I stood on the actual Oregon Trail last week, something that’s been a dream of mine since I-can’t-remember-when.  I spent several hours at the National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, high on a bluff outside of...

The summer I was nine or ten, my father bought a country schoolhouse.  It wasn’t unusual for my dad to purchase oddball things — a defunct ice cream shop or a stash of World...

The town I grew up in was really small, and it wasn’t unusual to drive twenty, fifty or even ninety miles to shop for certain things.  On one such day-long outing, my mother and...

I love birthdays, both my own and other people’s.  I think they’re wonderful. Even though I know people who have the same birthday as I do, it’s still my special day.  If I should...

I grew up in Wisconsin, the designated Dairy State, and back in the 1950’s margarine was illegal there. Why it became important to my family that we have margarine, I can’t remember – probably because...

My husband does not do visual.  His words.  He would not be a good witness at a crime scene, he couldn’t tell you if the perpetrator was young or old or tall or thin,...

Sometimes in the middle of the night or early in the morning when I’m lying in bed, I experiment with song and book titles. Many of what I consider to be my best ideas...

A man who’s been a friend of mine since childhood had a massive heart attack a few weeks ago.  He’s going to be okay, he’s recovering nicely.  When it was happening, his wife frantically...

I used to think that having a stalker might be fun — and then I had one for three days and discovered it was only annoying.  It started with a text message on my...

I was at the pet store stocking up on dog and cat food yesterday and the young man in front of me at the checkout was purchasing a beautiful exotic fish.  It was in...