The author quits high school at the age of sixteen and went to work with the advice of his stepfather. He either work or go on the street. He found a job at a local Hat Company, which lasted only a few days when the Pope said, “Women do not have to wear hats to church.”
He entered the US Navy at the age of seventeen. He went to Great Lake, Illinois, before traveling to the Panama Canal and eventually the West Coast to California.
After leaving the Navy with an honorable discharge, he got married and raised three children. Twenty years later, he entered the Massachusetts National Guard and was drafted into the US Army for Saudi Arabia.
While serving in Germany, three years earlier, he got hurt; the injuries recurred while on active duty in Saudi Arabia. He was honorably discharged. He was sent home on a MAC Flight to the states. He continued to help for the next year with AmeriCorps, working for a disaster program in seven Mobile Park Communities, totaling 12,000 hours of community service.
He now enjoys the senior way of life with his seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.