243 ways to know

On the road…again!!!Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek  243 ways to know   Il n'est jamais trop tard pour apprendre             Nunca es demasiado tarde para aprender                         Es ist nie zu spät zu lernen                                     Li pa janm twò ta pou aprann                                                 ʻaʻole loa e...

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The Two Lakh Homeless of Bombay

On the road…again!!!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   The Two Lakh Homeless of Bombay     A chronicle about a strange city after dark, remembered from the window seat of a public bus at night, and daydreamed after a passage of 55 years…well it may be disbelieved. ...

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Mango is my Last Name

Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Mango is my Last Name, Ataulfo is my First Name   This week marked the arrival of a welcome trend in advertising. Inasmuch as the Footloose Forester is suspicious of many of the deceptions in marketing techniques, the new labeling on...

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Major-Colonel

On the road…again!Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Major-Colonel   One aspect of being a contractor in service to US Government agencies was the overall accommodation we were given to housing, the use of post exchanges and government-operated transportation, and other services.  That is not to...

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My Camel is Named Uunt

Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek    My Camel is Named Uunt   As Father George Westwater told it, when President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Bashir, the camel driver, what his camel’s name was… well.  Bashir was on camera, sitting atop a camel as the US Presidential...

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Courier

On the road…again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     Courier   Another dream-inspired chronicle, but hey! Whatever works.  Truth be told, the seeds of many chronicles germinated during dreams but the pre-writing phase was usually shortly after waking, and the first draft started...

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Bridge, Not Too Far

Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Bridge, Not Too Far   For a number of years, the Footloose Forester had wanted to write a chronicle about the missionaries he has known.  There were plenty of them, spread out across the globe.  Any such chronicle was going...

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Are You Bragging or Complaining?

Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek  Are You Bragging Or Complaining?    This chronicle is for you, Red Lee.  You are in the center of that mental photograph that flashes in my mind, since that day in early autumn of 1955 when you responded to a comment...

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Mantras That Endure

Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Mantras That Endure Of the many would-be chronicles that have struggled toward a birth on paper, this one about spiritual attachment to mantras, has kicked and squirmed its way, finally, to a nascent birth. The personal mantras of the Footloose Forester have...

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Barra Ghoust, Choti Ghoust

On the road...again!!!Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek    Barra Ghoust, Choti Ghoust بار غروب بار غروببار غروب (بڑے گوشت) چھوٹے گوشت (big meat, little meat)   When people look back on the old days, they are still amazed to realize how much more things cost...

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A Day in the Cholistan Desert

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     A Day in the Cholistan Desert We met in a sparsely furnished office building whose windows rattled when the wind blew.  Two young and eager Pakistani soil scientists had been assigned to escort us to one of...

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Pani Pulau

On the road…again!!! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Pani Pulau Snippets of memory, the stuff of legacy stories…  That was the theme of a recent chronicle by the Footloose Forester.  Today another snippet of a distant memory was jarred loose during a period of...

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Life Lessons in the Mahjong Tiles

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Life Lessons in the Mahjong Tiles   Who among frequent computer users does not occasionally play a game or take an anonymous on-line quiz?  Call the practice a diversion, a habit, or an addiction…but one thing is clear,...

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On Getting Arrested

On the road …again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   On Getting Arrested   This chronicle comes so many years after the fact, that the Footloose Forester was not sure that he would ever write it into his memoirs.  At the time, and for many years afterward, he...

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The Peace Corps Jocks

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek    The Peace Corps Jocks Nobody would believe it if you told them that a rag-tag crew of a mere handful of Peace Corps Volunteers would whip the Pakistanis in both basketball and volley ball on their home court...

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How Did The Surveying Teacher Know Where The Canberra Bomber Was Headed?

  On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   A Practical Lesson in Compass Reading   Being around the action in Viet Nam for almost three years led to plenty of predictable moments of violence.  But some of the earlier and later encounters were not expected.  Take,...

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A Simple Math Problem

On the road... again..!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   A Simple Math Problem   How do you divide 6 chapattis into equal parts to provide equal portions and a simple lunch for four foresters? The math is simple enough but the problem, at the time, was bizarre...

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Hitting The Trail In The Northwest Frontier Provinces Of Pakistan

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek Northwest Frontier Provinces Pakistan On a trek into the Northwest Frontier Provinces of Pakistan, the Swat valley he believes it was -- Footloose Forester arrived with Peace Corps colleagues John Harper and Jerry Jensen at sunset. We were happy to...

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Underutilized Scientific Equipment in Third World Countries

On the road… again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Things Ain’t Always What You Think   What would you think if you walked into a well equipped chemical laboratory during the middle of a work day and didn’t see white smocked chemists and technicians as they went...

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Bobbing Like A Cork In The Dead Sea

On the road…again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek J for Jordan Being in Jordan during the mid-1960s was a bit of good news-bad news for a Footloose Forester hoping to take a dip in the Dead Sea and spending a day in the western part of Jerusalem. Merely...

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