Years ago, when I was in my twenties, out of college, had the world by the tail, and thought I was charming, invincible and just plain cool. I was teaching for a semester at the local high school in order to get a teaching degree, which I felt I would be of little use in the near term because, as I remembered hearing a saying, " teachers teach because they can't do." Well, I was going to DO it first, then teach later, perhaps when I reached my fifties.

So, now, here I am, in my fifties and guess what? Finally I'm doing it... that is releasing my first album. Weird, huh? Back then in late fall on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi I asked myself, "Hmmm, maybe I should try songwriting, how hard can that be?" Even though I had just received my BFA in Theatre in the spring, I still was searching. Then, that summer, I had worked for the Metropolitan Sanitation District of Chicago in downstate Illinois plowing sludge into strip-mined land in order to rejuvenate the soil and bring the Prairie back to life. That became fodder for my first "real" song, I continued to write that summer and into the fall and even worked with some music majors at the college.

Well I guess I found out how hard that can be. And it is hard, especially to write good songs. Over the next few decades I always continued to write even though I had a 20+ year career in Aerospace and Defense in there somewhere. So, WHY DO I DO THIS? I guess the short answer is because I've always loved the songwriting process. Even though songwriting can be very hard and frustrating at times, there is nothing like the feeling that comes when you've struck upon a brilliant phrase or turn of the word, or come up with an intoxicating lick you play over and over again. So it's a love, a passion if you will, and by all means, it's a dream...