People Who Mattered

People Who Mattered
  On the road…again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Self-Quiz About People Who Mattered   In an exercise of introspection about who and how some people in his life influenced him, the Footloose Forester first started with a copied list of salient issues...
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503 Views
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Round Pegs and Square Holes

Round Pegs and Square Holes
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     Round Pegs and Square Holes     PhD Committee: Now, Candidate for the PhD, I want you to give this committee your views on the idea of putting round pegs in square holes and square pegs in...
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415 Views
2 Comments

Pluggers, Like You

Pluggers, Like You
On the road…again!!!   Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams   Chronicles of a Footloose Forester    By Dick Pellek     The Pluggers     The Pluggers in life have been my own chosen groupies.  They know that they are not elite, highly skilled, ultra talented, or the fastest runners on the...
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532 Views
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Before I Was Born

Before I Was Born
On the road...again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Before I Was Born   As much as the Footloose Forester tried to avoid nostalgia in his Chronicles of a Footloose Forester , there are certain images that contain so much personal meaning that it...
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583 Views
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Rowboat to Troopship

Rowboat to Troopship
On the road...again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Rowboat to Troopship   A landlubber like the Footloose Forester always felt at home with the sound of granite sand under his boots, the firm landings of his bare feet in beach sand, and the...
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On Ambitions

On Ambitions
On the road…again! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek    On Ambitions     Only when the Footloose Forester  reviewed the presumed acknowledgment/comment box for Ambitious about students in his class, as reported in the for-profit website called Classmates, did he even think about himself...
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954 Views
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As I Lie Awake and Listen

As I Lie Awake and Listen
On the road…again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   As I Lie Awake and Listen   Melancholia pervades a certain genre of music and people who suddenly become vulnerable to melancholia find a certain solace in the words and music of melancholic songs.  Singing...
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785 Views
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The Parody Defense

The Parody Defense
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek    The Parody Defense   Only once in a while does the forgotten, third-rate would-be crafter of parody who calls himself the Footloose Forester get a response to his missives. He would prefer kudos but, alas, when the infrequent...
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1074 Views
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A Closer Look at a Picture Worth a Thousand Words

A Closer Look at a Picture Worth a Thousand Words
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     A Closer Look at a Picture Worth a Thousand Words Flamengos Tree Nursery, Cape Verde Some people are proud of their humble beginnings.  Others are impatient to move on and forget about the past. It was many...
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1849 Views
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Moss and Mumblety-peg

Moss and Mumblety-peg
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Moss and Mumblety-peg The game of mumblety-peg is so old that even Mark Twain mentioned it as one of the favorites enjoyed by young boys.  It was outdoors, in the summer, and played in the grass.  To do...
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2215 Views
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My Life Story by Eleanor Jean Arnold Tyler

I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on January 15, 1931, during the Depression years. My mom and dad, Ruth Isabel Thrickmorton and Walter Leroy Arnold, were living with my dad's grandparents, Minnie Burkhart and Adolph Arnold, at 814 Eighth Stree, Portsmouth, Ohio. My great-grandparents had built the house in approximately 1892....
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1580 Views
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My Life Story by Eleanor Jean Arnold Tyler

I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on January 15, 1931, during the Depression years. My mom and dad, Ruth Isabel Thrickmorton and Walter Leroy Arnold, were living with my dad's grandparents, Minnie Burkhart and Adolph Arnold, at 814 Eighth Stree, Portsmouth, Ohio. My great-grandparents had built the house in approximately 1892....
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1460 Views
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Can We Remember? Do We Remember?

Can We Remember?  Do We Remember?
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Can We Remember?  Do We Remember?  Should We Remember?   People who think often about the past engage in subconscious peeking into their personal histories.  They see flashes of happy times, stressful times, sad times, times...
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1841 Views
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Oskie Wow Wow, Burma Shave, and Other Artifacts

Oskie Wow Wow, Burma Shave, and Other Artifacts
While driving my jaunty  Explorer Sportrac, which my wife has named “Sassy Red,”  to the dealer some thirty miles away for its scheduled  maintenance, I passed some long-familiar scenes.  My mind began drifting, conjuring an image of life as it was sixty to seventy years ago.  God, how I long for...
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2374 Views
4 Comments

From the Plains to the Mountains

From the Plains to the Mountains
PREFACE:  This is the second memoir of a multi-year experience that had a definite impact on my later life.  I want to stress that I am sharing these experiences in an effort to give some testimony to the way God has worked in my life and not in any sort of...
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2224 Views
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Tree Houses `R Us

In rummaging through my bookshelf recently selecting books I could donate to our church’s garage sale I came across a collection of stories my next oldest brother, Gene, had written as a columnist for the weekly newspaper in the town in which he grew up  He grew up living in and...
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2726 Views
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From The . . . (plains) . . . Of Montezuma

From The . . .  (plains) . . .  Of Montezuma
Preface:  This is the first "chapter" of what will be a "quadrilogy" chronicling a part of my teen years that had a profound effect on my later life.  I do not offer these in any kind of "I'm proud of this" boasting way.  If I have any motive other than simply...
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2440 Views
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The Helping Hands Club

In the fall of 1956 a young woman with four small children moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, where my family lived. I don’t remember her name and wouldn’t divulge it if I did, so I’ll call her Carol. She came from another State, where she and her children had been battered by...
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The School Of Hard Knocks

The School Of Hard Knocks
On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Who Are Graduates Of The School Of Hard Knocks?   All too often conversations about who had (has) it rough in life devolve into unstated debates wherein speakers subconsciously fish for words to express their plight. ...
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1843 Views
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TRICK OR. . . . Trick

Trick or . . . . trick Halloween in the late 20 th, Early 21 st Century is a "holiday" that has completely metamorphosed from the form it had at mid-20 th Century. If a teen-aged boy of those days were somehow magically time-traveled to Halloween night 2014 and saw little...
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2438 Views
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