My Portfolio

The Jacaranda trees are burgeoning with buds and starting to erupt into magnificent panicles of soft blue blossom, heralding the coming of Christmas to Australians all around our huge island home. We don't have the snow, yule logs, red-berried holly and roaring log fires which are associated with a northern hemisphere...

The summer of 1977 saw a change of professions from Village Kitchen Bakery manager to microfilm operator and records negotiator for Salt Lake City based Utah Genealogical Society (now FamiySearch) and training to microfilm in the Midwest--specifically Iowa, Illinois and Michigan.  I left my pregnant wife, Diane, who was expecting our...

Mandane and her siblings Poor health seemed to plague my great-grandmother's family, the Dicks of Greenland Farm, Darby Township, Pickaway County, Ohio. My great-grandmother Mandane and her younger sister Blanche, for example, were married in a double wedding ceremony on October 19, 1892. Less than a year later, Blanche was dead!...

Describe one of your favorite holiday traditions or celebrations Holidays help to provide a sense of continuity in our lives and a respite from the hectic uncertainty that life throws in our path. A family's traditions are the glue that binds one generation to the next. Take time now to write...

It was my mother's idea that I go "into nursing".  The Episcopal priest from the church we attended  visited us one hot  August day prior to my entering high school.  He suggested a particular school in New York City.  Over time I sent for information, jumped through the hoops to apply...

The best decision I ever made was to marry Catherine Glenn. WeI met  at a dance called" The Oaks". While in the Navy and training at Fort Mammoth in New Jersey and then New York City, I was able to get home on weekends and I would to go to the...

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...

My mother had many stories to tell about her mother in-law, my 'Maw-Maw' Wagner.  As I put things in perspective now, I must say my grandmother was brave enough to be her own person.  My mom and dad out of economic necessity lived with his parents for several months after their marriage...

Describe a dream job you would like to have pursued but didn't and why -- As I think of my past experiences, I have spent a career in education teaching science in the middle school setting.  But I also had a "minor" in religious education at Utah State University through the...

Describe a dream job you would like to have pursued but didn't and why Some of us are fortunate to be working or have worked in the career we are passionate about. Others wish they could but haven't for a number of reasons. Still others look back at decades of employment...

After last Friday's class, week 3 of my 6 week 'Unlock Your Family Stories' workshop at the Campbelltown Library, one of my students came up to me and said "I wish I'd met you a few months ago, before I had to move my 98 year old mother out of our...

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Sometimes life can be complicated. My Father deserted our family shortly after I was born. My two sisters were seven and eight years older than me and were upset and, at my Mother’s wishes, they were not to discuss this with me until I was older. In grade school, My sisters...

Success in the workplace can sometimes be measured in sales, upward mobility, specific accomplishments or a body of work.  It can also be defined by the intangibles such as personal development, education or consistency and reliability. Success is a Journey, Not a Destination My workplace has been in the classroom spanning...

To answer this week's story prompt about having been fired, laid off or firing or laying off an employee I offer this story among many. Except for jobs in my teen years I have always been self-employed. With that comes great freedoms and opportunity. But, there are many downsides too. I've...

My recollections of the years I spent being a hospital nurse jumble together in a very mixed bag of memories, some wonderful and others hideous. Being a tenderhearted sort of person, I always found it difficult to divorce my emotions from my work. If my patient was suffering, then so was...

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...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Northwest of my little home town a lonely hill stood guard over the murky waters of Cheyenne Creek, the Santa Fe Railroad tracks, and the swampy liquid of the Caney River as it moved lazily southward towards Bartlesville. A rutted, rocky, road that...

My dad really did not like cats!  However, he let his little girl have several over her childhood.  I have a photo of my sister and me where she is behind me holding a ball and I am not quite two and on a kiddie car reaching out to a kitten! So...