My first 8 years were happy, healthy, and prosperous. My next 3 years were something I would not want to re-live. The high school years were okay and I planned to be a writer. Then I won a scholarship to The University of Pittsburgh. I had been a welfare brat and knew I shouldn't "waste" a college scholarship on anything that wouldn't earn a decent living. So, I entered the U. of P. at age 16 and graduated with the B.S. in chemical engineering at age 20. After a brief, but happy, employment in the Research Lab of the Freedom-Valvoline Oil Co., I was drafted into the U.S. Army for the Korean war. There, I spent 2 years writing specifications for the Chemical Corps. After that, I accepted a job with Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp., working on a secret government project, not knowing what the job was or where it was. So,for six years I worked on the High Energy Fuels program, playing with boron hydrides that were highly toxic, pyrophoric (self-igniting), and explosive in certain combinations. Four of our guys died in three sparate explosions. The project was suddenly closed in 1959 for excellent reasons. Of the thousands of people who had worked on that very expensive project, I was apparantly the only compulsive writer in the crowd. When I was sure that secrecy was no longer important, I began writing, "The Green Flame", the only book that really told the story. It was first published by The American Chemical Society in 1991 and is now an e-book. In the meantime, I had written a humorous western novel, "THirsty", which was published in 1983. It was well-received, and is still available as a recorded book (Books In Motion, Spokane, WA), and recently available as an e-book, titled, "Sundown In Thirsty." A genuine NY agent offered to represent me if I would continue to write western humor. I gave the wrong answer (No) and hence my hodge-podge of 6 self-published books have not done well.
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