My speech is over.  Thank goodness.  My biggest critic (Me) thought I did okay.   I had worked myself up into a frenzy.  And when I got to the downtown Tulsa Hyatt Regency and walked into the lobby and my picture was on an overhead film feed, and my picture was on ten foot high posters throughout the building, my nerves took another turn South.  I knew it was a big deal, but not that big a deal.  I knew that my book “The Letter” had been chosen by the Okla. Library Association, but had no idea how many people were involved.  

At this point, the book is in the hands of God, and in the hands of all of you out there who recommend it to a friend to read.  Word of mouth determines most of this kind of thing.  And all of you have been overly gracious to me.

The publisher picked up two other books that I have written.  One about Ken, (The Corsair) and another about my grandmother (The Jersey Cow).  It gives me a reason to take care of my health--I hope to see them in print.

My posting has been erratic--I know.  And I used to do it first thing every day.  But somehow with all of this sickness I’ve had, I am out of whack.  I am trying to get back on whack.  Maybe when today and tomorrow are done, I will be back to my old self.

Today is a meeting of all the librarians in Oklahoma and I am supposed to meet them in Tulsa and “get acquainted.”  Tomorrow, I will be speaking to them about my first book, why I wrote it, what it is about etc. etc.  It is “up” for some kind of an award.

I don’t like things “out there” on my calendar.  I feel like I have a ball and chain around my neck.  People tell me that this is just a symptom of old age.  Maybe...but I know this...I like peace and quiet. A visitor every now and then is nice, but I tire out really quick.

After I speak to all of the Oklahoma librarians tomorrow, I’m going to do nothing for a while.  Maybe I’ll get back to writing.  My granddad, my father’s dad, was murdered.  Someone shot him and they never found out who...or why.  That might make an interesting book????

I have made myself a wreck of nerves over next Thursday...I am supposed to go to Tulsa and speak to all of Oklahoma’s librarians.  They chose my book as the “big deal” of the year and want to hear what I have to say about it.  My publisher asked, “Why did you write it?”  Like I would know.  I don’t have a clue.  I just started writing.

The only answer I could come up with was that Americans were spitting on our servicemen as they came home from Vietnam--calling them every bad word imaginable, and cursing them as if they had something to do with America’s policies.  Poor guys got drafted.  They went to war.  Or left the country to get away from it.

I was thinking about the children that they left at home.... and since Ken had nineteen years in the Marines, he got sent.  I was thinking about our children.  How awful it must have felt that their country was blaming him for the war when he had nothing to do with it.  In WWII and Korea, we had parades for our servicemen.  In Vietnam, they got spit on.  All three wars at the mercy of the draft.  We don’t have the draft anymore.      

 I found something out last night as I was preparing my lesson for next Sunday...Over half of the words in the New Testament were written by Luke.  I would have guessed it was Paul.  But counting just words, it was Luke.  The book of Luke, and Acts.

He is my favorite writer.  Paul is my favorite also...just a little behind Luke.  I like the way Luke is concise.  Orderly.  Like when he was the only one who said “If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross DAILY and follow me.  The others didn’t get the “daily” in there. 

We know he wrote the book of Acts, which is the only history book in the New Testament.  He calls his writing a “treatise” about all that Jesus began to do and teach.  He is writing to a friend named Theophilus to catch him up to date.  Luke was an investigator.  He went to the source for what he wrote.  Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, etc. It is doubtful that he met Jesus personally, but he was a solid believer and we can be thankful that he preserved his research about the Lord.

I was able to go to church yesterday.  What an uplifting experience.  I have always been a three-times-church a week in the past.  But with all the sickness the devil has been throwing at me--coupled with the cold weather--I couldn’t get from my car and into the building.  So I taught my class by phone.  That is terribly difficult because when you can’t see a person’s face, you don’t know how are receiving it.  We tried Zoom--it didn’t work because only one person could talk at time and this class is a “jump right in” group.

February is almost over and I haven’t let go of 2023.  Time is in a speed race of some sort.  I’ve been watching less of TV.  It is so depressing.  Those of us who are in our 70’s and 80’s are wondering why we didn’t see this coming.  The 1940’s and 50’s were so wonderful.  Everybody seemed to love their neighbors and kids played outside up and down the block.  We didn’t have anything to fear.  But when the “God is dead” movement took hold in the 60’s and 70’s everything went down hill and nobody trusts anyone anymore.  And children are afraid.  You would never let a child walk a mile to get to school.  We did.  If anyone touched a child to harm them, they would end up dead.  Every ya-hoo in Oklahoma who drove a pickup had a rifle rack in the back window, but I never heard of anyone using it.  

 I will be in Tulsa on March 7.  If you want a signed book, give me a phone call and I will try to meet you somewhere.  I don’t have any of the books, so you will have to bring your own to me.

This entire “book” thing has been an education for me.  I am hundreds of dollars in the red mostly from gasoline and postage and shipping...but at least there are books in the bookstores and on Amazon.

I have finished a third book, but getting it out there is so difficult.  Even if you have a publisher who is working with you, getting it into their hands requires finding a time in their schedule to go over each page for editing.  And at my age, time is precious.

I appreciate everyone of you who are helping me.  Reading the books, and telling others about them.  Bless you.  Thank you--each one--for your positive encouragement.  It means a lot.

 I got my tax stuff mailed to the accountant.  I will never understand how anybody could endure four years of agony in econ. and accounting classes to become a tax specialist.  But--I am glad they did so that I don’t have to figure it out.  My sister did it, and is the top dog of payroll in the city of Jenks. 

I never did like arithmetic.   Memorizing and remembering all those adding and multiplying combinations.  Mathematics, however, I enjoy.  Many people don’t see the difference between arithmetic and mathematics.  Arithmetic is to math what letters are to words.

Molly does math.  Each evening, she crawls in my lap and conks out at exactly 6 o’clock.  When the sun starts going down, she has figured out that it is bed time.  I don’t know how she figures daylight savings time out in that formula, but she seems to know what time it is.  When she crawls in my lap, I tell her, “Go get in your crate,” and she runs to the bedroom and crawls in it.  It is her only redeeming quality.  We are working on the other qualities.

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