Mr. Locke’s Classroom

The day I was born (according to my mother) one of the doctors listened to my loud cries and quipped, “That kid’s ALL mouth!” And somehow that characterization has followed me ever since. I have an old cassette tape recording of myself in the 3rd grade, talking to the tape recorder. It was a pretty [...]

Still here in Tulsa at Grady Walker’s house with my son (also Grady). Usually when we come up here to visit, we stay in the guest bedroom by the kitchen. As fate would have it, another guest is staying in that room, so little Grady and I are sleeping in the large bed in the [...]

Last night as I was leaving (and locking up) the church, a man in a truck pulled up, and asked where the prayer meeting was. I said I didn’t know, but that we didn’t have anything scheduled in the building for that night. We have several groups and three different churches that share our facilities, [...]

Yesterday I was having a Samson moment. Because of some stuff happening in my life right now, I was feeling shorn of power, shorn of favor, and shorn of identity. Like Samson, it was mostly a situation brought on by my own arrogance and/or stupidity, but also like Samson, there was a certain amount of [...]

For most of the past year, I have spent Tuesday mornings, Wednesday mornings, and a handful of Friday nights hanging out at Dunn Bros Coffee shop — a local coffee shop that, while a franchise, is at least NOT $tarbuck$. After returning from a week-long mission trip in Oklahoma last week, I was stunned and [...]

This is the last (for now) in my series of recently-written songs, an attempt to take my style more intentionally in the direction of simplistic and socially-conscious folk music. I should mention that this particular song seems to get the most negative reaction from those who’ve heard it so far (especially my wife) — apparently [...]

For my birthday last week, Amy got me the special edition DVD of “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.” Basically, the original Star Wars movie that started everything off, and my personal favorite (It’s the archetypal Hero’s quest, after all). But the best part was watching it with my two-and-a-half-year-old son, Grady. He’s already [...]