A Beacon of Light

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” Robert Louis Stevenson Twenty-five years ago today, I found myself a stranger in a strange land. With a small group of my students, I visited Nagasaki, Japan — the first of fourteen visits to Japan between 1998 and 2014. We were there…

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”  Robert Louis Stevenson I invite and encourage you to pause… and take a few minutes to reflect on the people in your life who have been kind to you. Sadly, it seems so much easier for us to remember…

“Live your life like a lighthouse and be a beacon of hope to others.”  Pat Schwallie-Giddis I read the quote above and realized I selected the wrong name for this blog site. A Beacon of Light, yes, but far more importantly, I would like my writing to provide a beacon of hope to others. I’ve…

“There is nothing permanent except change.”  Heraclitus Kathy and I moved into our West San José home in October 1986. At the time, we’d been married for fifteen months and had a five-month-old son, after whose birth we quickly outgrew our modest Santa Clara home on Lincoln Street. Neither Kathy nor I were exceptionally gifted…