Wild Geese Flying, my first favorite book.  I never read a word of that book.  I was 3 years old and my brother gave it to me because I worshipped him and I wanted to have a “big kid's” book just like him.  I carried that book everywhere. 

     Finally, 2 years later, (that’s a long time when it represents 2/5ths of your life) I began kindergarten and once I began to really read, I never looked back or up from a book.  But, then I began to grow extremely tall (I’m 6’ 10 ½”) and that really confused the situation with the outside world.  But, I lucked out to have wonderful parents who taught me to ignore others’ expectations and continue to take the music lessons, do well in class, play sports, and continue to read myself to sleep every night. 

     It all worked because I was lucky enough to go to the University of Texas at Austin on a full basketball athletic scholarship and graduate Cum Laude Ampla et Magna in Economics in 1978, the same year we won the NIT Championship in Madison Square Garden.  If my athletic achievements had matched my academic, y’all would know me from having played in the NBA.  That was not meant to be, but it was still very cool to play my last game in the Garden; see my first Broadway Play, I Love My Wife; ride in my first limousine (and it wasn’t a funeral); and decide that I had to come back to live and work in NY City, at some point in my life. 

     In the 80’s, we were again lucky enough to move to the City to live and work as a trader for an independent European oil trading company.  Those 5 years taught me how to swim with the sharks, understand that “discretionary bonus” meant basically zero dollars because that put you behind the head trader’s wife, their new car, and his mistress’ buying spree at Tiffany’s; and that standing on line meant head down reading and not chatting with the stranger ahead of you.  When our 10 year old little Texan began saying “Yo” more often than “Y’all” - time to go home and start our own 2 small businesses, which are actually beyond small, they’re piss ant.  But, profitable – take that Wall Street!

     In middle school, I was fortunate to have Mr. Watson, (Mousey was his whispered nickname) an eccentric English teacher, who began the school year by standing on his head and demanding that you spend his class time eager to learn how to diagram sentences, use grammar correctly, and instead of focusing on reading, write!  I thrived under his whip and began writing the assigned pages, plus more.  Enough to have him accuse me of copying from a book, again that tall thing. 

     In high school, we were led to more “practical skills” and writing was reserved for essay questions.  At UT, my “aha” moment was in freshman economics so most of the writing the next 4 years was not all that creative, until the last semester of my senior year when rankings were set and grades basically aced.  At that point, not every supplemental book assigned got read, but I sure took a whack at analyzing them for the bonus questions.  Thank goodness for short term memory and detailed chapter headings.   

     Gosh, it sure is fun to talk about me, but let’s skip up to now.  I’m writing extensively again, almost every Saturday and Sunday.  I’m super lucky to have constant encouragement, yet insightful criticism from someone who reads even more than me, my wife.  And here is something that is so sugary, it’ll make you vomit, we’re high school sweethearts.  And no, I didn’t find someone tall enough; she’s 5’4” … almost.

     After 5 years of countless drafts, edits, and re-writes, we feel that we’re on the cusp of having completed a worthy project, our first novel.  But, now after all that effort, we’re like every new parent.  We’re home alone for the first time, leaning over the edge of the crib peering down at this beautiful bubbling baby that we’ve created and wondering, “Holy cow, Batman, now what?”