About

I like to write. About almost anything, anytime, anywhere. On the computer, napkins, yellow pads with blue lines, and in black and white journals from the Dollar Store. I got my start as a reporter of a daily newspaper in Royal Oak and wrote obits, automobile accidents, and small time thefts. I wrote advertising copy at an agency in Bloomfield Hills, wrote and recorded the scripts in LA and New York studios, producing all manner radio and television.

Most were just jobs, but some, just a few, resulted in unexpected lifelong friendships that continue to enrich my life and make me smile decades later. I intend to expose them here; Don and Dan, Jon and Rav.

Before setting in a quaint urban corner of Kitsap, I lived in a small farm (corn) town in southern Indiana, on an oak lined suburban Michigan street, on a couple of islands in Seattle, where I was blessed to be close, very close to many mountains. I moved to the Pacific NW because I wanted to hike and climb in the magic Olympic mountains and ended up, finally, homesteading a 20-acre farm in Kingston where I began a love affair with my wife that has endured for more than 47 years. It is Joseph Campbell’s definition of bliss.

Together we raised children and chickens that laid green eggs, managed an ad agency in Seattle, cared for terminally ill family members, climbed mountains, walked ocean beaches, roamed around back streets in Europe and danced arm in arm though life’s valleys and peaks, weather foul and fair. Over the years memories and events have filled pages of dozens of journals, yellow pads, and blank pages on a glowing monitor; stories of adventure, sadness, love, history, in three lines of haiku, a poem about a native chief, a mother memory. More empty journals await.

I have been blessed with a wonderful career in advertising, consulting, collaborating with Patty to conduct marketing workshops to help small business, non-profits, and civic organizations. But I am retired and now, twelve years later so is Patty. We both still marvel that we do not have to get up at 6 am to get kids off to school, dash the back roads to catch a 7:50 AM ferry, attend another meeting, or be someplace we don’t need/want to be. These days I get to write and post my words on this wonderful digital library and blog kindly created by Patty, along with her thoughtful and patient editorial support and original photography. In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to sharing more writings with family, friends and followers!

Happy Trails ahead! Bill

_{Cover Photo: Hoke on the Bailey Range Trail 2004. Photo TMac.}

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