The Umbrella Oak

A large oak stands in front of the house that belonged to my parents. It is so tall and its limbs spread so wide that anyone standing under it during a rain is sheltered, as if by a giant umbrella. The tree is old and has seen many changes. A busy street a few feet […]

Rainy Day Nostalgia

This long weekend is off to a wet start. Rain puts me in a nostalgic mood and I think of what a rainy morning may have been like on the Latty farm when my mother was a young girl. My grandfather always went to the barn to milk while the morning was still as dark […]

Times Like These

In uncertain times, we need an anchor, something unchangeable that we can cling to. It helps to have reminders that people have gone through hard times before now, and survived. My granddaughter and I are interested in genealogy. She has traced one line of our ancestry back to the 1400s. Now, that’s a long time […]

Another Year

This morning when I woke up, I was a year older than I was a couple of days ago. Can it be? I certainly don’t feel like an octogenarian plus three but that’s what the calendar says and the calendar must be right! Anyway, I had a happy birthday and I’m very glad to be […]

Did Y’all Mean Me?

Did Y’all Mean Me?

I’m not apt to forget the disbelief I felt the first time I heard the 1950s referred to as “the good old days.” What? Land of Goshen, those weren’t the old days. Good, maybe, in lots of ways but no way could they be referred to as “old”. What nonsense! Then, a sobering thought hit […]

The Tree with Special Blossoms

The following story is an excerpt from The Heritage of Etta Bend, a story my mother told me about her childhood in northeast Oklahoma. The “I” is my mother, Susie Latty Day. Mom told me this story and I wrote it to be included in The Heritage of Etta Bend in 1989. It was spring, […]