My Portfolio

Along the Elizabeth River waterfront on the southwest corner of Town Point Park in Norfolk, Virginia, is the Armed Forces Memorial that features 20 letters written home by U.S. soldiers and sailors who died serving their country from the Revolutionary War up to and including the Gulf wars.  The letters appear...

When I was a little girl, my mother brought me a Golden Book, and it was called Dixie, Trixie, Nixie, and Pixie [perhaps not in that order].  The book was about four little cocker spaniels, and those were their names.  I fell in love with the book and wanted a cocker...

The only piece of modern technology that was found in the well-equipped trial courtroom of the 1970s was a lighted X‑ray viewbox where an expert or treating physician could display X-rays and explain to the court and jury a party’s injuries and diagnosis. An easel, pad of paper, and MagicMarker™ were other...

Being interested in family history since the age of 10 years old, I am keenly aware of some of the many genes I inherited. Firstly, I believe diabetes came to me from my paternal side of the family--the Masons--because Daddy developed Type 2 diabetes in his 40s and I in my 50s. Well,...

I think we won't have to carry a phone or computer around with us, that we will be able to simply "call up" a phone or computer in the air and be able to see it and interact with it in whatever way suits us best:  voice, touch, or eye movements.  Automobiles,...

I have truly never made a New Year's resolution. Probably I gave some thought to one or two, but I knew I'd never keep them, so it was just dismissed from my mind! Consequently, there isn't much to write about this topic! Most likely I have reflected over the past year,...

It is difficult to limit myself to only three incredible changes that I have witnessed in my, now, 60 years. I have seen the invention of television, stereo record players, transistor radios, toaster ovens, electric flying pans, electric knives, microwave ovens, computers, iPods, iPads, MP3 players, central heat and air-conditioning, movie...

I was indeed fortunate to know both my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandmother. My paternal grandfather, Stephen Harry "Dick" Mason, died many years before my birth, so I only know what I have been told and what information I located doing genealogical research in the Prairie County, Arkansas, Courthouse in...

"The best I could do is the best I could do" comes to mind when attempting to answer the question posed. Hindsight is always 20-20, and I can't imagine anyone not wanting to do something over again if given the opportunity, but we know we cannot go back in time; therefore,...

The song sung by the Judds, "Grandpa, Tell Me About The Good Old Days" makes me yearn for my Grandpa Higgerson. Although he departed this life in 1973, in so many ways, he lives on. In 1952, Grandpa was involved in a serious automobile accident and suffered several broken ribs. While...

Sometime in the early 1990s, maybe '92 or '93, I used a software called Tapcis, which was an access program for the Compuserve Information Service. Tapcis was an automated utility that sped up access to and management of CompuServe email accounts and forum memberships for PC users. Through Tapcis, I participated...

When America was attacked on 9-11, I was in my office, Suite 217, 600 Granby Street, Norfolk, Virginia, at the United States District Courthouse. Sharon Borden, a fellow court reporter, stuck her head in my office and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We ran upstairs to...

At about the age of four, when we lived at 1728 Engle Avenue, Norfolk County, Virginia (now the City of Chesapeake), I would walk to the end of the road closest to Military Highway and wait for Daddy to come home from work. At that corner was a little convenience grocery...

Since only one in ten graduates from stenotype school, I would have to say that this was my greatest achievement. The fall after graduating from Frank W. Cox High School in 1970, I enrolled in Princess Anne Business College in Virginia Beach, Virginia, for a one-year executive secretarial diploma program and graduated...