In 1964 I was commissioned a second lieutenant and navigator in the U.S. Air Force. I was assigned to the Strategic Air Command, and my first training assignment was to the Arctic Survival Escape & Evasion School at Stead AFB, Reno, Nev. ...more

May 14, 2009

11:45 p.m.: Denise LaMorder says when she went to vote this morning at the library on St. Pete Drive in Oldsmar, she experienced an unwanted sense of deja vote. ...more

November 4, 2008

Even at 6 months, Michaela Abelgas loved the limelight. That's when she started modeling in the Philippines. "She was the first baby model in one of the biggest photo studios in the Philippines," her proud dad, Ryan Abelgas, said. From modeling, Michaela, now 12, branched into participating in numerous children's pageants in the Philippines. ...more

July 9, 2008

Dear Abby: On Father's Day, many stepdads are often underappreciated or excluded, so I wrote this poem to honor these unsung heroes. I hope you'll put it in your column, so my husband - and other stepdads everywhere - will know it was written for them. -Lesley Stitt, Ontario ...more

June 15, 2008

The first Thanksgiving, in the autumn of 1621 was a recognition by the Pilgrim Fathers of the Providence that had seen them through a hard winter, into a tense spring and then into a harvest season in which fortune smiles. The story of that first year is told, in part, by the old Pilgrims themselves. William Bradford their governor, tells about the "new life" in his "History of Massachusetts:" The spring now approaching, it pleased God the mortalitie began to cease amongst them. And ye sick and lame recovered apace, which put, as it were, a new life into them, though they had borne their sad affliction with as much patience and contentedness as I think any people could do. ... But it was ye Lord which upheld them and had beforehand prepared them, many having long borne ye yoake — yea, from their youth... ...more

November 22, 2007