For Father's Day...

There are many great moments I can think of concerning my parents. As this is Father's Day, I think one moment involving my dad would be the traditional aspect of a father steadying and running behind a boy on a bicycle for the first time. I learned to ride a bicycle on my older brother's tall, heavy bike. I was too short, my legs weren't long enough to jump down to secure a stance stop without receiving some male pain because there was a long bar at the top of its frame. So, if I needed to dismounted, I would have to angle it into a stop and often it was so heavy that it would fall and crunch my skinny bones. It was no small banana-seat bike. So, to learn to ride on it posed real threats to pain, but great trust that it was achievable. Thus, support was crucial. I can still see my father running behind me, keeping me balanced until I figured how to do it and took off down the alley in Worland, Wyo., in solo flight. And really, though I only understood it later, that scene was a metaphor for where my father would be for the rest of his life and for decades of my life--supporting me, standing behind me, helping me to get to my destinations. His name: Leslie J. Roberts, 1915-1989. Happy Father's Day!

A Christmas story...

One year, CNN featured a poll that ranked the most hated Christmas song as the one with the Singing Dogs woofing out "Jingle Bells"? Well, I like that song and version. It makes me laugh every time I hear it. How can a song that makes a person laugh not be something special?! So, it is in the ears of the beholder. I often have thought about asking the college music department if the choir has ever considered singing that song at a Christmas concert...in the dog version. In the key of Irish setter???!!!!

That poll also noted that Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" is the most loved Christmas song. O.K., isn't that the song with "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose..."? Yes, I liked it when I heard Nat King Cole singing it. He was an excellent singer. However, there was this one time, many years ago...

I was on a bus. I was on a bus traveling for two hours from Medicine Bow to Cheyenne, Wyoming, one snowy Christmas. I thought I would take a bus to avoid the worries about snow on the roads. So, I took a seat in the middle of the bus. Travelers were scattered throughout. Then, at Laramie, with an hour of travel to go, this guy got on and sat at the front of the bus. When the bus took off, the guy started to sing that "Chestnut" song. He sounded just like Nat King Cole and might have been him if it weren't that Cole died several decades earlier.

Anyway, after the guy had finished singing the song in its entirety, everyone on the bus--in gleeful holiday spirit--applauded because it was sung so well. Just like Nat King Cole would have sung it. In appreciation of the applause, the guy sang an encore of it. Wow, again, just like Nat King Cole! Once again, the people on the bus applauded, full of good Christmas cheer.

Then...well...then, the guy started to sing the same song again. At the end of that time, people still thought it was nice, but strangely enough, no one applauded. The bus had a bewildering but probably justified silence. I was almost ready to clap my hands once or twice--what the heck, it's Christmas!--but I didn't need to because the guy started singing the song again.

And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

Forty miles later, he was still singing the song. A couple in the row on the other side of the aisle near me were covering their ears, now completely miffed. Finally, as the Christmas spirit seemed to fly out the bus windows, someone in the back of the bus yelled, "Would you shut the hell up!" That's a direct and accurate quote. Obviously, not a Christian at Christmas time...or was he? Anyway, the Christmas crowd started to become hostile and so I sat there, trying to think of another Christmas song, like "Jingle Bells," as a possibility to distract the singer from the "Chestnut" song. I couldn't even barked it out, because the guy was going strong with the "Chestnuts and Jack Frost."

There was no stopping him; he was just like a human CD player on song repeat. At the end of the bus ride in Cheyenne, people hurried off the bus with very unpleasant expressions, but with a very good ability to forever remember the lyrics of the "Chestnut (Christmas) Song." By the way, the college Christmas concert was held last week. The choirs are always so good. And...well...they sang the "Chestnut" song...

My mother's birthday...

On August 9 in the year of 1917, my mother, LaVerne Elizabeth (Johns) Roberts, was born in Blair, Nebraska. She died in 2000. In remembrance of my mom on her birthday, here are 10 easily remembered features about her:

1. The love.
2. The family. (Nothing was more important to her than family. She would rather be with family than do anything else. She loved family gatherings and visits with family. Family photos were abundant and cherished.)
3. Her smile. (Including her smiling eyes. I remember my Dad saying that, no matter where he was or how he was feeling, he always looked for the smile on my mother's face because it always made him feel good.)
4. The dinner table. (The food was great. The conversation was great. We always gathered around the table, before or after watching the TV evening news. We referred to the three meals of the day as breakfast, dinner, and supper.)
5. Her cooking. (No matter what was left in the kitchen cabinets--and sometimes there probably wasn't much--she always had the ability to make a great meal out it, and there were specific food items that are particularly memorable, like cherry pies. There were numerous food items that only she could make. To this day, I miss her cherry pies. They weren't precisely store-like. They were just the opposite--Very runny and drippy, more sour than sweet, but very delicious. I have aunts that make wonderfully delicious pies, but I have yet to find any cherry pie anywhere exactly like the way my Mom made it.)
6. Her belief in education. (Though she never went to college, she loved the aspects of learning. A set of encyclopedias was the major occupant and reference point in our living room bookcase. Other than church, the library was the main place I visited in my youth because of her encouragement. She insisted that her sons go to college.)
7. Sundays, church, and car rides. (Every Sunday didn't seem complete without first attending church. Congregational, Presbyterian, or Methodist--whichever church was located in the town that moved to. She enjoyed singing in the church choirs. She had taught Sunday school classes. Most of my spiritual and social beliefs involving peace and goodwill toward all and treating others as I would want to be treated and other qualities were nurtured by my mom. One of my best memories in Scotland was attending a service at St. Giles Presbyterian Church with her. As inexpensive entertainment, my parents enjoyed taking us children for car rides, often on Sunday afternoons. My Dad would drive--my Mom never learned to drive a car--and we would go out into the country or just around town, usually stopping for an ice cream cone at the end of the trip. Throughout her life, my Mom enjoyed the adventure and journey of a car ride. Even when she rode in a wheelchair for easy transportation in her later years, she wanted it to move with speed. I imagine the view of me trotting, as I pushed my Mom in her wheelchair down a sidewalk and she enjoyed the breezes in her hair was a memorable sight for others.)
8. Her help. (Whether it was in reading books--she would read many children's books to me--or with my homework--though that didn't include modern math--or proof-reading for my newspaper in Medicine Bow--she was the best speller I have ever known--or volunteering at a museum or other projects--she enjoyed helping.)
9. Our trip to Scotland. (When my brothers and I took my mom, then elderly, to Scotland, it was fun and very memorable.)
10. The moments and stories. (Everyone has moments and family stories about their parents, grandparents, or others. For my Mom, there were many, including in her last 10 years when her health conditions were like a rollercoaster. It's nice to know that, within the long course of a lifetime, the good and special moments stand out so clearly and joyfully.)

Thanks, Mom! I love you!

I am a blogger...

As you can see if you click on and enlarge my profile photo, I am just sitting here by a log at a quiet stream on a sunny day, without a care in the world for the moment, enjoying the beauty and solace, thinking about the good books I have yet to read and the stories I have yet to write, and realizing that I am today something I have never been before...I am a blogger.

I have been a writer all of my life. From the time I could first print letters as a child, I was writing stories in "books" prepared by my mother. She would cut some typing paper in two, fold the sheets together, and then braid red yarn through two punched holes on the spine. The book was ready for my words. One of my first books was titled "Fly the Bird."

Trying to spread my literary wings and also fly into imagination, I wrote and wrote. Stories and stories, most of them quite awful if anyone were to read them now. But I also wrote letters. I wrote in diaries.

Because my family moved a lot, books were good friends and writing was a hobby easily enjoyed on rainy days. My high school journalism teacher particularly encouraged my interest in journalism. She chose me as editor of the high school newspaper.

In my freshman year of college, I wrote news stories for the student newspaper. My first published story in the University of Arizona Daily Wildcat was about the sinking of the U.S.S. Arizona in Pearl Harbor. But the first story for which I was rewarded financially was never published, nor was it journalism. It was fictional story that won a prize of $15 in a campus writing contest. Eventually, I earned the position of science reporter, covering the science and research beat for the student newspaper. I loved it, meeting all kinds of people and learning about all kinds of science topics, from jojoba beans, tree-ring research, and controversial nuclear energy issues to Antarctica expeditions, folklore superstitions, and what zookeepers fed anteaters. No, not ants. We student-reporters were paid a small amount per column inch. I would have done it for free.

When I left college, my sights were set on starting my own newspaper in my home state of Wyoming. The newspaper was The Medicine Bow Post in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. I performed every task imaginable at a small weekly newspaper for 11 years, but the writing part was what made the newspaper a voice and a public record for the history of the town. The science of wind energy technology in its infancy in Wyoming meant more science writing. I was able to exchange reporter jobs for a short feature experiment with a Washington Post reporter. I compiled some of my newspaper columns into a book titled "Sage Street," thus the connection to the name of this blog. I have interviewed amazingly interesting people, from CBS newsman Walter Cronkite to a destitute drifter sleeping in a highway culvert. I helped my brothers with editions of "The Wyoming Almanac." I wrote my master's thesis on the Journalist-in-Space project. I helped students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln learn to use layout software. I advised college students about writing and reporting for student publications at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, and Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Missouri. I organized and edited "The Missouri Almanac." I taught journalism courses. I still teach college journalism classes and advise students.

Every year from my time in high school, I have had something--a feature story or a photograph or a book review--published. I have written about the Freedom of Information Act, rocket science and history, actress Barbara Stanwyck, Owen Wister's cowboy myth-making, the novel "To Kill A Mockingbird." A review about a literary "Mockingbird" is a long flight from the child's idea of story-telling with "Fly the Bird," but it also makes some sense. Writing marks my path, history, and journeys.

And now I am a blogger. My writing now finds a place on the Internet. I hope it will be worth reading. I know it will be fun to write. And you never can tell where the "herd of words" will venture.

Sitting here by a log at a stream on a sunny day, I know adventures in writing are as close as a pen or a notebook or a keyboard or a thought retained. You never can tell what will happen or where it will lead.

Huh? It just felt like the log moved...