Gathering Your Life Stories

Gathering Your Life Stories
Your Family Heritage Recipes Within your circle of family and friends are you known for making a special dish, the dish you are always asked to bring to a family gathering or a social get-together?  I remember interviewing a blind 90 year old lady who told me that she was known...
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1494 Views
2 Comments

Bamboo That Was Over 100 Feet Tall

Bamboo That Was Over 100 Feet Tall
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   C was Ceylon   You might say that he was never in Sri Lanka, but he was in Ceylon.  He was never in Kampuchea but was once in the Khmer temples of Cambodia; he never set...
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2446 Views
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That occupation was. . .What?

Several years ago, when my oldest son Aaron was going to college studying nursing, he and I were working on an automobile and we needed a part to finish up the job.  I called one of the local wrecking yards and found that they had just the part that we needed. ...
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621 Views
3 Comments

Meeting My Bosses on My First Day of Work in Saudi Arabia

The date was July of 1978. I had graduated college 6 months earlier and got offered a job in Saudi Arabia. At the time the only thing I knew of the country was that it was somewhere in the middle east and I had seen the movie of Lawrence of Arabia. Nonetheless...
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1952 Views
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On Being Frugal

On Being Frugal
  On the road …again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   On Being Frugal, or Practical, or Just Plain Cheap Many households contain things that are old.  The older the residents, it seems; the greater the chances that there are more old things on display...
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2563 Views
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Funny Mistake In Front Of Many People

It was one of those mornings. I'd been up since 2:30, filling in for the regular morning news anchor. I had that "2:30" feeling around 8am, and I just wasn't focusing properly. I was in the middle of a cut-in, which is a quick 4 minute news update with a brief...
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1860 Views
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To The Job By Horseback

To The Job By Horseback
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   L is for Lesotho Three days on horseback is just enough time to get the point that not everywhere in Lesotho can be reached by road.  Miles of green pastures and not a few shrubby patches...
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2671 Views
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Did I REALLY Just Do That?

Did I REALLY Just Do That?
In 1974 I was living in Provo, Utah and had the opportunity to have been ordained a Seventy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the previous year.  The Seventies Mission Bookstore was located on the block between First North and Second North and First West in Provo.  Proceeds...
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1560 Views
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Become Able

Become Able
STABLE OF ABLES You know that you are cap able and reli able , but how many other people know that? How well do you transmit that information?  Part of communicating information about yourself entails a willingness to assess your full Stable of Ables . Being cap able is only one...
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2245 Views
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Dogs Of War Coup Master Was A Real Mercenary

Dogs Of War Coup Master Was A Real Mercenary
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   C for Comoros So little of past journeys to obscure places fits into neat packages that makes for interesting reading. Much about the Comoros is all bits and pieces of a grander tale, but not one...
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2215 Views
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Jessie

Jessie
Yesterday I received a notice in my In Box reminding me of my late paternal grandmother, Jessie Wallace's birthday today, 19 th March, when she would have turned 121. As her first born granddaughter and first child of her first child (my Dad, Kenneth Boyd Wallace was born on 23 rd...
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1958 Views
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His Diet Could Have Been Better

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   You Are What You Eat Of all the expressions, clichés, maxims and apparent truisms, " you are what you eat" is one that the Footloose Forester never took seriously.  In Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force...
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1593 Views
2 Comments

Spelunking In Calaveras County, California

Spelunking In Calaveras County, California
  On the road…. again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Caving in California   When he was a young, restless Recreation Patrolman on the El Dorado National Forest in California, the Footloose Forester had a friend his age that was as restless as he...
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2561 Views
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A Fond Farewell

A Fond Farewell
This special day began typically for March in Ohio, gray with blowing rain against the bedroom window.  How I wished the sun could pop out from behind the clouds.     Today is the occasion for honoring a good friend and mentor for many of the musicians in our city.  Our...
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1736 Views
1 Comment

Why Analyse A Post-It-Note? Why Analyse Anything We Read?

Why Analyse A Post-It-Note?  Why Analyse Anything We Read?
  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Analysis of a Post-It Note   On some occasions, the desire to write things down turns into exercises in analysis.  Some critics would point to his frequent efforts as one example of why Pellek, the...
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4211 Views
6 Comments

Evln Wd Spd Rdng

The following may be little more than a rant,,,,but I wonder where we will be in the coming years? The growing popularity of things like Twitter and Texting which necessarily limit messages to extremely short blasts could have a detrimental effect on the growth of knowledge and understanding. The great lessons in...
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1977 Views
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Magnificent Seven

Magnificent Seven
Mom and Dad had seven children. I am the only girl and the second to the oldest. In birth order: Jim, me, Bill, Rick, Dan, Sam and Glen. Dan and Sam are twins. There is less than an 11 years difference in age between Jim and Glen. Glen has been calling...
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1261 Views
3 Comments

Plant Propagation Around The World

Plant Propagation Around The World
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Personal Observations On Plant Propagation One recurring lament about his travels into other countries was often about the lack of variety of local fruits and vegetables that should have been suited to the climates and soils...
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2411 Views
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Famous last words..."What can happen? It's just a rocket engine and it's not even pointed at anyone's house!"

Famous last words..."What can happen?  It's just a rocket engine and it's not even pointed at anyone's house!"
OUR INSPIRATION!!!  Mom, Ty and I at Cape Canaveral, FL.   Like a lot of young boys my Brother Tyler and I (Ages 15 and 12) were into rocketry.  We usually were left alone for days on end to construct the model rockets and then accompanied by an adult when we...
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1789 Views
2 Comments

Five Things You Can Never Recover

Five Things You Can Never Recover
An old friend sent me an email today, where he lamented about his mother’s recent unexpected death. He, like I, is a personal historian – a professional who interviews living people about their life stories and preserves them for the future as a family legacy. His sorrow was compounded by the...
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1936 Views
4 Comments