I’m the cute one on the right. My only sibling, David, on the left, was two years older. He died in 2020 from complications caused by unavailable medical care due to hospitals and doctors being overwhelmed with covid cases. We grew up under modest circumstances, our father being the minister of a series of small American Baptist churches.

Less than ten years later, I was earning a good living making wire-and-bead jewelry. This is more typical of how I looked, sitting in my workshop. Sometimes I even wore shoes. I had more beads than some bead shops

I have had many jobs, but two major careers, one in real estate (brokerage, development, management) and the other as a labyrinth maker. My labyrinth work is included under the labyrinth section.
See LABYRINTHS

When I turned 40 in 1984, I took several years off, traveling, visiting the Soviet Union with a group of World War II veterans, and restoring a stone house in the Pyrenees Mountains in the south of France where I studied perennial spiritual principles that have guided my life ever since.

It was there that I met Dr. Happiness, a medical doctor who helped people heal themselves by getting in touch with their happiness. Dr. Happiness and his family moved to the United States for a couple of years in the early 1990s during which I organized happiness seminars which we taught together. This is a subject about which I would like to write in the future.

Above: Ruth Hanna, in front of Chartres Cathedral in France. I thought life was over and I would live as a hermit in sad memory of my time with Ruth. Fate had other ideas. 

Linda is a retired Episcopal priest and hospice chaplain, and currently a spiritual director. This is one of my favorite photos of Linda “at work” assisting in a baptism. 

We currently live in a retirement center in San Antonio, Texas, in which 90% of the men (and several women) are retired career military officers. Given my background, that's rather ironic. Many of them served with distinction, some were wounded, others became prisoners of war, some served for more than thirty years, reaching top ranks. Fortunately, the power of community is stronger than individual differences, whether politics, religious beliefs, and lifestyle choices. Old age is the ultimate equalizer. We’re all pretty much the same now.

Photo: The campus of Blue Skies of Texas West. We live in one of the apartment towers (independent living). Also available are assisted living, skilled nursing care, and a memory unit. One reason for moving here was to spare our family the tasking of finding appropriate care for us when the time comes. Linda and I have established a good life together. Linda has her work, book and poetry groups, pod casts, Zoom programs, and other activities while I stay involved in writing, pickleball, and playing pool. 

Above: Linda’s journal and morning coffee. That’s the Mediterranean Sea in the background from our rented vacation villa in Cap d’Ail, near Monaco.

Linda has published three books of photography and poetry (see the Books section). Covid has kept us mostly locked down. We venture out occasionally, cautiously.