Whippoorwill Pines: ABOUT

My first job was as a grocery clerk. I've worked in a warehouse. For a long time I was in the Coast Guard, where I started out as a men's room custodian. Then I was a personnel clerk. Then an admiral's aide. A military instructor. A school chief. Military personnel officer. Commanding officer. Boot Camp chief. At various times I've also worked as a sausage maker, butcher, cashier, export manager, software developer, security officer, consultant, a shipyard launch coordinator, and a radio station disk jockey.

Photo credit K. M. Henson

I've traveled to all 50 U.S. States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, England, Grenada, Bonaire, Panama, Aruba, Costa Rica, Mexico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Dominica, Nicaragua, Grand Cayman Island, Bahamas, Belize, and Colombia. I've sailed all 5 Great Lakes and all the rivers connecting them. I've traveled the full length of the St. Lawrence Seaway (including every lock from Sault Ste. Marie to Montreal), the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Baffin Bay, the Greenland Sea, the North Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the North Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Panama Canal, much of the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico.

I speak German, Spanish, French, and English, and none of them very well. My interests include reading, writing, poetry, woodworking, toy making, most things electrical, and all things mechanical; gears, cams, shafts, levers, and pulleys, probably because of my fascination with clocks and watches.

I've wired my own garage and basement, split wood with an ax since I was a kid, poured concrete, built a canoe, laid brick, built a shed, made a knife, and carved many objects of art and painted many pictures.

Photo credit K. M. Henson

Photo credit
K. M. Henson

I've manned the helm of a polar icebreaker. I've taken the controls of a single engine plane, twin engine plane, and a Coast Guard HH-52 helicopter.

I've seen polar bears on the arctic ice cap, and walrus on an ice floe in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. I've seen seals, dolphin, humpback whales, and sea otters in the wild. I've touched a sea turtle swimming in the ocean.

And as it turns out, I'm an animal whisperer of sorts. I have no idea why I'm able to do this. I love critters and study them and their behavior carefully. Maybe they sense that I have no interest in hurting them.

Finally, I'm a writer and have published 3 books including two children's books and a compendium of my own prose, poetry, and nature photographs.

So what's next? We'll see!

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ABOUT