One of my chief delights in the warm months is watching the hummingbirds that flock to our feeder. They cluster around the feeder, competing for the nectar it provides, swapping out places at the feeding stations. They're always pretty competitive, even if there are only two at the feeder at the time. I wonder that they don't get hurt as they dive down at each other. The competitiveness rivals that of ten year old boys on the playground, only the hummers are in a fight for life-sustaining resources instead of the top of the climbing bars. Sometimes I count as many as ten or fifte ...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...

Because our Mother left when I was 4 and my brother Rich about 18 months old, we were reared primarily by our Father. As a truck driver, Dad was gone 5 to 6 days a week, when we were cared for by a great Aunty who lived downstairs in our duplex home. A true product of the Victorian era, Aunty was born in the 1880's. In her early 40's she had begun to be crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, and by the 1940's was badly incapacitated, hands gnarled, back stooped, knees and hips painful and deformed. She always had someone living with her to help ou ...continued...

There are moments in your life, as you look back, you can say “That was it! That was a pivotal moment!” For me it was my fathers’ Green Box. My father was the patriarch of our family. A depression baby raised in rural Missouri, the city boy just could not adapt to the slow pace of grazing cows, plowing corn and balancing on the railroad tracks. The city called to him so deeply that at the age of 14 he ran away. Kansas City had all the draw a young country boy could possibly imagine. Yet his naivety wa ...continued...

Introduction I set about to clean out Mother’s house. In the spare bedroom, I opened the antique cabinet and drew out a stack of memorabilia. Halfway down the pile of old newspapers, I discovered a speckled brown ledger book with ragged edges. It crackled as I opened the yellowed pages. Each line contained a date and a comment on life in the 1880's. It was my great-grandfather Sanford’s diary. The more I read, the more I wanted to share Sanford’s story, rather than bury it in some safe place for another 119 years. The basic story line is true and the hi ...continued...

Cultural competence has a great deal of meaning to me especially after taking this class. I define cultural competence by having the ability to be cultural aware of the differences of other cultures than of your own. It has a major impact on health care in our country because there are so many different groups and cultures of other people besides your own. I feel one is an ideal health care provider when they continually educate themselves on how to be culturally competent and understanding of others. I feel being culturally competent means making sure a patient you are working with understand ...continued...

~As he made his way down Columbus Avenue in the city of Middleton, Dr. Jameson was sure she was following him, hiding in the shadows, waiting patiently before making her move. The restaurant, his destination, wasn’t much further. Dr. Jameson wondered if maybe he should have phoned for that taxi, but it was a warm September evening and the walk would do him good. He could turn back; he was only a block from home, but he pressed on despite his uneasy feeling. The disturbing quiet of a usually busy city rattled him. It was as though he was the last survivor on the planet. A noise s ...continued...

Blue Hole By Rolland Love The following are a couple chapters from my mystery suspense novels "Blue Hole" and a sequel "River's Edge" which have received over (300) four and five star reviews. ☂ In River's Edge I aged Dub (12) and brother Tommy (15) by 50 years and made them Grandfathers who take their Grandsons to Blue Hole where a murder occurred the last time they were there in 1949. They become a family of cold case detectives. It's not easy to solve a (50) year old murder but they prove to be up for t ...continued...

Today we hit 89 degrees, no, not the temperature but 89 degrees north. We are now a little less than one degree away from the North Pole. We have traveled over 60 miles north from our start point. Keep in mind, this does not include any traveling we did moving every other direction to get around open leads, ice boulder fields, or pressure ridges, needless to say we have accomplished alot in the past 6 days (or was it 7 days? Hard to keep track). We are expecting one resupply to get us more fuel and food for the dogs, but we have a great team and everyone is motivated to push hard and get to ...continued...

I am just hearing loss at 8 moths, i revied a CI, ( choclear implant ) i am so happy i hear! but that only after when i was 2 years old. I am happy my parents decied to move in USA to live a better life before i was born. i saw picture of me crying at my fave uncle in secrch for my fave dress. I told my dad, where he lived, westover hills rd after he and my mom moved. I am 4 years old, my dad moved to E broad Rock rd. I growing bigger! i have few chores, if my mom ordered. ...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...

Breaking Wild Horses By Cindy Gray Sometimes my dreams, even the ones I don’t really remember, leave me with a strange feeling of exhilaration. It&rsqu ...continued...

For my cultural event I went to an event called Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville, Illionois. I attended this event on Tuesday April 11th. Feed My Starving Children was a cultural event that felt like a great fit. I volunteered and had a chance to learn about different cultures and what their struggle was like in terms of children lacking food sources. We first walked into the building where we were greeted and told to sign in, grab a hair net and gloves, and to take a seat. Once everyone was seated there was a speaker who greeted us. There was a large amount of volunteeers th ...continued...

Start Writing! THE BRIDGE TO CARACAS http://thebridgetocaracas.com <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 6.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: ...continued...

Men invigorated by march - About 300 KC participants in Washington rally return with a messege,... By mister | Posted May 28, 2011 | Kansas City, Missouri <div id="producer-note-block" style="display: ...continued...