Everyone didn’t see the joke — Imagine the scene. I was 23 and working in the claims department of an insurance company. Cubicles were all around me. Surely over 100 cubicles in this enormous room, with mine around the middle. Nothing special at all. Paying medical claims at that time required a lot of data input…

Their lives speak through their ink — I was visiting a friend and saw she had gotten a tattoo. I could only make out a few words, so asked to see the whole quote and hear her tattoo story. I love tattoo stories. I am that person who asks strangers to see their tattoos and then tell…

November Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Happiness” — A good gift from a neighbor. I’m one of those people who hates people decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving. I hate decorating my own home at all, but I love the decorations of others. After Thanksgiving (which is the fourth Thursday in November, for those not from the US). Still, I was coming home the other…

November Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Happiness” — Giving flight to dreams coming true. A friend once told me, “You want a meadow, they want a lawn.” I was talking about my neighbors with their chemically enhanced lawns of green perfection. My lawn, on the other hand, was full of dandelions and clover and all kinds of purple wildflowers that others called weeds. …

If your secrets could help others, are they still private? — My aunt and I were having a casual conversation recently and she made reference to “one of the times she was committed.” The “she” was my Nana. “Wait a minute. Go back. Nana was committed to a mental institution?” “Four times. She had that electroshock therapy.” Nana evidently suffered from…

September Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Shadows” — Destruction of history, will time forget? One day I am walking downtown and the square has historic buildings on each corner — that night a fire took out three buildings and our downtown will never be the same. Gone is the building where Eagles Five & Dime was located throughout my childhood. Most trips where we…

Sometimes you don’t — I’m not from a family that apologizes often. We just get over it and move on. It’s not something we were taught – in fact, my mother was always perplexed that my siblings and I seamlessly moved from screaming and wrestling to sitting next to each other on the couch…

August Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Toys” — Wind me up and play away. I’ve always loved wind-up toys. Turn the key and watch them go. It used to be only a forward movement, a bit of a shuffle. Then they started doing all kinds of crazy acrobatics. Today you never know what you will get. My long-time friend Steve noticed I had a…

How my encounter with Bill Gothard reinforced the positive — I’m not sure how old I was, but it was sometime in my 20s. People from my church were hyped about a series of seminars by a guy named Bill Gothard and everyone seemed to be signing up. Someone recommended I go. “Why not?,” I thought. Hey, it was at…