When my son Jimmy was in the fourth grade, he came home from school one day and told me the children were making  fun of his friend, Sam, because his clothes were wrinkled  and dirty. I suggested he talk to his friend and find out what  is the matter. Sam told him he...

An elderly woman and her little grandson, whose face was sprinkled with bright freckles, spent the day at the zoo. While they waited to get his cheeks painted by a local artist who was decorating them with tiger paws, a girl in line remarked, "You've got so many...

Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. When I arrived at 2:30a.m., the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice,wait a minute, then drive away. But, I had seen...

I resolve not to make any New Years Resolutions, thus removing the possibility of my failing to keep them. Nobody can claim I failed Philadelphia when I never tried going there. I resolve not to get upset with or criticize politicians for the stupid things they say or...

The body is weak and aged having withstood the test of time. Now aged and tired, bent and older than is chronological age is still has strength which belies the need for weight. All that remains is sixty eight pounds of flesh handing on for dear life. It is as, if the...

BEESWAX: I like variety and change and look back at opportunities that came to my life to "spice it up." I visited Toni, a ladyfriend of my mother-in-law, Edith Allmon, who did unusual things, as I soon found out. Her interest that day was in cleaning out ears....

Do you believe in love at first sight? Well, as a young man (even as an old man!) I was a spitfire! I was born and raised in a small coal mining community in Pennsylvania and was engaged to a lovely woman. One night I attended a dance with my buddies and across the...

“Oh no! No Mom, can’t I just stay in bed? Why can’t we just stay home for once, like the other kids do? Do you have to keep dragging us here, there, and everywhere all the time? It’s so boring!” To this barrage of protest, my mother simple answered, “Some day, you’ll...

My sisters and I grew up listening to the stories my paternal grandmother told about her childhood on a west Tennessee farm in the late 1800’s. As the eldest daughter in a family on nine children, she did not have much time for play. From the time she was six years...

When people perform and to give them luck, the _expression, "Break a leg" is often uttered...Well needless to say, my performance on an icy, snowy, cold, Pennsylvania black-ice morning consisted of a half a second spill that resulted in both leg bones and an ankle...

My Grandparents on my mother’s side started Jannoch Nurseries in Pasadena in the early 1900’s. At first it was on South Pasadena Avenue down the road from the old railroad tracks and station that are no longer there. The end of the line station was on the north side...

The emergency radio squawked, and then I heard the voice of Tahir, the Consul’s driver, advising that the jeep had been sideswiped by a schoolbus. No one was hurt, but the paint on the jeep was scratched. In Peshawar, Pakistan, where I was assigned to the American...

After several weeks of looking for a suitable home for my daughter and I, we found one that was in need of tender loving care. The front yard had a beautiful mesquite tree in the left front yard, a long gravel driveway also, a very large back yard which suited me very...

There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit the target. Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for dinner. As he was walking back he saw...

During the BIG DEPRESSION adults were apt to gather at one another’s houses to play cards or pass the time together. I never heard of baby sitters until I was old enough to be one. (The wages were fifty cents until midnight and twenty five cents for every hour after.)...

I wonder what it would be like to travel down life's lane and relive some of its more precious memories. Perhaps, some of the happier times were while we lived in Oxford, England. Tony and I were big enough to explore on our own. Often we rode our bikes down to the...

There doesn’t seem to be room for me in my life anymore. When I was small, I was full of myself so you think I’d be use to it. But, my life is small now; so small that little ole me just doesn’t fit anymore. Potential. Promise. Opportunity. Hope. Enthusiasm. Optimism....

The mad gardener relocated from Tennessee to California and brought a few plants, one tree named Benji (a ficus benjamina), one plant was a corn plant named franklin, and the fern (Boston) was called Kennedy. Benji was known as the town gossip! The fern came only to...