I was born in rural Oklahoma in 1952. My father started working on pipelines when I was a toddler and we wound up in Colorado for many years. My mother worked as a waitress. With a beginning like that, maybe I should have become a movie star. Oh well, such is life. My father was sick quite a bit and spent a lot of time in hospitals. My mother worked different shifts, which meant we saw more of the sitter than we did our parents. It was not the most promising of beginnings, but I go on.

I loved going to school and reading some of the books that were in the school library. The books that I enjoyed were the ones I was not forced to read and report on. I love to read what I want to read. Reading helped me develop quite an imagination, which I used on a regular basis. The many elementary schools I went to helped me in developing a varied sense of humor and helped create an imagination that would often get me into trouble. Occasionally it would help me get out of trouble, as well, when people didn't appreciate my sense of humor. It has been my imagination that has allowed me to write the things that I write. Even writing the truth takes quite an imagination, because almost nobody believes the truth.

During my teen years, my father and I spent a lot of time reading western novels, mostly

Throughout my life, there have been only a handful of people with whom I have been comfortable. The top three are my Grandmother Griffith, my sister and my beautiful wife of over 22 years. My grandmother died, my sister moved on to her own life and responsibilities. My wife is a one a kind woman who has remained faithfully at my side, walking through wonderful times, terrible times and all times in between, with endless moral support and love. I pray that I have been as good a husband to her as she has been a wife to me. She has been a constant supporter, influence and inspiration in my being able to write my stories. I recently began writing stories at