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...

THIS IS MY LIFE STORY <p ...continued...

Well you guys already know who i am but anyways, i'm gonna talk about me for awhile. This last summer before school, I had surgery on my chest because I was born with a dent in my chest. The doctors kept on telling me that there was nothing wrong with me but my mom and I kept going to the doctors. We finally told them that we would like to see a specialist. So we did see one and he said that my dent is severe. Severe would mean My chest was pushing my heart and lungs to eachother and thats why my chest was always hurting. He also said I should do the surgery, at first i d ...continued...

As a child, I was beat for my wrong doings and for my sisters' wrong doings. I never realized that I was abused... I just accepted myself as a failure. ...continued...

Dec 17, 1947, I was born to Lorane Joyce and Daniel Quintin Boje, in Memorial Hospital, Spokane, Washington. Twins had died the year before I arrived, making me, the first born, that lived. My dad married my mom, though she was pregnant with those twins from another man. I know this because, when I was fifty years old, she fessed up and showed me her picture outside the church, and you could see she was well along. My dad told me after his divorce from my mom, to read my birth certificate carefully. Thinking I must be adopted, I studied it. Turns out, he was unemployed, and listed as a labore ...continued...

My mother said I was a wampus cat. What a wampus cat is exactly, I can't tell you, and I doubt if Mom could either, but there you have it. A wampus cat. It brings to mind some sort of wild animal, like a bobcat or panther maybe. A wild animal isn't me, though, but wampus sounds kind like whopper, and to my ears it also brings to mind big. Maybe that early conditioning is why I still fight the battle of the bulge today. After all, if I'm a wampus cat, I must be big. Nothing like starting on the old self concept a little young. Bu ...continued...

I vividly remember writing a story about a Strawberry Queen, just before my 11+ exam (I had just read Alice in Wonderland). I was rather proud of my surreal composition but my headmistress, who for unkown reasons was taking our class, told me that if I wrote rubbish like that in the exam I didn't have a hope of passing. Beware of throwing me down a gauntlet! I was only one of two in my class who did pass the 11+. Not that it did me much good. With parents that never stayed in one place very long and this being during the period when w ...continued...

Before starting this course, I thought that I was a pretty culturally competent or at least accepting individual. I come from a very small town where there is not much cultural diversity of any kind, but since coming to UWM, I felt that I had thrived on the diversity on campus and in the city and that I had become culturally competent. I could not have been more wrong. Certainly, living in the city of Milwaukee and experiencing diversity that I had not before exposed me to different cultures and many different types of people, but I still carried many stereotypes and prejudic ...continued...

Chicken or Dare I have a history with chickens. Not a good history either. As a matter of fact, the appearance of a leg of chicken on my plate brings me flashbacks of a long ago visit to my great grandmother’s farm during one of our frequent trips to Smithville to visit. We called our great grandmother Ganny. Her real name was Zelma Lizzie Christine Franz Kunkel. My older cousin inspired the name Ganny since he was the oldest of our generation. There wasn’t anything magical abo ...continued...

The first thing in that I can remember is sitting on a stool in my grandfather's house. We were gathered around the fireplace. The stool was a homemade affair, built square and a bout 24 inches tall. Which was about the same height as I was. The room was lit with kerosene lamps whose soft glow competed with the fireplace to light the room. It was about an even match. I was playing with a piece of kindleing about two feet long and about a half inch square. It had been split from a fat pine stump and was hard as iron. For what ever reason I decided to hit him on the head a ...continued...

I have a new devotional book out called Looking Deeper: A 366 Day Devotional. It's available in paperback and e-reader for your tablet or phone. Go to Amazon.com at this address: http://www.amazon.com/Looking-Deeper-366-Day-Devotional/dp/1500415731/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1406742308&sr=8-2&keywords=god%27s+little+Miracle+book+III Here is a sample of what you'll find inside. January 4 Psalm 91:11 For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. In my book, God’s Little Miracle Book III, I share a story of a woman ...continued...

One day in 41, Pop & Mom bought a house at 683 W 11th which would be my home for the next 15 years. How they moved, I have no idea but I think I was in school at the time and was told to come to the new house when I got through with school. This house had more memories for me than Mt Pleasant and it had 4 bedrooms, but with Pop & Mom in one, girls in another and Bill alone in the small baby one, that left 5 of us sleeping somewhere, and I can't recall, but who cared. Later on, I had my own sleeping area - Mom had a big chest that she kept extra blankets etc. ...continued...

I was born in London in 1952 to Irish born parents. They both came from Monkstown, a pretty village on Cork harbour about eight miles from Cork city. It was here that I spent my first twenty summers. This wonderful experience caused me to view Ireland through rose-tinted glasses for ever more. Before the opening of Cork airport, in 1961, our annual pilgrimage started on a train from Paddington Station, in London. It took us to Fishguard, a port on the Welsh coast. Then we boarded the Innisfallen ferry, which passed Monkstown on its way up the river Lee to the docks in Cork city. The first p ...continued...

Our cooking today is so much different from days gone by. When my granddaughter was three, she stood in front on my oven door where a whole chicken baked in a glass pan. With wide eyes she said, "Is that a chicken?" You see, her mother only bought chicken parts. She'd never seen a whole chicken. How different from when I was a child. Below is a recollection when I visited Grandma at about age five. I've included it in my cookbook Family Favorites from the Heartland. Fried Chicken-Grandma’s Style During the late 40s and e ...continued...

I always felt intrigued by her. She had a bad reputation, and I knew the reason why she got kicked out of the school I went to. She was friends with a group of people I used to hang out with, but that was just about it. We never had a conversation or anything, and I thought she didn't like me at all. She always gave me weird looks and such. We were 16 when we had our first conversation. That day, we connected. I never thought we would ever have a conversation, so I was really surprised about that. The few bad things I knew abou ...continued...