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I was dead on my feet and I still kept moving. Dead. Still breathing but dead. No real thoughts. Didn’t have a smile. I knew I was breathing and my eyes blinked but still… dead. Still moving. Still tending, still doing what’s required but no rest. That is fatigue. Have you ever been there?

When I’m taking care of some emergency I have no idea why I am dragging the way I am, and I just keep taking care. Then something happens… I do some very weird thing. At that moment, I realize that I need to stop the doing at least for a while.

When my mother was in her final illness, I was staying at the hospital with her at night. I’d come home long enough to take a shower and change clothes, teach piano and then I’d go back. I think it was maybe day twelve of this… I came home, jumped in the shower, finished and started to wipe down the shower walls. I’m doing this and doing this and no progress. I’m thinking, “What the heck!” Then it dawns on me… I

Six years ago. Just after New Years Day. I was taking down the Christmas tree. Everyone was gone from the house. It was quiet! Peaceful… as peaceful as it can get for a God-fearing woman in Southern California. And, before I go any further, I’d like to point out that Hubby and I lived in a very nice neighborhood. But when trouble comes and people need help, I don’t think what part of town one lives in is a consideration.

So I was quietly taking down the decorations from the Christmas tree and putting them away. Out of I-don’t-know-where, a red pick-up truck screamed down the street and drove right up onto the lawn, and across the sidewalk where a woman (mid seventies) was walking. The person in the truck began to yell something at this poor woman. The older woman turned to go the other direction and get away. The truck slammed into reverse and drove around on the other side of her to again block her path. The older woman spoke something to her predator… I was at the front window watching all of this transpire by

In my house, growing up, a birthday meant you could have whatever you wanted to eat for dinner. My brother and I both went through a pie stage where we preferred pie to having a birthday cake. Tom loved rhubarb pie. He would eat maybe two or three pieces of his pie which would include the piece that I might have eaten but didn’t because, I did not like rhubarb pie. I loved raspberry pie. Unfortunately Tom enjoyed raspberry pie too. Every year he would oink out on his pie, and then oink out out on my pie as well. Typical siblings… This scenario worked very well for Tom. At some point though, I decided I didn’t like it.

Remember some time back, I said that when it “gets to me” and I can’t take it anymore, I cheat dirty. So Tom’s birthday rolls around. Mom makes his rhubarb pie. She cuts his piece first and serves it to him. And, I announce that I think I would like to try a nice big piece of delicious rhubarb pie! Well, my brother immediately says, “She’s just

I took a graduate class some years ago that dealt with the importance of trust in the classroom. This instructor, who had taught in many ghetto areas, related the following information: Ghetto dwellers have had their trust violated to the point where they are unable to trust anyone. To highlight, these individuals did not look each other in the eye, did not ever touch one another, and spoke only through tough language that would keep everyone at an arm’s length. Ergo, reaching out to touch them would be considered a threat to their being. No handshake. No eye contact. Truth was replaced with hard language. My instructor’s job was to enter into this venue and help these people regain the ability to trust again.

She did this by teaching them to folk dance. No, don’t laugh, it’s true. Some of these folk dances were demonstrated in the class I took from her, and then we participated. The interesting thing about these dances was that the only part of one’s partner that was touched was the elbow. And, that said, it is fascinating to note that the elbow is the only

I have many bad habits. I am married to a person who either refuses to relate them to me or is blinded by love and the many books in which he buries his face. That said, I am well aware that I do things incorrectly and that I have bad habits. For example, I frequently leave a wet towel on the bed. I know this isn’t acceptable. (For what it’s worth, if it doesn’t bother him it bothers me and I am trying to correct myself.) I squeeze the toothpaste from the top. Nope. Doesn’t bother him. I play my music very loud on a regular basis. No. He has concentration habits from the gods, and as he reads not a thing interrupts him

But speaking and writing habits… I’m usually pretty tight with that. I mean I’m a writer and a public speaker… I only “do it” for effect. But this was not so today.

I took off for the pool to swim my mile… the entire time I’m swimming I’m thinking about grammar as I’m counting my strokes per lap. Everybody has a hot button with

Sunday is a day of rest. It is a day to forget everything that was work and worry throughout the week and find peace and recovery.

Some find it by sleeping later than usual. Others find it in front of the TV watching a favorite football team play ball. Many find peace by praising God in a local church while others do the same thing from a place in the quiet of their home. While going to church has always been a part of my routine I, for one, will always associate Sunday with better comics to read in the newspaper.

As a child, the Sunday paper would come and after that morning of worship, I would hit the newspapers and dive through it for the section with the funnies. I felt fortunate that I did not grow up in my great-grandfather’s house. My great-grandfather was a minister who didn’t allow any of his family to read anything but the Bible on Sunday. While this is to me the most important book ever written and compiled, the ruling (for my grandfather) to read only the Bible on Sunday seemed harsh. He knew

Our lives, the time in our lives, are based on three calendars depending on whom your are and where you are. Man has used the Gregorian, the Jewish, and the Muhammadan. The Gregorian and the Jewish calendars are based on the equinoxes (which occur March 21 and September 23) and the solstices (which occur June 22 and December 22). The Muhammadan calendar is the only one of the three that is based on the Lunar activity; the first day of this calendar was Friday, July 16, A.D. 622.

As we entered into the 2000 millennium, I found myself frequently fascinated with the movement of time. Had my grandmother lived to see the turn of the millennium she would have been 100 years of age. While she did not live to see 100 years of life, many more persons are living passed the triple digit mark.

When we are children, we mark our years with great happiness. We celebrate with parties and gifts and much eating of cake and ice cream. We sing! I had many of those celebrations myself. (The best one was my 8th birthday when my dad, a movie theater manager

My grandmother use to say, “You’re as old as you feel.”
My father use to say, “Gettin’ old ain’t for sissies!”

I guess by the time we start considering sayings like these, we must think that age is creeping up on us. I wasn’t thinking about it too much until a local younger woman came up to me the other day and said, “How do you do it? You stay so young looking when you’re so much older than me.”

“Hmmm….,” I’m thinking. “Did she really mean for it to come out that way?”

She continued, “I mean you must be at least my mother’s age and she looks terrible!”

“Yep, she meant it that way.”

This younger woman went on and on, until at last I thought I’d had enough of it. So I said, “Ya know what? I’m sort of amazed that you have all this energy to critique your mother and me. I’d think instead you’d be taking notes on what we’re doing; ’cause one day in the not too distant future you will be me, or your mother. Nice to see.” I smiled and excused myself.

So now I’m thinking about age. Blast.

The four bros and I like to create. We create pictures, designs, programs of all kinds; we create classes, Christmas and birthday gifts.
Sometimes we just sketch because it feels good to do it. My mother, who had a degree in Grapho-Analysis, learned that every single person is creative, but only a few are sensitive. I suppose if you put the two together and you were both highly sensitive and creative, this would make you Michelangelo or Leonardo.

I started sketching in grade school when my brother taught me things like drawing a straight line, a circle, and different triangles. Then I would take those images and make something else out of them. Music became more interesting for a time, I veered away from what my brother did so well.

1986 – 1994: Enter a series of major surgeries on my legs and many months of a wheel chair, crutches and then learning to walk again. To stay motivated and to rest, I read every book I could find; and when that got boring, number three bro told me I wanted to learn to sketch.

He handed me a sketchpad, and a number two

Every year in the fall, high schools all over the nation gear up for the fight to win a football game on Thursday or Friday night. Bands play. People cheer. Parents watch their children grow and visit with friends in the stands. Someone wins and someone loses. No matter, everyone walks away with memories that last for a lifetime. But let’s talk specifics. I recall only one field:

Tiger Field… La Junta, Colorado. This is a place where decades of energy since 1938 have been expounded, emotion has been rampant, and loyalty has been witnessed as well as felt. This weekend, the Tiger Field that I remember will host its last homecoming. My heart is full of memories and emotions. I cannot be there for this historic event in time, so I’m writing this piece as a tribute to those who served on the field as players, those who coached, those who cheered, and those who played in the LJHS Tiger Marching Band. Here it is. These are thoughts from me and many other grads about the field that meant so much and gave us pictures in our minds to