A Land of Many Springs

A Land of Many Springs

My mother was born in 1906. She had many memories of Cherokee County, the way it was when she was a child. One of the things she remembered was the abundance of fresh, clean water. These are her words, her story as she told it to me: Green country used to be a land of […]

Winds of Change: Conclusion

Winds of Change: Conclusion

This is the second and final installment of my May 5, 1985 Daily Press article about the tornado which destroyed Peggs, Oklahoma on May 2, 1920. In 1920, Walter Neel lived with his parents, brothers and sisters on the Gid Morgan farm, two and a fourth miles southeast of Peggs. The storm went a mile […]

Into the Darkness of the Cave

Into the Darkness of the Cave

I mentioned a few days ago that my mother had written a personal account of exploring a cave near the Illinois River. People going out to fish on the Illinois may not realize it was once a free-running river, with no dam to block its progress. They may not know that caves lie hidden on […]

When Mystery is in the Rain

When Mystery is in the Rain

Yesterday I wrote about libraries and books and so I awoke this morning with books and writing on my mind. Rain is falling again on northwest Arkansas and I like to think of a lovely rainy day as a good reason to stay inside my house and write. My goal in life is to add […]

An Encounter with a Mountain Lion

The bear  found in Tahlequah Wednesday brought to mind an encounter my 3 older brothers had with a wild animal almost 70 years ago. The animal was not a bear. It was a mountain lion. My brothers, Stan, Thurman and Tracy, teenagers at the time, had ridden their horses one night to a get-together with […]