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A Recipe for Becoming a Writer (The Brownie Principle)   Almost everyone likes brownies.  Oh, there may be a few health food devotees who distain sugary sweets of any kind; but most of us relish the mouthwatering idea of the universal treats that are small enough to assuage our guilt as...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Hurricane Sandy   Many tragedies of Hurricane Sandy during the latter days of October 2012 have already been told, one at a time.  Most stories, however, may never be told.  Those that have been most affected...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Street Corner in Montmartre*   Le Consulat Restaurant, as it looked in 1963 If it is generally true, as it seems to be, that the older we get, the more we reminisce about the past; then...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   The Serendipity Of Katherine’s Statue Serendipity has always been one of his favorite words. The dictionary definition of serendipity has a few variations; but in general, it means a pleasant, fortunate and unexpected discovery. Finding the...

  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia C hronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   The Drunkard Mouse of Joburg   Thu was keen to visit Kimberly, South Africa, site of the most famous diamond mine in the world. So we arranged to take a vacation in South Africa,...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Post-It Note—Why The Boat May Be Drifting OK, complete disclosure at the outset….this chronicle is a contrived attempt to make a point that is simple enough to put on a small Post-It-Note. So, as part of...

It would take many decades to piece together enough of the past for the Tiger and the Bear to share a story about their growing up years.  Until they met in Saigon late in 1966, they lived separate lives, thousands of miles apart.  After 44 years of marriage, however, they are...

On the road… again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Talk About Your Low-Hanging Fruit   Usually, the expression, “picking the low-hanging fruit” has pejorative implications.  It suggests the harvesting of what is easy to harvest; before having to exert oneself by going after the...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester    By Dick Pellek                                                     Schooling for Life The importance of school can never be forgotten.  Having the opportunity to attend school should not be taken for granted, and the Footloose Forester was more blessed than most people.  Perhaps he...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek Computer Learner Becomes a History Scholar This chronicle makes use of the “On the road….again!” letterhead above, not because it is a remembered tale about some brief sojourn of the Footloose Forester to an obscure destination in...

  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Scuba Diving In The Bubbles Of Jacques Cousteau   Despite the horrific loss of life in the earthquake of 12 January 2010, Haiti remains a fascinating place to visit.  Our memories of Haiti predate the...

  On the road again...! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Getting Around in Helicopters   Foresters and other natural resources professionals get around in helicopters more often than most folks.  Kind of like a businessman or woman taking a taxi to get to an...

  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   M for Montana   Having  a railroad pass to travel anywhere in the United States was part of the plan to make a summer adventure in a new state after his sophomore year at Rutgers....

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Persona Non-Grata   Every person, at some time or another, lets negative thoughts creep into their consciousness.  Usually, the thoughts of negative episodes in life come back again and again over the years.  It does not...

On the road… again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   When The Fish Are Running   By now, the prospects for harvesting clams from Chincoteague Bay in Virginia are fairly certain.  Warm weather, low tide, a favorable wind direction, and a calm ocean surface all...

  On the road …again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Footprints Lead To Trouble When family and friends asked out of curiosity why the Footloose Forester was in the Republic of the Comoros one year, they became doubly curious in the following years after...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   On Name Dropping   The Footloose Forester has been a practicing iconoclast for most of his adult life.  No, make that most of his entire life. As a teenager, he spent plenty of time musing about...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   We Built It…..We The People It’s regrettable that politics has to be so partisan. On the one hand, the concept of partisanship is the engine that drives the development of political platforms by which voters can...

On the road… again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Remembering The Rutgers Tomatoes Thu’s mom, the original Bengal Tiger whose name was Trang Thi Dao, came north with us for the summer in New Jersey, while Footloose Forester visited with his parents and worked...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   The Wild Horses Of Assateague Island    They have been living near the beach for the last 300 years, so the wild horses of Assateague Island in Maryland and Virginia probably resent the hundreds of bathers,...