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On The Bricks

June 19, 2020

          This is a prayer that I recently came upon and wanted to share. I don’t know about you, but it had several things mentioned that I really need to do better.

          “Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older, and will someday be old.

          “Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

          “Release me from craving to try to straighten out everybody’s affairs.

          “Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details. Give me wings to get to the point.

          “I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of others’ pains. Help me to endure them with patience.

          “But seal my lips on my own aches and pains. They are increasing and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

          “Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.

          “Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint (some of them are hard to live with) but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil.

          “Make me thoughtful, but not moody; helpful, but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all – but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends in the end.”

          Good thought: Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud.

          Good advice: Maturing is realizing how many things don’t require your comments.

Interesting Okie: Don Flowers’s newspaper career began at age 17, when he ran away from Custer City, Okla., to work for the Kansas City Star. After a stint there and with the Chicago American, he moved to the Associated Press. Flowers introduced an array of comics; his first success came in 1931 with Oh Diana, an adventure strip featuring a female lead, which was uncommon then. At the same time, he developed a single panel cartoon he called Modest Maidens. The long – legged ladies of his cartoon gained popularity and by the mid-1940s, it was his main focus. The Associated Press owned the rights to the title, so when William Randolph Hearst’s office approached Flowers with a pay raise to move to King Features Syndicate, he accepted. The new title, Glamor Girls, ran in King Features’ papers until 1968 when Flowers died suddenly from emphysema.
          Flowers work is identified by as some of the best inking in the field. His signature ladies have long been imitated but never surpassed. More about Oklahoma cartoonists can be seen at the Toy and Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, that includes the Oklahoma Cartoonists Hall of Fame.

See you on the bricks!