There's something to be said for being raised in a rural environment.  Sure, we had poison ivy and mosquitoes in the summer, which was often muggy (A/C?  what was that?); cold, damp winters; and dirty slush in early spring.  But we also had nonchlorinated outdoor swimming ponds, sledding and ice skating on natural terrain, pristine maple trees to tap for sap, and crisp autumn days and nights when trees were ablaze with color and sparks from a bonfire ascended an invisible ladder to the sky as we roasted marshmallows on freshly-whittled sticks.

In the absence of a TV, I read early and voraciously.  My father, a professor at the local college, recognized and emphasized the importance of education as a means to a better end.  After elementary and secondary school, I spent my first year of college in Michigan, where experiences like trudging through thigh-high snow from one classroom to another in the winter made me appreciate what I'd left behind in Massachusetts.  Returning home, I finished college and departed for the West Coast and graduate school.

In the late '60's, I spent two years in Afghanistan (see pictures) with the Peace Corps. Surely the most memorable two years of my life, it presented a nonpareil opportunity to immerse myself in a culture vastly different from my own.

Returning Stateside, I enrolled in postgraduate school in the Bay Area of California and obtained specialty training.  Thereafter I moved to Southern California and spent over a quarter century as a hospital-based healthcare professional in group practice.

Henry D. Thoreau hailed from the part of the country where I grew up.  His observation that 'the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them' struck a responsive chord with me.

In mid-1998, upon my daughter's (see pictures) graduation from dental school (my son having preceded her in college and having embarked on a career as an independent movie producer (see his website)), I decided to retire and attempt a mid-life reinvention.

This website represents one outgrowth.