January 1, 1967 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Happy New Year!! 1967 showed up on a Sunday so that means we started out the New Year in church. You are in church every Sunday when you are a preacher’s kid! But I don’t mind. I like going to church. At least, most of the time. Church people get …
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day. (Edith Pierce) I like thinking about a new year as an open book for us to write our own words on the blank pages of each day. Of course, …
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ~Confucius 2016 is on the way, but it’s still Christmas week and actually the Wise Men didn’t make it to see the baby Jesus exactly on the day he was born. It was a little while before they made their way following the star to Bethlehem. No jet planes back in those …
Do you remember when it took what felt like two months for the week of Christmas to pass? The hours on Christmas Eve surely had 120 minutes each. The anticipation of Christmas was something so real you could taste it as easily as you could taste that piece of chocolate fudge you sneaked from your mother’s stash of Christmas candy. …
December 21, 1966 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Since Christmas is almost here, and I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait, I decided to interview my dad about his Christmas memories. Me: “Tell me about Christmas when you were a kid.” Dad: “Christmas was a pretty simple affair when I was a boy. We had …
My Christmas giveaway is over, but I’m still thinking about all the great e-mails you shared with me about your favorite gifts received when you were a child or that you gave to a child. You let me have a peek into your Christmas memories and that was fun. So now it only seems fair to share my own Christmas …
My Christmas Giveaway has ended. I assigned each of the entries a number and then I used Random.org to pick two winning numbers. Of course, as always, I’m the biggest winners because I got to hear from so many of you and read your stories of best gifts received as a child or given to a child. I’ve been sharing …
There are things we don’t want to happen, but have to accept; things we don’t want to know, but have to learn, and people we can’t live without, but have to let go. (Jennifer Jareau, a fictional character from the show Criminal Minds) At Christmas time we want everything to be happy. We say Merry Christmas and we mean it. …
Only a few days left to enter my Christmas giveaway. Deadline is midnight EST December 15th. First prize is this lovely Nativity set that would look great on your table this Christmas. The figures are made of wood and Mary is holding Jesus. The second prize is a Barbara Johnson daily calendar that could bring you smiles all year. Plus, …
December 7, 1966 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. From peaceful Hollyhill, Kentucky. But Dad and lots of others are remembering a day twenty-five years ago that wasn’t peaceful. A terrible Sunday that changed all their lives. The day Pearl Harbor was attacked. “A day of infamy.” That’s what Dad says the president then, President Roosevelt called it. Dad …