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Today we have moved from Las Vegas to Ranchos Palos Verdes, California. For the next ten days we will be hanging out in sunny-rainy Southern California with the Don Vitos. They come complete with Sofia and Connor. I call the kids the “Bonus Round” as they were a complete surprise. Today we went to the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration at the South Coast Botanic Garden. Thank goodness we got there very early and I got a park bench way in the back. I am now beginning to understand why my parents, at these kinds of events, were more interested…

In 1953 I remember my dad and some helpers carrying in a new Crosley TV. Television had come to Pueblo. There was an antenna on top of our house and soon the world came to our living room in black and white. I think my earliest memory was my mom watching Tennessee Ernie Ford singing “16 Tons” while doing her ironing. This was the “Golden Age” of television. Most every Baby Boomer could list three dozen shows that shaped their lives. Wednesday night September 18, 1957 “Wagon Train” made its debut. For eight years and 284 episodes, much of America…

About 30 minutes ago I received the message that my dad’s only brother Paul, died after an amazing 98+ years. It is my privilege to share with you how my almost 75 years with him has help shape me. I was with him not a month ago, where once again, I was touched by a man of incredible brilliance, whose memory belied anything you could describe. From here on out he will be called PO, as that is how he was known for at least the last 65 years. This is not a eulogy, but rather a painful privilege honoring…

I will be hitting the pause button in the “hit parade of my vocational journey”, to go on a seven week trek. Starting in two weeks I will be hitting the road for an 8,000 mile car trip. I love to travel, however, if I never see the inside of Denver International Airport again, I will be happy. It was September of 2021 when I got on a jet to go to Salt Lake City. Somewhere along the way I contracted Covid. After 18 days in the hospital and a fly-by from the Angel of Death, my desire to sit…

Home and Youth Pastor at Mountair Christian Church In November of 1972 I headed back home to Colorado. Within a day I had not one, but two jobs. I was hired to be a Child Care worker at DaVita cottage at the Colorado Christian Home. “The Home” began in the early 1900’s as an orphanage, started by the Christian Churches of Colorado and Wyoming. I have very distinct memories of coming up from Pueblo to have Christmas parties with the kids living there. I went to college at Phillips University with a number of former residents of “The Home”. This…

I graduated in May of 1971 with a degree in sociology and history. I had no plans for my future. My draft lottery number was 350 so I missed that “opportunity”. I was working at the ambulance service when I heard that there was a social worker position open at the Enid State School. I will try to briefly describe what that institution was like. It’s important to recognize how far we have come in the last 50 years, in the worlds of developmental disabilities and mental health. Enid State School sat on a square mile of prime farmland just…

My longtime administrative secretary at South Broadway had a collection of sayings and metaphors that were straight out of her homeland (Nebraska). Chris Vitt, who just retired after 26 years of serving in the trenches of “life behind the curtain” of church life, had a way of putting things into perspective. Currently it is minus 6 degrees at 5 in the afternoon on Saturday. As I look out into the dusk of frozen tundra, I can hear Chris’s voice saying “It is colder than Billy Hill”. I would ask “Just where is Billy Hill”? She would reply with exactly the…

Well, after a three week hiatus I am back. I will pick up writing about my vocational journey after the first of the year, but today I want to honor the brief but beautiful life of my youngest brother, Don. Yesterday on December 22nd, he would have been 65 years old. He only made it to 20. Don was killed in an automobile accident on St. Patrick’s Day 1979. I will skip the tragic details. I was nine years old when Don was born. I’ll never forget going downstairs from my bedroom to find a message written on the dining…

My first experience selling at people’s door steps came in the late 50’s and early 60’s. We were blessed in Pueblo with a great YMCA summer camp in the Greenhorn Mountains, SW of Pueblo, called Camp Crockett. It was a kid’s paradise where everyday you could ride horseback, shoot 22 caliber rifles, practice archery, take hikes, make leather comb cases and be free of parental influence. Every April 100’s of kids would sign up to sell Duran Thin Mints door-to-door throughout Pueblo. My dad was a master salesman and he made sure that we followed in his footsteps. Where I…

I had been working for about two months at my ambulance job when I got a phone call from Tom Poole, who was the business manager at Phillips U. He asked me if I could come in and see him, giving no indication of what he wanted. My mind went to ‘I was in trouble for something’. I was in charge of bringing all the entertainment to Phillips in my job on the Student Senate. I suspected that he was going to ask me to stay within budget, which was $25,000 for the year. Bringing talent was always a crap…