I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness. After all, that’s what we are all supposed to be pursuing, isn’t it? But what is happiness? Perhaps the formula for it is in the words below:

“Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”

As everyone knows, the quote above comes from The Serenity Prayer.

“The wisdom to know the one from the other”. So…

Henry woke up to the smell of dirt and pine needles, his face partially buried in a mixture of both. Slowly, consciousness crept back, and he became aware of a sharp, throbbing pain in his head. He suddenly remembered the battle and jumped to his feet. His eyes revolted at the sudden movement by releasing a swarm of small, angry lights that left him both dizzy and nauseated. He tried to take a step, but was unable to find his footing and fell backwards again onto the carpet of pine needles. This time he stayed…

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. “ – Carl Sagan

Books are my drug of choice. If I go days without reading, I get jittery and weird…er than normal. My sense of well-being gets slurry. So it’s lucky that I have my own library of about 1000 books, where I can go to in order to get my fix – of mysteries, random fiction, random non-fiction, fantasy, and, of course, science fiction.

When I started reading science fiction around age…

A February chill rushed through the air as Henry watched two regiments of men mount their horses and ride off. If the plan worked, they would make contact with the Union army and draw them back to the fortified battle line where the remaining Confederate soldiers waited. With Ocean Pond to the north, heavy swampland to the south, and thousands of troops scattered throughout the tree line, victory was almost certain. The plan made perfect sense, however, after contact had been made, the enemy failed to advance toward the trap that had been so carefully set. When word…

Preston Walters rolled his eyes and sighed heavily as warm air started coming from the air conditioning vents. This always happened when he was in the car line; it was one of the reasons that he hated picking Misty up from school. He shut the air off and pushed down on the electric window buttons. The front passenger window glided down with ease, but the other three stayed shut tight. He slammed down on the buttons with his…

When I was growing up, my grandparents had a mechanical mantle clock built in 1967 that would play the Westminster Quarters on the quarter hour. I loved it, and even though they usually kept the chimes turned off, they turned them on when I was visiting. So when I moved out on my own, Grandma gave me the clock.

It hasn’t worked for a couple of years now. The pendulum stops swinging after about an hour or so, even though the clock is thoroughly wound.

When I was living in Missouri, I took it…

Here in Seattle, it’s known as Soak ‘Em* and back in 1979, when I was in the seventh grade, it was more brutal than any other game our emotionally damaged gym teacher could select from his vast trunk of torturous and humiliating activities. Hands down, Soak ‘Em was more painful than touch football, more dangerous than archery, more tiring than soccer, and mortifying beyond even the most ridiculous of square dance movements.  Early on, that simple game was probably the single most constant reminder that starting school a year early only benefited me intellectually; from a physical and…

Like most of the other men in his company, James Lyons had never been in battle. A former slave, he had joined the 8th United States Colored Troops in Philadelphia only four months earlier. He was proud to call himself free, but claiming freedom didn’t come without problems. There weren’t a lot of jobs available, and he learned quickly that any work that could be found was never given to a black man. The army proved to be the best place to go because it offered food, clothing, and something he had never seen in his life –…

Connie’s friend, ‘Laurie’, had lost her husband to cancer and Connie was doing all she could to help. Some time had passed, and the opportunity to attend a Christian women’s conference presented itself. Hoping it would help Laurie get back into life, Connie invited her to attend, and much to her delight, Laurie agreed.

The two attended the conference with yet another friend, ‘Marie’ and the three women ended up in a huge auditorium with thousands of other women. The crowd was enthusiastic, the speakers were inspiring, and the music was uplifting. All…

A while back, my sister, who is an occasional genealogist, informed me that our mother’s maternal grandparents were convicts. As yet, I didn’t know why they were forcibly transported to a godforsaken hole on the other side of the world. Or so it must have seemed to them. At school, we were told that convicts weren’t really bad people, they were just hungry people who stole a loaf of bread, or such like. This fiction persisted until I visited the old penal colony at Port Arthur in Tasmania. There I saw photos of some of…