I grew up in the small midwestern town of St. Clair, Missouri, southwest of St. Louis, along historic Route 66. We were a family of six children: three boys and three girls. My church exerted a strong influence in my early life, and continues to color how I see the world as an adult. My early relationships were all formulated within and around the church and the activities associated with it. This included my interest in music and even sports, as our church had softball teams that competed within a league in that area.As a young man, I was privileged to grow up with responsibilities for taking care of numerous animals, including a couple of horses, usually three calves that we fed out to provide meat for the family every year, along with thousands of chickens and turkeys. We also had a large garden from which we harvested most of the vegetables that we ate throughout the year.Attending a small school system had its limitations, but also many advantages. Nearly everyone had the opportunity to participate in some extracurricular activity, whether in one of the music groups, athletics, or clubs. In addition to my chores at home, I went to work as soon as I could. I eventually landed a job at a filling station on Route 66, which opened my eyes to a much wider world, where I was introduced to a lot of people with a broad range of mores and characteristics. I learned a lot about cars, but I also learned that there are a lot of hard choices to be made as an adult; that things are not always black or white.Upon graduation from high school, I attended General Motors Institute, which offered a work/study program wherein I was able to save enough money during work sessions to pay for my tuition and other expenses of education. Through a lot of hard work (most of the school was made up of Valedictorians and Salutatorians) I was able to graduate in the top 20 percent of my class.Following graduation with a BSME, I went to night school at nearby Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, to get a Master's Degree in Business Administration while I was working as a foreman at Guide Lamp Division of General Motors and worked my way through several departments of that organization, ending as a Director of Engineering, with Product Development responsibilities for several lamp design programs. During my career with General Motors, I also worked for several years at the General Motors Technical Center, in the Automotive Safety Department of Environmental Activities Staff. In that position, I had the distinct privilege of working with many of the officers of the corporation as well as several very smart engineers who had driven much of the technological innovations at GM. It was here that I discovered my ability and passion for writing, as I assisted in the creation of several documents that were submitted for testimony to various US government units.After retiring from GM I have kept busy by forming a few small businesses of my own, serving as Director of the Flagship Enterprise Center, a business incubator located in Anderson, Indiana, and volunteering with SCORE, an organization affiliated with the US Small Business Administration that assists entrepreneurs in starting and growing their businesses. I also volunteered with the Madison County, Indiana Red Cross for many years.I married my high school sweetheart, and we are still together after 59 years. Along the way, we had two sons, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.Read more about this authorRead less about this author