Because our Mother left when I was 4 and my brother Rich about 18 months old, we were reared primarily by our Father. As a truck driver, Dad was gone 5 to 6 days a week, when we were cared for by a great Aunty who lived downstairs in our duplex home. A true product of the Victorian era, Aunty was born in the 1880's. In her early 40's she had begun to be crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, and by the 1940's was badly incapacitated, hands gnarled, back stooped, knees and hips painful and deformed. She always had someone living with her to help ou ...continued...

Our 42 hour confinement to our tents was ended today as the storm eased up enough for us to continue north. Our drift over the storm took us further west than we wanted to the 129th Longitude. We ran into many open leads and had to wait until the ice moved back together allowing us to cross. It was incredible to witness and very scary to cross. We gained about 5 miles north today but our progress was halted by thin ice. We made camp and will wait till morning to try and cross. Needless to say that in the north polar icecap there is very little to smell. No plants and so few animals a person ...continued...

Updates have been a tad delayed recently due to some crazy schedules experienced once we reached the pole. To be honest, the pole was literally just another point in the snow just like all the millions of other points we passed by the last few weeks. Due to the drifting ice and natural wobble of the earth, the point is very fleeting on any GPS, you have to chase the drift and wobble to remain on it. But for a moment, we were able to walk around the planet and experience every time zone. In a matter of moments I was in the past, present and future, the quickest pe ...continued...

I regard the Hi-B bar to be a family gem. It must be treasured, jealously guarded and passed down the generations. Established in 1923 and originally named The Hibernian, my father must have been a patron of this establishment since its first beginnings. He was born in 1897 and spoke fondly of his time spent here, sometimes before and after a visit to Cork opera house. In the 1930’s he moved to England with the Ford motor company but a visit to the Hi-B was a mandatory part of our annual summer pilgrimage back to Cork. The Hi-B is situated on the first floor of the junction of Oliver ...continued...

There are moments in your life, as you look back, you can say “That was it! That was a pivotal moment!” For me it was my fathers’ Green Box. My father was the patriarch of our family. A depression baby raised in rural Missouri, the city boy just could not adapt to the slow pace of grazing cows, plowing corn and balancing on the railroad tracks. The city called to him so deeply that at the age of 14 he ran away. Kansas City had all the draw a young country boy could possibly imagine. Yet his naivety wa ...continued...

Happiness is not being pained in the body or troubled in the mind. There was a time not so long ago when I could barely walk or move easily at all. My livelihood was being taken from me and I was depressed and miserable. Doctors told me that my arthritis could be managed but that it wouldn't get any better. Well it DID GET BETTER. Because I did something about it. I educated myself, I learned to lap swim. I listened to my body and developed a bodyrolling technique. i experimented. I found myself out of necessity chasing arthritis relief nearly everyday. I also found that with out a doubt a ...continued...

Chapter 1: Sunday, January 7 Rick Players looked up from his snowmobile at the jagged peaks of the Rockies. A cold wind stung his cheeks, and he smiled at its bite. It was the last afternoon of his twin teenage sons’ winter break. For this day only, Rick had ignored his job as CEO of PlayLand, the toy company his family owned. Just one afternoon with his boys. That’s all he wanted. Well, if he were honest, he wanted out of the job altogether. He hadn’t realized when he took over from his father that leading PlayLand would cost him his freedo ...continued...

We meet again for the second time on the birthday of his closest friend my cousin and cousin is also his bestfriend they are together in playing basketball, roaming around and do stupid stuff... On that day something happened unexpectedly, he is seating beside me, when I'm already drunk I tried to touch him in his private parts... He didnt react he just let me of what I'm doing... I thought he is the kind of guy who wants play with me... But I guess I'm wrong after that drinking session he told me that he wants me to go at the lodge with him I answered him& ...continued...

Blue Hole By Rolland Love The following are a couple chapters from my mystery suspense novels "Blue Hole" and a sequel "River's Edge" which have received over (300) four and five star reviews. ☂ In River's Edge I aged Dub (12) and brother Tommy (15) by 50 years and made them Grandfathers who take their Grandsons to Blue Hole where a murder occurred the last time they were there in 1949. They become a family of cold case detectives. It's not easy to solve a (50) year old murder but they prove to be up for t ...continued...

The One Legged Snake© Written By: Dewayne Knott I suppose it was the heat of the humid August day that started it all. Tom Trueblood and I were tossing rocks on the roof of the Boxholm School bus barn out behind our house and watching them roll down the corrugated roof. Don’t ask me why this activity was one of the favorite things to do on a summer day…it just was. Perhaps it was because it was too hot to walk do ...continued...

I was born in Torrance California April 14, 1956 to Clara Louise Bryce and Richard Dwayne Mouritsen if I remember correctly I was zero days old I was 10 lbs. 13 oz. and they took the picture of me that was hideous. I actually do have the picture somewhere and it ended up in my medical school yearbook and can be found there. It turns out that all babies look almost the same which biologically make sense since at about 12 or 13 weeks you can't tell the fetus of the human from the fetus of a chicken but as the tail reabsorb it starts to take on a more ...continued...

Recently I spent the day with one of my granddaughters. She’ll be a senior in high school next year. We spoke of many things, but one stands out in my memory. She told me of accompanying a friend to a Planned Parenthood facility. Her friend’s mother instructed her to go there to get a pregnancy test. I’ll let you hear the conversation we had. “Mandy’s * mother was out of town so Mandy asked me to go with her.” “Why didn’t she get a pregnancy test at the drugstore?” My granddaughter shrugged. “Her mom wanted her to make sure t ...continued...

It was in the centre of Paris that I was run over. Our ever-faithful bicycles were used to the maximum around the city. It was rush hour, and the reputation the Parisians have of being the worst drivers in the world was justified. Admittedly, we were on the pavement, studiously avoiding the square-hatted policemen who had told me off earlier that day for riding on the path. We were sitting at the lights, and when pedestrians were shown the green light, off I sped. A lady in a small car hurtled around the corner through the red light, we collided. Actually, I pushed myself off the car, only ...continued...

My life is consumed with the care and feeding of an older generation. It is my love and my passion. Only recently did it hit me how great the loss will be when the “Silent” generation is gone and the “Boomers” take on the role of the Old and Wise. I wonder if my generation will be able to carry on, to follow in the foot steps of a generation that blindly followed their leaders into war for love of their great country, a generation that produced ideas like the North Platte Nebraska Canteen. The Canteen was a stop ...continued...

At Last, A Girl Chicago, 1964 Priscilla H Wilson It is 1962 and Rodney and I are watching the news. We have two sons but yearn for a daughter. I long for another female in our family. The news highlights Chinese refugees streaming into Hong Kong. We suddenly express the same thought, “Why not adopt a little girl who has no family?” As I turn the news off, I stammer, “I hadn’t thought about adoption before. I think that is the only way we can have a daughter.” Rodney laughs. “Let’s find out what we need to do.” The State of Ill ...continued...