: About Me

I've reached that point in life where I have realized that all of that free time coming with retirement, is really a scam to just keep you alive for paying taxes. This year I'm 68 and I have never been so busy. Never have I had so many things lined up to do.
Never have I had the line of people asking me to volunteer so long.

And yet. . . . .

Never have I been so confident of using a life time of experience. Experience gained not from a well planned life, but rather, a happenstance of fumbling my way from year to year while somehow staying alive, although that was close a couple of times with a heart not always working the way it should.

I owe a lot to the people who raised me. Those who went through the hard times of depression giving me birth a few months prior to Pearl Harbor. People who had come from country environments.
Those in the generation before me beginning the transition into they urban factories.

My earliest memories are of horses being used to rake hay before baling was used and cows that were milked by hand. A farm house without running water, wood in the stove, and no telephone. Times when education was highly valued but hard to get with my mother graduating 8th
grade and my father barely starting the 3rd grade, because they had to work. Myself being the first to get through high school, join the military, and then I even got a single year of college. That was a big thing in our family.

Married (49 years to my teen sweetheart) with two children, beginning work in the factories of Michigan
and little by little advancing up into management and for a while owning my own company.

Those things (and all of the details surrounding them) may be interesting to some but, they really aren't me. Reading, reading, and then reading more were a normal part of my family life and a love of books has always remained with me. From the fiction of youth to an ever increasing interest in history and with increasing interest in how our country developed and the sources of influence on the Founders and the documents they developed such as the Constitution of the United States. My own library has grown to the extent that selves and stacks of books are things to find a way to walk around and with the internet those historic sources expand to the desire of purchasing new books.

So too with community involvement. Nearly 35 years of 4H volunteering for instructing dog obedience and being a shooting instructor. Close to 20 years with neighborhood associations and volunteering for various commissions and committees and running for office.

Yes, I've even been active in politics since my teens. Initially supporting John Kennedy (in Michigan), then working with Republicans (in Wisconsin), and in Iowa being State Chair for the Libertarian Party, and now a combination of a libertarian, conservative Republican, focused on the Constitution. It has been a steady migration to understanding and appreciating the Founders.

Over the years my writing has primarily been technical in nature, with a gradual migration to historical essay. Always there has been an undercurrent of thinking of writing fiction, something I have found quite challenging. For me, every word is a struggle, a fight ending with scars and blood and never being satisfied, almost ashamed to have anyone read what I write. Sort of like the way I play guitar, alone.

The internet has provide new incentive for expanding my writing. I read what is written out-there' and almost become depressed. While I don't pretend to be a great writer, some of what I read is nearly incomprehensible. I have what some have called writing that was all' lowercase letters, often with little (or even no) punctuation, misspellings, incorrect word usage, made up abbreviations and an apparent belief that anyone should be able to understand what they have written. I guess if such can be aired, I can offer my little ditties and attempts at prose. My attempts at poetry would even make my dog blush and he worships the ground I walk on.

If anyone has any comments, or questions simply send them to me and if nothing else I'll use my fiction efforts to construct the biggest lies possible.

My passion is ...

The U.S. Constitution

I know too much about ...

Politics

My parents always told me ...

Respect yourself and who you came from

My childhood ambition ...

To be a cowboy

My favorite memory ...

Early years on the family farm

Why I write ...

To vent my spleen

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

Joseph Story's The Constituion of the United States

My first job ...

After the family farm, it was washing dishes in a cafe

My best moment ...

Getting married 49 years ago to my first and current wife

My inspiration ...

History

Creative Writing > Reflections Reflections: Atheism

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Atheism! You aren't really an Atheist! You can't be an Atheist! You've got ethics! I wonder how often over my lifetime I have heard that or something similar. It seems that some people who profess a belief in God cannot accept that some others really don't believe in a God. More than that, they have no need to believe in a God. Even more than that they don't believe in a God and yet can actually function in society and be responsible contributing members of the community. I've even been told that if I had a near death experience or were in the military I would have an epiphany and come to ...

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