: About Me

Itsa about time I added a bit to my biography.  I am now approaching age 87, am in good health, still writing column Mad Mountaineer had its title changed to LOG OF A SEA-Going Mountaineer and sold out its first printing in a month.Well, am recently age 84, and have decided to add a bit to my history. I have decided to publish a "final" book, mostly an autobiographical diary, from july 2 1925 to July 2 2009. It's title is DIARY OF A MAD MOUNTAINEER and will follow incidents in an unusual life, involving many well-known dead...Eisenhower, Churchill, De Gaulle, Marilyn Monroe,P icasso, Alice B. Toklas, and on and on. This my 173rd published book, along with 2,500 short subjects will let my swan sing!

I am still somewhat cyber-stupid though I got my first(massive) personal computer in 1964 as an experiment with Westinghouse. It filled half a room and ran on tapes.
I was born in a small village in the Virginia mountains,in 1925, and fell into a pattern of over education, more by chance than plan. I obtained a BA/BS
at a small college(Roanoke) and then did graduate study in journalism(Columbia), then went abroad to "fool around" after a rigorous World War II experience, and instead of "fooling around" married New York's most beautiful model(on vacation in Paris), took a diplomatic job, and started studying medicine,law,linguistics, and the human brain in varying French schools and universities. Returning to the U.S. with three and a half children and my wife, I was suddenly stricken deaf by a WWII wound aftermath and could not practice medicine. I was rescued from poverty by an offer of work writing for a New York publisher which ballooned into writing for a motion picture company,(DeRochemont),then Science Research Associates, then free-lance writing until I created my own publishing company specializing in materials for the very talented and the less talented, and from then on I was completely free writing whatever I chose, 90% instructional and 10% fiction or non-fiction short-shorts. Finally, a newspaper chain hired me to do a column, and that has continued for 18 years. I chose a town in Florida for residence because it is comfortable there the year round, and I and my wife write and paint and survive quite happily. A late-life operation and addition of superb electronics by the Veteran's Administration Hospital returned my lost hearing a bit late but wonderfully!

My best education memories are a Chairman of the Boardship of Columbia College in Chicago, and the creation of The Academy For The Gifted, a special school for bright kids, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Some months ago, a literate friend in Virginia e-mailed me"Look into HELIUM" and I did and am very happy with its potential. I'd like to see many markets for writing know about Helium.
I own a small publishing company where occasionally we get out a book we like.
My main interest in writing when I am in Virginia, is The Lost State Writer's Guild just across the border in Tennessee.
Every two years, we publish an anthology of surrounding wannabe's writing. That wonderful outfit is held together by charming CAROLE JACKSON who affectionately leads us into a continuation of our writing.

At age 83, I can count 750 published short pieces, nine fiction(books) and about 150 textbooks, edited or written AND edited. And 43 small children's books, the most recent being ARISTIDE THE CAT THAT STUDIED PICASSO,illustrated by famous artist CAROL BATES MURRAY.

FINALLY, family is important to me. I have six born children(two male, four female) and three "extended family" children. Also, ONE great grandson, TWO great granddaughters, and three grandchildren.

My pet hates in writing are using WHO for WHOM, the word SCENARIO, and the use of adjectivals for verbs. I ADD TO THIS A YEAR LATER that I have sold about 100 stories since I wrote the above, and HELIUM is good discipline for writing continually.

My passion is ...

writing at least two stories a day..I have done so, and my writing is better than when I started HELIUM

I know too much about ...

war and death, bad government,poor medicine. I add after several hundred stories, that as of Jan 20 2009 the world IS better!

My parents always told me ...

be stalwart, read,read,read. I do but unfortunately can't find good stuff to read, old or new

My childhood ambition ...

to become a writer, to travel, to sail the oceans. My ambition now is to wake up each day ALIVE!

My favorite memory ...

Going to Auschwitz with General Eisenhower clandestinely 1945 My favorite memory hence is the Obama inauguration.

Why I write ...

I can't help it, and it keeps Alzheimers at bay! I also LIVE from it! Since adding the discipline of HELIUM, I have sold about 100 short subjects, stories or essays.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Gresham and the classics, MacNeill-Lehrer,fine mysteries. Now I search somewhat upset for older stuff, and find little that I have not previously read.

My first job ...

cooking in a Jewish restaurant in NYC, before that carrying newspapers, selling SATEVEPOST on the streets

My best moment ...

When my first baby Louise was born in Paris and when my last great-grand child ZOE was born!

My inspiration ...

To make the U.S. much better place,leave this world not at war and see the US quiet and peaceful.

Politics, News & Issues > Politics, News & Issues (Other) Is the U.S. Government corrupt?

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There is no doubt that the U.S. and most local and state governments are corrupt. The  problem is not the existence of corruption but what the people should and can do about it. Desperately needed is a highly financed THIRD party with billions behind it and with the mildly offered ideas of Les Paul expressed by strong people. No one has yet appeared upon our political horizon who might fit such a position.  One might suggest Warren Buffet but one must allow for his age...who is out there to head (with billions) an attack on corruption? To cite a few incidents ...

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