• Childhood

    That Time I Gave a Bully What For

    This happened while we lived in Sugar Land. I was about 12 years old. First, I have to explain that I never played with the girls. All they wanted to do was play with dolls, or play jacks or jumprope or hopscotch. None of them were interested in climbing trees, or wading in the creek to catch frogs and crawdads.…

  • Childhood

    Sugar Land

    When my mother married Charles, my stepfather, he had grown up on a farm, and when he got old enough to work, he was a cowhand, had seldom been much further than from where he was born and raised, and didn’t know anything other than farm life. He and my mother were married only a couple years when she told…

  • Ancient Western Civilization

    Herodotus the Chauvinist

    The famous Greek historian Herodotus was the 5th century BC version of a foreign correspondent. He traveled extensively, interviewed hundreds of people in many different fields, and wrote about them. In the world Herodotus lived in, women were hardly given a second thought. In all the countries he visited, women stayed home, kept house and raised children. They never went…

  • Animal Stories

    Mrs. C’s Cat

    I once had two neighbors, Mrs. C and Mrs. H. They lived across the street from each other and were best friends. They were always at each others’ house and often went shopping together. Mrs. C had a beloved cat she raised from a kitten. It was her constant companion and had made it well into it’s teens. One day…

  • Childhood,  School Days

    Mrs. Henderson

    I was a troubled child. Besides my dysfunctional home life, I was intellectually several grades ahead of my peers. I didn’t know how to interact with people and I didn’t fit in socially. From the beginning of my school life, I had regular counseling sessions. Every time I started going to a new school, it wouldn’t be more than a…