Hardy Bush Tender Leaves

Born, Feb 3rd, 1930 Laundell T Winfrey (LTW) or Dirty Red as his childhood friends used to call him, spent his formative years in Cleveland Ohio as one of 2 children raised by a single mother. He lived with his older sister in community housing and described himself as a loner, spending lots of his curious time tearing apart and patching up broken electronics others threw away. When he was not studying the inner workings of practically every moving part known to man, his mother- a steel factory worker, encouraged him to spend his time in other ways. He remembered the times his mother would order him to the back stoop to read the dictionary as punishment for his often bad behavior. He often credited the affection for words that he learned from the dictionary for allowing him to finally express the feelings he had for the world around him. Attending a technical high school, he developed a rich vocabulary and excelled in math, Spanish and science which caught the eye of an Army recruiter who encouraged him to join the Army. When enlisted, he was trained as a combat engineer, later learning how to fly and participate in critical missions. As a young soldier he was starting to see things differently from what he knew at home. Life and priorities took on new meaning. Never in a million years did he think that he would cross paths with the love of his life who was serving as a Navy sailor, but as fate would have it, they would marry and start a family. This is where his love story begins. All of what he had experienced and thought about the world changed in an instant. This unassuming woman he met from Boston, Massachusetts did not see the Dirty Red or the loner or the engineer, but a man with purpose. She saw a man of great moral character, set on following GODs plan for his life. It did not take long before she agreed to pack up the 6 kids and one on the way, along the few items they could carry and headed out to what at the time was a segregated south. This journey would ultimately take them hundreds of miles away to spend an entire life together to raise 10 kids and feed the mouths and minds of countless individuals from all over the world. Much of the author's writings are reflections of his struggles and triumphs and the thousands of people he met and mentored over the 50 plus years of marriage as a husband, father and lifelong loner. The Author has written a collection of over 3000 poems that are as much an instruction manual for life as they are love letters to us. The poems are his gifts of kindness and legacy to the world that shared with him so much. The Author was a member of the Tulsa Writers Club along with his wife and soul mate.