Ever Had the Feeling You Were Born a Century Late?
I’ve always been more comfortable with old things — homes, cars, clothes, stories, even friends. When my high school offered SAT Achievement Tests in core subjects, I took English and American history and surprised even myself by scoring a perfect 800 in history. Little surprise, then, that I’ve spent nearly two decades editing and writing stories drawn from history — the study of “old things.”
Travel writing, editing and photography have also run up the odometer on my publishing career. Credit my wanderlust to my Pan Am stewardess mother and GE ad man father, who treated my brother and me to boyhood trips to all points of the compass — though we suspect such ramblings were thinly veiled excuses to flee upstate New York winters. It appears the travel bug was catching.
In our 20s and 30s my wife, Jill, and I bounced between publishing stints in six states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, partly for the job opportunities, but also to crisscross the nation and explore new regions. For nearly 20 years we’ve lived in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. Our little house straddles a deer trail on an acre in the woods a thousand feet up a 2,000-foot mountain bathed by wind and birdsong.
It was in Harpers Ferry, in 1783, that Thomas Jefferson stood at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers and contemplated the “undiscovered country” that lay to the west. Two decades later President Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore and map the newly acquired territory of Louisiana, all the way to the Pacific. Before embarking, Lewis stopped by the federal armory in Harpers Ferry for firearms and other gear. Our backyard is steeped in history.
Computers and cameras are where I draw the line on my preference for “old things.” These days I work from a Wi-Fi–equipped home office powered by Mac desktop and laptop computers. I’m up before dawn, and the hours I once spent in gridlock I now devote to editing, writing and research.
Who says you can’t teach an old soul new tricks? Contact me, and I’ll show you what I can do.