A Tall Tale

It Happened One Summer by Blanche Day Manos In my neck of the woods, everything gets ornery in the summertime. Critters, humans, even bugs are easy riled. There’s nothing like the heat of a white-orange sun blazing down from a copper-colored sky to make varmints out of the most lowly of pesky, everyday things, particularly […]

You’ve Got Mail

In the early 1900s, the people of the Etta community seldom received mail. The nearest post office was in Tahlequah, more than 15 miles away by horse or wagon over rough country roads. A traveler to Tahlequah must ford the Illinois River twice and Barron Fork Creek once. No bridges arched these streams and some […]

Memorable Commercials

When you have a good thing going, why would you try to change it? Remember the phrase, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”? I wonder that about a lot of things. One thing that puzzles me is why manufacturers or agencies change an advertisement that is working fine. Sometimes after watching a flashy commercial complete with all […]

Daily Ritual

If they were people, I’d say they were getting together for an early morning cup of coffee and a chat. As they were birds, the coffee doesn’t quite apply and the chat wasn’t all that friendly. Each morning, around 7:30, birds come to my two bird baths in the front yard. This morning, the robins […]

School Days

Come Monday, area schools will begin a brand new year. It always seems too early to me. School should begin after Labor Day. Right? That’s just one of the things that have changed since my school days. There are many other differences-my school days belonged to a different time which would seem foreign to children […]

Olden Times

I enjoy finding out about my ancestry and how my long ago family lived. One of my second cousins, a dear, kind lady sent me quite a lot of information that I’d never find in history books. Digging through some of the letters she sent me years ago, I found one that sheds light on […]