Born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Metairie, I bleed purple, green and gold. Though I have not lived in New Orleans for several years, I miss the Big Easy every day. Every city has its special qualities. New Orleans is the eccentric uncle of them all.  

By age five I was entering what would become 12 years of education at New Orleans Academy. My father pulled me aside, faced me into a mirror and said "Watch. I'm only going to show you one time. This is how you tie a tie. Now it's up to you." Every school day for the next twelve years I shined my shoes and brass and tied my tie before falling out for morning drill at military school. It was a unique campus where students administered discipline to other students and lockers went without locks while no one stole. There was honor. there was discipline. There was character. And there was a motto - Esse Quam Videri. To be rather than to seem was a real part of what made my education something special. In 1973 I graduated after attaining the rank of Adjutant Major and claiming several awards and honors as an athlete. Most of all, I had learned the discipline which would later become the cornerstone to my pesonal philosophy.

After a brief enlistment in the USAF, I finished my service in the Louisiana Air National Guard while attending The University of Louisiana Lafayette. I left both institutions in 1978 finishing my service time as a decorated Tech Sgt and my university studies with a bachelors in English. During the same time, I supported myself in any number of ways from acting to day labor harvesting silo corn.

Since that time, I have bounced around the world living in Tracy City, Tennessee, Ravensburg, Germany, Lemoru, Kenya, Dallas, Texas, and now Austin, Texas. Most of my adventures were a product of doing whatever it took to support my family while writing poetry. Today, I am directing an organization which teaches life skills through the martial arts MARS , pastoring a small church in Dripping Springs, Texas and working on a variety of writing projects.

            Mike and Karen                        Teaching in Lemoru , Kenya