Brothers in Arms In spring of nineteen forty four, Fred came home on leave, after completing his initial army training. Just like Joe and Charlie, he had sprung up pretty quickly only more so. He must have been about six foot two and he seemed to have filled out...
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1681 Views
The Army Call Up In the May 1942, Joe received his call-up papers. He too, just like Charlie, had to join the infantry (PBI) he had to do his initial six weeks training at Tidworth, in Hampshire. Joe now being in the Rifle Brigade was always kept on his toes, as...
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1776 Views
Moving Back to Bethnal Green All us evacuees were given the choice to go back home, once we had reached the age of fourteen. Fourteen was the age for leaving school and starting work. My birthday being in March, meant that it wouldn't be long before I would be...
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1920 Views
Angels and Heroes Exercise "Feeling Gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." - William Arthur Ward An 'Angel' is the one whose kindness and love sustained you as you have grown, faced difficult times and personal loss. A 'Hero' is the one who inspired you...
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3282 Views
A Family at War In the spring the following year, I suppose that I had been evacuated about eight months by then, another kind of evacuation was taking place. Everybody seemed to be talking about Dunkirk. Ted Clarke told me about how we were sending boats across the channel, all...
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1605 Views
Evacuation to Marsham in Norfolk We were ending summer nineteen-thirty nine and I was barely eleven years of age. There was talk of war. Joe took me to a place somewhere along Old Bethnal Green Road, I think it was to one of the few schools that were in that road. ...
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1612 Views
Us's & Co. Bow and Bethnal Green I have written this story, not in the pretence that I am a writer or even intend to be. But only to record to the best of my knowledge, certain events that have taken place. I have made a point of avoiding any...
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1617 Views
PREFACE “I have written this story, not in the pretence that I am a writer or even intend to be. But only to record to the best of my knowledge, certain events that have taken place. I have made a point of avoiding any form of guesswork or inventive material,...
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1591 Views
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek Memes That Miss The Mark These days it is ever so common to see memes posted on social media sites, that we are lulled into thinking that we are seeing pearls of wisdom. In addition, it...
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1992 Views
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek The Dirty Rifle Every company in the training battalion at Fort Ord, California had an ongoing but unspoken competition for best company in each training cycle. Basic Training in the US Army in those days of...
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1986 Views
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek With Tears in My Eyes Of the many times when melancholia starts to overwhelm his senses, the Footloose Forester is often visited by a couple of stories that can easily bring tears to his eyes. Although he...
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1491 Views
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek Four Days to Uhuru Peak In March of 1994, the Footloose Forester joined with nine other adventurers to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. It was one of those bucket list adventures that got a high priority not...
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1752 Views
DECEMBER 25, 1995 MY CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO YOU MY DEAREST ONE, WE HAVE SPENT 48 CHRISTMAS’S TOGETHER. SOME WERE BOUNTIFUL AND SOME WERE LEAN. I REMEMBER ONE PARTICULAR CHRISTMAS ON GREELEY’S COURT IN THE EARLY YEARS OF OUR MARRIAGE. I WANTED A WRIST WATCH SO...
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3804 Views
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek Into The Volcano The seminal Chronicles of a Footloose Forester has always been an unscheduled mélange of essays, stories, dreams, and adventures. If he had his way, the adventures would predominate and the stories would follow. The dreams...
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2334 Views
I came upon a love letter that I wrote to my dear husband George in 1995. Over two decades have since passed, and when I reread the letter it reminded me of just how deeply we loved each other, and how much we still do today after 70 years married. Instead...
1527 Views
1527 Views
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek Let’s Go Bend The Fig Tree The Bengal Tiger first coined the words to the love sonnet “let’s go shake the mango tree” when we lived in Hawaii in the 1970s. She sang that sweet...
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1845 Views
Like a slow-motion train wreck, with nary a whimper or a scream, the extended family and all the benefits it provides are disappearing one ‘byte’ at a time. The typical American family has changed over the last couple of generations from predominantly ‘extended families’ to majority ‘nuclear families’....
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2397 Views
Chapt 9 1987-1994 Columbus Ohio The next 8 years of 1987 through 1995 marked a new period for us as I finished my graduate work at Ohio State University and expanded my music teaching from a part time avocation to...
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1699 Views
CHAPT 8 1978-1986 Columbus, Ohio These years were the most difficult period for our family in so many ways. There certainly were positive things that happened along the way, but it was also a period of many challenges, the likes of which we had never experienced as a family before. In...
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1561 Views
Chapt 7 1972-1978 Columbus, Ohio As I began to record this entry for the period of our lives between 1972 and 1978, it seems like it was just yesterday! Yet, now at our...
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1427 Views