For those of you reluctant to read more because you have learned I am a Professor, let me assure you I do not fit the stereotype.  I feel compelled to begin this way because I have found that once people learn that I have been in the academic world they lose interest in getting to know me, assuming I know nothing about “the real world.”  They also expect to encounter a lot of highfalutin’ pretense.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  While I have respectable academic credentials, I began life on a farm in rural Wisconsin.  A primitive life by modern standards; wood stove for heat, no indoor plumbing, two-seater outhouse, pig pen, chicken coop, milk cows and modest crops to weed by hand.  It was my grandparents’ farm.  I lived there because my mother died when I was two and my father couldn’t care for me by himself.  I was eventually adopted by an uncle who had a small plumbing business.  By the time I started high school I was doing a man’s work.  I dug ditches, laid cast-iron soil pipe, soldered copper water lines and cut and threaded a lot of galvanized pipe.  Those were the days before plastic was used for everything.  I also drove a number of water wells.

I was fortunate enough to get financial support to attend college at the University of Wisconsin where I was on the freshman football team.  This was in 1961.  The following year my application for the Peace Corps was accepted and I served two years in the Dominican Republic after Outward Bound physical training in the mountains of Puerto Rico.  While I worked on a number of projects in remote villages, I was trained as a member of a well-drilling crew.

After I returned to the States I finished my undergraduate education and applied for and obtained competitive fellowships to complete my M.A. and Ph.D.  So my journey has encompassed the life of a farm boy, blue-collar worker, Peace Corps Volunteer and finally a teacher/scholar.  I have also been an academic administrator, husband, father, grandfather and mentor to several generations of young people.

From my days on the farm, fishing for brook trout in McDill Creek I have been an outdoorsman.  I have been a lover of streams and rivers, mountains and woodlands, where I have cultivated a spiritual life in concert with the natural world.  My book, Water Like the Soul of an Angel is my spiritual autobiography.  The poems you find here are accessible to everyone whose life experiences have played out in “the real world.”

Some final notes:  I must confess to some trepidation regarding this whole website/blog initiative.  I am only marginally computer literate.  I began my academic career in the era of typewriters and white-out.  So this is a new phase in my life upon which I now embark, ironically, during the last stage of my chronological existence since I recently turned seventy.  I am not being morbid about it, I merely appreciate the irony.  The other source of trepidation is that this new phase of my existence requires I make a presumption I am reluctant to make: that my modest publications and equally modest personal history merit attention in the vast alternative universe of the internet.  However, context is everything.  I will join the company of countless purveyors of utter nonsense bordering on lunacy and seem reasonably sane by comparison.

As you progress through this website feel free to comment on any of the books, my discussion of the books, new poems, and of course, my relative sanity.

I have been very busy in recent months.  Getting this site up and running and publishing and marketing the children’s book have been a challenge.  I am very anxious to get back to work on a novel I am writing so I will only provide a brief preview of the sorts of things to expect in the future.

Regarding Poetry For Children, I will appreciate any comments on the book/poems.  I intend to publish additional poems as time goes on.  I am toying with the idea of inviting children to submit poems, perhaps to collect and publish.

The book of outdoor Poetry, Water Like the Soul of an Angel taught me a lesson about book titles.  While I appreciate its relative success, it would sell more copies if I had been wise enough to not have used the subtitle, “Memoirs of a Fisherman.”  No fish are caught in the book and it is not about fishing.  I just happen to be very creative when I am out on the river.  It’s akin to having a subtitle for a beautiful book of poems like, “Memoirs of a Plumber.”  Of course no one would buy it unless they were interested in plumbing.  So if you love the outdoors, this book should be yours.  I plan to publish essays on my adventures in the outdoors as time progresses including pieces on Catch and Release and Grizzly Bear encounters in Alaska.

Readers will be surprised to discover a love poem on page 73, “My Only Loneliness.”  Many of my former male students have memorized this poem to recite to their girlfriends to illustrate their romantic sensitivity.  This poem was actually used in the exchange of vows during a wedding of one of my students.  I wrote it originally for my wife.

Finally my book about Adoption and related issues Searching for Magdalene deserves some immediate attention.  It is most popular with folks dealing with adoption, step parents, adoptive parents and complicated family issues.  I intend to expand on some of the book’s implicit themes in the future such as attachment disorder.  An important component of the book is the collection of original letters my mother wrote before her death.  I must include the following information about the letters for those of you who go to Lulu.com to purchase the book.

A note about the letters:  They can be read with the naked eye but a magnifying glass would be useful.  They are copies of letters originally written with a pencil.  The last couple of lines in Letter #4 are very light so I have transcribed them here:

   “Ed’s folks for dinner.  Came home about 4 o’clock & Ed had to leave for work at 6:30. Then David, Jackie and I went for a walk.  The children looked so nice today.  They wore their Christmas overalls from you.  I put them away & just shortened them this week.  The colors are very good on them.  David was so proud of his.

   Just can’t think of any more to write about so will say good-night for now. Love, Magdalene Thanks for the Easter cards.”

Finally, somewhere in the text I referred to the Bible with a lower case “b” and did not correct it.  The lack of page numbers is intentional and part of the book design.