Family
I’m married with two adult children. My wife is in community philanthropy, my daughter, a theater grad works in environmental construction management and my son followed my dream and is a commercial pilot. I have three amazing grandchildren. All these people, their spouses, and a remarkable ex-wife are the focus of my life.
Outdoors, Especially the Wilderness
From the time I was five, I have craved the wilderness and places where I can be alone with my thoughts. From The Russian Far East, to Mexico, and the Yukon to Florida I have found special places where, if man has been there at all, it was with a gentle footprint. My favorite place is the porch of the family fly-in log cabin on Lake Iliamna in Alaska, a lake just about the size of the state of Rhode Island.
Fly Fishing
I am never happier than sitting on a rock watching a river run. From the Mississippi to Alaska’s crystal-clear streams, and dozens of other waters around the world, I often rise from my rock, string up a seven-weight fly rod and test the waters. If I catch something, great, and if not, that’s fishing. I love deep sea fishing in Zihuantanejo, Mexico and Southeast Alaska, but there is nothing better than running water and the flash of a leaping rainbow trout.
Hunting Camp with Friends
I was raised by a single mom, but still had early experiences with my father and uncles in deer camp. Since those early days, every year I spend a week with family and close friends in hunting camp where harvesting is secondary to men’s tales around a campfire, and especially the sharing of the kind of grey hair experiences that mold younger hunters. Today the camp is in a moose camp in Alaska where our idea of roughing it is red wine with fish.
Travel Into Other Cultures
Being married to a Latina woman has enriched my lifetime love of the melting pot of American culture and fascination with peoples and other nations. My two favorite destinations in North America are New Orleans and Victoria, British Columbia, both because of the diverse community of people of different ethnicities and origins. Close behind is the southern Pacific Coast of Mexico where we vacation every year. I love the Russian people and wish that they weren’t born to suffer. Among our closest friends are a French couple who love to share the cultural wealth of their country. People everywhere share human traits that bring us together and other traits that create the same struggles all over the world. With that said, the one great gift of those who created the USA is the foundation of personal liberty, seen nowhere else.
BONUS
I must admit that I have one more passion, aviation. I was bitten by the flying bug when I had my first airplane ride, in an old Stearman Biplane when I was eight. I’ve been a pilot for decades and someday will be a talented enough writer to explain the sheer joy of sweeping around huge cumulous clouds on a bluebird day, or of landing on a remote lake that may have never seen a floatplane before.