In my life I have manned flight decks of aircraft carriers, swept floors as a janitor, adjusted insurance as an agent, overseen divisions as a manager, and taught English as a professor. I hold a PhD in English, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and, apart from travels in the navy, have lived in Arizona, Kansas, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Germany, and The Netherlands. While the outward course of mys life took me afar, the inward course kept me near the same place as I circled back on central tenets—I hold no sword of orthodoxy but above all believe in human caring, conscience, kindness, self-control, self-responsibility, and respect for others.