Author Archives: Valerie Fraling

“Monday to Thursday, I’m dead on my feet most of the time, too tired to eat. When I try to read the paper, I fall fast asleep. But as soon as Friday rolls around I lay all my weekly burdens down, I put on my glad rags and paint the town. I am ‘living for […]

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love; Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf; sing and dance together and be joyous, but let […]

“To every man there comes a time when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a great and mighty work; unique to him and fitted to his talents; what a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the moment that could be his finest hour.” Winston […]

“And now, the end is here and so I face the final curtain my friend, I’ll say it clear I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain I’ve lived a life that’s full. I traveled each and ev’ry highway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.” It was fun and sun […]

“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally. “Somewhere over the rainbow” The rainy day cast a magnificent rainbow over the wedding celebration of Napoleon and Christy Sykes at the […]

“Do not stand at my grave and weep  I am not there. I do not sleep.  I am a thousand winds that blow.  I am the diamond glints on snow.  I am the sunlight on ripened grain.  I am the gentle autumn rain.  When you awaken in the morning’s hush  I am the swift uplifting […]

“I hope that my achievements in life shall be these; that I will have fought for what was right and fair, that I will have risked for that which mattered and that I will have given help to those who were in need, that I will have left the earth a better place for what […]

“When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken.” Maya Angelou “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”Nelson Mandela Congratulations […]

“Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.” James Weldon Johnson When we arrived at the University of Maryland College […]

She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also and he praises her, saying: “many daughters have done nobly, but you excel […]

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good […]

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in; their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross I celebrated two special people on the same day. Four generations celebrated the patriarch of our family, my daddy Benjamin Scott […]