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As a young girl, I loved to visit my grandparents.  I would ride my bicycle to their house.  We lived on 7th East in Salt Lake City, Utah and they lived on Leland Avenue, about three or four blocks away. I remember that my grandfather [Folkert T. Folkers] often sat in...

Grandpa Folkers would sit hunched over in his rocking chair.  He was quite a heavy man.  He stood a head taller than grandma Folkers who was quite short.  It was wintertime, and he was sitting in the chair.  There was no heat in the bedroom, and the kitchen had the cookstove,...

As 2011 comes to a close and a new year begins, it is an opportunity to reflect on past experiences, unachieved goals, and wishes to improve.  Often, people take this time to set New Year's Resolutions.  Too often, these resolutions are short-lived and by mid-March they are all but forgotten.  As...

Pig Roast, 11/19/2011

       Story Prompt:  As you look back, what are the three most incredible changes you have witnessed? I have chosen three areas of most incredible changes I have witnessed in the sixty-seven years I have lived.    These changes are sometimes for good, and at other times not so.  The changes that...

  Family Christmas 2011

  Family Christmas #3

It is difficult to limit myself to only three incredible changes that I have witnessed in my, now, 60 years. I have seen the invention of television, stereo record players, transistor radios, toaster ovens, electric flying pans, electric knives, microwave ovens, computers, iPods, iPads, MP3 players, central heat and air-conditioning, movie...

  Charley Pride Christmas gag gift!!

 In December, 1994 we were living in St. Charles MO.  I was working on an irregular basis as a “temp” paralegal for a large law firm in downtown St. Louis and as a substitute teacher in two suburban school districts.    Anne worked as a secretary at The Jewish Center for the...

1.  Technological mobility and the ability to connect with each other has gone through the roof.  As a kid growing up in North Conway, NH back in the late 70's-80's I don't remember a single cell phone, ipad, nextel walkie talkie, bluetooth or computer let alone a laptop in my home. ...

On October 4th, 1957, my first year as a teacher and one day after my 25th birthday,  we were "treated" to a beeping sound being sent from space by a man-made satellite.  The first of the many that now roam about the earth. It was called "Sputnik," and, God forbid, it...

As usual, I’m about a month behind. The story prompt for November 11 had to do with holiday traditions, and here I am sitting down to write about this on December 20 th .... Maybe you can relate. There’s a door in the back of my mind behind which lurks an...

As you look back, what are the three most incredible changes you have witnessed? Legacy Story Prompt December Week 3 OK ; I’m not as old as some of you but I’ve been around the block a time or two. I’ve worked on copying machines most of my life so I...

When I was much, much younger, and that was a long, long time ago, because I have always been as old as I am now--life was lived at a different pace.  For one thng, we lived in black and white and often the contrast between those colors was muted.  I remember...

Automatic washing machines as upposed to wringer washers.  Clothes dryers instead of clotheslines,  (although I loved the way the clothes smelled when I took them off the lines) ,  Pampers, which I never had the pleasure of using,  Garbage disposals (now that's a big one),   Medicine for anything that ails you, it...

Our accommodations at the whale camp were serviceable but Spartan. We were provided with cots and sleeping bags in small tents on the beach. Because it was a desert—and February—the temperature dropped sharply when the sun went down and how the wind howled! Each night I waited for our tent to...

The most enduring Christmas tradition in my family is our annual race—a race against time. It is the same every year, the result of a combination of procrastination and high expectations. Every year I swear it will be different but it never is. I start making my list early and even...

All science classes in the small-town high school from which I graduated were taught by a poor soul whom, for out of respect for his memory, I will not name.  Consider him “Mr. X.”  Mr. X became infamous for the total anarchy that reigned in his classroom.  This unfortunate man had...

A Web of Destruction Down inside the soul of every man and woman is good and evil.  One characteristic overshadows the other, and usually by a large margin.  For some, evil is the primary inhabitant.  Good is only occasionally allowed to rear its head.  The souls of these are dominated by...