In order to prepare for this trip Mark and I went to a 3 day shakedown camp with the guides in January. We spent two nights in a tent at minus 20 Fahrenheit. The guides talked about knowing where all of your gear is at all times. They would say for example to keep your lighter in the same pocket and if you need it, it is there. And as soon as you are done put it back because it lives there. This is crucial in the arctic because we have limited space and you need to keep track of your gear. Too much energy is spent looking for something and if you are freezing you need it right away. Anyone ...continued...

Trouble! I felt so loney when i sitting my bed. i took out a big fat black marker and scibbled with it on wall. My mom didn't noctice it, but my dad did, he gasped and started to laugh, i was misunderstood because my dad is laughing i ran away from dad. but nonthing happed. ...continued...

Pregnancy is a blissful time. When pregnant with baby number three the blissfulness of it all just runs right through you. Today May 10th, 2006 my son was born. Although it was an emergency c-section he was brought into this world screaming and purple after being almost strangled to death by the umbilical cord. I had my son. My family was ecstatic and my dad was the proudest Papa in the world. Things were hard but I never gave up and always tried to do what was best for my family. I did the best I could with what I had to work with. Around three months old we started noticing freckles all over ...continued...

GHOSTBUSTERS …If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? If there’s something weird and it don’t look good, who you gonna call?…Ghostbusters. In the middle of the night my wife, Karen, heard a loud bump. She awoke to see a ghostly figure of a man standing next to the staircase. He was wearing a biker’s outfit with a yellow bandanna wrapped around his head. “Tom,” she shouted, waking me up. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “There is a man standing next to the stairs,” she gasped. ...continued...

As a part of a division 1 college cross country team, I am true thankful for the opportunity that others could only wish for... Unfortunately, theres always a dark side to everything that happens in my life. As a freshman, I ran terribly. I was nervous, scared, and always depressed. I was varsity but with terrible times. I grew and matured as most college kids do and by my sophomore year I was leading the team. I consistently ran in the low 19s and led the team with an iron will to win. The down side is that my coach despises me because I am not the type of athlete who sucks up or lays at some ...continued...

North Pole ...continued...

I had a best friend while we were living in Gold Hill. Her name was Gail Stevens. We were really close. She's part Native American. She told she was part Cherokee. One day while we were at recess, we decided to sneak off and go across the road over to the cemetary. To this day I'm stillnot sure why we did it, I guess we were just curios. Well we were walking around and came up to a shed. All of a sudden we heard a noise, it sounded like a ghost, being only 6 years old you would think that we were scared, well we weren't. Next thing we know the grounds keeper jumped out ...continued...

Synopsis: A brief but instructive tale on behavior and morality, dear reader. This is a cautionary story for our modern times as we step gently into the 20th century, from July 1901 to August 1902. Karl Krentz rolled the Havana cigar in his mouth with the tip of his thumb and index finger of his right hand, while his left hand methodically opened and closed behind his back. He surveyed the broad expanse of beach below from the high grassy knoll. To his left were the flashing white cliffs that he had always found so compelling. Krentz, at the moment, felt quite pleased with his place ...continued...

The Qualities of Someone I Admire: My Grandfather             Although I admire several people in my world, there is one man that stands out above all the rest and shines bright in my eyes. I have known him all my life and he was always a constant for me. His nickname for years was Smiley. You may think that was because he smiled all the time, but this was not the case. In fact, he rarely had a smile on his face for as long as I can remember. This man had a very hard life. He was born in 1918 to a very poor family. His mother died when he was a young boy and he had to help ra ...continued...

FIRST CHRISTMAS ©2014 By Rolland Love rtl@kc.rr.com The last sound I heard as I drifted off to sleep was the howling wind. In the middle of the night I was awakened by a scream from the back bedroom. My dog Trouser came over and licked my face. I sat up and draped a wool blanket around my shoulders. Then slid out of bed and walked across a cold hardwood floor. I found myself standing at the bedroom door. The scene was strange and scary, like something in a dream. Sitting on white wicker tables, one on each side of my mother and father’s bed, were ke ...continued...

It was very big and heavy, cardboard, cheap painted white with clasps and lock, a holiday case which I used as a school bag, awkward to hold all the books I stored, caught on my bicycle carrier. Cycling home I felt a thud and heard a guffaw: the big school bully had knocked the suitcase onto the road. A challenge, a fight in the field, fear entering my bones. A school memory which sparked the bullying incident in Peeling Oranges. http://www.amazon.com/Peeling-Oranges-James-Lawless/dp/1496007646 ...continued...

~~In the Nighttime To the individual working in near darkness, the place felt like a basement at midnight, illuminated only by a dim light bulb at the top of the stairway. No. Better. It felt like a mortuary in the middle of the night, the perfectionist mortician preparing a corpse for a starring role at its own funeral. An undertaker is an artist, after all, who must exult in the unveiling of the handiwork—or creative artwork—as gawkers pass by the open casket. The lone figure’s grin appeared as grotesque as the thoughts in its wearer’s head, illuminated as it wa ...continued...

Kids are really good at whatever you put your mind to you can achieve. I remembered not want to go go to school, I got up and started to pray to get sick so I can stay home, I prayed hard, then I began to say I am sick, I am sick, i am sick, not for anyone to hear of course. But before I was dressed for school my tummy started to hurt, YES! ( shouted in my mind). It began to hurt more and more then the runnings stated, the most foul sent ever, I could not go 10 mins with out having find a toilet. I saw the frustration in my moms eyes. But I did get to stay home for 3 days, but not how I wanted ...continued...

In order to ward off boredom on a solo trip from Kansas City to Denver, I jotted sights that caught my eye on the steering wheel. At my destination, I turned my scribbles into a poem. I don't recommend writing on the steering wheel--but in Kansas there's not much else going on. KANSAS CITY TO DENVER RUN My Grand AM and I off on early grey dawn journey to a writers conference through short rolling velvet fields shrouded in puffs of fog on I-70. Topeka gas station, fill Betsy's tan ...continued...

Digging through the anals of my mind takes a great deal of concentration and somewhat frustration....every time its always the same, happy memories, where are you? I think my most fond memories as a child were probably playing with our huge great dane who was such a clumsy clut, but so loving and harmless that like any of us just yearned for some attention and you would have him doing any tricks you desired. He was my horse! Most kids got bicycles to learn to ride, pedalling and balancing, but I had man’s best friend who would let me climb on his back, wrapping my legs ...continued...