autobiography

I took back roads to the printer in Coralville to pick up advance reader copies of A Working Life, the second part of my autobiography. Getting to this point was a high water mark in the struggle to write it that began in 2010. There is a story in this book, one I hope finds… Read more

My current book is heading for home and each new day of editing brings a sense of impending completion. Being a career logistician, I consider process: By June, copies for early readers; then another edit; then fund-raising, printing, and distribution. Having written it, the work ahead is answering questions about whether it is the best… Read more

Following is a description of how I spent the bicentennial in 1976 from my book An Iowa Life: A Memoir. I was on military leave, in between Officer Candidate School and Infantry Officer Basic Course. This year is the 250th birthday of America. I’m not feeling celebratory and wish I could go back to those… Read more

The portion of my autobiography after leaving a transportation and logistics career looks a lot like the ice in this photograph. Parts of it are smooth, yet thin, because only recently it was open water. Parts have frozen and thawed so many times it is difficult to determine where the surface could support a human.… Read more

Short post today. I haven’t considered my early days on Blogger and WordPress until now. They were outlets for all kinds of writing. Been working on a chapter about the early years of social media and blogging. This paragraph needs work yet it captures one way I used the platforms in those early blogging days.… Read more

Ambient temperature was to climb to 60 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday. It made it to 61. Spring is in the air, even if that thought is not rational given the calendar. I sat down and outlined the path to finalizing my book. I finished the initial draft on Jan. 5, and am 37 chapters into… Read more

Despite issues with our current political and social environment, I must press toward completion of my book. Mine has been a life of delayed gratification, and in my eighth decade, I am running out of time to finish this work. As I write, the administration announced repeal of the Endangerment Finding. Commentators are commenting about… Read more

Following is an excerpt from my autobiography in progress. This passage was written to transition from our first year of marriage into what would come next. I reprised the self I exhibited at university to come up with this at the time. I embarked on contemplation like during my undergraduate years when I would wander… Read more