Dear Readers:

Have you ever decided to try something that looks so easy only to find it’s much tougher that you ever imagined? Such were my early aspirations to become a creative writer. During my health career years, I planned a stimulating second lease on life as an author. Listeners would ask me what I planned to write. I didn’t know. I cast about for a genre (a word I have recently learned) that suited me and a subject worthy of my attention. Throughout the years I had heard snippets of stories about my mother-in-law’s experiences growing up during the Great Depression. She tantalized my ears with snatches of stories from her teens when she and her best friend hitchhiked across America. Here were two young women traveling with serendipitous, penniless abandon, anxious to find excitement beyond their small hometown. It sounded so exactly opposite of the staid, respectable history of my own family.  I was fascinated. Eureka! A story worth telling. The plot thickens.