This is a letter I received for Father's Day a few years back from my son, who was waiting for and received a lung transplant at the Ohio State Medical Center. He refers to himself as Number One Son, since he is the only son. Dear Dad, I love you and I know I'm number one son. The best times of my life were with you, hunting in the woods, and I thank God for letting me enjoy them with you. ...more

June 15, 2008

AVON PARK — Just in case they haven't been paying attention to the news, Judy Puffen gave high school students a personal account of what Iraq is like: frequent sandstorms, constant danger, grinding poverty, unvarying boredom. "Please let me come home before I die," former Sgt. 1st Class Puffen said she would think. She was one of the first American soldiers to go there after Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced in 2003. "It was all sand over there," she said. "The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was kiss the grass. It was like biblical times. The houses were made of adobe — mud." "What kind of weapon did you carry," asked one student in Amy Love's American History class. "An M-16," Puffen said, a 22-year veteran. Even though her job was administrative and financial, she carried a rifle. ...more

February 23, 2008

I'm a wife and mother of two, with three grandchildren. I've always loved to eat, so I've had a weight problem at all times of my life. In 1997, I developed a thyroid problem. It was so overactive it affected my heart. It took the doctors more than a year to get my medications right. That's when I gained all my weight. ...more

February 15, 2008