It’s spring. In Oklahoma that means storms. Wind, rain, lightening, hail, hooks that turn into tornadoes on a dime. Every day is an adventure. We move about doing what we normally do but with one eye on the radar, perpetually “weather aware.” Sometimes super cells manifest, sometimes they don’t. But when they do, they turn things upside down. Tree limbs, garbage cans, pool chair cushions, roofs -- any and every item not battened down, as well as plenty that are-- end up someplace where they’re not supposed to be. And often, the conveniences of our modern world (that we think we can’t live without) go with them. Electric lines come down, the power goes and people go out with it. Out of homes and buildings, onto mutual turf, where we do what we don’t normally do.

We talk.

I have a recipe drawer in my kitchen though I don’t open it very often. In it are six or eight cookbooks-- several small-town plastic-spined put-togethers (fundraiser projects from the “county extension” way back in the day), one hardback from the Pioneer Woman, another titled “Desserts” that I think I received as a wedding gift, and one professionally published paperback from the Women’s Auxiliary at Oklahoma Christian College that I wrote the forward for. The greater contents of the drawer are handwritten loose-leaf recipes separated into categorical bundles secured by sturdy metal clips.

These are the things handed down.

Below is a slightly revised, updated version of a previously published piece about perhaps the most iconic of all professional sporting events— The Magical Masters…

I wonder if when they built it, they knew what it would become. Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts were iron-willed men on a crusade to create a thing they could see and taste but on earth were unable to find.  So maybe.  Maybe they had an idea. But it would be impossible to have known then what an icon it would become. When the two men first laid eyes on the abandoned 400-acre Fruitland’s Nursery running parallel to the Savannah River, Jones said it seemed as though “the land had been lying here for years waiting for somebody to lay a golf course on it.” So they grabbed it, and with the help of Alister MacKenzie, that’s exactly what they did. They built Augusta National’s sweeping fairways between the trees, and layered dogwoods and azaleas in the straw underneath the pines. They used the bends and hills as guideposts; they built water and sand to act as foils.  And for the last 90 Aprils, it’s been hard to tell what the “and 1” is at the Master’s— the landscape or the golf.

“Aim higher,” the tennis guru said as my forehand laced with topspin slammed into the tape on the top of the net. “Really?” I thought (and I think I said out loud.) “You get paid to tell people THAT?”

In celebration of the close of Women’s History Month, this week’s blog post is an excerpt from my bestselling book, Rooted to Rise. We must keep passing the baton…

ONE SPRING DAY, when I was driving my fifteen-year-old daughter, Chandler, to school and we were calendar meshing for the week ahead, she saw “Title IX Celebration” on my phone and asked what in the world it meant. I jumped on the teachable moment and explained it. “It’s the anniversary of the law passed in 1972 that says you get to play basketball like your brother. It’s the law that says girls can go to college and study to be anything they want, just like boys can,” I added.

My assistant coach’s first “courtesy car” was a four-door Chevy Malibu in a purple-ish shade of blue. In the early days of Division 1 coaching, a car loaned to the athletic department by a local dealer (aka University supporter) was part of a coach’s package. Recruiting required lots and lots of driving, so a car on loan -- periodically rotated so as not to pile up miles -- made sense. It was an added value for a coaching worker bee whose salary didn’t compute, while simultaneously being a write-off for a donor who wanted tickets to football games. Typically, these vehicles were swapped out every 4-6 months before wear and tear could accumulate— or whenever a dealer had a buyer in the market for a slightly, mostly-loved “new car.”

In the middle of life, dichotomy reigns. “This stage is awful and it’s awesome,” a friend so aptly stated, as he weaved his way through an ordinary day that was suddenly anything but. “The highs are high and the lows are low,” he matter-of-factly lamented. In almost everything he touched he could feel both sides of the coin.

My granddaughter was sitting in the middle of the living room floor at my in-laws’ home on the day after her first Christmas. Austyn was the nine-month-old wonder that had taken precedence over the sparkly packages underneath the tree. Her Aunt CC was sitting on the floor tossing her a little green ball that Austyn, who was poised between her mother’s legs, would “catch,” together with her mom. Every time it happened the room erupted.

It’s March and the sports world is about to go mad. Conference basketball tournaments, the opening acts for the much-ballyhooed big dance, are calling from just around the bend. In a now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t flash, the ball will be tipped, the champion will be crowned, and the confetti will fall from the rafters. Then in the next frantic breath-- sometimes only minutes after the last buzzer sounds—the selection committee will release the 2024 Men’s and Women’s NCAA tournament brackets. Immediately following that, almost everyone—both those included and those who get left out—will find a way to somehow think that they’ve been wronged. The first four out will state their case for why they should have made the cut while the top four seeds will clamor about how unfairly stacked their designated region is. Those in between will mostly claim that their team should be sitting on a different line or facing a different opponent or packing for another geographic locale. Satisfaction, like my Walgreens readers, will be tough to find.

I found the house that became my home on a walk. The ranch-style brick looked like an orphaned hacienda beyond the band of blackjack oaks that separated it from the street. Through the mysterious curtain of branches and leaves, a siren song wafted. The friend I was walking with said the house was empty. Nobody had lived there for quite some time.

Ten in a row. The eight-year-old aspiring baller was working toward a goal. Ten lay-ups without missing on the right side, then once we got that in the books, ten more in a row on the left. Every time she got to eight, the ball lipped off the rim. 

Toby Keith loved Clint Eastwood. I can only guess that a line of snarly-tough authenticity connected the men like 10 lb. test. No two bigger Big Dog Daddies ever lived. The legendary country singer once asked the Academy Award-winning actor, who was at the time working on another movie at the age of 88, “What keeps you going?” Eastwood answered, “I don’t sit around. I get up and go outside. I move. I do things.” And then he added, “You can’t let the old man in.”

In a pivotal scene of FX’s smash-hit series “The Bear,” Richie-- a 40-something, recently humbled, trepidatious intern at one of Chicago’s top restaurants-- happens upon the establishment’s owner/chef serenely peeling mushrooms in a quiet, empty kitchen before the start of the day. As a follow up to his childlike “whatcha doin’?” she asks him if he’d “like a go.”

I miss my dad on my birthday. Every January 19th I have a pang. It would sound way better if I said I miss my dad on his birthday, in February. I do. But not in the way I miss him on the day that marks each trip of mine around the sun.

I’m a classic pre-liver. Whenever something big is coming, I take it for a test drive before it actually arrives. I do the hills, the sharp turns, the narrow parking spaces that appear to be too skinny for a fit. Just me and the “big deal.” A time or two or twenty, we hit the road to go for a spin so she won’t feel so foreign in real time.

Before my freshman year of high school, I wrote on a small piece of notebook paper, “1. Go to State. 2. Be an All-Stater. 3. Get a full ride.” Then I ripped it from its spiral wiring and taped it--curly edges and all-- to the inside back of my royal blue locker. Those were what I wanted more than anything. So every day during my freshman year when I would go to my locker to gather my books and supplies for first hour, I’d read, “1. Go to State. 2. Be an All-Stater. 3.Get a Full Ride.” When the bell rang at the close of class, I’d return to my cubby and read, “1. Go to State. 2. Be an All-Stater. 3. Get a Full Ride.” Six times a day for the 181 days of our school year, my eyes told my brain and my body what to do.

The 6’3” center on my college basketball team drove a lovingly-used black Volkswagen Beetle. Watching her unfurl from its tight confines was entertaining, but it paled in comparison to the ride. Most of our teammates and I had cars in varying size, form and functionality, but hers was the one we took when we were more about the going than the place we had to go. The Bug was perfect for short jaunts from the gym to the dorm when the undeterred north wind was howling and we, soaked with sweat, needed to get from point A to point B (preferably without catching pneumonia). It was our vehicle of choice for a 7-Eleven Slurpee or a stack of pancakes at IHOP. It was always what we took when we had nowhere to be but felt the urge to go. As the point guard --aka, the only one who could fit-- my spot was in the backseat behind the driver, knees tucked under chin.

Austyn sat up in the bed organizing her lovies who were joining us for the night. Turtle-Turtle, Rocky Bear, Dumbo, Puff Puff, and her newest acquisitions from an extended family exchange--Katty and Dog -- were neatly lined up on and around the pillows that formed a retaining wall on the far side of the bed. “You hafta be good,” she whispered to them. “Santa is seeing who’s nice and naughty and he’s coming in his sleighhhhhhh!” The last word taking off like a team of reindeer from the roof, its one syllable stretched to capacity inside a whisper-shriek. I was laying with my back to her, feigning sleep while cataloguing every single word as the Times Square Ticker in my head ran around and around exclaiming, “It doesn’t get better than this.”

I’m not sure what it is about conclusions that makes us want to rank and file, but at the ends of things we tend to do it. Voraciously. Religiously. Exhaustively (as in comprehensively and also “making one tired.”) “Best of” lists seem to be our way of organizing our druthers and sharing them with others who we assume (you know what that word means) might care.

My daughter has long been the best gift giver I know. Sometimes her presents are practical—like the Smeg toaster that I didn’t know I needed but can’t imagine being without. Or the towel I wrap my hair up in after a shower. Or the amazing vacuum cleaner that sucks up debris from every type of flooring in our home. Some of her gifts are creations—painted canvas signs or photographs or albums painstakingly organized to tell a story she knows I’d like to be able to get to and hold in my hands. But everything she gives—pragmatic or sentimental-- is wrapped in insightful paper that’s stuck together with “I get you” tape. Her presents say, “You are loved” and, “You are celebrated”, certainly. But mostly they say to those of us lucky enough to receive them, “You are known”. And that might be the greatest gift of all.