Born in Coffeyville, KS, September 24, 1942. Moved with parents to Chicago area in 1949. A resident there for about fifty years, now residing in Independence, KS since April, 2000.
Past occupations include a variety of telecom-related ventures and
adventures, including telephone switchboard operator in various large
institutional settings and various clerical positions. A part time
writer and author, selling freelance material to
After a 1971 collision between two Illinois Central Railroad suburban commuter trains in which 27 people were killed, another 200+ were injured, and I walked off the train and stood there scratching my head looking at it, I decided God must have some sort of plan for my life, although I am damned to this day if I know what it is for sure.
Beginning in 1972 I became an 'information provider'; making information
available to me as widely dissemintated as possible to the people
who would benefit from it. I began with a telephone recorded message
giving calendars of events, and progressed to editing a small community
newspaper. For five or six years in the middle 1970's, I operated a
nightly discussion forum via Citizens Band Radio. As CB radio got to
the point by the late 1970's that its usefulness as a public forum was
about over, I looked for other ways to share information with the masses.
For fifteen years, 1982 through 1997 I was also a program producer and
'reader' for the visually handicapped radio reading service
In 1979 I started an Apple ][+ BBS (Bulletin Board System) on a home computer. In 1981 I was system operator for the first BBS in the world operated by a public library -- the Chicago Public Library. I was involved to a limited extent in 'Usenet' in those days also, and a couple of the early mailing lists as a participant. By 1985, I was frustrated by the limitations of 'single server' type communications -- a BBS in those days could handle only one phone call at a time usually with an average of 30-40 calls per day being considered quite successful -- so I closed down the Lakeshore Modem Magazine BBS and went almost exclusively with 'Usenet' and a couple of mailing lists including TELECOM Digest.
Now in recent years, my life has consisted mostly of the Digest, and helping newcomers to the net community become established with their web pages, mailing lists, etc. Outside employment took me to Junction City, KS in February, 1999. I become known as the 'resident expert' on things concerning the Internet and the World Wide Web. Little did my clients -- mostly soldiers at Fort Riley, which is part of Junction City -- know about how little I knew compared to the 1960's and 1970's, when I used to know everything.
Then came