Photography and Text by Rick Steves

No city in Ireland connects the kaleidoscope of historical dots more colorfully than Derry, which is in British-ruled Northern Ireland. Small and pretty, the city is a welcoming and manageable place for visitors – and most of its sights can be covered easily on foot.
Now a worthy tourist destination with the best city walls in Ireland, during the 20th century, sectarian struggles plagued Derry. When Ireland was divvied up between the North and the Republic in the early 1920s, Derry’s waterway – the River Foyle – was a logical border. But, for sentimental and economic reasons, the Protestant North kept all of this predominantly Catholic Nationalist city. Subsequently, the two sides have fought over its status.
Even its name has been a source of dispute. It’s “Derry” to the Catholics and “Londonderry” to the Protestants. I once asked a Northern Ireland rail employee for a ticket to Derry; he replied that there was no such place. Still, I call it Derry since that’s what most of the city’s inhabitants do.
The name has a good pedigree, dating back to 546. In that year the holy St. Columba established a monastic citadel here. He chose a hilltop site in the middle of an oak grove, or “doire.” The name stuck.
Fast-forward a thousand years to 1613, when the English arrived. To establish a Protestant toehold in this Catholic part of Ireland, they began “planting” the region with loyal Protestant colonists imported from Scotland and England. Since many were financed by wealthy London guilds, they changed the name to “Londonderry.”
To keep out the Irish, who’d been forced onto less desirable land, the English surrounded the city with a stout defensive wall. Today those walls make Derry one of the best-preserved fortified cities in Ireland. They stand almost 20 feet high and nearly as thick, with 24 cannons standing sentinel.
The walls are a good place to start a Derry visit. Poetically described as the city’s “necklace,” they form a mile-long loop encircling the original old town, and give a good view of its 17th-century street plan. The top o’ the wall promenade (open from dawn until dusk) is a popular destination for Derry’s inhabitants too.
The walls proved their worth in 1688-89, when the Catholic King James II and an Irish army besieged the city. Derry’s determined Protestant defenders, loyal to King William of Orange, slammed the town gates shut and successfully outlasted their foes for 105 grinding days.
The townsmen held off James with the help of “Roaring Meg,” a cannon renowned for the fury of its firing. You’ll find her, beautifully restored, on the walls at the Double Bastion, a fortified platform.
From the Double Bastion, you can also enjoy a fine panoramic view over the Catholic Bogside neighborhood. These days, this gritty part of town is quiet and safe, but it wasn’t always so.
For many years, Bogside was the tinderbox of the modern “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Most notably, the tragic 1972 Bloody Sunday events unfolded here, during a march protesting the internment of pro-Catholic activists. When a British regiment moved in to make arrests, 13 marchers died. The clash sparked a sectarian inferno whose ashes took decades to cool.
Today, visitors come to Bogside to honor this sad past and to view 12 memorial murals, painted along a 300-yard stretch of road where the march took place. Dramatic and emotional, these political murals – and others around Northern Ireland – form an enduring travel memory.
Sectarian violence in Ireland has given way to a settlement that seems to be working. Both sides have come to the position that “an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.” In Derry, the growing hope for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland is expressed in a powerful public-art sculpture of two figures extending their hands to one another.
Given the city’s complex history, it’s worth taking the time to drop by the Tower Museum Derry. Occupying a reconstruction of a fortified medieval tower, the exhibits at this well-organized museum help sort out Derry’s tangled historical roots.
These days, the once divided city sees itself as a shared city. The symbol of that recalibration is the Peace Bridge across the River Foyle. This pedestrian span, built with European Union funds, is intended to bring the two sides together: east bank and west bank, Irish and British, Catholic and Protestant, Nationalist and Unionist. And to the surprise of locals, it’s working. In a sign of the times, a British army base that once occupied prime real estate near the old city wall has been transformed into an outdoor concert venue and a gathering place for all of Derry. It’s an emblem of what’s happened here; you’ll find that now the long-divided communities love their “legend-Derry” Irish city.
IF YOU VISIT…
SLEEPING: Merchant’s House, on a quiet street a 10-minute stroll from Waterloo Place, is a fine Georgian townhouse with nine rooms (moderate, www.thesaddlershouse.com). Inside Derry’s walls is Maldron Hotel, offering 93 modern and immaculate rooms (splurge, www.maldronhotelderry.com).
EATING: The Custom House Restaurant and Wine Bar is the classiest place in town, serving great meals and a selection of fine wines in a posh, calm space (Queens Quay, tel. 028/7137-3366). Busy Fitzroy’s is stacked with locals, serving quality food at reasonable prices (2 Bridge Street, tel. 028/7126-6211).
GETTING AROUND: Derry is compact enough to see on foot, so you won’t need a car or public transportation to get around.
TOURIST INFORMATION: www.derryvisitor.com.

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

Brad Whinery’s mother and father were pioneers in the Oklahoma funeral industry.
Sixty years later, Brad Whinery is still innovating how Oklahomans lay their loved ones to rest.
“What it’s provided us is an opportunity to help other people,” Whinery said of his family’s Oklahoma legacy. “We’ve always been a family that likes serving other people.”
Whinery firmly believes you should pay your last respects and not your life savings when a loved one passes.
He’s helped literally thousands of Oklahomans select a lasting and dignified cremation option that meets family needs and budgets.
And now Oklahoma’s first cremation-only garden is providing even more options for those laying their loved ones to rest.
REFLECTION POINTE
Whinery has helped honor and remember loved ones by integrating the beauty of nature with the beauty of the celebration of life at Reflection Pointe.
The first thing you’ll notice upon entering the grounds is the peaceful sound of water cascading over a granite wall. A waterfall is a magnificent feature that also serves as a permanent resting place. Your loved one’s ashes can be placed behind a black granite plaque on the backside of the waterfall.
The water pools into two reflection ponds surrounded by a garden with bistro-style seating. The waterfall offers several options for memorialization, including black granite plaques with room for an inscription or custom, engraved portrait. It is the only area where a bronze plate can be placed to give a person’s name with their birth and death date. The waterfall and garden area have limited availability.
Another area is known as the Ossuary.
Oklahoma artist Jay Hylton was commissioned to design the Ossuary at Reflection Pointe Gardens. The bronze and steel sculpture with the rotating ball reflects the perpetual connection to one another.
The Ossuary provides an elegant, affordable and permanent memorial option for cremated remains. Families place their loved one’s ashes into the Ossuary through the opening in the bronze ball. A family can add their loved one’s inscription to the surrounding granite cenotaph as a testament to their enduring legacy. The Ossuary and cenotaph also have limited availability.
Pet owners recognize they don’t just have an animal they have a family member.
Whinery recognizes that dogs and cats are much more than pets. They are important members of our families and deserve to mourned and be memorialized in a dignified way. The first of its kind in Oklahoma, Furever Friends is a special space where pets and pet lover’s remains can be buried separately or interred together. This special memorial garden is designed to represent the unique bond between pets and their owners.
The entire property is tranquil and uncluttered.
Built on an eight-acre wooded area, visitors can stroll through the park, reflect at the waterfall or sit on the grounds without walking around above-ground monuments like traditional cemeteries. As unique as the life you are remembering, Reflection Pointe also offers the options of scattering ashes in the meadow or placing them in the Ossuary or a niche inside the waterfall.
Reflection Pointe Gardens uses GPS technology and smart microchips to locate your loved ones’ site and access online memorials. Visitors simply download an app to their personal smartphone, or borrow a tablet from the office to self-navigate the gardens.
As you walk through the gardens you can view digital memorials of friends and loved ones that not only give more than important names and dates, but also a keen insight into the unique life presented.
Videos and photos bring a person’s memory back to the forefront of visitors.
“When someone visits a grave they’re not given a name and a date they’re given a life story,” Whinery said.
Last summer, Whinery invested in a 360-degree virtual property photo shoot. So far the feedback has been tremendous.
No matter where they live in the world, loved ones are able to virtually visit the final resting place any time they want.
And one of the best parts is services at Affordable Cremation and Reflection Pointe are often only a fraction of the cost of just a grave opening in the Oklahoma City metro.
That’s not including the traditional funeral-associated costs of buying a monument, a vault – not to mention a lot which easily boosts prices into the thousands of dollars.
It’s another milestone in the Whinery family’s commitment to helping loved ones pay their last respects and not their life savings.

A fall can happen in a split second, but it may take a lot of time, pain and rehabilitation to recover. Falls can cause injury at any age, but they can be especially devastating for seniors. In fact, falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among individuals over age 65.
About one-third of the population over age 65 falls each year. (Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control) This is a serious problem affecting seniors. As we age, the risk increases for injury from falling and these injuries may result in hospitalization and long term loss of freedom and independence. However, you can reduce your risk.
To help you, INTEGRIS Third Age Life Center in collaboration with INTEGRIS Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation, developed an educational program, Prevent Slips, Trips and Broken Hips. The program includes discussion of risk factors for falling and prevention of falls, and the opportunity for individual assessment of one’s risk for falling.
The program is available to senior groups in the metro Oklahoma City area. To schedule Prevent Slips, Trips and Broken Hips at your location, please contact Marge Jantzen, 405-717-9823, at INTEGRIS Third Age Life Center. For more information click here:  http://integrisok.com/senior-community-services-third-age-life-oklahoma

What is one of your favorite things about living in Oklahoma? Epworth Villa

“I like the climate here in Oklahoma.  It is very pleasant.  It is better than any other state that I have been to.” Reba Dawkins

“My family is here.  My nieces and nephews helped me get settled in here and it makes me feel good to know they are here.” Martha Johnson

“I like the people here.  I have been to all the states and people here are so nice.” John Culbertson

“One of my favorite things about living in Oklahoma is the weather.  I’ve lived here all my life and I love the weather.” Diane Freeny

by Bobby Anderson, staff writer

Feisty. Funny. Fortitude. Those are some of the adjectives used to describe Norma Jean Schritter, the granddaughter of 1889 land run homesteader, John Krivanek.
She’s lived in Mustang most of her life thanks to her family tracing back to the Land Run of 1889.
The family farm, located at S.W. 44th and Sara Road in Canadian County, is state designated as a Centennial Farm.
To be a Centennial Farm, the property must be at least 40 acres and operated or owned by family descendants for at least 100 years.
James “Bud” Schritter was the love of Norma Jean’s life. They were married 60 years before he passed “to prepare their next home together” as Norma Jean says.
They met at Czech Hall in Yukon after he saw her dancing and told his friends he was “going to marry that girl.”
They courted three years before tying the knot. Once during a large snow storm, Bud drove his tractor from Wheatland, Oklahoma to see her.
He stopped and cut barb wire fences to forge a path to her home and then repaired them on his drive back to Wheatland.
It’s no wonder Bud was smitten by Norma Jean. Her radiant smile and smart wit is like a magnet to iron.
Norma Jean, age 83, is a fascinating resource of historic Mustang events and families. A grease fire burned down her family home in January 1951 when she was a senior in high school. Neighbors from miles around rushed over and started hauling things out of the house.
Two ladies carried out a refrigerator on their backs. Many of those same neighborly friends helped rebuild the house and returned again to plant and harvest the farm when Norma’s father was ill.
“Sharing and helping each other was a normal way of life for neighbors back then,” said Norma Jean.
The farm has also survived dust storms and the tornado of 1970, which took the wash house, hay barn, storage barn, machine shed, and several large farm combines.
Bud and Norma Jean grew wheat and hay and lived off the products of their land. Norma Jean cultivated a huge garden and became an expert canner. Her favorite items to can include possum grapes, strawberries, sand plums, blackberries, okra, and pretty much any Oklahoma vegetable.
She has always been an excellent cook. Her cousin, Louis Krivanek, lives nearby on land that has been in his family since 1917.
He recalls that for two decades at harvest time he helped drive farm equipment for Norma Jean. It was a demanding job. He says they “worked hard and ate really good.”
The Schritters loved the television show Hee Haw and didn’t let the long work days of harvest season stop them from watching it.
Long before today’s mobile devices, they found a way to rig a TV to run off the tractor so they could work their crop to the tunes of Buck Owens and Roy Clark.
Norma Jean has been a fan of the Days of Our Lives soap opera for 45 years and gladly admits she schedules her day around its viewing time.
After that, you may find the petite redhead driving around town in her bright red Chevy pickup. She has been going to the same Mustang beauty operator, Maxine Pierce, for 41 years.
Norma Jean and her husband also partnered as “pumpers” for a national oil company. They determined how much oil, natural gas, and salt water was produced daily for each well.
They measured and tracked more than 50 well sites for almost 30 years.
Norma Jean is an avid collector of sea shells. “Shelling” in the gulf is one of her favorite hobbies. She also plays the accordion and maintains an active social calendar. In her younger years, she was a Beseda dancer for parades, Czech festivals, and the 1957 state 50th year celebration.
She still enjoys dancing and says she has always felt she would rather dance than eat.
Recently Norma Jean moved to a new house at Whispering Creek Active Adult Retirement Neighborhood in the south Oklahoma City/Mustang area. She loves the country feel of the gated addition for people age 55 and better.
She says she is surprised how big the rooms are and that they seemed even larger when she added furniture.
“I’m thrilled to find this neighborhood and my only wish is that Bud was here to enjoy it too,” she said.

by Bobby Anderson
Staff Writer

In the beginning, it was just Rodney Bivens and a half-ton pickup driving around to local safeway stores picking up canned goods.
Thirty-six years later, the Oklahoma Food Bank has grown into a world class organization meeting the needs of hundreds of thousands of people needing help putting food on the table.
“I always felt if it was right, you believed in something and put the time and resources into it … people would respond to it,” Bivens said.
Bivens, 70, is the founder and executive director of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. But he’ll pass the torch soon, leaving a legacy that has touched so many Oklahomans.
“Maybe a week ago I said this retirement gig is harder than I thought it would be,” Bivens said of all the attention he’s been getting since announcing his retirement. “Maybe I should have just written out of a resignation letter and gave my two weeks notice.”
His work with other nonprofit agencies led him to witness what hunger can do to individuals and families.
Out of his personal conviction that no one should have to face hunger in a nation blessed with so much abundance, he founded the organization in 1980.
Born and raised in Chickasha, Bivens and his three older brothers grew up on a farm just outside of town. After his father was disabled in a car accident, the Bivens’ family came to rely on friends, family and church to help them keep food on their table.
The experience left Bivens with a unique perspective on the impact of hunger on children and families in Oklahoma.
Under his leadership, the Regional Food Bank has grown rapidly to fulfill the need for food in central and western Oklahoma. In its first year of operation, the Regional Food Bank distributed 280,000 pounds of food.
Today, that amount is distributed in about three days.
The nonprofit provides enough food to feed more than 110,000 people every week with administrative and fundraising costs less than four percent.
Since its inception in 1980, the Regional Food Bank has distributed more than 545 million pounds of food to our hungry Oklahoma neighbors.
It’s food that goes out the door, but for Bivens it’s about so much more.
“You reminisce a little about things,” Bivens said of what’s been on his mind the last few weeks. “I think about the people we serve and the contacts we’ve had. It’s all about people, the people we serve, the folks who work here, the volunteers we have the board members and I’ve been privileged to get to know a lot of people. For me it always comes down to people.”
Bivens and his team at the Regional Food Bank developed one of the first rural distribution systems in the country, which has become a model for other food banks.
The Regional Food Bank currently serves more than 1,200 charitable feeding programs and schools throughout 53 counties in central and western Oklahoma, and distributes nationally donated product to four other food banks in Kansas, Texas and New Mexico, as well.
The Regional Food Bank was the first in the nation to implement an online inventory and agency ordering system with new technology for increased efficiency in food distribution.
Other efficiency initiatives implemented at the food bank facilitate energy conservation, solid waste reduction, air quality controls and sustainable living techniques for a more efficient operation.
Bivens has also shepherded other innovative programs into existence at the Regional Food Bank, including Urban Harvest, an urban sustainable agriculture program that aims to teach individuals and community groups to grow their own food.
The Regional Food Bank also implemented the Food for Kids Backpack Program, which provides a backpack full of weekend food to chronically hungry elementary children throughout the school year. The program began in 2003 as a pilot program in five urban elementary schools, and it now serves more than 18,500 children in 501 elementary schools.
There are now 124 school pantries in middle and high schools in Oklahoma serving the needs of nearly 5,000 chronically hungry students. As the founder of the 21st food bank in the U.S., Bivens has more than 35 years of experience fighting domestic hunger and he is seen as a leader in the food banking arena.
Bivens served on the board of directors of Feeding America for more than 12 years in various positions. He also helps in national disaster relief efforts, and in 2005, set up an emergency relief warehouse for Hurricane Katrina and Rita storm victims.
In less than four weeks, he helped to distribute more than 8 million pounds of relief supplies in the New Orleans area.
“I feel good about. I feel great about the organization and where we’re at,” Bivens said of retiring. “I know we’re going to continue to grow and throw in the community and the community will continue to respond to the need.”