Bio:
To the extent that our ideas and predispositions take root in our childhood, mine began in a small, Midwestern rural town, in a tarpaper-covered house built by my father and grandfather, with no indoor plumbing, at the end of a dirt road divided from the town by the main highway. Our water came from a hand pump in the yard, an outhouse served other needs, a wood stove provided heat. With only two years of schooling, my father took whatever unskilled labor jobs he could get, from yard maintenance, to a brief stint in a factory, to cutting pulpwood, to caring for the grounds at the local golf course.