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The Cliff's Notes version of my autobiography begins a long time ago in North Carolina. To maintain the pace of the narrative, though, we'll cut quickly to the scene where my parents decide to leave their button-down Establishment existence and, instead, travel aimlessly. It was the sixties. We kids went with them, of course, kicking and screaming. The family spent years wandering fitfully across the country in an old red truck, eventually skidding to a stop in California. During that time the six of us set up housekeeping in a school bus, a tent, and a small silver trailer, among other things. I remember picking grapes and oranges for pay, and I remember hitchhiking to school to attend third grade. Thus went my formative years. The only things I could count on were books. Books kept me sane.

I wish I could say that I exhibited early signs of genius, but I didn't. In high school I listened to music my friends didn't like, edited the high school newspaper, played in the band, held student body office, and participated in the school play. After an absurd first year of college--the highlight reel for which included simply skipping some of my final exams--I left home to play drums in a rock group and spent a couple of years performing for crowds that sometimes could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Glamorous though it might have been, I left that life to start a family. I eventually returned for a more successful assault on the battlements of higher education, attending Humboldt State University. I studied history and geography and got my teaching credential.

I took the first job I was offered, and I'm still there eleven years later, so I guess it was a good fit. For ten years I taught either history or English, but now I teach science. I also coach one of the girls' basketball teams. As an educator, my standards are high: my students worship at the temple of punctuation, and we eschew the dribble in favor of the snappy pass. I play the ukulele very badly on the occasion of anyone's birthday and have been known to climb up on a desk to get someone's attention. I'll take on all comers in a game of one-one-one, provided they're no older than ten or eleven. When it's on, my hook shot is unstoppable.

In my spare time I am a struggling writer and have amassed a vast collection of rejection slips. I have a screenplay and a young reader's novel looking for a home, and I'm writing a basketball handbook for reluctant student athletes. I count as literary influences Robert Heinlein, James Thurber, and Gordon Korman.

Numbering among my current obsessions are learning to play the washboard and figuring out how to operate the voicemail system at work. My plans for the future include playing center for the Utah Jazz, piloting the Space Shuttle, and recording an album of improvisational drum music with Mickey Hart.

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