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…

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…

When you thought you were over the dream — Growing up I always thought my destiny was a husband and a family. A “normal” family. Everyone who wants one gets one, right? Especially if they are nice? Now I know there are probably no families that are “normal” and if there were, I probably wouldn’t want to be in…

The joys of jumping off the ledge — In those college years when my contemporaries were sowing their wild oats, I lived scared. It wasn’t that I never did things that scared me, and no one would have referred to me as the timid type, but so many things scared me. I avoided them. I’ve always been bold…