My favorite autobiographical blurb comes during the classic crime movie,
The Petrified Forest starring Humphrey Bogart, Betty Davis and Leslie Howard.
When the ultra-bad guy, Duke Mantee who is very much on the run from the cops, played
unforgettably by Bogart, is asked about his "life story", he shrugs, and responds,
"Well, there isn't much to tell, Pal. I spent most my life in jail, and now I'm going to spend
the rest of it dead."
Though my life, thank goodness, has been spent a bit more constructively, often I
wonder how much more constructively. Geographically, it has not been been complicated:
I was born in Modesto, California, raised a few miles north in Stockton--both in the
Central Valley of that fair state.
At age 16 I moved with my family right into the Ingleside Terrace section of San
Francisco, about 200 yards from Balboa Park. Likewise, I attended
Balboa High, graduating in June 1958. By this time, I'd caught the tournment chess bug, and
more/less hit the skids as a chess bum. The years 1958/59, through 1963/64 were tough
years--didn't earn much money, didn't earn a master's rating in chess, didn't go to school,
and many of the things I learned were not all that pleasent.
In 1963/64, I ventured north to Alaska. Between then and about 1985, I worked in
various fisheres, first as a technician, then as a biologist. At age forty, I changed professions
going into community college teaching. In 1996, I retired early from
the University of Alaska, Anchorage as an Associate Professor of English, of all the damned things.
At that time, I moved south to my small acre and a half place outside of Port Angeles,
Washington. At this time, though I'd been writing consistently for publication--and winning
various awards--I began really writing in earnest. No more school teaching, just writing.
Various things happened there, but in 2005, despite being even more disabled, I moved to
Hawaii--to experience a drastically different ecosystem, and maybe just to put a good jog
into my life. Well, I certainly accomplished that!
At this writing (7/28/07) I plan to return to the "mainland" in severeal months, driven by
the storms of financial adversity.
So, that is enough about me, for this website is for the novel The War Journal of Lila Ann
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