I live in the Arizona desert and paint portraits of Native Americans. I've also attended many tribal ceremonies to learn all about and participate in traditional body and face painting.

After Navy service in World War II, I earned a BFA from the Phila. College of Art (now the Univ. of the Arts). I was then recalled to active Navy duty in the Korean War. Followed was a 40-year career in public relations, advertising, sales promotion, graphic design, including 20 years as manager of a major insurance company's regional creative division.

Since my retirement 17 years ago, my wonderful spouse and I enjoy Arizona desert living. To keep in good physical health, I swim 40 daily laps in our community's Olympic-sized pool; and to enhance my frail mental health, I find it necessary to visit Las Vegas four or five times a year.

Before I started with Helium, I created a daily humor column for an online newsletter, as well as wrote and illustrated daily columns for two online travel info services.

I try to write four Helium articles daily, and my favorite subjects are humor and the never-ending idiocies of humanity.

My passion is ...

My family

I know too much about ...

How really stupid, self-destructive and murderous humans can be

My parents always told me ...

How the hell should I know? I was an orphan.

My childhood ambition ...

To become a great artist and starve to death after cutting off my ear

My favorite memory ...

The day WWII ended just as our ship was set for a suicidal invasion

Why I write ...

To keep my creaky brain oiled and running smoothly

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

Historical novels, MGM musicals, Ella, Sousa, Sachmo and Sinatra

My first job ...

Car hop at a fast-food joint

My best moment ...

Three: when I met my wife and when I saw my kids enter the world

My inspiration ...

See above

Entertainment > Movie Genres Top ten movies from the forties

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Just as people of the 1950s call themselves Elvis fanatics , those of the 1960s will proclaim they're of the Beatles generation, and 1970s fans boast they're of the Rolling Stones generation, I'm a proud member of the 1940s movie generation. We've been honored previously by the name of the Greatest Generation, because so many of us fought in World War II, but we also feel we lived through the greatest decade in movie history. Before I make my choices, I have a brief story.

As WWII was winding down in 1945, the Navy established a movie exchange service, and built a quonset hut and erected...

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