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Not long after moving to Wisconsin, my father met a boy named Makwa. The name meant “Bear.” To Bobbie, who had grown up in New Jersey dreaming of open country, even the name sounded like something from another world. The West he imagined was mostly made of cowboy stories. But
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When my father, “Bobbie” King, was ten years old, his world opened up. Not all at once, and not in a way he could have explained at the time. It began with a move—away from the brick streets of New Jersey and out to a farm in Wisconsin, where
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For his fourth birthday in 1930, my dad—Robert “Bobbie” King—received a gift that would stay with him for the rest of his life. It wasn’t much to look at. A record player. A 12-inch record. But in a small New Jersey apartment, it might as well have
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When my dad was a boy, he brought a horse to school. That sounds like the beginning of a joke—but to him, it was just another Tuesday. He was eight or nine when his mother decided he belonged in Catholic school. My grandmother Julia was a force of nature;
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Some boys test the limits of everything—and everyone—around them. Most of us just learn to do it more quietly. My father, Robert “Mark” King—Bobbie then—was not quiet about it. By the time he was in grade school, it was just him and his mother. His father,
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It takes a village to raise a child. It might also take a village to remember who we are. I was reminded of that while restoring an old car. My dad, Mark King, and I were driving home down Hwy 50 from Carson City when I spotted a Ford Model
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Easter is a time when we remember the most important words ever spoken… which makes it all the more interesting how easily we can get them wrong. My dad, Robert “Mark” King—known as “Bobbie” when he was a boy—had learned how to follow instructions. At least, that’s
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If you’ve ever looked back on your childhood and wondered how you survived it, you’re not alone. Some of us were guided carefully. Others… were retrieved regularly. That was certainly true for my dad, Robert “Mark” King—known as “Bobbie” when he was a boy growing up in
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There was a time when you could keep a family secret. Not anymore. But the real surprise isn’t that we can now discover things. It’s that the truth seems to have been waiting for us all along. I saw that the day my dad, Mark King, looked at
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I escaped a head-on collision by the narrowest of margins four years ago. Back then, Hwy 50 past Silver Springs toward Fallon was a worn strip of asphalt—one lane each direction, no margin for error. Near misses were common. Accidents were no surprise. It is much improved now. But
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When my dad, Mark King, was young, he didn’t believe much in staying put. He worked at dude ranches in Wyoming, herded cattle, and rode in rodeos from the Texas/Mexico border all the way up to Canada. He loved the image and the lifestyle of the “Old West.
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On his thirteenth birthday, my dad, Robert “Mark” King, gave himself a present: a one-way ticket west. He walked into a Greyhound station in New Jersey with $23 in his pocket and more determination than common sense. He asked the ticket agent how far $12 would take him. He chose