Author: Daris Howard

My phone rang, and when I answered, it was Andy. “Hey, Daris,” he said, “can you come help me? My

I finished passing back the linear algebra tests that I had graded to my students. “Check the tests over,” I

My scouts, like most young boys, were very competitive and always looking for an edge on everything. That seemed especially

My son, Scott, and his wife, Janalyn, lived with us for a while this summer after graduation. His job didn’t

Years ago, about the time Russia was opening up more to tourists from the west, three of my colleagues from

I was an offensive guard on our high school football team. We had a good line. We worked hard and

School was ending for the summer, and my roommates and I were all preparing to go our separate ways. Jim

My brothers and sisters have settled far and wide across the United States. This makes it hard to get together

My wife, Donna, looked out the window and saw two little girls. The girls are about nine years old and

As I stood in the grocery store checking my list, I thought I heard someone call my name. I turned

As we finished our scout meeting, I reminded the boys about the next week. “Don’t forget that it is our

I had forgotten what it was like to have small children around the house when we promised our daughter we

I always like to sit and chat with my students before class starts. One particular day, as we visited, a

It was the evening before Thanksgiving, and David stood in the stage wing ready to go on. It was to

When Tina called, Sally could tell something was really wrong. Tina’s voice was panicked and tense. She was so tense,

Derek, a friend of mine, had lost half of his thumb to a power saw while building kitchen cabinets. Despite

Jed wasn’t fond of cats. So when his wife approached him about getting a kitten he adamantly refused. “Why do

I called my friend on Saturday evening. “Hey, are you going to go to the sock hop that was announced

I was twenty years old, living in New York far from home, and spending long days working. So when the

As I watched the veterans ride by on a big trailer in the Fourth of July parade, I was reminded

We were flying out of the Andes Mountains of Peru heading for Lima. Our airplane looked like it had seen

David was an incredibly brilliant student, but sometimes that was almost his downfall. For example, my students were supposed to

Sally had been married for seven years, and all she wanted was to be a mother. Only a few months

It was late February, and the temperature was about -20 degrees when I went to take care of the pregnant

I started out the year well, determined to lose weight. I worked out every morning for quite a while, and

When my office phone rang, I answered it to find the chairman of the C.I.S. (Computer Information Systems) department on

On Saturday, June 5, 1976, my younger sister came running out to where I was fixing a fence our cows

Rod always fell asleep in class. It didn’t matter if it was math, English, or science. Ten minutes into the

My scouts were adamant about wanting to ride in the back of my pickup, and Gordy was their spokesman. “Riding