Miscellaneous

This is an annual post so those who have read it before, I hope you enjoy and still feel the specialness of this story.   Our Christmas arrived two days early in 1982 and it turned out to be the best Christmas my family and I ever had. It was about 10:30 in the morning,…

I thought it was a big glass of cold milk.    My favorite drink. And I was thirsty. And hungry. And tired.   It wasn’t mine, but I knew there was plenty more in the fridge so…   I took a big gulp.   Yuck!   NOT milk.   Buttermilk.   My dad’s favorite.  …

Kenny was loved and admired by all of us in the neighborhood. He lived next door to me, and our houses were so close that as a teenager I could and would jump from my roof onto his roof and run around a bit before jumping back onto my own and climbing down.   Neither…

Botany, of course! I remember my dad telling me about his botany professor, Dr. Bradnum Saville Flowers, as Dad and I hiked together and he taught me the names of flowers as we passed them on the trail.   Dr. Flowers reportedly couldn’t stand either of his given names, so he was affectionately known as…

Several years ago, I was actively involved as a youth leader with the Boy Scouts of America. I have a vivid memory of a conversation I had with a teenage boy, Richard, about the value to him of finishing the requirements for his Eagle Scout Award. I believed scouting had a tremendous effect in the…

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”   This call for gratitude…

We started the day with high spirits and high hopes. The first leg of the journey would be easy, right? All we had to do was get 5 adults and 8 children out of a rented countryside villa, onto an Italian train in the middle of nowhere, and head into Rome. What could go wrong?…