“Life’s too mysterious. Don’t take it serious.” Yes, Cole Porter had it right. Irony is the life skill that has taken my 84 years through early childhood illness, the turmoil of adolescence and the whirl of adult careers, people and places.

My first literary effort was as a dramatist who cast his friends to save “Maid Marion” from an evil troll with the exclamation “Ho Maid Marion.” From third grade to fifth, the second effort was a a news host who diagrammed the Korean War.

High school was taken up by STEM stuff and implications from my beloved English Teacher. Ms. Ventura to keep writing. I didn’t. I kept sailing, fishing, clamming and steeling wood to build little houses in my back yard. Officer Mount who saw my thuggish efforts as grounds for reform school. Never got caught.

Far from a novelist to be, I entered Columbia based on dynamite SATs and quickly failed premed and entered the English and European History program amid a barrage of criticism about my writing skill. This criticism continued as I quickly fell into the mire of academic writing. In fact, the  literary giant Lionel Trilling applauded my perceptions of Yeats but morned my writing skill. My girlfriend edited my papers.

Skill-less, the only avenue for an unemployed English and History Major was working for Case Institute where I mastered the art of writing press releases, the student handbook and the Case News.  I learned how to write – a a skill that empowered my success in publishing and teaching. If you needed a literate report or an engaging memo, I was the guy to write it.

My first publication, aside from in office materials, was the article “Training the Team” which earned me a trip to Australia to present the paper. My text, the Walch Series of Workplace Skills, followed and paid handsome royalties. Short works for hire followed. Word processing came along to rescue me from my inability to type.

As my body declined and I could no longer run or even hike and the desert heat scorched my garden and the garage was stifling, I needed a hobby and wrote a short novel COURAGE and paid the publisher to publish it – a blow to the ego that continues today through SALVATION MOUNTAIN and COURAGE 2e.