Went to the doctor and the news isn’t bad but it isn’t great either.  In a couple days I have to get my blood drawn. My doctor wants to check my cholesterol and to see if I have diabetes. He also wants to see me back in a month or so to double check my high-blood…

She was a freshman while I was senior, but I had a crush on her anyway. I think Leslie (I’ve since forgotten her last name,) figured it out the second time I asked her to dance. However, she was not interested in me and I knew it at the time, but I was jus’ bold…

After a four-hour drive to the small town of McCloud, we found our way into the Union encampment.  It was just before two and the temperature was well into the nineties. We were hot and sweaty and hoping to see members of our group. Slowly we drove through the rows of tents and parked vehicles,…

At the time I wasn’t getting along with Dad or my brother, Adam, so I moved out the apartment I had rented and into a small trailer in a park. At about the same time I had taken a part-time job loading, cooking and packing crab. The job was smelly. At first I hated going…

It’s a very vague memory that seems stuck in my head. I’m with Dad, he’s carrying me and we’re walking down a long hallway with another man. The other man is older and in a gray overcoat that smell of cigarette smoke. The three of us enter an elevator and go down to a lower…

It was one of the fastest and most frightening rides on a motorcycle I had ever encountered. By the time it was over, I was surprised I had survived let alone remained in one piece. I was working for Northcrest Motors as a part-time car salesman and as an auto detailer. A truck carrying four Harley Davidson…

Across from our home was a large open field. It was the perfect place to toss a Frisbee back and forth. But no one wanted to play, so I had to toss it and chase it down by myself. Eventually I realized I could throw the plastic disc and by running as fast as possible,…

The C-130 was our ride out of the jungle after eight days of harassing drug traffickers. It sat with its tail-gate down and both port-side hatches open and steps extended, when it started taking small arms fire. It suddenly became a “load and go” situation and the two Marines squads would have to evacuate the landing…

As I prepared to switch off the television for the night, I decided to flip through the channels one more time. I paused on The Weather Channel because there was something familiar about the woman wearing the U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Commanders’ uniform. It took me a couple of minutes of watching to recognize and…

He was in his early teens when he first came west from St. Joe, Missouri. Frank Mueller didn’t intend on striking it rich but that’s what had happened.Frank started like any miner, with nothing more than a pick, shovel and a pie tin. He bought a length of land along the Russian River and set…