I hope My Wife Approves

When I was young and DUMB and before my wife died in childbirth in 1979 at the age of 28 . I was 32 years old and she was a stay at home Mom taking care of our two sons . I would go to work and people would ask me...
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  1479 Views
  4 Comments
1479 Views
4 Comments

Clemmie - Doris - Clemmie

Clemmie - Doris - Clemmie
As a child,Clemmie Ross predicted she would have a daughter, her name would be "Doris and she will be a teacher". Her only child's name is Doris and she became a teacher. What Mother Clemmie could not have imagined is how significant to so many other lives this love of her...
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  2388 Views
  5 Comments
2388 Views
5 Comments

Cutting Firewood

Cutting Firewood
I attended a Memorial Service for my last remaining brother last Saturday. He was 84 years old, six years older than I.  Although we were brothers, we grew up in a vastly different world and had strikingly different memories of our childhood and adolescence. We in the family called him “Gene.” ...
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  1875 Views
  2 Comments
1875 Views
2 Comments

My Jewel Tea Truck

My Jewel Tea Truck
It always seems to me that 1956 is the year to remember. I know my Dad had a big piece of pipe fall on his leg and crush the bone in his lower leg. He was off of work for a long time. They had to put a silver plate in...
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  4005 Views
  4 Comments
4005 Views
4 Comments

My Best Friend

I’ve had a lot of very good friends in my life . Some have been what you would say best friends . When my first wife died I had a fried that I worked with that I had went to Tech School with . He stuck with me like glue ....
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  1220 Views
  1 Comment
1220 Views
1 Comment

Christine & Tom courtship...

Christine & Tom courtship...
One late summer evening August 25, 1968 I met a boy named Tommy Cormier. He was wearing Striped bell bottoms and a cotton shirt. I had a summer dress on as it was hot that evening. My sister said there was someone waiting at the door to see me. When I...
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  2252 Views
  17 Comments
2252 Views
17 Comments

Crushes - A Young Girl's First Pangs of Love

Crushes - A Young Girl's First Pangs of Love
Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE   The very first man a little girl loves is her Dad, and this special lifelong relationship should be nurtured and cherished. Like other small girls, I adored my 6’6” Dad who was always a ‘larger than life’ personality and a helpless practical...
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  1766 Views
  4 Comments
1766 Views
4 Comments

Friendship

Our story prompt this week is "What does a true friend mean to you, who fits that description and why?" This assignment is a lot to chew on! It isn't as easy a topic as might appear at first blush, so I decided to start by looking up the word "friend"...
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  1512 Views
  6 Comments
1512 Views
6 Comments

Entrepreneurship

I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.
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  1683 Views
  4 Comments
1683 Views
4 Comments

"Breaker, Breaker"

"Breaker, Breaker"
Like its long-ago predecessor, the CB Radio, the Internet may drown in its own capability. A mosquito dies under a fatal slap and its demise will be reported, analyzed, and dissected in some niche on the Internet within minutes. Amateurs and professionals race to see who will be the first to...
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  1971 Views
  5 Comments
1971 Views
5 Comments

Love of My Life....

Over the years I had lots of boyfriends, but somehow for me marriage wasn't in the stars. I was very career focused and really hadn't found The One.  I dated but just hadn't had that spark.  And as fiercely independent as I am, well, marriage wasn't really high on my list...
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  1599 Views
  4 Comments
1599 Views
4 Comments

My Truest Friend

My Truest Friend
A sign once read, "A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be in jail with you saying, "Damn that was fun." I have had many "good" friends in my life. Many could even qualify as true friends. I can recall deeply loyal friendships in my...
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  2345 Views
  5 Comments
2345 Views
5 Comments

Great Expectations

My parents owned a small business and worked incredibly long hours. This was in the 50s when working women were still something of an oddity and most of the women on our block were stay-at-home moms. In our unconventional household, my older sister, Jackie, and I were expected to assume the...
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  1890 Views
  2 Comments
1890 Views
2 Comments

First Love

You know how some people just love reminiscing about high school and never miss a reunion?  I'm not one of them.  In fact, I probably wouldn't attend a high school reunion if they held it in my living room.  It was three years of pure torture for me--an endurance event. It...
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  1713 Views
  3 Comments
1713 Views
3 Comments

Lucky Tiger

Lucky Tiger
Walk westerly a hundred steps or so from Winklers’ Drug Store in Caney Kansas around 1945 and you’d find yourself in front of one of the most consistently busy “stores” in town: Floyd Swayne’s Barber Shop.  This was a male kingdom.  If testosterone had color you could have seen it oozing...
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  1402 Views
  4 Comments
1402 Views
4 Comments

Mr. Christmas

Mr. Christmas
  Defining Moments       Since becoming a StoryKeeper I’ve found something. Every one of us has defining moments in our life, an event or experiences of such physical or emotional intensity that it has a profound impact on the nature and direction of our life.       Moments such as...
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  2004 Views
  3 Comments
2004 Views
3 Comments

So Goes Glory

A mile or so north of town Cheyenne Creek ran under a bridge on US Highway 75.  It was an old bridge with ornamental concrete balustrades fencing in the sides of the highway to keep cars from plunging into the water below.  On each end of the bridge there was a...
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  2067 Views
  2 Comments
2067 Views
2 Comments

Can While You Can

Can While You Can
One of Mother’s many household duties during the summer when vegetables and fruits were ripe was to can as many fruits and vegetables as she could. The only canning process available brought with it a tour in the very fires of hell. Vegetables tend to ripen in the hottest part of...
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  1440 Views
  2 Comments
1440 Views
2 Comments

My First Serious Love Relationship

My First Serious Love Relationship
I returned from my LDS Mission to The Netherlands in December, 1965 and continued my studies at Utah State University. Having really struggled with the freshman year of college before my mission, I was coming back near the level of probation. My mode of transportation was a bicycle and this posed...
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  1771 Views
  4 Comments
1771 Views
4 Comments

What I Owe the USO

What I Owe the USO
The “Korean Police Action,” as Truman called it, had been fought up and down that miserable peninsula for many bloody months and had come to a point where daily “success” was measured by how many North Korean and Chinese dead bodies had been created that day.  It looked as if it...
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  1558 Views
  6 Comments
1558 Views
6 Comments