Bio 1

All About Li'l Ol' Moi

Okay, Okay,let's face it, this is a work in progress... It's been progressing or regressing or whatever for sixty-odd years, and yeah, "odd" is the word to watch, there, for a good many of them. No, no, I'm not saying that I'm any odder than anyone else. That would be hubris, and I'm not into hubricity.

I mention back on the home page that I was born on what was then regularly Memorial Day — that was May 30th, and hang the day of the week (though in fact it was a Sunday) — in 1937. It happened in Brevard, North Carolina, around 9:30 in the evening (astrologers reading this now know all about me), and my mother told me (somewhat later, gang — I wasn't much into explanations at the time) I was running a bit late. That's a trait that stayed with me most of my life. I've gotten better about it, but that came late, too.

Now, one of the other real nice things about Brevard, NC, in addition to a gorgeous location in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, over in the western corner of the state where it pokes under Tennessee, and an annual rainfall second in the U.S. only to some place in Washington State, so I've been told, is that psychically it's a great creative center and spiritually blessed.

Okay, that got rid of the mystically intolerant crowd, so the rest of us can gather 'round here and I can let you in on a little secret. I kinda made that part up. It could be true, lord knows, though one might have to spread the circle wider — there's the Brevard Music Center, right there, of course, but it isn't too far from Henderson, NC, where Carl Sandberg had a home (it had a nice summer theatre, too, last time I was there, though that was a while ago), and there's Asheville, about 40 miles north, where Thomas Wolfe* composed extraordinary literature (no, not Tom Wolfe; that's somebody else entirely) and seems to me I recall that Manly Wade Wellman hailed from around there, too. [Okay, the linked site points out that he lived in Chapel Hill, which is over near Durham. But he wrote about the western part of the state...]

Not everybody knows about Wellman but, well, he was one of my favorite fantasy writers a couple of decades back. I guess he'd been around a while before that. Main thing was that he told stories that built on the folklore of that part of the country and from what I gather he had a pretty rich tradition to draw from. So if I get a little mystical-eyed talking about my natal region (no, no — sheesh! wash out your mind with soap!) — about the land of my birth, why then, I have some justification. Besides — there is a bonus for the fantasy lover. Brevard is the county seat for none other than Transylvania County, and I can say, with all truth and a fair-to-middlin' Bela Lugosi accent, that I was "Born in Transylvania." Enh, don't worry, I haven't bit anyone's neck in ages. My wife can attest to that.

* See also Thomas Wolfe web site.

Chapter 2 Wandering Roots
Chapter 3 Early Memories
Chapter 4 Family
Chapter 5 First Move
Chapter 6 In Arizona
Chapter 7 Deep In the Heart of Texas
Chapter 8 Postwar Years

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