Disneyland was born exactly one year, one month and one day after me. I literally grew up there because Dad started there on opening day and it was the one place he could take me to give my mom a break that didn’t cost anything! By the age of 9, I was the family tour...

I’m a native Floridian living on land in Winter Garden originally homesteaded by my great grandfather. That’s right…my grandparents and parents subdivided and sold this land, and four decades ago, my husband and I bought back a lot from the contractor who built a...

Hello old friend. I can say that with a wink of course because, among the special things you and I share, your birthday is always one year, one month and one day after mine. So, yes, we are both metaphorically and empirically OLD friends. You seem to be well. To be...

It would be irresponsible and cruelly glib to imply that the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t difficult, and that the results haven’t produced fear, anger and for so many, tragedy. Those things are all true. Whether it’s Covid, a natural disaster or human-caused, loss of...

As I get older, I find I read more biographies. I guess when you have more road behind you than ahead of you, you get more interested in other folk’s perspectives on the walk. I am always amazed when I read about writers and storytellers I admire. From Shakespeare to...

When I was 9, the walls of my bedroom were covered, but not with hot rods or my favorite Mouseketeers. They hosted 24″ x 36″ illustrations of every rocket then in the US fleet. Redstone, Atlas, Titan, Agena, and Saturn-I framed my passionate determination to go to...

Poetry is to language what a fine brandy is to grape juice. It is refined, distilled, and concentrated. It has strength and potency and at the same time it’s subtle. A poem invites deliberate contemplation and promises to tantalize, awaken, satisfy and warm and, at...

My grandparents never completely let go of the Great Depression. Mistrust of banks, obsessive frugality and a pervasive hyper-vigilance persisted for the rest of their lives-which in my Grandmother’s case extended well into the 1990s.  The Great Depression,...

“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an...

Since 2018, the folks I work with and I have been engaged in a project that could, if it is successful, have transformative impact on a community. The city of Lompoc (as you pronounce it in your mind, the second O is long like POKE), sits up against the central coast...

Let’s start with this: Even though I’ve spent the better part of the last century playing around with it, I don’t think there is anything special called “Immersive Entertainment”. Honestly, this is the most blatant kind of industry self-aggrandizing jargon. With all...

I was born in Muskegon Michigan, just a few miles from Lake Michigan and am the 4th of 5 children. My parents set the bar for each of us in our lives ahead!  Dad who was a Navy veteran, worked for the State Highway Department, did all of our cooking, mom also a Navy...

Suppose I would define me perhaps through words from my parents and siblings…gifted as an athlete who would sacrifice body and oxygen to catch a football, or speed & agility on the basketball court like I was a tall 5ft 3.5” person or had the right amount of...

It has been fascinating to see the range of narrative on the hundredth anniversary of the Walt Disney Company. As has always been the case when it comes to “Waltology”, the stories range from the scholarly to bare snippets of legend with some pretty credible...