Who would I most like to talk to? She and I have made plans for her to meet me when I cross over.
Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE I fell in love not long after I’d commenced my nursing training and perhaps the two were somehow connected? In the 1960’s Australian student nurses were required to ‘live in’ in the Nurse’s Home, on the hospital premises, where we were subjected to...
This is a tribute to my adopted brother in law that passed away this last year . He lived in East Texas 20 miles from Louisiana and was half Cajun and proud of it . Paul Burch Jr 1958-2011 What is a Coonass? There are a few different...
I had the good fortune of becoming very close with a hillbilly family in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. I know I can use the word, "hillbilly" because it's just who they are and they are proud of it. Rather than tell that entire story here I wanted to...
My parents both enjoyed music. Dad was a self-taught, hillbilly, fiddler/singer who, as a teenager had played for many a square dance in Arkansas, took great joy in musically recreating the woes of the Indian girl “Red Wing,” the humorous ballad “Rye Whiskey,” and other old songs. Mother had been raised...
When I was young and DUMB and before my wife died in childbirth in 1979 at the age of 28 . I was 32 years old and she was a stay at home Mom taking care of our two sons . I would go to work and people would ask me...
As a child,Clemmie Ross predicted she would have a daughter, her name would be "Doris and she will be a teacher". Her only child's name is Doris and she became a teacher. What Mother Clemmie could not have imagined is how significant to so many other lives this love of her...
I attended a Memorial Service for my last remaining brother last Saturday. He was 84 years old, six years older than I. Although we were brothers, we grew up in a vastly different world and had strikingly different memories of our childhood and adolescence. We in the family called him “Gene.” ...
It always seems to me that 1956 is the year to remember. I know my Dad had a big piece of pipe fall on his leg and crush the bone in his lower leg. He was off of work for a long time. They had to put a silver plate in...
I’ve had a lot of very good friends in my life . Some have been what you would say best friends . When my first wife died I had a fried that I worked with that I had went to Tech School with . He stuck with me like glue ....
One late summer evening August 25, 1968 I met a boy named Tommy Cormier. He was wearing Striped bell bottoms and a cotton shirt. I had a summer dress on as it was hot that evening. My sister said there was someone waiting at the door to see me. When I...
Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE The very first man a little girl loves is her Dad, and this special lifelong relationship should be nurtured and cherished. Like other small girls, I adored my 6’6” Dad who was always a ‘larger than life’ personality and a helpless practical...
Our story prompt this week is "What does a true friend mean to you, who fits that description and why?" This assignment is a lot to chew on! It isn't as easy a topic as might appear at first blush, so I decided to start by looking up the word "friend"...
I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.
Like its long-ago predecessor, the CB Radio, the Internet may drown in its own capability. A mosquito dies under a fatal slap and its demise will be reported, analyzed, and dissected in some niche on the Internet within minutes. Amateurs and professionals race to see who will be the first to...
Over the years I had lots of boyfriends, but somehow for me marriage wasn't in the stars. I was very career focused and really hadn't found The One. I dated but just hadn't had that spark. And as fiercely independent as I am, well, marriage wasn't really high on my list...
A sign once read, "A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be in jail with you saying, "Damn that was fun." I have had many "good" friends in my life. Many could even qualify as true friends. I can recall deeply loyal friendships in my...
My parents owned a small business and worked incredibly long hours. This was in the 50s when working women were still something of an oddity and most of the women on our block were stay-at-home moms. In our unconventional household, my older sister, Jackie, and I were expected to assume the...
You know how some people just love reminiscing about high school and never miss a reunion? I'm not one of them. In fact, I probably wouldn't attend a high school reunion if they held it in my living room. It was three years of pure torture for me--an endurance event. It...
Walk westerly a hundred steps or so from Winklers’ Drug Store in Caney Kansas around 1945 and you’d find yourself in front of one of the most consistently busy “stores” in town: Floyd Swayne’s Barber Shop. This was a male kingdom. If testosterone had color you could have seen it oozing...
