I was born in July 1946 in New Orleans, Louisiana to a mother from Ohio and a father from Texas. I tell you this because we all start somewhere, and those initial conditions are important. Consider the year. The second world war was still a fresh scar on the face of the earth. Consider the place. It actually means nothing because my father was still in the Navy, and we were soon off to his next duty station in Pearl Harbor. So, neither New Orleans nor Louisiana had any great role in shaping my life until much, much later. But those initial conditions, parents and war and constant travel, set the tone for my life and helped me navigate the history that unfolded before me and colored how I came to view that story and my role in it.

It would be wrong to think I’m going to tell my story as some sort of parable as to how a life ought to be lived. It will simply be how I came to live my life and how I came to think as I think. I will trace the arc of my life knowing full well that other arcs moved through the same space and time and came up with amazingly different conclusions and observations, primarily because their initial conditions were different than mine, and even the smallest difference can change the trajectory of a life.

And I will take my time, and do it as I’ve always done, publish three paragraphs a day with about 300 words. There will be one change, however. I will do more writing the day before in the hope it will bring coherency and clarity to the project. I really want to get this right and stay focused. After all, these are my final days and most likely my final words, although death is only obvious not imminent. The stats show I might have ten more years and that would give me twenty years of blog posts and that’s a lot of words. I’d just like some of them to count. So, I’ll take my time and carefully consider my words, taking baby steps, on my way out the door.

Part 1: Living in America, an old man’s journey into his past