"I've got too many bad memories of the holidays, especially Christmas," a friend told me some years ago. "Everybody seems to be having a wonderful time, while I can barely hold it together. What can I do?" She was asking because she … Read more

I helped my husband write his resumé when he applied for a job — and he got it, over 100 other applicants! I thought that I could do the same for others, so I advertised. My first client said that she was a teacher and needed a resumé … Read more

When I was about a year old and my sister was two, my parents deposited both of us in an old truck tire on a beach of the Bering Sea. Then, they went away to search for the glass balls that came off Japanese fish nets and floated up to the … Read more

I had students coming to my home to help ready my garden for planting, but I had no tools. At the time, I was working as a greeter at our downtown credit union, right inside the front door. A friend said that he'd bring me something to … Read more

In response to a developer's proposal to build a sixteen-story condominium on all three sides of my nearly 200-year-old house, I'd made a seven-foot yard sign. His professionally printed sign was three times the size of mine with many … Read more

"Look at that!" A petite engineering student was pointing to Penguin Press's thick History of Canada on my bookshelf. "I didn't even know we had penguins in Canada!" she said. "And they have so much to say about them!" I couldn't … Read more

Sixty-seven years ago, I spent my last summer at Bible camp, always with the same counsellor, Christine, who wore jeans and old plaid shirts at a time when no other woman in my life did that. I trusted her enough to speak up during evening … Read more

The rugged Selkirk Mountain Range, spanning Canada and the USA, is home to grizzly bears, cougars, and wolves. When my father was still able to go down into the mines, we lived at the foot of one of the mountains, in tenement housing … Read more

One Easter Sunday in Alaska when I was very small, we opened our front door and a wall of snow higher than the house looked back at us. There was no use digging through it. All the way out to the street would be just as deep. We'd have to … Read more

Back in the early 1960s, I often took on odd jobs in Portland, Oregon, USA, where I was a student. One day, my assignment was at an address in an affluent suburb. The door would be unlocked — those were innocent days. I was to tidy the … Read more