In January 1983 Lyn Mathews, the wife of the Dean of the Institute of Cultural Affairs asks me to go to the Kingdom of Tonga in the Pacific to participate in the Pacific Training School. I pause for a minute, ask her a couple of questions and then say, “Yes.” I want...
The Christmas of the big snow! Who can forget it? Presents and turkey took a back seat that year of 1967. We board the Santa Fe’s Texas Chief in Chicago and wake the next morning in Kansas. A world in dazzling white greets us. As we leave the train we exclaim, “Where...
Priscilla and I arrange to meet in Phoenix. She skips a meeting and suggests we go birding in the Tuscon region. “Sure,” I say, not very interested. or knowledgeable about birds. We stay someplace where desert birds abound. Priscilla loans me binoculars and advises me...
An afternoon appointment in Lawrence means a time to do some exploring on the way there. Black Hoof Park has been mentioned as an interesting spot. Exploring on the internet, I discover where this park is. My internet hunt leads me to the west end of...
My unusual Christmas gift to myself this year involves three separate family dinner events. Three family households live in the snowy north of Minnesota: son Ben and his wife Tina, grandson Marcel, his wife Phaedra plus Zander and Izzy, and grandson Jeffrey, his wife...
As an author, I experience that one of the hardest moments of working on a book is deciding the title. Maybe that comes easily for some folks, but I always struggle with that task. Several years before his death, Rodney Wilson began work on his life story. Many bits...
