a.d. elliott - Take the Back Roads

  Dear Henry, One of the saving graces I discovered in the city, shortly after moving Ziggy, our 70lbs German Shephard mix, from an acre in Northwest Arkansas to a 600 square foot apartment in Tulsa was the abundance of places to walk a dog. These parks have been a lifesaver for Ziggy and me and helped a great deal in keeping the dog active. While there are a bunch of great parks in the area, I had to narrow the list down. Here are our five favorites: La Fortuna at 5202 S Hudson Ave is a great city walk. The path around the park is full 5km/3.2 miles and encloses a golf course. Also onsite are playgrounds, tennis courts, and croquet fields (the first time I've ever seen one of those!). The park is also well set up for dog walking - there are plenty of trash cans, and waste bag stands throughout the park. There are also restroom facilities and water fountains. I've talked about Turkey Mountain before, but the park is worth mentioning again. Located at 67th and Elwood, the trail...

Dear Henry, 2020 was a rough year, wasn't it?  It seemed that the virus, the protests, and the lockdowns completely altered the hopes and plans of everyone, including me .  At the beginning of 2020, I had bought a planner in the hope that I could get organized, but, the planner I bought was a wire-bound and began to fall apart in January.  Still, I tried to stick with it, continually fixing the pages, until, after months of "stay at home orders", I realized that I had somehow lost most of the July pages. Shortly after that, we found out we needed to move to Oklahoma and it became clear that any plans left in the planner needed to be canceled.  I threw the book away. Because 2020 went so badly, I found myself struggling to look forward to the new year. Were we going to face another bad year? Then I remembered the Rainer Maria Rilke quote "And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been" and I decided that croaking doom and gloom like a ragged...