Browsing Archive: May, 2013

PIC O' THE DAY

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, May 30, 2013, In : Pictures 
An unused ad concept for the original release of Star Wars back in 1977. I rather like it myself... although I wish they would have included John Carter as well as Buck and Flash, since he predated them all. Oh, well, nobody ever asks my advice on these things...
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IT'S NOT THE YEARS, IT'S THE MILEAGE

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, In : Reminiscence 

This Saturday – with as little fanfare as possible, in spite of all my best efforts to ignore it, and no doubt very much to the surprise of a few childhood friends who I'm sure never thought I'd make it – I will observe the 50th anniversary of my birth.


Note, please, that I did not say I will “celebrate” my birthday. The word just doesn’t seem appropriate somehow to me these days. I've felt that way for a few years now. I can’t really say why.


A friend once suggested that it cou...


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SOME OF US STILL DREAM OF JEANNIE

Posted by John Allen Small on Tuesday, May 28, 2013, In : Pop Culture 
A funny thing happened the other day while I was on the Internet checking up on the latest news. 

I ran across a couple of articles telling of how 78-year-old actress Barbara Eden wowed the crowd in attendance at last Saturday's Life Ball in Vienna, Austria, by showing up dressed in the iconic pink harem costume she wore in the 1960s television series I Dream of Jeannie.

Joined onstage by former President Bill Clinton, Eden addressed the crowd and atone point even performed the classic "Jeannie...

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REMEMBERING THE REAL "SON OF KONG"

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, May 8, 2013, In : Pop Culture 
Ray Harryhausen: 1920-2013


Every little boy has his heroes. It’s a fact of life. And it is equally true that every little boy grows up dreaming of getting the opportunity to actually meet some of those heroes, and to tell them just how much of an impact they have had upon his life. 


Back in 1925, a boy named Ray went to the theatre and saw a silent film entitled The Lost World, an adaptation of the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel about Professor George Edward Challenger and his expedit...


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TRIBUTE TO A NURSE

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, May 2, 2013, In : Reminiscence 

Melissa Small, RN. (Her college graduation portrait; Olivet Nazarene University, Bourbonnais Illinois, 1985)


(Note: In honor of the observance of National Nurses Week on May 6-12, I have chosen to share a newspaper column of mine that originally ran in the Johnston County Capital-Democrat here in Tishomingo back in our issue of Feb. 20, 1997. I was fortunate enough to later win a First Place award for this piece in the category of Personal Columns from the Society of Professional Journalist’...
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About Me


John Allen Small John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996). Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.) John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something. In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems. He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.

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