Showing Tag: "memories" (Show all posts)

I’m Not At All Sure Why, But I Do Remember...

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, May 25, 2023, In : Reminiscence 

To be honest, I’m really not sure what might have prompted it.


It might have been that photograph we ran on the front page of last week’s Johnston County Sentinel of the Stay Golden Inn, the new Airbnb located in the building that had been the home of the Johnston County Capital-Democrat for more than a century. The fact that the historic building has been given both a long-overdue renovation and a new purpose pleases more than I can say, and I wish nothing but success for new owners Car...


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"For Every Dream That Took Me High..."

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, In : Reminiscence 
(Photo: Me at Byrd Park in Kankakee, around 1977 or so.)


I have been a fan of the late Harry Chapin since the first time I heard his brother Tom singing songs that Harry wrote on the ABC-TV program "Make A Wish" when I was a kid back in the early 1970s. A few years later I heard songs like "Cat's In The Cradle" and "WOLD" on the radio, and I was hooked; I was one of those who unashamedly shed a tear when I heard the news of Harry's death about a month and a half after I graduated from high sch...


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LIFE IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, June 13, 2012, In : Reminiscence 

Recently – and with as little fanfare as possible, thank you very much – I observed the 49th anniversary of my arrival in this world. I say “observed” rather than “celebrate” because... well, because I’ve reached a point in my life in which the latter term seems ever so slightly less appropriate. At least it does to me. At the moment. If I make it another 10 to 20 years I suspect I’ll go back to celebrating because, let’s face it, making it that far is something a little mor...


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Cherish The Memories...

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, July 21, 2011, In : Reminiscence 
(Pictured: My brother Jimmy and our grandfather, Elmer Leslie Tipps, 
 at Pennington Creek, Tishomingo, Oklahoma, around 1972 or so)


It was about midway through the day this past Tuesday – our deadline crunch day here at the weekly newspaper where I work – before I realized the day’s date (July 19) and remembered that Tuesday would have been my younger brother Jimmy’s 45th birthday. 


It’s hard to believe that it’s been five and a half years since Jimmy died following a sudden illne...


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20 YEARS SURE WENT BY IN A HURRY...

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, June 1, 2011, In : Reminiscence 

Try as I might not to let it get to me, I've been experiencing the occasional pang of nostalgia this week. I suppose that's only to be expected when you find yourself facing the 20th anniversary of your first child's birth.


Joshua Orrin Small was born on June 1, 1991 - 28 years to the day after I was born, as it happens. I've spent the last 20 years telling people that shared birth date was the product of accident, rather than design; I've never been that good at math, after all. What makes ...


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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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