Late in the fall, a 3rd grade boy started riding my school bus. He was loud, he was fresh mouthed, he jumped in the seat, over the seats, his hands were never where they belong, other kids complained about him with good reason. I naturally had to write him up. The first time, the mother…
Several years ago, we hit rock bottom. We had two young girls under 4 at the time. I’d heard and witnessed several cases of our local health and human services assuming freeloaders were seeking assistance. As a general rule, they treat everyone as though they fit that category. I was fighting a horrible sinus infection…
. Years ago, when I was really unwell, both physically and mentally, but especially the latter, I was on time for my bus, but it was early. I started to run for it. At 300+ lbs at the time and having hands full with art case and knap sack, and a knee that I had…
. One day a little over a year ago, I walked into my regular nail salon and I noticed a woman wearing a turban on her head. She looked very tired and pale and I noticed that she didn’t have any hair and her eye brows were missing and her eyelashes too. She had dark…
. My daughter, age 7, was outside with her class one day at school. They were working in the gardens and she asked to go in to use the restroom and her teacher granted her permission. As she headed into the bathroom, a lady stopped her and asked what she was doing. My daughter said…
. I drove by a woman holding a cardboard sign saying homeless please pray for me. I went around the block and came back to talk to her. After I went and bought her food and a hot cup of coffee, we talked for the better part of an hour. She is disabled and doctors…
. I was grocery shopping, wandering around the meat department trying to decide what my family would have for dinner that evening. Beside me was a very dignified, but elderly woman who had only a gallon of milk, a carton of eggs and she was looking at the hamburger. She was wringing her hands and…
. It had been raining cats and dogs all night and was still drizzling when I drove my son to his friends house. We traveled along a narrow road we took most days and as we approached the steep hill that sometimes slowed school buses so much they started going backwards, we noticed something unusual….
.One of the teaching staff from school, informed me that my eight year old son approached a fellow student, who was looking very sad sitting by himself. Apparently, he then struck-up a conversation with that boy, after which my son grabbed his lunch and came back to have lunch with his new friend. Continue Reading
My widowed father is getting frail with Alzheimer’s and other medical conditions common for an 88-year old WWII veteran. Just as I was getting ready to teach an after-school class of nine-year olds some science the other day, I get an urgent phone call from my sister. Our dad was being rushed into emergency surgery…
In 1981, I was a part time DJ at a country music station on graveyard shift. We had restrictions on how often we could play older songs. They were labeled with dates. One night a lady called in requesting a Conway Twitty song. There was something in her voice, but I told her sure, let…
. I went on a south sea cruise for a writer’s workshop, the first time I’d had taken a holiday. I didn’t really know what to do with myself if it wasn’t helping someone else. I felt surrounded by decadence and when we had a stopover on a small pacific island I noticed the adults…