My Portfolio

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     Deforestation, Reforestation, and Afforestation   The continuous evolution of digital technology across written, audio, and pictorial media has resulted in each medium of expression having an ever-improving capability to create and to share our personal expressions of...

The Merry Cherry Farm, Williamston, North Carolina ​ The green John Deere tractor coughs to life like a prehistoric animal awakening from a dormant winter.  Its long, pipe-like nostril sends smoke out the metallic lid, creating a faint ding, ding, ding that can be heard from the sleeping windows of the...

Passages: Large families: Thanksgivings. Many years of lots of noise, Lots of family around - conversations solving world's problems - crowded house - seated cheek to cheek around a large table with a "children's" table off to the side. Years pass. Those children who were seated off to one side or...

When I was 14 or 15, I started working in the family business started by my grandfather and run, at that time, by my father.  I continued to work in the business through college.  In the first semester of my sophmore year of college, I was facing a dilemma I had...

Chapter 8 Back to Marsham     We lost dear mum in nineteen fifty seven.  She died from cancer aged sixty four.  I was heartbroken.  Two years later, I married Jean.  A few years after being married, I took my wife Jean and my first born to Marsham to see Queenie...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Eureka! Koa is a Superstar Getting to travel into rural areas in The Third World gives the traveler a perspective you won’t find in the glossy photos of glamorous magazines. Whereas most people can relate to a stroll...

Killed in Action   I was just about leaving for work the next day, when a telegram arrived.  I didn't want to open it as they were always bad news.  My mind went back to the time when we received one telling us that Joe had been wounded.  I opened it...

 Brothers in Arms               In spring of nineteen forty four, Fred came home on leave, after completing his initial army training.  Just like Joe and Charlie, he had sprung up pretty quickly only more so.  He must have been about six foot two and he seemed to have filled out...

The Army Call Up In the May 1942, Joe received his call-up papers.  He too, just like Charlie, had to join the infantry (PBI) he had to do his initial six weeks training at Tidworth, in Hampshire.  Joe now being in the Rifle Brigade was always kept on his toes, as...

Moving Back to Bethnal Green     All us evacuees were given the choice to go back home, once we had reached the age of fourteen.  Fourteen was the age for leaving school and starting work.  My birthday being in March, meant that it wouldn't be long before I would be...

Angels and Heroes Exercise "Feeling Gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." - William Arthur Ward   An 'Angel' is the one whose kindness and love sustained you as you have grown, faced difficult times and personal loss. A 'Hero' is the one who inspired you...

A Family at War   In the spring the following year, I suppose that I had been evacuated about eight months by then, another kind of evacuation was taking place.  Everybody seemed to be talking about Dunkirk.  Ted Clarke told me about how we were sending boats across the channel, all...

Evacuation to Marsham in Norfolk    We were ending summer nineteen-thirty nine and I was barely eleven years of age. There was talk of war.  Joe took me to a place somewhere along Old Bethnal Green Road, I think it was to one of the few schools that were in that road. ...

Us's & Co.  Bow and Bethnal Green   I have written this story, not in the pretence that I am a writer or even intend to be. But only to record to the best of my knowledge, certain events that have taken place. I have made a point of avoiding any...

PREFACE   “I have written this story, not in the pretence that I am a writer or even intend to be.  But only to record to the best of my knowledge, certain events that have taken place.  I have made a point of avoiding any form of guesswork or inventive material,...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     Memes That Miss The Mark   These days it is ever so common to see memes posted on social media sites, that we are lulled into thinking that we are seeing pearls of wisdom.  In addition, it...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     The Dirty Rifle   Every company in the training battalion at Fort Ord, California had an ongoing but unspoken competition for best company in each training cycle.  Basic Training in the US Army in those days of...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     With Tears in My Eyes Of the many times when melancholia starts to overwhelm his senses, the Footloose Forester is often visited by a couple of stories that can easily bring tears to his eyes.  Although he...

­­ Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     Four Days to Uhuru Peak   In March of 1994, the Footloose Forester joined with nine other adventurers to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.  It was one of those bucket list adventures that got a high priority not...

DECEMBER 25, 1995   MY CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO YOU   MY DEAREST ONE,               WE HAVE SPENT 48 CHRISTMAS’S TOGETHER. SOME WERE BOUNTIFUL AND SOME WERE LEAN.               I REMEMBER ONE PARTICULAR CHRISTMAS ON GREELEY’S COURT IN THE EARLY YEARS OF OUR MARRIAGE. I WANTED A WRIST WATCH SO...