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My earliest memory is of my mother reading to me. In my memory it seems like a Golden Book, but now looking back on it, I suspect it was more of a pamphlet produced by the children’s hospital in Fort Worth. I was three and getting ready to go to the hospital overnight to have my…

Not too long ago I was in a conversation with a friend. She told me she had recently talked to a mutual friend who was retired and was glad to have an opportunity to learn a bit about his experience. Our conversation moved on to other things, but it got me thinking. It reminded me…

First a bit of prologue. I know nothing about the incident at Cornell beyond what I have read in the public sphere. Everything I share below is from my years of experience working on university campuses, particularly in the realm of student conduct. I have not written previously because it is not my intent to…

Last week in class, our professor asked us a question and several students wrote answers on the chalkboard (yes, an actual chalkboard). One student asked, “who wrote in cursive?” and two people answered, “Gage”. It wasn’t me though this immediately started a conversation about the fact that I had such beautiful handwriting. I said, “my…

How many personality tests have you taken over the course of your life or career? The first one I ever took was while I was in college. I have no idea what the name of the test was. I do know I had to ask four or five friends to fill out a 30 question…

Just a few Odds and Ends from the last couple of weeks. What I’ve been doing – I spent this weekend in Oklahoma for the annual reunion with a group of people I’ve known since we were all freshman in college. This event started about fifteen years ago. We get together on an away weekend for…

I think I was about ten when Grandmommie taught me to embroider. We went to TG&Y, to the department that was called Notions, to get me some pillowcases with a pattern stamped on the cuff. We also picked out embroidery thread, needles and an embroidery hoop. By age twelve I was working on a large project…

If you ask Google, “why do people write?”, the AI overview provides a list of reasons. Some are internally focused such as processing emotions, finding clarity, healing, reflecting. Many people write poetry, short stories, entire novels for their own pleasure with no intent of ever showing any of it to anyone else. Some people write…

(Grad Student Life, Part Two) I love the start of the school year. New classes, new colleagues, new school supplies! First day of class pictures were not a ‘thing’ when I was in school, but I got this picture during New Graduate Student Orientation so I thought it use it as my back-to-school picture, even…

If you went to elementary school in Oklahoma City in the 1960s, you learned three important items. 1. Football was very important, particularly OU football. When I was in seventh grade, the principal interrupted morning classes to announce over the loudspeaker that Steve Owens had won the Heisman Trophy. Cheers rang out through the school.…