Background
I'm a military brat. My father was in the Air Force for a period that spanned WWII, the Korean Conflict, the Cold War, and Viet Nam. We moved frequently and traveled on holidays: I lived in 10 states and three foreign countries, and visited many more. I learned to fit in quickly and to appreciate new cultures. I learned that there are many ways to live, many points of view, and none of them are 100 percent right or wrong.
Traveling so much also gave me plenty of time to read in the car and on the plane. I developed a taste for science fiction and fantasy - literature that was filled with even wilder cultures, more points of view, greater differences. Perhaps I was escaping from the stress of seeing so much difference in real life. Be that as it may, I still love to travel, and I still enjoy escaping into a good book, particularly if it can move my heart. Even more if it also has something to teach me.
For the past 30-odd years, I have been relatively sedentary, living the whole time in the same town in Vermont. (On Vermont's "East Coast", that is: the Connecticut River.) Of course, I have lived in three different houses in two different villages in that time, but it's still a far cry from moving every three years or less! As for work, I've held down ten-plus jobs since graduating from college lo those many years ago. I'm a marketeer and documentarian with a hint of graphic artist and teacher thrown in. (I've also worked for Circus Smirkus, but that's a different story.)
I share my current home with my wife, Sally Duston, my son, Ross, two cats, and a ferret, not to mention three canoes and a pram. I enjoy being on the water, reading maritime adventures and boat-building books (I built two of the canoes and the pram), and fantasizing about sailing away to exotic climes.
I also enjoy the theater (watching and doing), the movies (but not television), contra dancing, hiking and camping, skiing and snowboarding, Celtic music, and calling auctions (I squeeze in two or three a year), but mostly I spend my free time working on our house and writing. It makes for a very full life.
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"A lake is a day on the water,
A river is a life."
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