MY STORY

Born in the Uintah Basin of Utah, my life has sometimes resembled that of a vagabond. During early childhood, my family moved twice every year. From an old family homestead in Utah to a ranch in Colorado in springtime. Then back to Utah in the fall. At eleven years old, I became a “city” kid when we moved from the ranch to town. With a population of nearly four thousand people, Craig, Colorado seemed way too big for an eleven-year-old cowboy wannabe. I spent the rest of my youth in Craig, though, and in some ways, it will always seem like the only hometown I have ever known.

After dropping out of college, the wandering began in earnest. I have lived and worked in so many places I’m not sure I can remember them all. From the coast of Florida to the coast of Oregon, and nearly every state in between. I have been a truck driver, an appliance installer, and, for many years, a logger.

After realizing that logging was sometimes NOT a great notion, my wife and I moved from northern New Mexico to northwest Arkansas to start a better life for us and our daughter. The move to Arkansas marked the launch of a career in earthwork and excavation which would last for the next twenty-five years. From working as a common laborer to operating heavy equipment to estimating and project management, I have been and done just about everything there is to do in the excavation industry. For the last four years of that career, along with three partners, I owned and operated an excavation contracting business in Western Colorado.

The great recession wiped out that business, and in 2011, I embarked on a new career helping to manage a trucking company that specialized in the transportation of hazardous materials. Six years later, I retired from the great American work force.

Retirement has not been the end, though. Far from it. Retirement marked the beginning of my last career. It isn’t so much that I have always wanted to write. I have always been a writer. From writing poetry and song lyrics to safety and training manuals for the workplace, I have never stopped writing. Now, in retirement, writing and self-publishing is my last career. The one I should have embarked on long ago.

A couple of years back, I returned to my vagabond ways and moved back to Northwest Arkansas with my wife and partner, Karen. Here in the Ozarks, we enjoy hiking and seeing as much of nature as The Natural State has to offer.

I love hearing from readers. Please contact me by email anytime.