1976 was the Bicentennial of America and it was a big year for me. A journalism major at Southwest Texas State University (SWT), I won statewide in reporting and columnist writing awards for news, entertainment, fine arts and humor. My confidence was high, but being honored as Investigative Reporter of the Year Award at the…
Blessed with good mentors in life, I’m grateful to carry their wisdom within me. They’ve been especially useful this year. In early June of 2020 Dodie and I decided we had enough of the bad news spewing out of broadcast and social media. Long before President Donald Trump’s presidency, I had lost faith in most…
Read more Remain Calm, Trust in God, and For Sure Vote in Person
I miss rain. When I was seven, we lived on West Ansley in south San Antonio. Three Dennis families, lived side by side, with six acres among us. It was my last innocent summer in many ways. In just a few months Blackie, my devoted Cocker Spaniel would be dead. Nineteen days later, I would…
Read more My First Great Adventure Was In a Torrential Storm
Out of all the movies of 1939, nine-year-old Jerry Parr was most impacted by the film Code of the Secret Service. There were many top box office hits that year, but the Secret Service movie was his favorite. He sat in the theater fascinated by Agent “Brass Bancroft and his partner, Gabby Watters. They went…
Read more Serendipity–The Boy Who Grew Up to Save a President
About three weeks into our Mom’s sickness, I was sitting on my favorite chair at my grandparents’ kitchen table drawing on a Big Chief tablet, a picture of Superman flying into outer space. Bobbi was napping comfortably in the center of their bed. The watercooler unit running in the front living room window was…
Saturday afternoon, the Peterson Regional Health Hospital emergency room doctor and cardiologist said they were going to send me up to ICU. Not even an hour before, the love of my life, my bride Dodie and I were happily eating “Donna’s Meatloaf” at the Camp Verde General Store and Restaurant about 17 miles away. Serendipity…
Read more ICU Do You See Me? True Friends In Times of Crisis
Walking into Tupelo Hardware, I wondered how Elvis Presley felt when his mother Gladys took him there for his eleventh birthday, on January 8, 1946. It wasn’t too long after his very first public performance, singing “Old Shep” at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair children’s talent competition the previous October 3rd. Forrest L. Bobo, was working at…
Happy Independence Day from Washington D.C. We are proud and honored to be spending America’s 244th birthday in our nation’s capital. Friday was a beautiful day here walking in the shadow of the Washington Monument and seeing the White House. In 1975 Dodie played in the Junior College Nationals Volleyball Tournament in Catonsville, Maryland. They…
After our first full day in Pigeon Forge visiting Alcatraz East and the Civil War Theater, we had planned to go to the Hollywood Wax Museum and the Titanic Exhibition. We decided to let serendipity take over when we learned that morning the Hatfield and McCoys Dinner Theater didn’t have seating for two until three…
Eleven-year-old Sterling Smith was keen at being idle and solemn about his watermelon business. Those two qualities worked together for the young boy during the hot Mississippi summer of 1973 when he noticed four cars parading toward his watermelon stand on Highway 51 going northbound one scalding afternoon. “I would play a game with myself…
Read more The Shrewd 11-year-old Who Wouldn’t Negotiate With Elvis Presley
