When life closes a door, God opens a window.

People, even children, aren't really afraid of change. They're afraid of not being prepared for change.

Great stories happen all around you every day. At the time they’re happening, you don’t think of them as stories. You probably don’t think about them at all. You experience them. You enjoy them. You learn from them. You’re inspired by them. They only become stories if someone is wise enough to share them. That’s when a story is born.

I was engaged in all the required courses of math and geometry, but the area that I blossomed in was the art program.

The pastors and ministry leaders came away energized to have voter registration drives at their churches and motivated to encourage their congregations to "vote their values."

I graduated in June 1948 and then went in the fall to the art school. I stayed with my cousins on Seventeenth Street in the beginning, and later had my own apartment very near there and was able to walk to the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue. The school had a faculty of local artists - Jeanette and Robert Blair, James Vullo who were well known in the area. It was a school that I think thrived on returning GIs, as many schools did at that time. It was a very informal program - but it was professional.

Going back to the elementary school days, I was always drawing. I entered a Victory poster competition and won the top award that recognized my artistic instincts.