About Tom

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My dad bought me my first camera, when I was nine. We were in Jackson Hole Wyoming, in our little 15 foot Shasta travel trailer on summer vacation. Our destination – Yellowstone National Park!  He bought two of them, one for me and one for my little brother, Pat. He paid for the little Brownie Box Camera’s with a bunch of shiny silver dollars and old fifty cent piece’s. Many with eagle’s on them. I had wanted the camera that could use flash bulbs but that was two bucks more. We lived in Boulder city, Nevada where silver dollars were abundant. Which is only about 30 minutes from Las Vegas. My dad didn’t usually use silver dollars as currency. Those were usually in his coin collection.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that he was using his coin collection to pay for our vacation that summer.

That was my dad!  What a wonderful example he was.  With that simple gesture of kindness, even without the flash attachment, he gave me the opportunity. That day I became hooked on photography, and have been ever since.  Several years later I would learn how to write as a journalist.

Add in a bunch more years, volumes of small journals carried in my hip pocket, and that little tiny voice inside of me saying “there’s a book in here somewhere”.

I’ve been told by more than a few people that I’m a pretty good storyteller. All my stories are true. I write in the genre of what they call memoir. Which basically means that my stories are true, but they don’t have to be in sequential order. I’ve also been told that I’ve lived an interesting life. Life goes on when we as humans make plans. And I’ve certainly had a lot of plans.  Some of them worked out and some of them didn’t. But I’ve got lots of good memories. I’ve heard from more than a few people it’s better to have made plans than coasting through life with none.

There is an old Jewish saying “that man plans and God laughs”. I’ve always liked that saying. 

I hope you drop by once in a while and check me out!  If you like what I have to say, please join my tribe and follow me in some of my adventures. If you do join my tribe, I’ll send an email inviting you to more stories. And of course, I love comments. Your comments are the only way I know if I’m doing a good job on my writing.

My dad died at 63 years old of a heart attack. He had just retired, worked hard all of his life, and I remember telling myself that that wasn’t going to happen to me.

I started writing this blog in 2012. I had the time because I was off work as a photographer because of a detached retina in my “shooting eye”. I had to give up many weddings that I had been booked for. It took a long time for it to heal. I was a member of “Professional Photographers of the Redwood Empire”, so it wasn’t difficult to get my weddings to good Photographers.

And since the wedding season was over for me. I took my friend Vita Jones from Rotary up on her suggestion to follow her as her photographer on a project in Peru. She had been bugging me to go, but I said no – because of the fact that I had so many weddings. You can hear more of that story In the category called Rotary.

 Maybe there is a book inside of me wanting to get out, but in the meantime… a blog!   Who knows how many pages I have time for…

Growing up, all I ever wanted to be was a photographer! I took picture for the yearbook in high school and college. While attending college I landed a part time job for the local weekly newspaper. If I covered the weekly city council meeting, which no one else wanted to do, I would get a front page story and a bi-line on the cover of the freebee advertiser that went out every Wednesday. I then scored a night desk position in the sports department of a big daily newspaper. I hated it! Now, 45 years later, I’d like to write about some of my many adventures. I hope you drop by once in a while and check me out!

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