, scrambling for sources and trying to catch up at least survive working with younger journalists who know so much, working in the "real world" instead of academia, taking part in the almost palpable energy of downtown, so changed from just a few years ago, facing the pressure of having to perform so I'm not seen as some old fuddy-duddy professor who's out of touch. In other words, I survived a week completely out of my comfort zone, and I had fun and a sense of accomplishment, feeding off the energy and humor and professionalism of the people I work with.
Will write for food!
No, it's not permanent, just a one-month gig until a new reporter shows up.
Story count so far--10 stories--many about first quarter financial and operational reports from local energy companies. What an education. One about Fort Reno. Several on tap already for next week. Not bad for a geezer who immediately found the coffee pot, but could barely find the bathroom on Monday.
Yesterday, deadline writing on Devon Energy putting up for sale its downtown headquarters building. 2 pm news conference and then walk back to work. Turn out a short web version in 15 minutes, and complete story by 5 pm for Monday's paper. Former student, friend, and Oklahoman Real Estate Editor Richard Mize was there, covering it for today's Oklahoman. No way I can match his experience in the field or scoop him in print, since "we," the Journal Record, don't publish on Saturdays. BUT...thanks to the web, we had the news out first, on the website! And our photographer, Maike Sabolich was there too, so we have an exclusive photo of Devon CEO Larry Nichols and real estate agent and guru Mark Beffort.
It's interesting to me that after all these years, I get excited about a "scoop."
And, then on a whim, not knowing if they'd use it, I took JR Editor Ted's Streuli's email suggestion and wrote a blog: http://journalrecord.com/2
There are other stories here...getting used to a morning commute, becoming familiar with the downtown geography and the downtown business culture, working with the relatively small Oklahoma media profession when you know many of the journalists since I've been around a long time, scrambling for sources and trying to catch up at least survive working with younger journalists who know so much, working in the "real world" instead of academia, taking part in the almost palpable energy of downtown, so changed from just a few years ago, facing the pressure of having to perform so I'm not seen as some old fuddy-duddy professor who's out of touch. In other words, I survived a week completely out of my comfort zone, and I had fun and a sense of accomplishment, feeding off the energy and humor and professionalism of the people I work with.
Will write for food!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Bylined and sidelined
Yesterday marked the first birthday of my blog...and I didn't write!
When I started out, I had no idea where this was going, and then I learned most blogs that are started just sort of evaporate for lack of continuity.
And I meant to write yesterday, for the 503rd post in the past 365 revolutions the earth has made in one trip around the sun. But ironically, I was pooped. I'd been writing for a living.
Put out the word, "Will write for food." Given recent events, I'm trying to get money for bills for the summer when income may dry up. I've gone to work as a freelancer for the month at the Journal Record, the daily business newspaper of Oklahoma City.
I noticed they had a reporter's position open, and called the editor Ted Strueli; he hired me as a freelancer until their new hire shows up.
So yesterday, finding myself assigned energy and real estate, I scrambled to find my way to more than just the bathroom in the offices in downtown Oklahoma City. Before the day was done, I'd written a story about Chesapeake Energy's first quarter production update. The information was released at 3:35 after the stock market closed. My deadline was 5 p.m. By the time I got home about 6 p.m., I'd discovered two things, other than what "bcfe" and "mmcfe" meant. I can still report and write on deadline. And I'm pooped. So I forgot to blog, with the help of a "little something," as my friend Bob Illidge used to say.
Today, I turned out four pieces. My wife is laughing at me...now that I have to "work" for a living. I admit...being a professor is a good life. I have a renewed appreciation for journalists...most of these people are so young, but they're very good and professional, hour after hour, day after day, usually turning out at least two stories a day.
And now, as I sit down to blog, I can think back about how far this has come in a year. I never dreamed I'd be posting art, photography and more, including including long serialized narratives.
I've met lots of interesting fellow bloggers and readers. It's been a rich education in technology and ideas and people. One friend told me "I had my newspaper back," and the neat thing about this is that I can include more than I could with just black ink on newsprint. And then, to my satisfaction, I earned the best writing award in the statewide contest. It's still content!
Goals for the next year include improvement, technologically, including perhaps a web page set up. But most of all, I want more followers, regular readers...and perhaps another award. It might happen, if my bylines as a freelancer don't sideline the blog.
"Still crazy after all these years."
When I started out, I had no idea where this was going, and then I learned most blogs that are started just sort of evaporate for lack of continuity.
And I meant to write yesterday, for the 503rd post in the past 365 revolutions the earth has made in one trip around the sun. But ironically, I was pooped. I'd been writing for a living.
Put out the word, "Will write for food." Given recent events, I'm trying to get money for bills for the summer when income may dry up. I've gone to work as a freelancer for the month at the Journal Record, the daily business newspaper of Oklahoma City.
I noticed they had a reporter's position open, and called the editor Ted Strueli; he hired me as a freelancer until their new hire shows up.
So yesterday, finding myself assigned energy and real estate, I scrambled to find my way to more than just the bathroom in the offices in downtown Oklahoma City. Before the day was done, I'd written a story about Chesapeake Energy's first quarter production update. The information was released at 3:35 after the stock market closed. My deadline was 5 p.m. By the time I got home about 6 p.m., I'd discovered two things, other than what "bcfe" and "mmcfe" meant. I can still report and write on deadline. And I'm pooped. So I forgot to blog, with the help of a "little something," as my friend Bob Illidge used to say.
Today, I turned out four pieces. My wife is laughing at me...now that I have to "work" for a living. I admit...being a professor is a good life. I have a renewed appreciation for journalists...most of these people are so young, but they're very good and professional, hour after hour, day after day, usually turning out at least two stories a day.
And now, as I sit down to blog, I can think back about how far this has come in a year. I never dreamed I'd be posting art, photography and more, including including long serialized narratives.
I've met lots of interesting fellow bloggers and readers. It's been a rich education in technology and ideas and people. One friend told me "I had my newspaper back," and the neat thing about this is that I can include more than I could with just black ink on newsprint. And then, to my satisfaction, I earned the best writing award in the statewide contest. It's still content!
Goals for the next year include improvement, technologically, including perhaps a web page set up. But most of all, I want more followers, regular readers...and perhaps another award. It might happen, if my bylines as a freelancer don't sideline the blog.
"Still crazy after all these years."
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Now this is cool!
I've been writing this column since 1996, when I took over after the death of my mentor and friend the legendary Dr. Harry Heath Jr. of OSU. As the former owner of the Waurika News-Democrat, http://waurikanewsdemocrat.com/there's a special place in my heart for America's community press...which is in many cases alive and well in spite of what you read about newspapers. I call these newspapers "The Forgotten Press," the title of my doctoral dissertation at OSU.
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