Struck By Lightning I used to live in the lightning capital of the United States. The home of Disney World, Orlando (located in “Lightning Alley”) is a virulent hot spot for bolts from above. Any thunderstorm activity will guarantee a multiplicity of strikes throughout the entire area. And the results can be devastating. Many commercial buildings have lightning rods. At the Orlando International Airport, there are lightning rods on the tarmac (runway). I once saw a strike hit and watched the flashes skip along the ground in […]

My Father The Actor My Dad aspired to be an actor ever since his high school days in New Orleans. He finally realized his dream by moving the family to California in the 1950’s. With his good looks and over-the-top physical appearance, he made it to the Hollywood scene. One of his first movies was made in Hawaii portraying a Communist sympathizer in the flick “Big Jim McLain” starring John Wayne. The early VHS and DVR covers showed a picture of him fighting Wayne and others in […]

The Kosovo Adventure The following story is written by my daughter, Susan Bataineh. It describes her adventures while living in Germany at the time the country of Yugoslavia was at war with 5 different republics striving for independence. Later, one of those republics, Serbia, was to spin-off part of its territory. That new faction was to become the republic of Kosovo. I helped her edit this story and received permission from her to reprint it. It is entitled “The Trip That changed my life”. To be Young […]

House On St. Charles St. Charles Avenue is the iconic mansion location for upper class old line New Orleans families. At least that is the way I perceived it to be. Street cars, stately mansions, buckled sidewalks, coupled together with the sounds of the night make for wistful memories of days gone by. I remember the large family home at the corner of Short Street which was a block from the Mississippi River levee. It had a front porch whereby you could listen to the cars in […]

Florida Is Hurricane Central As I write this article, I am watching Hurricane Michael come in and go right over the top of us. This one will be the fourth hurricane to impact our area since we moved to this country site. It will be the 9th storm of this magnitude that I have been through. Hurricanes have become a part of my life. For some strange reason I seem to attract devastating weather events or geological catastrophes wherever I go. In California it was earthquakes, mudslides, […]

What Is A Kidnapping? It is an event as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as follows:”to seize and detain or carry away by unlawful force or fraud and often with a demand for ransom“. The example given is: “the child of the wealthy industrialist was kidnapped and held for ransom“. That event happened to me such that I became mixed up in ways I could never have imagined.. Some 50 Years Ago I was living in an apartment building in Santa Monica, California by myself. It […]

The European Connection European sports cars and racing were my early passions in life. I loved the idea of owning an MG, Austin Healy, Triumph, Alfa Romeo, or Porsche. But I had to wait. Those vehicles were expensive and I was living on my own as a teenager. I was 18 yrs old when I got my first car, a VW (Volkswagen) bug. I didn’t even know how to drive a stick shift, so I had to fake it until I could learn. The car’s owner’s manual […]

Porsche Mania At a certain time in my young life I was a sports car enthusiast. I craved owning cars like Alfa Romeos, MG’s, Fiats, or any other type of European performance vehicle. I loved watching cars race in events like Formula 1, the Indy 500, and the 24 hours of Le Mans. After numerous breakdowns in my VW, I was fed up with owning a vehicle that had little power, and that I could not drive fast. I was living in Santa Monica, California when I […]