1967
Licensed architect/practicing lawyer/wrote some books
Duke’s name brand so, even with an English degree, graduating from there is going to shove you to the front of a lot of packs. But the way I figure it, majoring in English is a means of putting off having to decide, while you’re still in college, what you want to do with your life. Probably a good idea for lots of undergrads but dropping out and seeing the world on your own for a few years is cheaper, way more fun and a good deal less stressful. Or joining the military, which is what I did after Duke, then used the GI Bill to pay for not one, but two, professional degrees without having to bug my parents for money, which would be a plus in anybody’s ledger. Also, and don’t scoff here, you’ll learn things in the military you’ll never learn at college, meet all sorts of people you’d never come across at Duke no matter how robust Duke’s DEI program and, unless you really screw up, come out with bragging rights and a lifelong sense of pride college will never give you. On the personal front, I’m an architect, a lawyer, wrote some books, married a few times until I finally got it right, lived in Botswana for four years, Morocco for two-and-a-half, and Oregon for most of the rest of the time (which is worth doing all by itself).
WHERE THE RIVERS RAN BACKWARDS (Georgia, Anchor) an account of my experiences as a combat engineer in Vietnam.
A FOOL’S GOLD (Bloomsbury) an account of legal cases I handled on the Oregon coast involving a sunken Spanish treasure galleon, of all things.
CRACKERS (Mercer) an account of growing up in the South during the Fifties and Sixties.
