Easter was a big deal when I was a little girl. My mother and I always bought new dresses for Easter, my father would buy us corsages, and we’d all go off to church. Sometimes I even had a hat and gloves. Afterwards, we’d get together with some of my cousins and have lunch and an Easter egg hunt. It was all great fun.

     My mother always picked out my clothes, including my Easter dresses. One year, when I was 8 or 9 years old, I decided I should have some say in the matter. We were shopping at a local store (not one of the better ones) when I spotted my idea of the perfect dress. It was light blue with white polka dots. The bodice and full skirt had darker blue bands on them, and there were little red roses appliqued along each of the bands. I think it had other geegaws and adornments also. As Easter dresses go, it was a Porter Wagoner suit. But to my young eyes, it was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen, worthy of any Disney princess. My mother gave in and bought it, over her objections and conservative instincts.

     We always attended an outdoor sunrise service, and I was forced every year to wear a coat or sweater at my mother’s insistence. At the other end of the warm weather season, she always wanted me to wear a jacket over my Halloween costume because she always thought it would be cold. I objected to both.

     Coat-clad, I sat through the outdoor service, fretting that my peacock of a dress remained covered. When we arrived at church, I gladly revealed it. I was beaming, although the thought makes me cringe today. I ran around telling everyone, “Look at my new dress!” My mother pointed out to all who heard that I had picked it out. At the time, I thought she was proud of me for doing so. Now I realize she was distancing herself from the fashion abomination, absolving herself of guilt.

     Fortunately, our tastes change as we grow. Today I got up and put on a bright sweater to contrast with the sky’s dingy gray. I didn’t worry about whether I had the fanciest outfit ever. But I did pick the sweater out myself.

If you haven’t yet purchased a paperback copy of Deadlines (or one for a gift), now’s the time.
I plan to increase the price for the paperback from $10 to $12 on Jan. 1. You can order one from Amazon, or purchase one at Three Rivers Museum in Muskogee; at Murv Jacob Gallery in Tahlequah; or at Liz McMahan’s booth at Crossroads Treasures in Wagoner. Or, if you’re around me, I’ll have copies.

Happy holidays and happy reading!

I would return to Paris tomorrow, given the chance.

Despite the latest warnings cautioning travelers.

Despite the terrorist shootings in Paris.

Despite the terrorist scare we experienced when we landed at Paris’ DeGaulle Airport early last Sept. 25.

The flight to Paris was quite smooth. We landed on time, although touchdown was somewhat of a shock as the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the lights outside until we hit the runway. We passed through customs rapidly, much more so than at Heathrow a month earlier. And after quickly retrieving our luggage, our hosts Roland and Alain were there to greet us.

We found a small alcove at the airport, where we could wait until Roland and Alain met the other couple who would join us. Tim and I talked and watched the airport passers-by for a half hour or so.

Suddenly, an extremely large cop, clad in black, came through. His size made the whistle in his mouth look so diminutive to appear almost a joke. He began tweeting the whistle, his arm motions ordering us to move back. We did, pulling our suitcases, standing a few moments. He returned, motioning us further back.

Tim and I found a place to sit. Within moments, more officers arrived, wearing black uniforms and equipped with assault rifles. A couple had dogs.

“Why did we ever leave home?” Tim asked.

I didn’t let myself think the same, although we were across the ocean, in a country where I only had a rudimentary knowledge of the language, separated from the only people we knew. I wondered how we would find them again after whatever caused the commotion had passed.

After 45 minutes or so, we were allowed to proceed back across the barrier. We found the area we first occupied and waited there. Roland and Alain arrived, along with the other couple. Somehow we all found each other and left the airport.

The cause of all the confusion? Someone had left an unattended suitcase near the check-in counter. Officials had to check the possibility it might contain a bomb. Like most such threats, it turned out to be nothing.

With my reporter’s instinct, it was natural for me to want to be close to the action. Tim, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with it. I was more frightened as we drove out of Paris, in a traffic jam, with motorcyclists barreling down the thin areas between cars in speeds that appeared 60 mph or greater.

We enjoyed our 10 days in the French countryside south of Paris, a pastoral area where one could drive for minutes without seeing another car. Our time back in Paris was brief, and there’s more I want to see, a lot we didn’t get to do.

So I’d go back in a heartbeat. I refuse to let the random possibility of a terrorist encounter keep me home. I put myself in more danger, statistically, driving to the grocery store. Most people don’t think twice about doing that, but some avoid travel for fear of terrorism.

There’s a slim chance I may become a terrorist victim while living my life. But if I let terrorists rule my life, I’m already a victim.

 

 

Our local newspaper has lost two more of its most experienced reporters.
Sony Hocklander and sports reporter Lyndal Scranton have accepted buyouts from Gannett, the paper’s parent corporation. Each has written a final column describing how working for the paper has enriched their lives and, they hope, that of the community.
I especially related to Lyndal’s column. He told of learning from longtime News-Leader Sports Editor Marty Eddlemon and other sports old timers. They taught him his craft. Their contemporaries on the news side taught me mine. Long before I entered the hallowed portals of Walter Williams and Neff halls at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, I learned to write in news style from Frank Farmer, Hank Billings, Jim Billings, Dale Freeman, Lucille Morris Upton, and my columnist/idol Tom Ellis. On my first day of my beginning news reporting class, the story I turned in earned an A and accolades, because I followed their teachings.
Two fellow J-school grads in my class, Don Underwood and Bil Tatum, spent their careers at the News-Leader, accepting similar buyouts a few years ago. In the intervening time, I’ve read of others who have done the same. The paper has lost its familiar names and its longtime boots-on-the-ground staff.
When I began work in 1980 at the Muskogee Daily Phoenix (also a Gannett publication in those days) I felt fortunate to have longtime Muskogee journalists who could tell me who fit in where, and what had happened 10 or 20 years ago that affected today’s events. Joan Morrison, who had reported at the Phoenix since she was a young woman and whose father, John Lewis Stone, was its legendary managing editor, was especially valuable, as was Warren Weakland, a former sports editor turned education reporter. They retired during my career. When I left the newsroom, I took 19 years of institutional memory with me in my head.
Corporate officials and editors who have come to towns from elsewhere lack that. They look to cut newsroom expenses by getting rid of the higher-cost veterans (most people would be shocked to know how little these people make after years on the job) and replacing them with newcomers who aspire to hit the big time after spending a couple of years in the backwaters. These people, and their bosses, have no real interest in the long-term well being of their communities, seeking rather to advance their careers.
These new journalists cut their teeth on technology and seek trailblazing ways to present the news. The only one of my journalistic mentors who survives, Hank Billings, writes a weekly history column for the News-Leader, while we other retired fossils have gone on to new experiences.
The readers are the only real losers in this scenario.

This week I became a crime victim. It was a minor crime and, although a hassle, caused no lasting ill effects.
Tim and I attended an event over the weekend in Oklahoma. Before leaving Monday morning, we discovered someone had stolen the rear license plate from our car while it was parked at the motel.
We filed a police report, Tim transferred the front plate to the back of the car for our drive home, and I spent about half the day Tuesday getting replacement plates.
An inconvenience, but not a major problem.
That’s not the case for all too many crime victims. During my years as a reporter, I witnessed the effect serious crimes had on many families.
My own family is no exception. On June 20, 1989, my cousin Shirley lost her beloved only child, Angela Lyn Fortner. I know Shirley and many other family members have suffered daily because of Angie’s murder. And each time her killer, Bret Alan Arbuckle, comes up for parole the wound opens anew.
This week Shirley told me she and her husband, Paul, will have to confront this pain again during a parole hearing Nov. 3. Arbuckle was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life, and armed criminal action, with a 30-year sentence.
I never knew Angie as well as I did my Oklahoma cousins’ children, but enjoyed watching her play with them as she was growing up, during our annual Memorial Day family reunions. I saw her brighten the lives of my Aunt Virginia and Uncle Bill. She lived next door and was at their house on old Route 66 often.
She was only 17 when she died, looking forward to her senior year at Miller High School in Missouri. She hoped to become a psychologist, because she enjoyed helping friends with their problems.
Angie had an active childhood, taking twirling, clogging, violin and piano lessons. She participated in the youth group at her small community church. She played in the band, loved to water ski and camp at the lake with her grandparents. An animal lover, she had a cat and a white rabbit.
And she loved spending time with other teens. That’s what she was doing the night of her death. She and two girlfriends were camping on the banks of Billy Creek, about three miles from her home. They were near one friend’s house, just a few hundred yards away. Other teens joined the fun.
Everything was going well when Arbuckle, who was 23 at the time, showed up uninvited. He told the group he was intoxicated. Before shooting Angie, he waved a gun at other young people, vandalized the campsite and threatened to rape the other two girls.
A frightened Angie left with her boyfriend and drove toward Angie’s home. Just before arriving there, she told him they needed to return to the campsite so she could check on her friends and get her pickup. She couldn’t find the keys and asked Arbuckle if he had them. Arbuckle pulled her from the pickup, grabbed her in a headlock, pointed the gun at her throat and pulled the trigger. The bullet severed an artery and she bled to death.
Her death left a permanent hole in her mother’s heart, as it did that of her father, the late Joe Fortner; Aunt Virginia and Uncle Bill; and many other family members. Her father and grandparents died knowing her killer remained behind bars. Shirley has made it her mission to see that he stays there.
I plan to write a letter to the parole board, and will help get petitions signed in support of her effort.
Angie lies in the Rose Prairie Cemetery in Halltown, Mo., beside her grandparents. When we decorate family graves there on Memorial Day, Tim and I often run into Shirley and Paul, as they place red and white flowers on Angie’s grave.
I have had other close friends who have lost children, talented people who were murdered at a young age. I have witnessed their suffering and seen how it has affected their lives. In at least two cases, I have seen them turn to alcohol to drown their sorrows.
Shirley didn’t do that. She continued working hard at her job, and in her retirement is able to enjoy travel and her daily life.
But she was robbed of the chance to see Angie graduate from high school, go on to college, find that perfect mate and provide her with grandchildren.
Some sorrow never ends. Some voids just can’t be filled.

.

 

 

 

Reporters deal on a daily basis with many people who never, or rarely, make the news. They don’t get quoted, and usually they don’t really want to. They’re the government workers, school personnel, business employees, all the others we see as we make our rounds and write our stories.

Usually we quote the leaders — the city manager, mayor, county commissioner, elected official, principal, owner of the company. These days it’s becoming increasingly, and more irritatingly, the official spokesman whose job it is to put a positive spin on the news for his or her organization.

But any good reporter knows some of the most valuable hints and story ideas come from those in the trenches, those who make the others’ jobs easier.

Myrle O’Dell was one of those people. As the longtime legal secretary and minutes clerk for Judge Lyle Burris in Muskogee, she was the first person to greet people as they entered his outer chambers. Along with bailiff Margaret Terrell, she kept the judge’s courtroom and paperwork in order.

My immediate impression on meeting Myrle was that she was a sweet lady. As I spent more time around her, especially during jury trials, I learned that impression was correct. She was adept at helping with jurors (although Margaret had the main task of keeping them up to date and getting them where they needed to be), juggling attorneys, and dealing with witnesses.

Sitting on the witness stand is difficult enough, as I know from experience. It’s hard to imagine how grueling an experience it must be for young children who have been sexually abused, especially when those children must testify against family members. I especially remember one of the first difficult cases I had to cover. A 12-year-old girl had been raped by her stepfather. Even after her testimony, she had to remain available. She sat in Myrle’s office, while Myrle comforted her, talked with her, did everything she could to ease the child’s ordeal. I was impressed by her compassion and her ability to provide a warm presence to the little girl.

An obnoxious attorney or a persistent individual who demanded something from the judge would see a different side. Myrle was strict with them, not allowing them to distract her boss with frivolous missions.

I did quote Myrle, on one sad occasion. I had just returned from the house on North F Street in Muskogee where Michael Long had murdered Sheryl Graber and her 5-year-old son, Andy. Myrle called to ask if it was true. I sadly told her it was, and she shared quotes about the young mother who she had watched grow, who she worshipped with at their neighborhood Methodist Church, whose parents were longtime friends. Most touching, she told me how Andy’s grandfather enjoyed taking him on outings to a nearby doughnut shop.

After her retirement I saw little of Myrle. A couple of times I glimpsed her walking her small dog. I hoped she was safe in her old two-story foursquare, in an eastside neighborhood that once was nice but had been infiltrated by meth addicts and other undesirables in recent years.

This morning I learned of Myrle’s death, at age 90. Her obituary was probably one of the few times her name appeared in the paper. It brought me the memory of a woman I always enjoyed visiting with, I always found helpful, and a realization of how many people like this a reporter has the pleasure to meet and get to know — even if they don’t make headlines.

Rest in peace, Myrle.

Deadlines is finally available! You can order it in paperback or Kindle form from Amazon, and if you live in this area, I have copies that I’ll be glad to sign for you.
It’s been a long journey but this part has finally come to fruition. Of course, I already have rough drafts of several stories for my second book. You can expect more crime stories, but also more from Tahlequah and the fascinating people I encountered there.
After a holiday hiatus, my local writers group is about to start meeting again at the historic Kindall Store in Olga, Mo. I’ve missed comparing notes with them and welcome the chance to exchange ideas every week. Writing groups really do help.
Deadlines chronicles many of the experiences I had while writing for three newspapers in Oklahoma over 35 years.
News keeps happening, and I expect to keep my book current. I already have updated the Kindle edition to reflect that a woman known only as “Daisy Doe” since her body was discovered in 1988 in the Grand River has been identified. I was astonished to discover she was Jeanetta Coleman, once the common-law wife of Charles Troy Coleman, the killer whose execution I witnessed in 1990. Coleman could not have killed her, as he had been in prison since 1979. Chapter 11 of Deadlines covers his story and the execution.
I also revised the Kindle version after the parole hearing for Tom Cartwright, another killer whose story begins the first chapter of Deadlines, to reflect that he remains in prison. He will be up for parole again in three years, but the DOC lists no release date for him. I’ll also make changes to the paperback version of Deadlines periodically as required, and will publish notices of the updates on my pages.
Thanks in advance to all who purchase and read Deadlines. Please let me know what you think of it.

My former editor doesn’t go to cemeteries. Says she never will, even when she dies. She plans to donate her body to research.
While that’s a noble thing to do, I couldn’t resist telling her about a murder case I once covered. A drunken man and woman got into an argument at a Muskogee flophouse, and he beat her to death. After officials failed to find any of her relatives, they tried to donate her body to science. Science didn’t want it. I thought that was the ultimate rejection.
I, on the other hand, enjoy visiting cemeteries. I wonder about the stories these people had to tell, and there must have been many intriguing ones going along with all those lives.
Memorial Day has always been a big ritual in our family. Each year, my mother collected tall juice cans and wrapped them in tinfoil. She placed bouquets of roses, peonies, or whatever other fresh flowers she could collect and prepared them to place on relatives’ graves. Then the cemetery pilgrimage began. We always encountered friends and relatives at the cemeteries. At Billings, Mo., we usually arrived about the time a religious service began on Sunday. My mother always got to see several old boyfriends there.
My mother considered it almost a sacrilege to use artificial flowers. But as the years went by and the number of family graves increased, she finally relented. We still made the pilgrimage. The number of contemporaries and old boyfriends decreased as she got older. The last few years of her life, I made the journey alone. She doubted I would continue to decorate the graves after her death.
She was wrong. I enjoy the ritual. A Memorial Day trip to Missouri was Tim’s first introduction to the area after we got together, and his first introduction to many members of my family.
Together, we visit six cemeteries in two states, telling each other stories about our families as we do. In Oklahoma, we go to Barber, a rural cemetery where many Cherokees lie. An angel over the gate presides over the calm, wooded hillside. Tim talks about his parents, his grandparents, some of the aunts and uncles he remembers fondly. We place arrangements with flags on the graves of his brother Jesse, who died in Vietnam, and Larry, also a veteran, who was murdered. The case remains unsolved nearly 15 years later.
Back in Missouri, we visit Green Lawn and White Chapel cemeteries in Springfield. My Aunt Lena and her family are in Green Lawn. I tell Tim about Uncle Frank, a kind and gentle man who loved fishing and was often somewhat forgetful. One time at the lake we noticed him dog paddling along — still wearing his glasses and his watch. Next to them are their son Ed, a World War II and Korea veteran and later a test pilot. I first remember meeting Ed when he was home after his helicopter crashed during the Korean War. We shared a bowl of purple ice cream. His sister, Betty Ann, and her husband Don, are next to Ed. I always enjoyed visiting their chicken farm, where they produced eggs. A couple of years ago I was shocked to see that their son, Mike, had died. He was younger than me and I’d lost track of him. I don’t know if he had any children, but someone always decorates his grave.
I’ve never liked White Chapel. It’s at the end of the main runway of the Springfield Airport, and jet takeoffs and landings always punctuated family funerals. We placed flags on the graves of my father, who served in Europe during World War II, and my cousin Joe, who was present during the Vietnam Gulf of Tonkin. My parents and my mother’s twin sister and her husband have identical grave markers. I’m also the only one to put flowers on Aunt Lela and Uncle Rudy’s grave. I have no idea if their son is still alive. Uncle Rudy used to sell Electrolux vacuums. He would knock on a door, and when the housewife invited him in he would dump a bag of dirt on her floor so he could demonstrate how well his vacuum worked.
Then come the country cemeteries, the ones I enjoy most. Halltown’s Rose Prairie is where we find my Grandma Smith, Aunt Lucy, Uncle Bill and Aunt Virginia, and others. As a child I was amazed by the number of babies who were buried without names, victims of early childhood illness. One family apparently stopped naming their children until they decided whether they were going to survive. Several stones in their plot say only “Baby,” while one, who made it to age two, will be known for eternity only as “Fatty.” Always felt sorry for him. I also wondered what caused one man to be buried, away from the rest of his family, alone by the outhouse back of the chapel.
Campground Cemetery at Chesapeake is by far my favorite cemetery, with its towering oaks and cedars. Grandpa Smith is buried there, along with three of my father’s siblings I never knew. Mary died as a teenager, and my grandparents’ first children, twins, were stillborn. The stone states only “infant children of William and Mamie Smith.” Several years ago we realized no living person knows whether they were boys, girls, or one of each. My Uncle Claude and Aunt Ruth, my favorite aunt and uncle, also are there. Uncle Claude, who was wounded in Italy while serving with General Patton in World War II, also received a flag. A new concrete block outhouse has replaced the old wooden one where my cousin Brian once locked in Uncle Wilson.
St. Peter’s Cemetery at Billings reflects the German heritage of its earliest inhabitants, mostly Swiss or German immigrants. The older stones are engraved in German, including a strange iron cross marking the grave of Viktor Pfundt, the young son of the minister at the church my mother attended as a child. Besides my grandparents, we pause to remember two other aunts I never met, Johanna and Lydia. Lydia was only a year old when she died of diphtheria, while Johanna was four or five when my grandparents were burning brush, she fell into the fire and died from her burns. The most recent grave we decorate there belongs to my cousin Rose Mary, my oldest relative when she died last year at age 90. I didn’t know until she died that she had been a Rosie the Riveter. When she was 18 she went to California and got a job making fuel tanks for B-17s. She was a member of the national Rosie the Riveter Association.
My family has many stories to tell. No doubt yours does too. I wish now that I had asked family elders for more information when they were still around to provide it. I especially wish I had known about Rose Mary’s wartime contributions and been able to talk to her about it.
As a journalist, it wasn’t uncommon for me to read an obituary and think “I really wish I had met that person while alive. He or she would have made a great story.” It’s even more tragic that I wasn’t able to pass along all the family stories because I just didn’t ask.
Still, my Memorial Day ritual keeps me sharing the stories I do know. I don’t know that anyone will ever share mine. That’s one reason I’ve written my memoir, Deadlines. By next Memorial Day, it will be in print to share my experiences.

For more than two decades, I’ve been increasingly troubled by the limiting of access to public places under the justification of security.
When I began reporting, I could go just about anywhere I wanted. Public buildings and schools were open. As an education reporter, I was free to roam the halls looking for interesting stories. I found many that way, and developed relationships with some wonderful teachers who became valuable sources. Of course, with the surge in school violence, I can understand why schools aren’t as open.
Public buildings are another issue. When I went to work for the Muskogee Phoenix in 1980, people visiting the federal courthouse or federal office building could enter at will and go where they pleased. If I was covering a case, during recesses I enjoyed wandering the halls and admiring the building’s beautiful culture and excellent state of preservation. That building later was the first in Muskogee to require that people present IDs and go through a metal detector.
Now people are forced to go through metal detectors or be patted down to transact almost any business in public buildings. (Since I have two knee replacements, I get treated to a patdown).
I visited Washington, D.C., as a college student and remember we got to go all over the Capitol. I recall riding the subway with a senator as he went from his office to the chamber to vote. We toured the White House and I’m sure our group had reservations, but I don’t recall any unusual security measures.
Obviously that has changed. Only a few days ago, my friends Roger and Shawna Cain of Adair County, Oklahoma, found that out in a terrifying way.
The Cains are Cherokee National Treasures. Both have studied their culture extensively and work hard to preserve it. They are experts in native plant identification, use and preservation, gleaning much of this knowledge from tribal elders. Roger is an advocate for the environmental benefits of river cane, while Shawna uses river cane and other natural sources to weave her award-winning baskets. Roger makes Cherokee booger masks which have grown in popularity.
Naturally, the Cains were excited when asked to exhibit their work, along with that of other respected Cherokee artists, at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian in Washington. They set out in their Toyota, loaded with works of art and river cane. Upon arrival a museum representative told them if they came over they could unload their work. She requested a vehicle description and license tag number, which they gave her. She told them how to get to the unloading area.
They turned up the drive as directed. As they approached the building, unseen bollards (hard pillars designed to repel terrorist attacks) rose from the ground, impaling their car and striking them with the force of a crash. The car was totaled. Shawna’s elbow was severely injured. Roger hasn’t felt right since the accident.

Roger and Shawna are no terrorists, but they were terrorized. Museum officials disavowed any responsibility for the incident or the damage, and pooh-poohed their pleas for restitution. The Cherokee Nation stepped in and allowed them the resources to remain in Washington until the fate of their vehicle was determined and they could head home.

Needless to say, their impression of the NMAI fell drastically because of this incident and the lack of concern and resolution by officials.
The Cains are finally at home in the Cherokee Nation, still working to rectify this disaster and restore their rights. I wish them every success.

Terrorism has become the “worldwide communist conspiracy” of the 21st century. As a high school student I was told we were lucky we lived in a free country, where we could go anywhere we want. We weren’t like those unfortunate inhabitants of godless communist countries, who had to carry an ID at all times and be prepared to explain their comings and goings upon official request. We were free.

Today, I don’t feel quite as free.