by Barbara Crawford
Maryland, USA
I’ve taken a lot of classes in my life. Many were enjoyable, some were useful, some were tedious and some were just a waste of time. Only a very few actually taught me things I’ve used in my professional career.
HeroicStories
The stories of HeroicStories.
Under The Son’s Victoria
by Jodi Orens-Lante
Florida, USA
One hot afternoon in August, 2002, a small van passed in front of my pasture, slowed down, backed up and then sped up my driveway. Alarmed, I ran out to meet two men at my gate. “You have a horse stuck in a tree,” they said. I thought, one of the babies stuck a halter in a tree — but those flimsy little foal figure-eight halters break and slip off if you breath on them, how could one be stuck?
Our Guardian Neighbors
by Richard Fishback
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
It was the mid-1980s and the job situation began to wind down for us in our small town. Though we’d never lived in a city, friends in Las Vegas, Nevada, suggested we stay with them a few days and look the city over. We found a single-level apartment in an adults-only complex, and were settled in the next week enjoying our new home.
Wait! I Have a Plan
by Janet Detter Margul
Plano, Texas, USA
When my daughter Lisa was in kindergarten, for her sixth birthday she asked if she could invite not only her whole class to her party, but the other class at school too. I probably turned pale at the thought of 60 kindergartners at a party because she said quickly, “Wait! Don’t say no yet. I have a plan.”
Nothing to Gain
by Charles Kosan
Bretagne, France
In December 1998, I was traveling alone in South Korea. I was roughing it with my small backpack, wearing old shirts, staying in cheap hotels and using public transportation. I started in Seoul and traveled clockwise across the mysteriously beautiful country. Everywhere was quiet and cold.
Following a Hunch
by The Caroler
California, USA
In 1990, as was our family tradition, my husband and I invited children from the local high school aCappella choir, including our son, to sing Christmas Carols to people we felt could use some special Christmas cheer. My husband dressed up as Santa Claus and drove a rented flat bed truck.
The Envelope
by Lisa Swindler
South Carolina, USA
In 1998, a week before Thanksgiving, I took our 10-month-old baby daughter to the doctor for a check-up. The nurse commented how well she looked. Fifteen minutes later we were headed to the hospital emergency room. Ruth’s oxygen level was below 90 and she was having difficulty breathing. It was her fourth hospitalization that year.
The School Bus Driver
By Patty Mooney
California, USA
It’s been many years since I have had to stand on the end of Pusheck Road in Bellwood, a suburb of Chicago, waiting for the school bus, and yet I remember one special day as though it were yesterday.
Bucking the Crowd
by Jeff Simms
Barnegat, New Jersey, USA
It was a nippy Fall day — our favorite kind of weather. It was Saturday and we were going to have a great time. My divorced mother, two younger brothers and I were on our way to the park at the other end of the small Jersey town we lived in. We had our football and makeshift goal posts in the back of the station wagon and our teams already chosen: us against our mother. (Don’t worry, it was only touch football.)
If That’s All You Need
By L. Harding
California, USA
It was 1972. “The Summer of Love” was gone, hippies were a rare sight, but there were still large pockets of narrow minds, filled with distrust, in rural America. More than once we met with proof of that in our travels across “the heartland of America.” Our only home was our tent, our only “real furniture” the baby’s crib, all piled atop the TravelAll. My husband and I were down on our luck, moving from one temporary job to another.