Close call....One of many!

Close call....One of many!
Generally, this is the car I was driving at the time...But Dark Navy Blue.  1998 or so Mazda Miata. Close calls eh?  I’ll give you a close call! Back in 2001 my cousin Heather came to visit me at my home in West Knoxville, TN.  She was staying about 20 miles...
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1688 Views
4 Comments

Ode to the Oreo

Ode to the Oreo
The Oreo Cookie turned 100 years old today! I cannot at this moment think of any other icon of American Culinary Achievement that outstrips the familiarity of this cookie. Surely as it was for me, it was for others an integral part of my childhood. I even adopted a ritual for...
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2056 Views
5 Comments

Among The Redwoods In California

Among The Redwoods In California
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Santa Cruz, California It was just another day in the woods.  Ed Tunheim, the senior forester for Cal-Pacific Forest Consultants, was in charge of several small contracts to inventory the timber on the properties of local...
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3160 Views
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Some Stuff You Just Can't Make Up

Some Stuff You Just Can't Make Up
  On the road again…. Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Maple Trees   This timely chronicle belongs in either the “you just can’t make this stuff up” folder, or the “truth is stranger than fiction” folder.  To a bridge player, you might call it...
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2363 Views
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African Wildlife....Up Close And Friendly

African Wildlife....Up Close And Friendly
On the road…again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   U is for Uganda The first sight he ever had of a dik-dik was up close, real close.  His old E-Mail nickna me “DikDik” comes as no coincidence.  It was a hint of Africa and...
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2252 Views
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Golf Is Sometimes About Things Other Than Tee To Green

Golf Is Sometimes About Things Other Than Tee To Green
  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Golfing Where and When You  Can Living and working overseas does not mean that you have to give up the pleasures that you enjoyed back home.  Playing golf was a pleasure that was not available...
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2621 Views
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Early Ancestors

Two of my earliest ancestors that I could identify were Cassie Williams and her daughter, Phillis Smith. As the story goes, Cassie Williams was one of three slave girls in Georgia. Although I haven't been able to verify this story, or her country of origin, our family has been able to...
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1449 Views
3 Comments

Susan's Special Club

Susan's Special Club
Legacy Story Prompt: Describe a life-threatening close call that happened to you. Are you familiar with the cartoonist Gary Larsen? He made one superlatively funny cartoon in which two deer are standing in a forest, one bearing the image of a target/bull’s-eye prominently affixed to his body. The other deer says,...
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1549 Views
9 Comments

Tubing--A Close Call

As my body bounced against the rocks, my thoughts raced!  "Is this the way I will meet my demise?"

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2809 Views
8 Comments

A Hundred People In A Banyan Tree?

A Hundred People In A Banyan Tree?
  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   I is for India   A hundred people in a banyan tree? The banyan tree in India is many times larger than this one While watching a sci-fi movie in which three young adventurers were...
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2317 Views
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Put On Your Dancing Shoes

Along about 1967 the tsunami of money from the Federal Government to “Education” that was created by the nerve shattering “beep-beep-beeping” of the world’s first space vehicle had reached its crest and was receding.   It was Russia’s vehicle. . . and it was called “Sputnik” or fellow traveler. Those beeps were...
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1519 Views
6 Comments

Learning Something Beautiful About Death

    It never occurred to me that I would actually pray for my father to die.  But watching someone suffer from cancer brings changes to people.  Especially if the person suffering is someone we love.     When my father had a lung biopsy which revealed that he had lung cancer, he...
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1377 Views
3 Comments

Freedom Isn't Free!

Freedom Isn't Free!
I rarely donate to organizations outside of my church donations that go to tithing, fast offerings, humanity projects, assisted temple patron, and perpetual education fund.  However, for the past few years (at least while we have been in Afghanistan in war) I have made an annual donation to the Disabled American...
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1330 Views
3 Comments

Paragliding Above A Welch Meadow

Paragliding Above A Welch Meadow
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   W is for Wales Wales has a special place in the dreams of the Footloose Forester .  It’s mostly  about flying.  Ever since the first time he left the ground in a flying machine, the Footloose...
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  4 Comments
2465 Views
4 Comments

To Russia, With Gloves

To Russia, With Gloves
  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   To Russia, With Gloves When we think of Siberia, we imagine a cold and desolate place, but nothing shocked him as much as seeing frozen streambeds in the middle of October.  Flying over Siberia was...
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2338 Views
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Teak Plantations of Honduras

Teak Plantations of Honduras
  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek    H is Honduras     After getting a small grant to research a few selected teak plantations in Central America, compliments of the Organization for Tropical Studies, the Footloose Forester chose Costa Rica, Panama, and...
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3718 Views
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On A Mini-Tour, Seeking His Roots

On A Mini-Tour, Seeking His Roots
On the road… again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   H for Hungary   Most people wonder about where they came from, or where their grandparents came from. The Footloose Forester was no different in that regard. In the case of his grandparents on his...
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1717 Views
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Down In The Valley

If you picture a valley as a bowl or a long trough between lines of mountains, Caney is not in a valley.    But Urban S. Gibbs, a patriarch who had the stern, unforgiving look of John Brown, was President of our bank and keeper of Caney’s money.  He called his bank...
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1509 Views
2 Comments

Barbequed Wart Hog At Our Desert Camp

Barbequed Wart Hog At Our Desert Camp
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek        M is for Mali Going  to Timbuktu was perhaps the first reference that the Footloose Forester ever heard about an African city, when he was still in knee pants. That is because his mother kept repeating...
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2496 Views
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If I Could Change Ethnicity

    If I could choose an ethnicity to be born in, I would definitely ask to be born a Polynesian!  In my experience there are three  main reasons I would choose this.  First, the people are the most warm and loving I have ever known.  They care.  There are no attachments...
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1427 Views
2 Comments