Do you have limited time to read? Do you want a complete, satisfying story in ten pages or less? This is a collection of short stories and personal essays illustrating life's challenges faced by men and women of various locales and time periods. These include a Savannah widow who must house four of General Sherman's officers, an urban gardener whose cabbages keep disappearing, a TV cooking show hostess who recounts her greatest humiliation, and a fiddler who develops arthritis in her neck. Each faces the challenge differently, and I discovered an unusual gift in dealing with mine: the ability to communicate with family and friends who have died.