Category: Book Excerpt

My parents had me christened in the Congregational Church across from town hall on the edge of the village commons in the town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts. The church was where I performed in my first piano recital in the fellowship hall below the sanctuary. I probably played something out of John Thompson’s Modern Piano Course… Continue reading First Communion

Evening entertainment in an Alaskan Arctic village during the summer of 1972 was scarce; I usually played my guitar or read. So, when the mail plane dropped off a feature film, even though it had been released four years earlier in the Lower Forty-eight, I made sure I got myself to the old Quonset hut… Continue reading Planet of the Apes

In my prior post I featured the late photographer Stephen Cysewski and the influence his images of Alaska in the 1970s had on my writing. His photo of the Open Door Klinic at the top of this post became the memory trigger for this excerpt from Hardship Alaska. Here I’m recalling the second of two incidents… Continue reading Open Door Klinic

My upcoming memoir from Epicenter Press, Hardship Alaska, chronicles the events, people and places immediately leading up to and during my time serving as a Vietnam War era conscientious objector. The heart of the story focuses on my two years of alternative civilian service working in and around Anchorage Alaska. My assigned duty initially had… Continue reading Thanksgiving

Here’s a sneak peak at a chapter, one that’s a bit eerie and quirky, from Hardship Alaska, my memoir coming soon from Epicenter Press about serving out my alternative service as a conscientious objector in the wilds of Alaska during the Vietnam War. I somehow fell into the company of an odd group of men.… Continue reading I’m Not Karl!

On a flight from PHL to PWM, a bright March afternoon illuminates the view of the Jersey Shore through my private portal. I can pick out Lakehurst Naval Air Station, the large hangers once used for blimps and the site of Hindenburg’s fateful landing; Toms River, where I first felt at home as a music… Continue reading Ditched