I have been a writer ….. albeit for a small audience for years. I wrote fantastical stories about strange animals and silly poems to amuse my children (four) and grandchildren (six). The literary merit of these productions was dubious, but it did not matter to my audience. 

Then something happened: I turned ninety. I realized that time was running short if I had  anything to say or wished to leave any mark. I gathered some of the better (my word) pieces and put them into two self-published books (Think, Kinko). A third book, The Beat Goes On, was published and made publicly available. It was then that I settled on identifying myself as a  Writer.  

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Long during retirement, I had stumbled on how to identify myself if asked: Retired seemed somewhat empty. I liked the word Writer and the image it conveyed, and it smacked of  enough truth not to be embarrassing. Suddenly, without effort, I could join the ranks of Hemingway and Dostoyevsky. I even printed Writer on my checks. What more proof is needed?  

 

I reside in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with my patient wife Anne and a circus of horses, chickens and dogs, where I watch the days pass with wonder.