Snapshots of Life

Starting at age eight, Dean Sims has worked at being several different kinds of a working journalist. He never has stopped collecting stories to make for a more interesting and better-informed world of people. He did human-interest features for The Kansas City Star, Ottawa, Kans., Herald, the Burlington, IA. Hawk-Eye Gazette, Toledo Blade and The Associated Press. Sometimes he gets into The Reader's Digest as a contributor. But all during these times, he has made his primary living at public relations management jobs, in the U.S. and overseas.

His specialty is sharing the ironies of life involving people. He has been called "sardonic observer" by editors more than once, and once his doting mother said to him, "You are rude to write things that are laughing at people." Many years later, he rationalized that he was really laughing with people, even about himself.

Night and day, on trips and at home, at meals and in bed, he has scribbled notes on anything handy to remind himself of what somebody had just said or done - something to cheer and light our paths along the way of life, maybe helping us to be better adjusted people.

Read on with Dean...