The great outdoors and my love of archery probably kept me out of a lot of trouble during my youth. My first bow was a Browning Wasp Recurve, and I roamed the neighborhood imagining that I was the leg...

Over the years I’ve heard several cliches counseling against coming to know your heroes too well. I suppose there is wisdom there. I have discovered what is true for heroes is also true for long favor...

We all read about Pastor Jeff’s latest tribulation in the local paper, the Valley Weekly Miracle. Maybe tribulation is too strong a word, because, after all, when someone leaves your church a huge leg...

With the deer season just two weeks away, I feel compelled again to write about deer stand safety. The vast majority of deer hunting injuries and deaths involve treestand falls, and of those accidents...

The mailman deposited an L.L. Bean catalog in our mailbox. I enjoy browsing through this catalog. I see all sorts of stuff I think I might need. At times, I’ll even dogear a page with the intent of sh...

Fall is the polishing time. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. For some reason, the spirit that guides us made our experiences in fall the peak of the year’s efforts. For animals, both wild and domes...

Speaking of the fall hunting season, I want to highlight a relative newcomer to the big game season — the black bear. A retired Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation official gave me some in-de...

The calendar, and the quality of the air we breathe, insist it’s state fair season. The competition is great to watch, no matter what it is. You know, like trying to knock down a pile of cinder blocks...

Despite the boiling temperatures, hunters across Soonerland are ready for deer archery season, which opens Oct. 1 and runs through Jan. 15. Bear archery season will open in certain counties Oct. 1 thr...

“Throwin' money at the problem.” Have you heard that one? Me too. Have you heard this one, “Don’t give ’em any money. That will solve the problem.” Me either. Exactly how defunding Tulsa Public School...

Ol’ Max has been gone two years now. Well, dead, anyway. A life force like Max Evans, one of America’s greatest writers, is never really gone as long as people read his work. Max died two days before ...

Recently, far too often, our news seemed to be filled with murder-suicides. A parent killing a spouse or ex-spouse and their children. The murder of a child is an event I can’t grasp. One is far too m...

Oh, we could always just go ask Delbert Chin why he did it, but that would take all the fun out of it. You know. So we sat and sipped at the world dilemma think tank meeting of Everything Important do...

At first it just looked like every other pile that periodically appears just inside our backdoor. A closer look revealed shoulder pads secured inside a red practice jersey. A helmet protruded through ...

Ran into Doc down at The Mule Barn the other day, so naturally we had to rid the world of about a gallon of coffee and solve the world’s problems for an hour. It is the duty of all true Americans of o...

On Tuesday, I was sipping my morning coffee and watching a morning television program. The anchor was interviewing a group of I’d guess of about first graders. I wish now I’d been paying closer attent...

The other night it was hot. Hot during the day, hot at night. Heat seems to define this time of year for us, in many ways. But in spite of that, after a day in the outdoors, we built a fire. A small f...

With temperatures sizzling across our state, it’s hard to imagine the fall hunting season is just around the corner. More than a gaggle of geese at your pond? If your favorite body of water is experie...

In previous Just Thinkin’s, I have referenced my “love-hate” relationship with television commercials. Recently the “windows and bladders” folks have launched a barrage of commercials that might be to...

“Hot? You boys think this here weather is hot? You jest don’t know, do you?” “What do you mean, Windy?” said Doc. “Wellsir, back in the old days, you know, when we was younger, there came upon us here...