It wasn't very long ago that I would not have written my pages and I certainly wouldn't have shared my thoughts and personal life with you. I've been pretty much a loner since I was kidnapped at age four. Being in an abusive marriage for twenty years didn't help either. I became a virtual recluse when my daughter passed away two months to the day that I moved to Baton Rouge. I didn't go any where except to work and back home. The only people I knew in the Baton Rouge area were my co-workers. Don't get me wrong, they are very nice people but we didn't know each other well enough for me to lean on them.

One day I went out and bought my WebTV unit. Why I don't know. I just did. I started out surfing around the web with no particular place to go. As I surfed I came across a chat room on Talk City. I was a lurker for a while. I simply sat and read the comments. It was fun. The people in the chat room all seemed nice and friendly. Once in a while I would make a comment. One evening this very funny guy made a wise crack at one of my comments. I thought it was great that I had interacted with a stranger. I was hooked on the internet.

I've met a lot of really nice people on the internet and I have met some not very nice people. But the nice people far out weigh the bad. Some of the people I've met have become good friends of mine. My friends have made me laugh. They've made me cry. They've made me think. But most important of all, they've made me feel alive again. My friends and I are a lot alike in many ways. Our conversations over the internet through email and chat has been good for me. As I said, they've made me think. They've given me the courage to express myself.

It's strange how pepople you've never met can somehow reach out and give you the courage to make changes in your life, isn't it? It is because of the encouragement I've gotten from my friends that I offer the following pages. Hopefully you will enjoy reading them and get something from them.

Let me get a few things out of the way before you get to know me better. It seems that I get asked the same questions over and over once people find out that I'm from Louisiana. Yes, there are still some areas in our great state where people have to go by boat to reach dry land to get to their car or truck so they can go to town. No, not everyone here practices VooDoo or believes in it. Many people here do believe in, and go to a treateur to get a wart removed, a headache and various other ailments cured. No, I'm not a practitioner of VooDoo or a treateur, so don't write asking for a spell, a gris gris or a cure.

Yes, alligators do occasionally get disoriented and leave the swamp and end up in town. Not to worry though, the game warden quickly rounds them up and returns them to the swamp. No one ever gets eaten by one. In fact, we eat them. There is nothing quite as tasty as an alligator that is fried, barbequed or put in a sauce piquante.

I also get asked a lot about my nickname. I got the nickname Peekaboo shortly after I began my career in the newspaper industry in 1981. Being in the advertising department, it seemed that I was seen practically every where in Vermilion Parish (that's a county if you don't live in Louisiana). A few people started calling me Peekaboo because they said that they expected me to show up at any time and say "Peekaboo, I see you".