Wellsir, I am afraid I did something wrong and must offer an apology. It seems that in my haste I used a phrase that, at the time, seemed appropriate and in the character of the piece. Obviously I was wrong. Probably very wrong as one man unsubscribed, in upper case letters, immediately upon reading last week's piece. Yes, I have had others unsubscribe but I can remember only one other person who did it so “tellingly."
This other person told me I was not funny and to quit trying to be funny and some more critiques of my writing a particular column. Sadly, I was not trying to be a comedian with that piece but just wanted to do a light hearted approach. Obviously (again) I was wrong. That person did not accept my invitation to tell me, or write me, just what I should have written to be funny. If he had done that I may have had a career as a standup comic and could have ditched the low paying teaching/principal's job I had at the time.
But, getting back to this past week's critic and before we go too far, there is a it of information which will make this all more understandable. Also, to add to that, there may be some people who possibly could have thought I was demeaning their livelihood. Probably not, but I mention that just to cover all my apologetic bases. Years ago I taught  at a wonderful small town in Oklahoma named Wetumka. We moved from Los Angeles, California (population about 10 million) to Wetumka, OK (population about 2000) where I had accepted the position of school band director.
This was a friendly town with good people and we made many friends. Some of the friends were life long friends and we still have some contact with them. As you can guess, agriculture was a main way of living and there were many of my students' parents who farmed and raised cattle. One of the main crops of the area was peanuts. Being interested in all that made up the life of my students and their town, I learned about the cycle of growing peanuts. No, I never learned enough to actually do that on my own nor did I care to. It was a new experience for me to sit in the coffee group on Saturday mornings and listen to all the talk about beef prices, crop prices and how much the weather affected all their lives.
After two or three years I was offered a position at a larger school. The superintendent and principal of the offering school knew me from high school and knew I had the best training possible as my high school band director set the bar for school bands. They painted a verbal Rembrandt picture of the position and all it could lead to. Reality hit me on the first high school band practice when I was faced with some high school band students who could not read music. The Rembrandt quickly turned into junk-art. I left the school that day longing for my peanut farmers' kids. Saying all that to show that sometimes outside influences are counter-productive.
Time went on and I was offered and accepted the band position at Wewoka and had a marvelous 17 year career there. During this time I took some brain stimulating art classes which led me to do what i had wanted to do since I was eight years old. (AND, yes, at one point even I was eight years old and I was NOT born an old, bald man.) I began doing some writing and that has continued on and on.
Which brings us to the reason for this. Last week I must have ill advisably used an insulting term and for that I apologize. It was absolutely not my intention to insult or demean but use an expression I thought was common to most Americans of the USA type. Somehow the particular man I mentioned earlier was “not amused," as the Queen once said, and apparently thought my casual usage of the term demeaning. Let me set the record straight and write out my apology. I said, "Oh, here in Oklahoma our peanut brain legislature…" and perhaps I should not have.
So, I apologize to all peanuts and to those who grow them for comparing the Oklahoma legislature's brains to a peanut. Everybody knows peanuts are much bigger than that so I am sorry and it won't happen again... maybe.  Comments are welcome at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please put comments in the subject.