The Terrible Catsafterme

Imagine the smugness. My Mom received a phone call one Saturday afternoon and from her excitement and a few verbal cues, I immediately picked up on the nature of the call. Perhaps a month prior, I had entered a contest at the Burger King in Beavercreek where we were charged with creating a drawing featuring the Burger King king which promoted the proliferation of dental hygeine. In other words, how to not make your teeth rot despite eating lots of junk at places like Burger King. Read the rest of this entry »

Hot on the heals of a relatively early Easter, Denise had her first birthday on Friday, April 8, 1977. This would be her only birthday celebration in our house on Echo Hill. From the pictures, it was clear that we had a party for her at our house with many members of Dad’s family present. Whether we had a similar gathering for Mom’s side of the family I cannot say for certain. As a couple of photos indicate, I surely made an attempt or two to steal her thunder by shoving my face into the spotlight…of which she had more than her share during this festive event, hence the unending array of photos of her and her cute little self.

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I didn’t know a lot about John Nance Garner except that he had once been the Vice-President of the United States. Our first stop of the morning of Wednesday, April 2, 2008 – and in fact the reason that we had stayed the night in Uvalde, Texas – was to see the grave and former home of Garner. It didn’t take us long to find Garner’s grave in the Uvalde Cemetery so we had plenty of time to stop for some breakfast at Burger King before venturing over to his home, which was now restored into a museum of his life. Read the rest of this entry »

Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower most certainly rose to power as our nation’s 34th United States President from 1953-1961 due to his exemplary military record. He had served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and had planned and supervised our invasion of France and Germany, effectively forcing Germany to surrender. As President he had less of an impact, but did contribute to our country’s economic and military growth by the the deveopment of the Interstate Highway System. In addtion he oversaw the cease-fire in Korea, began the course of de-segregation of our schools, continued our country’s commitment to the Cold War, and advanced the Social Security system. Read the rest of this entry »