Veterans Day (2 of 2)

“I had a good buddy in my unit and his name was Sgt. Kiven Hardison. I still keep up with him today. Kiven was a character... he was funny; a real comedian. I remember we flew into Bahrain and we got off the plane, onto the tarmac. It was like 4:00 in the morning. Before …

Veterans Day (1 of 2)

“I worked at Central Command in Tampa, Florida on McDill Air Force base. Inside central command were other branches of the armed services including Air Force, Marines, and the Navy. We were all responsible for taking care of the same area of the world, which was the mid-east. One day, somebody from the Air Force …

Living the Norm

“You know Cheers? I’ve been watching every show. And I like the older shows, like Frasier, Golden Girls… So about every ten shows, you’ll hear somebody reference somebody else’s age in that show. And yesterday- I’m on season five- Norm got a new job. That big, heavy, suit wearin’, beer drinkin’ Norm, right? He got …

Facing It Head On

“The scariest time in my life would be back in 2016… It was a couple months after I got my full-time job. I was promoted from part-time to full-time, and in August, I got the worst news of my life. “It was 6am.I heard someone beating on the door of my apartment, kinda like the …

The Cheerleader (3 of 3)

[continued] “My sister-in-law, who is a doctor, introduced me to Mandy, who was selling pumps made for lymphedema; it mimics exactly what the manual lymph drainage does, so you can maintain it at home. I was able to get one. Mandy told me about a doctor in St. Louis who treated my disease. So I …

The Cheerleader (2 of 3)

[continued] “After high school, I went to college, and up until then, I still felt really bad about myself. I wanted people to talk to me, not look at my leg. So I became able to get up and talk in front of people and be a leader in other ways, so they weren’t noticing …

The Cheerleader (1 of 3)

"I was 14 and I wanted to be a cheerleader. My grandma always said I spent more time on my head then I did my feet. I went to school at Trinity and was trying out for cheerleading over at the public school. At that time, you had to try out in front of a …

Carrying On

What’s one of the happiest or most challenging times that you can recall? “Okay. my wife is probably both of those. Of course, you’re kiddin’; you want to say that's one of the happiest times of your life. The day I married my wife; it was seven years ago. The hardest thing is that I …

Cataloging History

“About a year ago we were invited to participate in an Eagle Scout project that catalogs headstones and cemeteries for the benefit of people that are trying to look up information on their past family but who don't have the resources to travel to the cemetery. There are websites- this one in particular is billiongraves[.com]- …