As a child, I felt a lot of shame. Growing up at the Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children, I was just like all the other patients. Once I was sent home, I was different than everyone else in my town, including all of my family members. I walked and moved differently than the other children … [Read more…]
This #ThrowbackThursday is going way, way back. Looking at the face of that little baby, you would never know that bones and tissue in both legs were malformed and I was missing bones and numerous toes. I was living in the Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children, where I grew up for seven years, about four … [Read more…]
I met this baby elephant in Bali, and he was such a friendly creature. It’s amazing how this little guy will grow into a massive animal. Elephants are known to be incredibly smart creatures, and I wonder how much the principles of being Self Aware apply to animals. Will the events of this young elephant’s … [Read more…]
#ThrowbackThursday to the day I took my boat out fishing for the first time. I love being out on the water. I don’t go fishing often, and when I do, I catch a lot of minnows. But some memories stick with you forever, and this fish on that day are etched in my memory. I … [Read more…]
I can’t image what it would have been like for my parents, in rural Manitoba in the 1950’s, having a child with a severe birth abnormality. Growing up in a hospital 4 hours away from my family led to long-term separation anxiety. My family was rarely able to visit, and when my mother did visit, … [Read more…]
Do you ever do something that you know isn’t right, just to get attention? I did it a lot as a kid, and I catch myself doing it even now as a grown man. When you learn something as a child, it stays with you forever, engrained in your subconscious. It takes real effort to … [Read more…]
I was told that I was a “bad kid” a lot. But what does that even mean? For kids and adults alike, we create new definitions for words based on our experiences with those words. I talk about it more in depth in my book, but when I acted out as a child and was … [Read more…]