I was born in 1949 in Kansas City Missouri. My father worked for Trans World Airlines so my family moved around, first to Los Angeles and then to Tucson Arizona. Because of my fathers work for the airlines we traveled often, both domestically and overseas, which gave me the chance to see and experience the world at a level beyond my family's economic situation.
In 1966 I quit high school at the same time that my father had put 20 years service in for TWA which meant that I received a "term pass" that gave me unlimited space available transportation everywhere TWA flew. I had to promise my father that I would not get him him in any trouble and that when I flew I would make myself clean and presentable. I thought I could abide by those conditions and in less than a month I moved to Paris France (not Texas).
Paris was a wonderland to my adolescent senses. The political situation was exploding and I met people from every corner of the world. I rented a seventh floor walk up for thirty dollars a month. It had a half skylight that curved with the roof and when I leaned out I could see the big clock at the junction of Rue Duret and Avenue Grand Armee.
I was generally broke and had to rely on my wits to get by. I sold the European Edition of the New York Herald Tribune, taught some English and picked through the food delivery's at the small markets in my neighborhood. About that I would now like to make an apology to the hard working merchants of Paris that I was taking advantage of.
Before going home I spent some time in London with a friend of my mothers and while in Paris I would take a weekly flight to Milan to gather all the little toiletries and little bottles of Liqueurs to sell in a park next to a secondary school.
When I returned to the states I worked a number of minimum wage jobs and another job painting radio and television towers and traveled stateside before my airline pass expired when I turned 21. In 69 I got a job with Paramount Pictures working as an extra on Joseph Hellers CATCH 22 down in Mexico. When the movie was finished I left Tucson Arizona for some California grass. Look out Jo Jo.
I ended up in Monterey, Pacific Grove and Big Sur where I made life-long friends that I'm still in touch with today. I got married there and we had the prettiest little girl in the world.
My next step took me to Montana where I've been for the last forty years. I hated to leave so many good friends back in Monterey so I brought a bunch of them with me. I lived in a cabin up the Yaak River, moved to Missoula where I went to school at the University of Montana and now I'm a denizen of Troy Montana.
Along the way I've worked in the woods felling timber and running equipment, traveled extensively through the west, played music professionally (I will have a CD coming out soon) and ran a 36 foot diesel motor cruiser in northern Idaho and British Columbia.
Lump Sum is my first novel but it won't be my last, so my friends, stay tuned.