A Flight in August

Butterfly

We spent a very hot but extremely enjoyable weekend at my uncle’s home in Tulsa earlier this month in celebration of the boatload of birthdays that occur from late July into mid-August in our family. We golfed, we swam, we cooked out, we talked, we laughed. Also, on our last day there, I nabbed this photo of a gigantic butterfly near the pool. I’m submitting it for the Greeblepix contest, but really I’m just putting it up here because I like it. A lot. There were others I took without the butterfly in motion, but I just like this one better, somehow. In general I’m not a big fan of August – and with five straight weeks of 100+ temperatures (thanks, climate change!), it’s good to have little reminders like this that the sun hasn’t decided to go red giant 5 billion or so years early and that eventually, autumn will come.

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Vintage OKC

Vintage 23rd

Nabbed this photo from ShopGirl at the Oklahoma Gazette. It’s of 23rd Street back in the day, with the Tower Theater sign intact, and WITHOUT the buzzing concrete spine of the Broadway Extension in the background. God, I’d have loved to see it back then. Click the photo to find out more about its origins, etc.

Dad Turns 75

This is a photograph of my dad when he was a kid:

Dad

And this is a photograph of my little brother when he was a kid:

John, little

Oh, he’s going to kill me for that. But look. See the resemblance? Especially the eyes. I think that’s neat.

This is the two of them together last Thanksgiving:

John & Dad

That’s one of my favorite photos of all time. It’s hanging on the wall in my dining room.

Yesterday was my dad’s 75th birthday. He drove over from his home in Arkansas to stay the weekend and visit. He and my mom helped my brother and his fiancé move into their new house, only a mile from my mom’s house. Then the whole family came over to mine & Brian’s, where we cooked burgers and brats and cucumber salad for them. We all sat on our back porch and talked for a very long time. We all went out to eat a bunch of times, and my dad and I spent quite awhile sitting around discussing politics, “solving the world’s problems” as he likes to say.

He helped me weed my garden and gave me some tips on how to keep everything healthy. He told me he loves me; he does that a lot. He likes to say, “You may make in this world yet, son.”

Happy birthday, dad. I’m really, really lucky to have you, mom and our family. I’m more grateful for all of you than I’ve ever been; so grateful that I feel like my heart might burst with it.

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