On our seventh day in Paris, Richard’s cousins (and we’re talking distant, like about 4th or 5th cousins) had come to see us. They live in a village in eastern France about an hour’s drive from Strasbourg, the farthest east French city, right near the German border. Bernard and Eliane took the train, which is about a three or four [...]

Although our trip was lovely overall, we encountered another disappointment in addition to my physical difficulties in using my scooter on the slanted sidewalks. So, I’ll share this with you just so that you know that travel regrets don’t always turn out so badly. Also, this is the kind of digressive adventure available when staying in one location for more than [...]

If you’ve read parts I and II, you know that using my lightweight mobility scooter in Paris was particularly challenging, and that we ate a lot of lovely, delectable food! Now I’ll take you along to some of the places we visited and things we did—other than eat and scoot! Our first evening in Paris, as I said before, was [...]

Before launching into the cuisine we experienced in the City of Light, I’d like to share a little about how beneficial it has been to stay in places that have a pool. My primary exercise, due to polio as a child, is pool therapy. I do walking, jumping, arm and leg exercises and stretches, and swim for about 10% of [...]

If you haven’t ever been to Paris, you ought to go at least once and stay at least a week. We just spent two weeks there and then went on to Edinburgh for a week! Paris is a feast for the eyes and has myriad cultural diversions, and Edinburgh has a much different set of rich offerings. (Photo: La Tour [...]

Do read Part I first for backstory. (Photo is not my mother, but this is how she held her hand when she smoked.) I tried cigarettes perhaps three or four times in high school. The first time I inhaled, I had a coughing fit, of course, and the smoke hurt my lungs so badly; I thought “Why in the world [...]

I grew up in an atmosphere of cigarette smoke, like many children in the 1950’s and 60’s. My mother smoked Salems (filtered), two packs a day, although she often had one cigarette burning in the living room and one in the kitchen, so, giving her the benefit of doubt, maybe she only smoked a pack or a pack and a [...]

(Photo: Camp Fire Girls' Camp in the Sierras, 1958) My earliest memories of childhood, going back to age two, are recorded in my memoir, Not a Poster Child. I shared much of what my childhood was like from the perspective of a child with a disability in that book. Summer days bring forth a host of other memories for me, [...]