Born in Berkeley, California in 1948. I lived with my nuclear family through my junior year of high school in Oceanside, CA. I went to the University of Utah on a swimming scholarship until I quit after my sophomore season and transferred to UCLA.

I worked as a beach lifeguard during the summers after high school graduation until my senior year of college when I took a job as a swim instructor because I could work during school as well as in the summer. Fortunately, or unfortunately, upon college graduation, my swim teaching job dried up, and I was left gainfully unemployed with no vocational goal and less money. Having enjoyed teaching swimming to kids, I decided to get my teaching credential, and, when finished, I got a job with LA City Schools as a 5th grade teacher. I spent the next 40 plus years in various capacities in public schools as a teacher, bilingual teacher, vice principal, principal, program coordinator, and instructional assistant. My dad was a Lt. Col. In the Marine Corps, and my mom was a dance teacher when I was in school. Parents divorced when I was in college, and mom worked jobs as an office manager in various doctors’ offices. My dad, after retiring from the USMC, worked with the CA personnel board, a Mayflower mover and a brief attempt to make money as a painter (abstract). The deaths in my family began with my sister’s suicide when I was 52. That was followed within 9 months with the death of my mom from lung cancer, which was followed within nine months by the near death of my brother from cancer(who is hale, hearty and happy now), and which was followed many years later by the death of my dad at age 91 and 11 months.