The Author and His Family

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Name Description
James, the author. Born in California, I settled in Lemon Grove, California, just east of San Diego, after 19 years developing computer software in Panama. Now I am writing two science fiction novels and a number of short works. Your comments and gentle criticism are welcome. Please visit my Web Log or my Alternate Web Log, journals with information about my current activities and about my writing. View my resume here.
Delia, James' wife. Delia was born in Chiriqui Province of the Republic of Panama. She is half Italian, part Irish and part Spanish. Delia now promotes fragrances and cosmetics. Both kids inherited her love of dance and song. She doesn't read or answer her email.
Derek, our son. Born in Ancon, Canal Zone, Derek hated leaving Panama. He now lives in Massachusetts. Derek designs Web pages through SP-webdesign. Look at his personal Web page, which he calls The Singing Panamanian.
Cathy, our lovely daughter. Also born in Ancon, Cathy returned to Panama after high school in California. She graduated from Florida State University through their extension program. After seven years living in Panama she has moved back to California. She has a little dog named Rocky who is absolutely fearless.

Facts About Me

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My birth I was born in San Diego's Mercy Hospital I should have been born on Friday the Thirteenth in December of 1940 Instead, I was born on Monday the Sixteenth My mother always said it was because the doctor wanted to play in a golf tournament that weekend My mother hated golf after that; I guess it rubbed off on me We lived in an adobe house in La Mesa until I was about six The part of La Mesa was called Calavo Gardens because most people raised avocados We raised avocados and chickens for sale and trade We also had oranges, lemons and grapefruit for our own use We had a small vegetable garden that I used to hate to weed
The early years My father was in the Navy, stationed in Hawaii Father had been in the Navy on submarines since the end of World War I Before going to Hawaii, Father had been stationed in the Caribbean, developing torpedos Father was in the hospital above Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked After the attack, the Navy shipped Father to a hospital in Maryland Mother and her cousin Barbara Jean drove us to Maryland to be with Father, then back again My sister, Linda, was born shortly after we got back from Maryland When Father recovered, he went back to Hawaii, where he remained until the end of the war I was a loner; there were other kids around but I considered them too stupid to be worth my time I liked climbing up avocado trees but not climbing down; I usually just dropped out
Early school I remember throwing big rocks at rattlesnakes while waiting for the school bus in the mornings I would finish my school assignments before anybody else and then spend my time daydreaming I didn't always cooperate with the teacher; if I didn't like an activity, I wouldn't participate My teachers didn't appreciate me but they did remember me, even years later when I had forgotten them After the war, Father worked for aircraft manufacturers as a machinist inspector We stayed in San Diego for a few years, until Father got a good offer from Boeing and we moved to Seattle Our first place in Seattle was a big, old house with a giant fireplace There was a door in the fireplace that allowed a tree to be fed in from outside We only burned coal briquettes in the center of the fireplace on a little brick platform built there We popped popcorn in a wire basket over the coals in the fireplace
Pacific Northwest My father grew up in Central Washington; much of his family still lived there We visited frequently with my aunts, my uncles and my grandmother My Aunt Enola cooked on a woodburning stove and made elderberry wine My Aunt Adela had compost heaps and grew the biggest, sweetest onions ever I got appendicitis after eating grapes, seeds and all, at Grandmother's house We went fishing frequently in rivers, lakes and in Puget Sound My favorite was fishing for salmon at Point No Point on Puget Sound After a bad experience with my cousins in Canada, I decided I didn't like fishing for trout We would also dig clams or knock oysters off of the rocks Eating fish, clams or oysters tends to make me violently ill
Back to San Diego We returned to California, to San Diego, when I was eleven We left Washington in the middle of a blizzard The duplex we rented was about a mile from a golf course I used to try to trap rabbits with a box trap on the golf course The rabbits were perfectly safe The school I attended was next to the San Diego Zoo Once I got to school early, climbed the fence and spent the day at the zoo Eventually my parents found a vacant lot they liked in Lemon Grove with a view of San Diego Bay A contractor was in charge of constructing the house but Father did much of the work himself Father never wanted me to touch a tool or to learn how to build or fix things
Middle and high school I attended Lemon Grove Junior High School The one thing I learned there was to appreciate legible handwriting I got good grades for scholarship but not for behavior I moved on to Helix High School in La Mesa I went from being a misfit to being a geek misfit, but I had company, other geeks I had the highest grade in the school in chemistry I was allowed to do a special project on fireworks At night my friends and I would set off thermite bombs on back roads During one open house evening I ignited a sulfur compound that smelled like rotten eggs and drove the parents out of the chemistry lab In my senior year the school asked me to leave early every day
After high school Helix also sent me on lots of field trips ... every chance they could They sent me to Cal Tech several times (where I learned about a lot of practical jokes) I got to listen to several lectures by Linus Pauling and one by Edward Teller I didn't earn any big scholarships, though, so I wound up attending San Diego State College Instead of a scholarship I got a federal civil service job as a Student Trainee They paid some of my school expenses and employed me summers and one year before graduation In addition to working summers, they had me attending classes in advanced subjects They also had me using sophisticated computers before they were available to others My first semester at SCSC, which I spent playing cards, was the only one in which I made the Dean's List I had a dual major, Mathematics and Anthropology
College and work The year I graduated only one school in the country had started to offer a computer degree program I convinced my mathematics advisor to let me load up my schedule with logic classes and ignore engineering math The Mathematics Department was unhappy with my untraditional approach They made it clear I would not receive advanced degrees in Mathematics The Anthropology Department wanted me to go on for my PhD with them The people I worked for wanted to send me to sea on a submarine to study underwater sound The draft board told me to report for a physical but my employer wouldn't let me Whatever my bosses said to the draft board, they never bothered me again The underwater sound physics study earned me a trip to Japan Shifting to physical oceanography later earned me a second trip to Japan
Getting to Panama I moved again, from oceanography to a computer science group (same employer) Following a nation-wide laboratory reorganization, I found myself back in sonar work All of the competent people had already left; the project was being mismanaged They asked me to fly to Australia and ride the sub to India to fix all the problems Can you say 'scapegoat'? I gave them two weeks notice and started calling people I spent the next two years on Johnston Atoll, a collection of desert islands inhabited by misfits Kentron Hawaii Limited then sent me to Panama as a Statistician on a new contract Five months later I was a civil servant again, working for the Panama Canal Company Their NCR mainframe computers were slow and feeble compared to the military hardware I had been using The first thing I had to do was learn some new languages, including COBOL and NEAT/3 (an assembler)
The latest I soon became the recognized expert in NEAT/3 utility programs and quick COBOL report programs I could also learn a new language or system faster than anybody else I became the resident troubleshooter ... and troublemaker I was drunk when I met Delia, who became my wife We met at a wedding on Valentine's Day She was a friend of the bride and I was a friend of the groom She spoke almost no English and I spoke almost no Spanish (but I learned fast) She was Catholic and I was ... casual The priest who later performed the ceremony, Fr. John Kennedy, tried very hard to discourage us We recently celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary