"A Lifetime of Grabbing the Golden Ring" - Time Out #185

Life is full of great joys.

To maximize experiencing these joys, following your passions usually pays wonderful dividends.

It certainly has for me, readers in Our Town and far beyond.

I have closely followed my life's passions, both in my occupation, and through my so-called hobbies or avocations.

Fortunately, I knew at age 16 I wanted to be a dermatologist (skin specialist) since I observed one as his patient for a few years. This career choice has totally allowed me to concentrate on my other lifetime passions, too, family, travel, sports officiating and free-lance writing. In almost all other medical specialties, I would not have been able to have the precious time to exercise my shear love of seeing Planet Earth through extensive traveling, blowing my whistle in a sport officiating environment, or typing out words to tell my stories, just as I am doing right now!

Wow, I have been so, so fortunate, friends.

Today, I will explain as well as possible, just how much of a thrill I get, and have gotten, from expressing myself through my written words and various journalistic experiences.

A story has to have a beginning, so I believe my writing journey began simply by observing my father, Col. C.H. Breedlove (The Col.), in all the ways he would relate to people; ALL people, friends and so-called strangers. I knew that latter group would be his friends in a very short time after he interacted with them. Well, frequently, The Col. would take out his yellow, legal writing paper, unfold his card table, find an ink pen or a #2 sharpened pencil, and write a short summary story about an event he had attended in Our Town. He called them press releases. His production studio would be his comfortable, living room. fabric rocking chair. Occasionally, he would read me his finished written product, and I would be amazed, as a pre-teenager, just how he managed to fit his descriptive words together like many pieces of a puzzle, to expertly tell the prospective readers just what happened at that event. It absolutely allowed his readers to feel they HAD been present!

So, I progressed through our excellent elementary and junior high school system during the 1950's and into the early 1960's, occasionally doing classroom reports in front of my peers. I had prepared these assignments by writing them out at home. Sometimes my father helped me, sometimes I did it on my own. The inner, self-satisfaction I gained was huge when I would return to my assigned classroom seat after I completed my stand-up project in front of my classmates.

Onward to C.E. Donart (Stillwater) High School, 1962-65, and my writing efforts really shot forward fast. I wrote sports copy for our high school's "All School News", published in each Friday's edition of the local NewsPress, and during my senior year, I was the Sports Editor of the "Pioneer" yearbook. The positive feedback I gained from my classmates, teachers, and people in Our Town at the time was wonderful, and all people enjoy being told they are doing a good job whatever it happens to be! An interesting fact way back then was my weekly newspaper column was titled "Time Out", those many, many years ago.

The next segment in my journalistic journey was Oklahoma State University's (OSU) School of Journalism, and it's famous Director Dr. Harry E. Health. Dr. Heath was my mentor for my 4 college years. He always knew my future direction would be health care, but he also knew journalism had an outside chance to be my career calling. I was heavily involved in all types of writing (mostly sports, however) for the campus newspaper, "The Daily O'Collegian", continued to write a "Time Out" column, was a sports writing contributor for the "Redskin" OSU yearbook, and I even had a brief stint with doing a live radio sports show on the campus station a few evenings. I was awarded a full summer internship with the Oklahoma Publishing Company in Oklahoma City in 1968, and was a regular paid correspondent for both the Oklahoma City and Tulsa major newspapers, while an undergraduate student at OSU. What a thrill it was for me to walk across the huge OSU campus, and hear an occasional shout out from a fellow student who said they enjoyed my recent newspaper story, column, or radio show talk!

Next, I am in the medical school arena in Oklahoma City, 1970-74. There during my sophomore year, I was the editor-in-chief of the "Sooner Health Scope", the yearbook of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Once again, the inner satisfaction of a job-well-done when the finished product was printed was a big, big thing to me in my young life!

Since professional school, internship and residency training were completed in 1978, I have done some free-lance writing, but it has been minimal. I have written a few medical pieces, but mostly I have written articles dealing with my 52 years of athletic officiating in 4 different states, 1967-present. However, 3 1/2 years ago, Dale Brendel and Beau Simmons offered me the opportunity to once again write a regular newspaper column, and it is totally ironic that I wrote for this same newspaper, 1969-70. before my brief active duty army experience.

So, here I am 50 years later, still livin' the writing dream......