I was happy for three-quarters of an hour on Tuesday: between the arrival of Shadow Hand by Anne Elisabeth Stengl and a letter in the mail and leaving for my brother’s last at-home basketball game of the season.
I’d spent the morning scrubbing the kitchen cabinets, but that wasn’t a matter of happiness—more like satisfaction and accomplishment. And even the basketball game wasn’t necessarily a gamebreaker; it was only a five-minute drive in, instead of the fifty or seventy-minute drives to the last four games over the past two weeks.

A FEW weeks later Hanna, Nicky and Kari were sitting at Red’s Inn, which was owned by Fredrick Quinn, a man about in his late forties. Everyone called him either Red or Mr. Red.

They were all sipping milkshakes; Kari’s was a vanilla, Nicky’s coffee and Hanna’s was a chocolate. As they sipped their shakes, Red came up to them and asked, “So guys; how do you like your shakes?”

They all gave thumbs up and suddenly, they all fell off their chairs and landed on the floor.

“Ouch!”

“Owe!”

“Gaah!”

“Brain Freeze?” Red asked, grinning. The girls nodded.

FOR THE next few weeks, Hanna practiced harder and harder. While the team was on a break from practice, Hanna started making friends with the other girls—all except Kari. The girl acted like she didn’t have any friends and it made Hanna feel sorry for her.

This is based on a true story. I wrote this story for a friend of mine last year who plays soccer in college. She wanted to be 11 years old in this story because that's her number. She was also 11 when bother her parents were still alive. My friend's Dad passed away from cancer when she was 12 and her Mom from the same disease when she was 18. This story is dedicated to her Mom, a well known and loved woman. She was also a Mother figure in my life, I have to admit myself. I hope you enjoy Hanna and her story of soccer as my friend did herself. -J. Glen Pollard
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           One day my friend came up to me and said I should write a book based on my tennis life.  At first I thought, no way, my life is too complicated to write down on paper.  After thinking about it for a few weeks I decided to give it a try.  Here is my tennis life for you.  

A small ode to the excitement of the game commonly known as ultimate Frisbee

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It’s sailing, fast, straight at you
Slicing through the air
You slow and turn to meet it
You watch with steady stare

But, no, the wind us tricky
The pass is much too high
You turn and begin to run again
As it goes sailing by

Slowly it loses altitude
As you try to run it down
Nearer, nearer, nearer
Don’t let it hit the ground!