I was born in Troy, NY, in a year which makes me a "boomer." I grew up on the third floor of a tenement house much like that featured in "The Row" books.  And, yes, it was home to a couple dozen humans and a couple million cockroaches. The stoop was THE gathering place for friends and neighbors.  Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the worn wooden steps on a sweltering summer night and listening.  There was philosophizing, arguing, joking and storytelling.    

I remember my mom reading to me at a very early age. Little Golden Books like "A Year in the City" and "The Five Little Firemen." (I still have copies which I read once or twice a year.) At about eight, I discovered the Troy Public Library.  By 10, I had worked my way through most of the children's section. Those were the days when you had your card stamped with the due date.  I took out so many -- 10 or 15 a week -- that the librarian concocted this accordion-folded paper extension so she wouldn't have to keep making me new cards. Soon after, I was allowed in the adult section. You don't need money to have grand adventures.  Just books.

I have earned my living with words since I was a teenager.  At 19, in the height of the Vietnam Conflict, I got the "Greetings from the President" saying I was drafted into the Army.  My dad, who had received two Purple Hearts in  WWII, convinced me to enlist in the Navy.  After basic training at Great Lakes, IL, I was selected to attend the Defense Information School (DINFOS), becoming one of a select few to serve as military journalists.  All that reading and a love of words paid off.

While my fellow DINFOS grads were receiving orders for Vietnam, I got a choice spot on the admiral's staff of Task Force 43 -- support for the U. S. Antarctic Research Program.

What an adventure!

I spent six months of each of the next four years "on the ice," as we Old Antarctic Explorers say.  I wrote for Navy publications and hometown newspapers. I also escorted writers and photographers from major U. S. and world media outlets -- New York Times, National Geographic, BBC, etc. -- around the continent.  We'd helicopter to the penguin rookeries, take an 850-mile hop to the geographic South Pole (Yep, there is actually a pole stuck in the snow.) or take photos from an open helicopter door hovering over the caldera of Mt. Erebus, an active volcano.

Three months before I was due to be discharged, I wrote a feature story for my hometown newspaper, The Troy Record.  The editor told me to stop by when I got home.  Three days later, I was writing obituaries and doing rewrites.  During the next dozen years, I covered the police and fire beats, city and county government, and became statehouse political correspondent.  Along the way, I won a couple feature writing awards and even did a stint as the Arts Editor.  I ended up as managing editor before the newspaper was sold and and I moved on.

Working for a daily news medium is one of the best ways to hone your craft as a writer -- fiction or non-fiction.  It teaches you not to to fear the blank page.  It teaches you how to write and edit in your head long before you start pounding the keys.  I remember many nights when I would leave a hot legislative session at 11 p.m. and have less than an hour to file a story.

As the news business waned, I moved on to public relations to pay the rent and feed two small boys.  Along the way, I earned a bachelor's in finance and an MBA in marketing from Syracuse University.  "Go Orange!"  (Think you're harried?  Try working full time and taking a full-time graduate course load while carting two boys to the video arcade.)  When a well-regarded historical museum was put under my managerial responsibilities, I went back and at 55 earned a masters in museum studies from Norwich University.

It's not just idle chatter when I say being a dad is one of life's greatest adventures.  I enjoyed being secretary of the bowling and golf leagues, partying with family and friends and, generally, enjoying a wonderful, normal and fulfilling life for decades.  All the while, though, I was researching, writing and planning with a dream to some day write books full time.

I've always said I'll probably wind up as the Grandma Moses of this writing business.  Actually, I prefer Papa John.   That's what my five grandchildren and several grandnieces and nephews call me.

Anita and I have four grown children.

We now live in a nice home only a few miles from The Row.  There are no cockroaches but there is the  occasional spider.