Kids have been dropping out of high school since there have been high schools, but our dropout “problem” is relatively new. At the age of 11, my grandfather, John Alfred “Benny” Benson, was sent to work on a stranger’s farm in the next county when his mother died. His father, Otto Benson, an Iowa farmer Read More…
Tag: Addiction
Brevity Works: Learning from Donald Trump
I don’t Tweet and I will probably never make much use of my Twitter account. That being said, I keep flashing back to something my good friend Deb Tucker tried to get me to learn when Tweeting first became a fad. Bette, she told me, it would be very good for you to learn to Read More…
A Poem for Olivia – Jan. 29, 2014
I wrote this poem the day after my daughter called to tell us that she was pregnant. On January 28, 2014 and we were in our RV at Lake Cahuilla in La Quinta, California. The news came as a shock for many reasons, and I’m afraid that my tone on the phone was not one Read More…
Pillar of Fire: A Myth?
When my daughter was 17 years old, we began talking about writing a book together. Several years later – after she had failed in many attempts to become sober – we returned to the idea of writing a book together and begin calling it Pillar of Fire: A Journey through Teenage Addiction. Shannon is now Read More…