Our cooking today is so much different from days gone by. When my granddaughter was three, she stood in front on my oven door where a whole chicken baked in a glass pan. With wide eyes she said, "Is that a chicken?" You see, her mother only bought chicken parts. She'd never seen a whole chicken. How different from when I was a child. Below is a recollection when I visited Grandma at about age five. I've included it in my cookbook Family Favorites from the Heartland. Fried Chicken-Grandma’s Style During the late 40s and e ...continued...

The name my parents chose for me was Marcia Ann Haag. I was born August 29, 1944. At I begin to write about my life I am 68 years. I can't say old, because as we age our body changes, but in many ways our thinking and feelings seem as young as ever. I hope you can get a peak into who your mother is and how I came to be this way. My plan for this book is that Dad and I will both write in each section. I will write first and his will be the second part of each chapter. The format we will be using is question and answer. Y ...continued...

{This article was written in 2007, a year before the collapse of global capitalism. Los Afectados first appeared in the Kansas City Star.} The beginning The oil field is named Ispingo-Tiputino-Tambococha, a Quechua word. Quechua was the language spoken by the people that lived in the region now called Ecuador, long before the Spaniards arrived in search for gold, glory and God. The Spaniards that trudged up the Andes Mountains in the 16th century were not the effete from the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, but hardened peasants in search of th ...continued...

Chapter One Matt Dalton held his breath. The doctor removed his glasses, and tapped them against the document in his hands, his blank face conveying nothing of the opinion he was about to render. “Mr. Dalton, based on this report, I’d say there’s about a ninety-nine-percent chance this boy is your son.” Matt’s pulse raced. It’s what he expected, but the doctor’s words of confirmation made it real. Holy Christ, he had a son. He was a father. Nothing so profoundly life-changing had ever happened to him, and it took his breath away. He s ...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...

Epic day, epic adventure, epic team. Pole reached at 2:45 am central time. Updates coming... ...continued...

Prologue: She could’ve asked him what he was doing. Where he was going. But she wasn’t stupid. Through glazed eyes, she watched from the doorway while Aaron tossed clothes into the open suitcase in the middle of the sagging bed. His face was hard, his jaw set. Though an icy silence hung between them, Mandi sensed that hot rage simmered just below the surface. And that it could erupt her direction at any moment. But he didn’t look at her, didn’t speak to her. Why should he? What was there to say? There’d been ...continued...

THIS IS MY LIFE STORY <p ...continued...

The title of my life story is "I Started Out As A Small Boy". Most readers will wonder "What is up with this dude choosing a stupid title such as this?" Well, I have to admit that it is hardly a unique beginning. I suspect that of the approximate 7 billion people people inhabiting planet earth at this moment, about 3.5 billion of them may have started out the same way. But then again, every story must start somewhere and I am convinced that mine started on April 29, 1937 in the Larned Kansas "Hospital". I put Hospital in qu ...continued...

More Love Stories - http://tinyurl.com/j5mbhlu My neighbor mows my yard every week even though i have asked him to stop many times. He also appeared yesterday with a chain saw and was going to cut down my big maple tree in the front yard. I have a plan but i can't tell you what it is just yet. 7/1/2014 I started this story sometime ago and thought I best add a bit more information because of continued request from readers so here is my next thought. My neighbor, the same one I mentioned earlier, decided if he was to continue mowing my yard, t ...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...

I was born, I saw, and I was conquered. Trying to unconquer myself. Thank you. Tommy H. Birk. In Jasper, INDIANA! ...continued...

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Recently I spent the day with one of my granddaughters. She’ll be a senior in high school next year. We spoke of many things, but one stands out in my memory. She told me of accompanying a friend to a Planned Parenthood facility. Her friend’s mother instructed her to go there to get a pregnancy test. I’ll let you hear the conversation we had. “Mandy’s * mother was out of town so Mandy asked me to go with her.” “Why didn’t she get a pregnancy test at the drugstore?” My granddaughter shrugged. “Her mom wanted her to make sure t ...continued...

As I go about my occupation as a corporate chaplain, I hear the heart of people. So many folks seem discouraged. When they have a need, Jesus seems the last place to turn. Others seem to have no concept of the Living God who intervenes in situations when invited in. While I prayed about how to be an encouragement, I remembered how God had met me many times in the past. I made a list and came up with about twenty stories. Each week I'd write one and take it to my critique group to get their input and feedback. Before long, I had twenty-seven stories--enough for a small book. Dan ...continued...