Don't Worry About the Chickens...Count Your Eggs!

Tulsa, Oklahoma has some interesting weather. It can get nasty, cold and icy in the winter. Hellaciously hot and humid in the summer. Hail storms and tornadoes or beautiful mild sunny days with soft breezes in spring. I used to think my grandfather Jack invented the phrase, "If you don't like the weather just wait a day, it'll change" describing our weather.

My Mom was from Sacramento and until she married my Dad and moved from Palo Alto and Stanford University to Oklahoma she had never lived anywhere but Northern California--warm, warmer, sunny, sunnier, with an occasional period of mild inclement weather. Married to my Dad she came to know a lot about Midwestern and Southern weather patterns as his career in the petroleum industry took through some of the less populated less populated areas of Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana in the late 1950s and early 1960s. From a Catholic background with a strong sense of family and traditions, Mom always made sure the holidays travelled with her, where ever home may have been set up at the time.

Sometime around 1965 or 1966 Mom and Dad moved into a new home in Tulsa, having relocated with my older sister Sharon, older brother Michael and me from Oklahoma City. The house would be my third at the ripe age of three or four. It had a great backyard and plenty of room for three kids and whatever kids in the neighborhood were around. A perfect backyard for the Easter Bunny to hide our eggs for a good old fashioned Easter Egg hunt.

Because of the crazy weather patterns in Tulsa in the Spring we never knew when we were decorated our eggs with that vinegary smelling PAAS egg dye stuff whether we would be having an indoor or outdoor egg hunt. So depending on the weather Easter morning, or Easter eve night, we would wake up, grab our baskets and tear through the house or head out to the back yard.

One year, in retrospect it must have been our first or second Easter with good weather, Mom gave our eggs to the Easter Bunny to hide outside because it was very nice spring weather. Sharon, Michael and I--ranging in age from five or six to nine or ten--headed out and starting finding eggs. In the log-cabin playhouse. Under the umbrella (pronounced UM-brella in Tulsa please) on the patio. Between logs in the log pile. On the birdfeeder. Running from spot to spot we looked until we could find no more. We gave the eggs to Mom who would then use the hard boiled eggs for all sorts of gross and disgusting dishes--to this day I cannot bear the site or smell of hard boiled eggs.

Story over. Easter in Tulsa is done.

Not quite.

Tulsa can, and does, get really hot in the summer. A day with hundred degree heat and hundred degree humidity with no rain is not something unique. One summer as Michael and I and our friends played around in the backyard we began to notice a smell. At first we thought it might be a frog that had died from our frog farm (we would scoop frogs eggs out of the pond across the street in a big plastic tub and leave them in the backyard where we would watch them go from eggs to tadpoles to frogs and then there would be none left in the tub but all over the yard). Or maybe some other critter had crawled under the log-cabin playhouse and died. As the summer wore on the smell got worse and worse.

Finally one day a ball or something rolled over by the fence with the neighbors. We went to get it and Phew! The smell was horrible. Being boys we became more curious about what could make such a horrible smell. After a little looking we finally a found the source.

Faded but still distinctly colored by a small child, an Easter Egg that had been in the Tulsa weather, and heat, for several months just rotting away. Evidently we had not found all the Easter Eggs during our fervid hunting back in March or April.

Mom wasn't real thrilled with our discovery, but less thrilled that we brought it to her so she could see, and smell our treasure. From then on Mom knew, always count your eggs before handing them over to the Easter Bunny for hiding and make sure the number found matches the number hid!

Oh, and be careful what gets left out in the Tulsa weather.


DCS 0401210

A Normal Day

It is a Friday. May 9th. Mother's Day is Sunday.


The crisis with Iran must come to a head soon, will it take U.S. troops? The U.N. seems incapable of doing anything, or will not since the longer the madman runs the country the more the American nose gets tweaked to the delight of most of the rest of the world.


The incumbent in the White House has incredibly low approval ratings, Congress is right there with him. With a Presidential election happening in six months both parties are gearing up for their conventions and nominating the candidate they feel will win in November. On the Democratic side the initial front runner is getting very negative press--unheard of before this primary season.

Due to the Middle East situation gas prices are fueling inflation in our markets and causing a lot of concern for all Americans, very much in the stump speeches of the candidates.

The Lakers and Celtics are in the playoffs and there is an excellent chance they will meet in the NBA finals, the Lakers with a superstar.

Terrorism is a concern in Europe with splinter groups setting off bombs in crowded areas over the past three or four years.

It is a Friday. Friday May 9th. Friday May 9, 1980 and I have just gotten home from school, I am a senior, and the phone has rung in our apartment and it is my Dad's New York office calling for him.

As Dad talks on the phone I stand at the window six floors up looking over the park. After he hangs up there is a prolonged silence, then, "Your mother died a little while ago."

It was a Friday. Today is a Friday. Friday May 9, 2008. Twenty eight years since I heard those words. Twenty eight years from a scrawny (about six foot 140 pounds), pimply (severe acne), somewhat insecure kid that was somewhat socially inept, to who I am today. At forty six and approaching my 14th anniversary with Leslie, I have lived with her almostas long as I had with my Mom.

This distance in time place in life would seem to diminish the memories of her as life's routine has not included her for almost three decades; but contrarily many memories are reappearing that had been forgotten. This is for two reasons.

First the girls. From the time they were old enough to ask, "Where's your Mama?" we have spoken of their "Nana" or "Nanners" as I would like to think we would have called their Grandmother Nancy, as living in my heart, my siblings hearts and the hearts of everyone who knew and loved her. Just as we all do and will. As well they know Nana lives in their hearts as well. It was very difficult coming to grips with the death of Mom when we were all very young; it has thankfully been less difficult in discussing and teaching the girls. By acknowledging and recognizing her place in our hearts I am able to call upon her spirit to bring back stories from my youth that included Mom for the girls. As one memory is recalled it triggers other memories as well. Happy memories that warm and instill the joy of remembrance.

The second reason for the regeneration of memories forgotten has been my spiritual awakening and learning the past year. A believer in reincarnation for many, many years it has not been until the past year and more intensely the past several months that I have been able to use the tools of prayer, meditation, affirmation and communion with God to properly place my previously disjointed beliefs into a more focused and positive Belief. Without proselytizing nor getting off track to my purpose in writing this essay, my place today has allowed me a more living experience with Mom and memories than I have had since her passing.

It is a Friday. Friday May 9, 2008. A little groggy from staying up too late I eschewed the 4:38 a.m. alarm and did not go for my morning swim. I rolled over following my back up 5:43 alarm and finally dragged myself out of bed at Leslie's initial 6:00 alarm--our home is alarming. After my quiet time of reading and writing with some coffee, the girls were already up when the school day 7:15 "Daddy Alarm" was ready to rouse them from their dreams and get their morning started. While I showered and dressed they got their school uniforms on then we gathered in the kitchen. I made them breakfast and lunch for Blaire to take to school, Friday is pizza day which Jenna likes and Blaire does not. And I shared with them that today was a birthday, or anniversary that was very important to me, their Aunt Sharon, their Unkey Monkey and their Opa. I told them that on this day in 1980 their grandmother, my Mom, had passed away.

"But she still lives in your heart Dad," said Blaire; Jenna nodding her head in agreement. Soon thereafter their Mom came in and gave them hugs.

Yes she still lives in our hearts. Off they went to school and me to work. It is a normal day. A Friday. Friday May 9, 2008; a normal day. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.