Rite of passage: The adventure
For a couple of months, Titus the Honorable and I have been planning a big adventure. Of course, planning with a 3-year-old only takes about a minute. A recent Saturday was our big day: just Titus and me, heading off on a journey into the dark forest to look for snakes. Now, the dark forest is actually Turkey Mountain in Tulsa. Turkey Mountain isn’t really a mountain or a dark forest, but it’s classified as an urban wilderness, which...
Rite of passage: Lord of the ring
I am not into jewelry at all. I like buying it for my wife, but when it comes to myself, I have only two rings and a couple of watches. But the other day, I was asked to speak at Ft. Sill. It was an incredible opportunity as I haven’t been on that base since 1971, 46 years ago. A lot has changed since then; in fact, when I was asking about the cannon I was trained on, they told me it is now in a museum. I thought it would be neat to...
Rite of passage: Scents and sensibility
I wonder what makes people give the gifts they do. When someone gives me a scented candle, are they telling me my house stinks? And why would they give me a Mango/Kiwi/Dirty Sock-scented candle? There are only a couple of reasons. The first is that they had a sale at the candle store: Buy one regular candle and get the Mango/Kiwi/Dirty Sock candle free. Or maybe they think that special candle would somehow improve the smell of my...
Rite of passage: Lessons from a 3-year-old
I get home one night to find 3-year-old Titus the Honorable at my house. I don’t know if he was more excited to see me or the pile of dirt in the back of my truck. “Poppy, can I play in the dirt?” he asked. I could see in his little eyes that adventurous spirit that so dominates his life. He was asking for permission to climb into the back of my truck and start playing. “Titus, I don’t think that would be a good idea.” “Why, Poppy?”...
Rite of passage: Miss—or Miss Out?
I was sitting with an older gentleman not long ago, and we got to talking about what it was like when we were growing up and how life has shifted. For thousands of years there wasn’t much of a shift. Your grandfather farmed the land; then your dad took over the farm, and one day, you ended up farming it. Much of life took place in the same area with the same basic activities. But this conversation got me thinking about some of the...
