Category Archives: Stories

Colliers, Brilliantine and Floyd: barbershop memories.

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Topeka Capital-Journal
Nov. 3, 1986

One day recently I had a late-afternoon haircut and was the only customer in the place. I also was the only man in the place. My barber (barberess, beautician, hair stylist, coiffeuse, friseur, cosmetologist, clipper, cropper or whatever) was a woman.

Two or three more of the above were sitting around, waiting for the place to close. There also was a child – a little girl, naturally. I was at their mercy, but they didn’t take advantage of it. Maybe it was because the little girl was present.

Driving home, I thought about how times have changed. I remembered some of my first haircuts and the barbershop back in Britton, Okla., where I grew up. You don’t see anything like it these days. Continue reading →

Post-Thanksgiving Potpourri

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Topeka Capital-Journal
Nov. 25, 1998

Herewith, in the interest of a fat-free America, some stories designed to dull your Thanksgiving Day appetite, discourage second and third helpings, and keep your belt buckle in the same notch:

– Father O’Flaherty was hearing the confessions of some schoolboys, and noted that all of them, after listing more familiar sins, asked forgiveness for throwing peanuts into the river. He thought they must be repenting for wasting food.

But his curiosity grew as it went on, and he decided to get to the bottom of it. But the last boy in a confessional said nothing about peanuts. So the priest asked him, “what about throwing peanuts in the river?”

“Father,” the boy said, “I’m peanuts.”

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Bucket List, Pails in Comparison

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Topeka Capital-Journal
Dec. 19, 2005

I have been given a list of “20 Things You Should Do in This Lifetime” and it appears if I had intended to do all of them I should have started sooner. Maybe you should have too. Here’s the list and some comments.

1. Visit the country your ancestors called home. I’ve done that. I’ve been to England, Ireland, Holland and Germany, and didn’t see anybody I recognized. All I really know if that my mother came from Nebraska, by way of Indiana, and my Dad from Kansas, also by way of Indiana. I’ve been to those places too and didn’t see any monuments to Shively’s or Sniders.

2. Leave a dollar where a kid will find it. I’ve done that. I also left my car keys where a kid could find them. When the kids were young, the keys disappeared. When they were older, the car disappeared.

3. Fly over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter. No way. I wouldn’t fly over the Shunganunga in a helicopter. They were not meant to fly.

4. Lend money to a friend without expecting it back. I’ve done that countless times, and sure enough, I didn’t get the money back. The friends were my children.
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