I grew up in a small, rural town in Southern Indiana, with a younger sister and a brother. My mother was a "stay-at-home" mom, and my father was a professional musician. Upon graduation from High School, I enlisted in the U. S. Navy and spent the next five years wither in one kind of school or another or traveling about the Western Pacific aboard an aircraft carrier. When I got out of the Navy, I took a summer's vacation then enrolled at Vincennes University, where I took general education...
I grew up in a small, rural town in Southern Indiana, with a younger sister and a brother. My mother was a "stay-at-home" mom, and my father was a professional musician. Upon graduation from High School, I enlisted in the U. S. Navy and spent the next five years wither in one kind of school or another or traveling about the Western Pacific aboard an aircraft carrier. When I got out of the Navy, I took a summer's vacation then enrolled at Vincennes University, where I took general education courses. I was a student there for one and one half years, while I worked part time as a water meter repairman. I became engaged shortly following the end of the first semester of my second year, so interrupted my education and was married the following spring. My first wife and I had two children, both of whom are now grown. The oldest son is a professional musician and the younger one works at the University of South Carolina. I began working at Sears, Roebuck & Co., soon after my marriage and starting taking classes part time at the University of Southern Indiana shortly thereafter. I was eventually graduated from that university and was awarded a baccalaureate degree in English. I was also named Outstanding Student in the English Department as a senior, won the Wahnseidler Academic Scholarship.
Following my graduation from USI, I was accepted at George Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, just before which I learned that I had won an appointment as Teaching Fellow at George Peabody at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. I taught there and was a graduate student. I was graduated from there with a Master of Arts degree in English, in 1972, and in 1973, I was graduated again, with an Ed.S. degree, also in English. I left Nashville to accept a teaching position in Charleston, South Carolina, where I was soon appointed Department Chair of the English Department and taught every English course offered there. I had also minored in philosophy as an undergraduate and as a graduate school, so I al
