Meet the Author
I've done things most men only dream of and some things they would call a nightmare.
I was born out of wedlock, timing being everything in life’s circumstances it would have been nice to have been born in the1960s, then I could have been called a love child. At 5 years of age was sent away to live with my grandmother. At 12, I was shipped off to a Catholic Orphanage which wasn’t “that” bad as it was coed, and I was at the age where I realized girls were not soft boys.
Homeless as a teenager, I dropped out of high school and joined the United States Navy. I fought overseas when I was beaten up in a dockside bar in Palma Spain. I later obtained a GED in the Navy allowing me to attend one year of college after discharge, so I wouldn’t have to put on job applications that I dropped out of high school. Now I brag about it.
I've been employed as a common laborer and as the President of my own Real Estate Investment Company. I have been what some called rich, all relative, but let’s say more than some not as much as most, been bankrupt but never broke. In bankruptcy court, I witness good people losing everything and the fear in their being of having to wear the Scarlet B. So the high school dropout got the local Gannett Newspaper to publish my weekly column “Matters of Life and Debt” helping folks navigate the emotional and factual issues of money. The column became a daily talk show on an FM station and was figured once a week on the local NBC affiliate.
Speaking of TV, I was asked to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show in a dating game-like segment called “Men over 40 who date women over 40," as you can see I will go to any length or depth to embarrass myself. Speaking of embarrassing, I have been married once, which was to a celebrity, who shall remain nameless as she is no longer with us, for a grand total of six weeks. In medical terms the gestation period of a gerbil. Like I said any length or depth to embarrass myself. Ever notice you can’t spell embarrass without an ass?
Let me tell you about the time I was at The White House Bicentennial Salute to Music and I held hands with Elizabeth Taylor. Well, she might have said it was a handshake but when she penetrated my soul with a direct stare of the amazing violet-colored eyes I knew right then and there we were connected.
That same evening I meet President Ford and the First Lady Betty Ford, when the President asked my date to dance, I was forced out of my comfort zone and asked The First Lady, "would you like to dance"? What in the world does a boy from south Nashville totally out of his depth say? I remembered reading that Mrs. Ford attended the Martha Graham School of Dance, so as the band started to play, I let her know I knew that which she seemed pleased, then proceeded to say “Mrs. Ford, as you are an accomplished dancer and The First Lady why don’t you lead?”
In 1988 the world was introduced to the PBS Series “The Power of Myth” with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell. Mr. Campbell taught comparative religion at Sara Lawrence University for 28 years, another self-educated person. That series about Myth and comparative religion awaken in me the deep desire to understand more of the mysteries of life, being, and myself.
Thus the writing of “The Devil and Max Largent” involves understanding ourselves, this world, can we have second chances, and do it with humor. At the end of "The Power of Myth,” Mr. Moyers asked Joseph Campbell “You have studied all the religions of the world which is the one true religion?”
(Paraphrasing here) “As the bible says ‘He who says he knows does not know and he who says he does not know, knows.’ ‘”
It took a few years to write “The Devil and Max Largent’ and many years to live it.
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