A Fond Farewell to Summer
On a steamy night in Chicago at the end of August, a symphony of crickets and katydids announce summer’s end. In a blink the hazy, lazy barefoot days of summer are over. Gone are morning sleep-ins, afternoon swims and evening backyard barbeques. School started with its frenzy of class lists, timetable changes, book buying, shoe […]
September 11, 2001 – September 11, 2011 In Remembrance of 9/11
Ten years ago today, our sense of security was shattered instantly – the time it took passenger jets controlled by suicide bombers to crash into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. It was one of the moments in history where you will always remember what you were doing when you heard the news. […]
Weather Predictions From the Front Porch
Weather is a safe topic in social circles unless you are a meteorologist. The weather journalist has a no win gig. If he/she warns viewers of the upcoming tornado, hurricane, cyclone, blizzard, we lament they are sensationalizing the news when the weather pattern changes direction/velocity/impact. Case in point Hurricane Irene. With an estimated 65 million […]
Illinois’ Sterling Girls Capture Little League World Champion Crown
Yoopie! Take me out to the ball game. I am going to jump on the bandwagon here and give a shout out to the folks back home in Sterling and their championship team. After all the gals of my generation helped build that wagon 40 years ago when Title IX passed into legislation, leveling the […]
I am X-Pat, a feisty globetrotter. Teacher, writer, coach, speaker, and trailblazer with the down-to-earth, open-armed persona of The Heartland and a European twist. I have lived in four different countries, speak three languages and raised two bi-cultural kids with one très bon Frenchman. My passion is inspiring courage, breaking barriers, and creating connections.
Down and out? Hopeless and helpless? No matter where you are in your journey, my stories can help pick up your spirits, make transitions, gain new perspectives or just escape the daily grind.
If you deny a woman’s history, you erase her identity. I reveal the athlete’s untold story, from the passage of Title IX through forty years of social change. What makes it different from other sport biographies is the voice of a woman who walks the talk, who dribbled the ball and tells the story. Learn more by clicking here