Skip to main content

Excerpt from, "Reaching God's Perfection...Stories of Gratefulness"

    One night as the sun was going down, Trooper McDonald entered the all female barracks where we were staying.  

    She walked in and as usual had her hands clasped behind her back and said, “Okay, anyone want to go for a run on base tonight with Trooper Larsen?”  The room went quiet.  Each girl looked at each other, well except for me.  

    I looked at Trooper McDonald, and said, “Yes Ma’am! Me, Ma’am!  I want to run with Trooper Larsen on base tonight.  Can I?”  

    She responded, “Yes.  Anybody else?”  Some girls gasped and others giggled.  Then Trooper McDonald, “Okay, come with me.”  I followed behind her, all jittery, excited.  I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. 

    Soon enough we were seeing Trooper Larsen, the sun was going down.  Trooper Larsen was a tall, perfectly built man, with dirty blonde hair, and blue eyes.  In other words, he was quite the specimen of a man.  Funny back then I had no interest in dissecting good-looking people.  
    If I was on a mission to learn or to get something done.  I might notice that the person had some aesthetic appeal, but I often compartmentalize and maintain the order of the day.  Staying focused on whatever it was I was accomplishing.

    As we waited for any other takers., no one else showed up but me.  It was just Trooper Larsen and myself as we began to run around base.  He asked, “You have any questions?”  Music to my ears.  I wanted to learned everything I had to do to become a New Jersey Trooper.

    The questions poured out as we ran.  Trooper Larsen answered every single one of them.  From Discipline to Education to the Military

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1503237516/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow

In My World

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to

It's About the Soul And...

  ...perhaps the soles of our shoes. My father-in-law used to say the feet are what soldiers depend on, as we do food. He said that to me in 1985 as I stood in his home office.  My husband, Norman was a shoe guy. And it was all about the soles on the shoes.  For me, the way I have stayed on my feet was soul deep. Sometimes praying every step of the way, to not fall over out of exhaustion. The approximately 170,000 miles of running, many of which Norman had witnessed or known of. He wondered how I stayed standing working on my feet all day. Only to come home, and go for a second run at midnight at times.  Often Norman would give me a lecture on good shoe care. It was about the soles of the shoes. He'd point out stitching on a shoe that was done wrong. Therefore commenting, "...giving a shoe less time of wear on this earth."  He'd remark quite often. "You have to buy good quality shoes." I have to say, there was absolutely something comedic about his shoe obse