Columns and News Articles

For most of my career, I was a newspaper editor, fine-tuning the work of others. But I never lost my desire to write and to tell a good story. These are a few of the columns and news articles I wrote during the course of my career as a journalist, most written toward the end and shortly after my retirement.

We've Got Your Back - saluting veterans of all wars

The Letter in a Recipe Box - saluting Marti's Uncle Hugh

Dad, Death, and Dora - why we hate Nazis

Farewell to the Texas Prison Rodeo - inside the walls

Patience and Persistence - chasing the perfect photograph

Leaving Tracks Through Life - on the White Sands dunes

Thanks, Bob Hope, For Remembering - my tribute

South Rim By Sixty - a quest to reach the top

Rainy Night in North Carolina - on friendships

Above it All at Acoma - a trip into the past

Where the Buffalo Roamed - taking back the prairie

Unheralded Sacrifice - saluting a forgotten hero of D-Day

Fewer Half-Read Books - a celebration of reading

Stories from the Heroes Flight - Veterans tell their stories

Storytelling

My military background often made me the go-to headline writer and sometimes reporter for all things service-related. I edited the stories about the fall of Saigon when I worked on the copy desk at the Tulsa Tribune, then later wrote many stories and photographed veterans and reluctant heroes. Toward the end of my career in Tyler, I was asked to travel with World War II and Korean War veterans to Washington, D.C., on six Heroes Flights. My goal was to document their stories - often experiences they had never before voiced - and share those memories with others. A few are listed below. I'll add others as we go.

Angels of An Phong - Remembering the orphans of war.

Ripped from the Wire - Flashes, Bulletins and Urgent leads from the wire services.

It Was Just a Library Card - saluting the Library of Congress

Looking Down on Life - a different perspective

Making Peace with Vietnam - a personal reckoning

Whatever Floats Your Boat - a love/hate affair with boats

Silence in the Gardens of Stone - reflections on Arlington

Milk Run on the Nine-O-Nine - a memorable flight in a B-17

Saigon, Sweat and Spades - my aversion to card games

In Search of the Batfish - helping a sailor find his sub

The Empty Grave in Mrs. Lee's Garden - a Civil War story

Michael Davis O'Donnell - Vietnam's warrior poet

World War II Heroes - they finally got their own monument

Forged By War - military memorials refuse to let us forget

Flash in the Pan - an airman my grandmother adopted—who never came home

Campfire Stories - when columns spawn even more stories

Reflections and Observations

Sometimes my columns were simply reflections on life, common sense observations, and lessons learned - sometimes the hard way. Others touched readers in a personal way, reviving memories, giving them a break from their busy day to pause and reflect... if only for a few minutes.

Days of Heat; Nights of Wonder - memories of harvest

Counting Votes & Baking Bread - a hundred election nights

Cousins, Kindness & Enos Slaughter - saluting cousins

The Nuts & Bolts of Life - lessons learned in a toolbox

I'll be Home for Christmas - this song made my mother cry

The Finer Points of Plowing - a moment of Zen on the tractor

The Power of Encouragement - seeking out encouragers

Knowing When to Get Off - lessons about hard work

Sky Vu in My Rearview Mirror - on going home again

Passages and Transitions - on moving through life

My Road Less Traveled - on making life choices

A Lifetime of Storytelling

I never really stopped thinking of myself as a writer. Some pieces below were written following my retirement from the newspaper business. Some were just expanded online posts on platforms like Facebook. Others were late-night vents and reflections on life in a personal unpublished blog I called "Musings After Midnight." If you enjoy a few of them, great! If not, I understand. But I hope you'll give them a look.

Memorial Day in a Time of Pandemic - our sacrifice was minor