Elisabeth Parker joined the Times in 2002 and writes community news in Tampa. Before she could read, she was hooked by Rudyard Kipling's story of the Elephant's Child, who set off for the "banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees," to find out what the crocodile ate for dinner. Like the elephant's child, spanked continually for an unceasing line of questioning, she is insatiably curious. Unlike the elephant's child, whose short nose was stretched into a trunk by the crocodile, well-posed questions pay her bills.

Born in Maryland, she lived four years in Europe and now in Palma Ceia, from where she can easily observe the universe, with her son and a cat.

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E-mail: edyer@sptimes.com