A Picture I Wish I Had: A Baby and Huckleberries
A friend of mine in Washington State recently posted a picture of huckleberries she had picked. Now those of you who don’t live in the West may not even know what huckleberries are. You’ve heard of Huckleberry Finn, but did you ever wonder where the Huckleberry in his name came from? (Actually, a little research […]
Untold Stories From Pictures: A Brother-Sister Relationship
One of my tasks before my mother’s recent funeral was to put together a slide show of her life. I’ve mentioned in an earlier post that my father and maternal grandfather both took many photographs over the years, so the problem was not finding pictures of my mother. She lived for 81 years, and there […]
People to People and a Communist Thunderstorm
In 1971, when I was fifteen, I went on a People to People High School Student Ambassador trip through Europe. At the time, I lived in Eastern Washington State, and knew nothing about the history of People to People. Since then, however, I have learned that People to People was founded by Dwight Eisenhower, in […]
Time Is Ticking
I wrote a few weeks ago about preparing for the bar exam. I revealed in that post that my husband and I both passed, but I didn’t write about the difficulty of the exam itself. In the summer of 1979, the Missouri Bar held the bar exam for aspiring lawyers in the state capital, Jefferson […]
Musings On My 250th Post
WordPress keeps excellent statistics for bloggers, and so I realized recently that today’s post would be my 250th post. This milestone seemed worthy of comment. I’ve been blogging for about two-and-a-half years, for most of that time twice per week. I’ve written before about lessons I’ve learned blogging, and I wrote recently about the value […]
Honor in the Gold Fields in July 1848: Few Reports of Thievery
As I review my novel about the California Gold Rush with my writing critique partners, they tell me to put more violence and tension into the book. They’d like to see a bloody claim jumping or bushwhacking in every chapter. A good novel must include a lot of conflict and tension, so I listen to […]
Sailing Along
A few years after we moved to Kansas City, my husband bought a sailing canoe. You have probably never seen a sailing canoe—they are rare, for good reason. A sailing canoe is a regular canoe to which a mast and a keel can be attached. Ours looked something like this picture, though the canoe was […]
A Summer Short: On the Value of Blogging
There are times when I wonder why I keep posting on this blog. Some months I’m pleased with the readership, and I watch the statistics climb day after day. Other months, the numbers plummet, and I wonder if I’m so boring no one will ever read what I write again. Some weeks the ideas pop […]
A Summer Short: Sights on the Olympic Peninsula
I recently returned from another visit to see family on the Olympic Peninsula. It’s a place: Where picturesque villages line ocean inlets Where mountains vie with evergreens for majesty Where Mount Rainier can be seen from the Wal-Mart parking lot (look through the cart rack) Where wildflowers grow as profusely as gardens Where subdivision streets […]
Liberation and Independence
One of the joys of blogging is finding other writers who touch your heart and soul. My last post was about my mother’s death on July 4. That night I was unable to sleep. The Independence Day fireworks screamed and popped throughout our suburban neighborhood, their celebratory bursts incongruous to my grieving mind. I wondered […]