While visiting a friend at his home in rural Vermont, I asked him for the best route back to the interstate highway. He started to give me directions but then paused....

I’ve always loved the English language, but I never considered that passion to be a viable career. I told myself that I needed to finish a degree and find a corporate...

I volunteer at a women’s prison. One of the highlights of my year is the annual Christmas gathering. Inmates and volunteers all pack into a huge gym, sitting side by side...

The cancer center waiting room where I sat was crowded with patients and caregivers. A woman came in pushing a young person in a wheelchair who looked to be her daughter....

While driving home one day, I stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk to let a young girl and her father cross the road. They held hands as she happily skipped along. She...

For several days I had been suffering from joint and lower-back pain. I was constantly grumbling and talking about my physical pain, and I was weighed down with an attitude of...

Years ago I lived in Key West, Florida. One morning we were catching mahi-mahi almost as fast as we could bait the hooks. We realized we had more fish than we...

I had undergone major surgery and was hospitalized for three weeks when we suddenly lost our source of income. We were forced to sell our house in order to avoid being...

After taking a bird-watching tour in Vermont, I became fascinated by our winged, singing friends of the air. I cannot walk outside without hearing the cooing of a mourning dove, the...

One day my grandfather told me we were going to our family’s land to pick “ground apples.” We picked up thousands of fist-sized rocks and threw them into the back of...