I took my first airplane ride in 1946 when I was 2 years old. I still remember that day. My Daddy had taken me to the airport and we walked around looking at the airplanes in the hangars. I already loved airplanes and I was so excited to see them close up. 

It was a Piper Cub, a tandem two seater. The pilot was in the front, and I sat in Daddy's lap in the back seat. It seemed the pilot and my Daddy talked the whole flight. He would turn around and look at us, and I clearly remember wishing that guy would turn back around and watch where we were going instead of talking to my Daddy. 

I don't remember this, but my older sister insists that after we landed I started crying and kept trying to go back to the airplane and go again.

I was forever hooked on aviation.

In college I met, and soon married, a young firecracker named Shirley Terry.  She is now my wife of 60 years.

In 1966 I joined the Army and applied for flight school. I spent a year in Vietnam flying UH-1 (Huey) and returned to Ft. Rucker, Alabama for the rest of my military obligation as a flight instructor.

After leaving the Army I finished college at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.  My first civilian helicopter job took us to California for one summer flying for the Forest Service. It was only a summer job, after which we moved to Plainview, Texas, where I instructed in airplanes. While there my wife gave birth to the world's cutest daughter, Apryl.

From there we hit the road, I flew helicopters for the Forest Service, Fish and Game, and whatever came up covering most of the western states. The pay wasn't that good, but I took what I could get wherever I could find a job.

Finally we settled in south east Texas where I worked for 23 years flying offshore supporting the oil rig. I retired in 2006.

So, that makes me a helicopter expert, isn't this supposed to be an author's  page? It is: Most of my life I have been interested in writing. I had tried writing numerous times, usually getting a page or two before losing interest. I did manage a few short stories but never a novel. Then in 1981 I read a book written by a Vietnam helicopter pilot and realized if I tried I could write a much better story than that. I had free time between flights at work and wrote the first draft of The Spirit. It was not a Vietnam story, but flight school before Vietnam. I completed the novel in one year.

I showed my book to an agent. He liked it but said it was too long for a first novel. He suggested I write a story about Vietnam, but not as long. Not sure how it would turn out, I took the characters I had created in The Spirit and put them in Vietnam. The result was Jackson's Mountain. It was published in 1990 by Hampshire Press, but before I made the best seller list, the publisher went out of business. 

Never the less, I have continued writing and now have completed 6 novels and a book of short stories. The books are not all aviation centered, as I don't write a specific genre, but things that interest me. My hobbies include model airplanes (of course), and building and fixing things, riding our Harley, (lately we spend more time on our eBikes), and traveling with Shirley in the motorhome. I have dabbled in painting, I love photography, and lately just enjoy sitting around taking it easy and working on my latest novel. 

We now live in Pueblo West, Colorado. We are close to Apryl and her husband Marc and enjoying our retirement. 

Explore My Books  I'm sure you will find one that will catch your interest.