Highlights and Turning Points: The Story of a Lifetime

Highlights and Turning Points is an autobiographical sketch of growing up in a small New England town, heeding a perceived calling to become a teacher and spending a lifetime getting to that point. Laced together with mediocre poetry, changes imposed by time, family structure influence, strong friendships and a heart worn too often on my sleeve, the book highlights my personal strengths and vulnerabilities, and perhaps those of many people. I take pride in my turning point accomplishments as well as overcoming my addictions… finally discovering God’s gifts of grace, strength, love, mercy and endurance. However, universal truth was not my literary goal here. Years from now, when future generations have only a wrinkled, faded photograph to know me, I wanted there to be a first-hand written description of who that person was, what made him laugh or cry, what did he accomplish – if anything, why he lived and thought the way he did and where his core values came from. Each facet of life - being a son, student, friend, brother, soldier, husband, father, teacher, grandfather, patient, employee, traveler, neighbor or volunteer – regardless of the outcome - reflects a different image to the world. I do not want to be buried in the cemetery of historic oblivion shrouded in mistaken assumptions innuendoes and half-truths. My goal was to become a photograph with real authentic teachable meaning… good, bad or indifferent… and to pass on laughter.