My Portfolio

On the road…again!!!Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek     Ricks, Face-Cords, and Yards of Topsoil     Folks who are landscaping their homes may feel a need to order a truckload of topsoil to level the land or to improve the fertility of the surface soil. ...

It is a chilly summer evening in San Francisco, California. It is the evening of my husband's birthday. We had just returned from dinner and are sitting on our back porch, talking. "Do you think your birth mother is thinking about you today?" My husband, Paul, was adopted, back in Pittsburgh,...

One of the gloomy realities that came with my retirement was the economic necessity to give up my beloved little red airplane. Most people knew her (Like ships, all airplanes are of the feminine persuasion) as an AA1A Grumman Trainer - Not me. Once I got to know her and understood...

On the road…. again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Where The Deer And The Etcetera Play   When he looked out the back window this morning he spotted the waving tail of a grey squirrel. Nothing unusual about that; except that the squirrel in the black cherry...

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Even In Bad Weather, The Clams Are There As time passes and we become more competent at harvesting clams from Chincoteague Bay, news of our successes has spread to other family members. That means more visits, especially in the...

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Washoe Indian Encampment at Wrights Lake, California Only after joining the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy as a volunteer in 2009 did Footloose Forester rekindle his interest in geology.  Having the time to document his memoirs helped, but the thoughts...

On the road …again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   A is for Afghanistan His urge to visit Afghanistan was precisely as James Michener described in his book "Caravans."  That was many years ago and he has forgotten just what Michener said in the book about the incident...

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Canyon on the Feather River     Of several trips to the large property on the Feather River, one of them turned into a real adventure.  A land owner wanted his square mile of land (640 acres) in...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek Discovering Chincoteague Bay February 2012 The future excites us and stirs our thoughts about what the next adventures will bring.  While many of the older Chronicles of a Footloose Forester were about memories captured from a distant...

On the road …again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek  Obelisk in Shadow Some people look at a rock outcrop and just see rocks. Others look and don’t see anything, and they say so. Yet others look and see the manifestations of natural history; they see various shapes, colors,...

The Pearl Earring The gold engraved invitation stood propped on the sitting room mantelpiece for several weeks and Dame Roma's secretary had been very gracious when I had accepted her request for my husband and I to dine with her at Government House at a black tie dinner. After much agonising...