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Jim Fowler, left, one of the world’s best known naturalists, has presented information about wildlife and wilderness to the American public on television’s Wild Kingdom for more than 40 years. On the right is me.
Never know who you are going to run into at the zoo. My daughter and I went to the local zoo for “Earth Day” and was surprised to meet Jim Fowler. He came to give a talk about wildlife. It was early and he was signing autographs so we stood in line to get one. I was carrying my camera, never without a camera at the zoo, and a woman asked if I would like her to take my picture with Jim. So I did. My Dad never missed a show of “Wild Kingdom,” and his love of nature was passed down to me.
Meeting Jim was indeed an honor, he is a kind, caring individual that loves animals. He took time to sign autographs for all that wanted them.
After we met Jim Fowler we went on to photograph lions, peacocks, and other creatures.
© 2010 – 2019, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
The happy wedded couple departs the scene with the minister looking on.
One of my hobbies is photography. I love to take pictures of things, so several years ago, when I was still working, I bought a really good camera. This camera is better at taking pictures than I am, still not sure how to make all the correct settings. Some of my friends asked me to shoot their wedding, and I agreed. It was quite an experience, timing is everything. That will be the last wedding I do, too stressful. Pictures are slices of frozen life. We can look at a picture and nothing changes or ages. When I look at pictures made of me growing up by my parents, it is with disbelief that I could have been that thin. I spread out a little over the years.
But with this wedding came an unexpected surprise. A rehearsal dinner was held at the Perryman Ranch in Jenks, Oklahoma. The original Perryman house, built in the 1800’s, was full of antique furniture and lamps from that era, it had a wood burning stove for cooking and another one for heating, the big surprise, however, was seeing a white buffalo. Next to the house was a barbed wire fenced-in area with some cattle, and this while buffalo. Knowing the white buffalo is sacred to Native Americans I approached it with a mystic feeling. It just grunted at me and moved further on down the fence. I thought I might pet its head, but it didn’t want to cooperate.
On the Perryman Ranch in Oklahoma.
© 2010, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
I changed the appearance (theme) of the blog again. I really like the other better, it had more color, but there were things that didn’t work right so I had to change it. I hope this one will last.
© 2009, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
On December 9-11, 2007, the biggest, meanest ice storm in the history of Tulsa, Oklahoma left 234,000 homes and businesses without electric power. Freezing rain coated the power lines, poles, and trees with layer after layer of ice until the weight of the ice was too great for the trees and wood fell. The trees dropped their ice-laden branches on power lines causing the lines to break and hit the ground. Houses and cars were not spared either. It was a frightening sound, the popping and cracking of broken limbs descending to earth. Then as quickly as it came, the ice melted leaving our city in the dark.
The aftermath was mind-blowing, streets filled with downed trees, dark and cold. The first job was to clear the streets and make them open for traffic. Many people needed a warm place to stay and a hot meal. Here the churches responded by setting up shelters to provide these things. Next came the convoys of out-of-state linemen and tree workers, 8000 of them from 14 different states made their way into the city. It was a welcome sight to see the trucks moving through the city in groups of five to fifteen guided by a local city worker. A truly massive effort was underway. It was common to see as many as 35 trucks in staging areas across the city. The army of workers were housed in the IPE building on the fair grounds, a huge building about the size of seven football fields. We can’t thank them enough. I took some photos and posted them HERE.
© 2007 – 2018, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
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