Well, well, well. What to tell you about myself? I would rather be trying to come up with the start of another chapter in a book than this, but here goes.

I have lived the majority of my life in the small town of Marion, NC. It’s a beautiful place with mountains, lakes, and family. The people are wonderfully average, with most good and giving and friendly, but enough of the other sort to keep things interesting.

My mother inspired me to be a writer. She would get up at 5 a.m. most days and go to her writing desk (see picture) that was set up at the end of an old hallway that had been turned into a walk-in closet. She would work on short stories, poetry, and the novel she never finished. Her dedication to the craft of writing guides me. I keep her desk in my office right beside the desk where I write.

After high school I went off to a small college nearby and got a degree in English. Uncle Sam called and I went into the Navy for four years, remarkably never serving on a ship at sea.

When I got out I took advantage of the G.I. Bill and had the government pay for me to get another bachelor’s degree, this one in psychology. I returned home to Marion so to help my parents run the family business, an ice cream shop.

Running an ice cream shop in a small town was surprisingly satisfying. People are usually in a good mood when they come and you get to do neat things like give high school students their first job and watch three generations of a family enjoying ice cream sitting at a picnic table together. I met my future wife during this time and she fit right in beside me and my parents.

There is one drawback to running an ice cream shop in a rural setting. It’s called winter. When it got cold the number of customers dwindled down to very few so we closed for the fall and winter months. Looking for work, I saw an opportunity to use a hobby started in the Navy, photography, to help with paying bills.

There are many avenues to take as a photographer but I zeroed in on being a free-lance newspaper photographer. I found it appealing that news photographers had to be close to the action in order to get the photograph newspapers needed. Up front, close in…I liked that.

That would lead to over two decades of covering the local news around Marion. I would say my becoming a newspaper photographer led directly to writing Mofette Jones vs. Cyrus Beck.

I was selling my photos to area newspapers just as the transition began of locally owned newspapers being bought by media corporations. I saw up close that this transition had a number of negative results for those employees of the newspapers and especially the communities that they served. Local control was replaced by corporate control. This was the start of the news media becoming obnoxious.

Hence this book.

I hope you find Mofette Jones vs. Cyrus Beck enjoyable and entertaining. I greatly appreciate you considering my writing as being worthy of your time to read.