The Dungeon of Hope
I wasn’t sure what to expect as I rode in the back of a police cruiser late New Year’s Eve, en-route to the Holland Rescue Mission. Having never had this experience before, I imagined a bleak, dank, dimly lit dungeon with rows of cots filling large musty rooms. I arrived at the mission early New [...]
The Drive In
October 5, 2008 started out as a peaceful Sunday evening, which would turn into one of the most terrifying of our lives. Amid the financial crises and the stock market crashes, we would endure a crash of our own. It was about 5:15 p.m. when our world exploded. My roommate, Jade, was just waking up [...]
Daddy
Daddy was born in 1867 somewhere in Scotland and only two years after President Lincoln was assassinated. My mother married him when I was nine months old and he was eighty-three. Daddy stood about five foot eight, was slightly stocky but very spry, always wore long-sleeved shirts with suspenders, and had twinkling blue eyes and [...]
The Bubble Bath
It was one of the most memorable and romantic experiences of my life, and it involved a horse trough, a wood fire, and a bubble bath. It was 1986, and I was married to Jason at the time. We were living in a 14′ x 70′ mobile home on ten acres of land 7,000 feet [...]
The Cuff Button
It was a Saturday night in 1971. The band was well known in the area, and the dimly-lit bar of the local bowling alley was filled to capacity as the musicians played one of the more popular dance songs of the month. It had a beat that neither my boyfriend, Dean, nor I could resist, [...]
The Funeral
It was August of 1957 and I was seven years old. Mom’s former father-in-law, “Grandpa W” had died and Daddy allowed Mom and I to use his ’46 Plymouth coupe to go to his funeral around 100 miles away. After the service, members of the family gathered around the casket to pay their last respects. [...]
The Napkins
It was 1960 and I was 10 years old. My 93-year-old “Daddy”–my first stepfather–was in the hospital for the fourth or fifth time. His health was failing rapidly, and my mother spent almost all of her time caring for him. My half-brother and his wife, and my half-sister and her two daughters who were older than [...]
WELCOME!
Born in 1950 and raised in Central California, I have been writing–in one form or another–as long as I can remember. My letter-writing skills have been highly praised throughout the years, and it was one of my letters that landed me a response from President Dwight D. Eisenhower when I was a child, and another, my third [...]
