A Puzzled Existence: A 60 Year Autobiographical Portrait By The Artist

"a.PUZZLED EXISTENCE" is my autobiography covering 60 years of my life, from 1950 until 2010 when it first appeared in print. This book is a factual account of everything that had an impact on my being to make me the person that I am today. I opened my first art studio in 1970 and sold a piece of metal sculpture, that was the beginning of " Alchemy Studio, Inc " and 43 years later it is still active as an art & design studio, and a publisher of Fine Literary Works. If you would care to see more information, including artwork and credentials, please visit our web site at: http:/www.alchemystudioinc.com, the site contains many links to various awards and honors which have been bestowed throughout the years. But getting back to "a.Puzzled Existence," the title I had chosen seemed to describe the flow of my life, this book is not necessarily about my art career, or my work as an artist, it deals with all of the factors that when grouped together, made me how I am as an individual. Nothing in this book has been left to chance, I would like to say that it is 98.9% accurate in terms of facts. I found much of the earlier information in the form of small journals that I kept on those soft brown covered school notebooks, I also used love letters, calendars, (which I have saved for many years) and other sources. One of the things that you may notice in the beginning of this book, is my reference to cars.I grew up with three other brothers, we were in the trucking business after my 12TH birthday, and we raced cars, so that became an important factor in my life during those formulate years. It helped me place myself in an exact time frame by the car that I drove, then the other mitigating factors would fall into place. Though I must tell you, this book is definitely not about just cars, nor is it a travel manual, or cookbook. The content is about all of those things and people that surround us as we grow, some are good influences and others may get us thrown in jail, I was a vassal of both! My early childhood was that of dire poverty, we had no indoor plumbing or central heat. The water came from a well in front of the house, which you had to defrost with kettles of hot water in Winter to pump water, if it wasn't dry! Wells then to go dry in the Winter. Our other " convenience " was in the back of the house, at the end of the clothes lines, from which frozen pants and underwear were collected and placed behind the coal stove to defrost. In the ' outhouse ' we used Sears & Roebuck catalogs for tissue, back in the 50's, they were printed on a type of newsprint paper. This was our sex education. Every 6 months, a new catalog would come in and when my mother was through, it became a part of the outhouse, hanging on a clothes hanger. Everyone would go for the page's that dealt with women's lingerie, if you were lucky, you got there first because they would be missing and you knew that they were not ' down there.' It was cold, and so was my family, we were Germans and they never say the word love, ever! At least in my house, my father was a coal miner at that time and my mother was a highly educated woman from the New York area. I never understood that combination, it would have been like going to Mars for my mother after what she was accustomed to. Just cooking on a coal stove takes some real skill, too much coal and air and the oven would burn your bread, not enough, well, you get the picture! My father was not a very nice person and he used me to take out his frustrations, physically, closed fist. My book does not whine on about how terrible my childhood was, I did not write a self help book, though maybe something I placed on paper might help some young person overcome their misery. In those days everyone was poor, and everyone had a father like mine, that was simply the way it was. "a.PUZZLED EXISTENCE" takes you on a journey, through combat in Vietnam and my life after that.Some of this book is brutal, some is humor,but it is all my life!

My freshman year in high school, it was a Friday and I was supposed to be doing a book report, you undoubtedly remember them, the instructor asked me how my report was coming and I said fine, which was a lie because I did not read a book. So, then she said what book are you reading, I told her it was a book that I wrote called: " Blood on my hands and a knife in my back," she proceeded to tell me that it was fine as long as the book was on her desk Monday morning! Needless to say, I spent every waking minute writing this illegitimate child of my sloth and lies. It was my first book and there was only one copy, which she kept and is probably in the catacombs beneath the Vatican with many other of my insults to humanity and that particular faith. I was not raised a Catholic, but my brothers and I were sent to a private school run by the Sisters of Mercy, which, by the way, is a misnomer. During those hard times, I wondered where my mother got the money for this, though she wanted us to have the best academic education she could buy. As I mentioned before, we were dirt poor during those years, my father, after being entombed in the coal mines one to many times, quit and started to deliver coal as a business, he had four indentured servants! That was how it started, we began working at the age of 8, taking care of these trucks, then with age we became helpers on a coal truck, then at 16, drivers. In 1962 many things changed, my father " acquired " a fleet of trucks and we began to get rich. Running water was installed in our house along with other massive renovations. My mother kept a personal library of about 2000 books, and she constantly played classical music when my father wasn't around. We were not allowed to watch anymore then 2 hours of television, sometimes less if HE decided it to be less. But, I can tell you in all honesty, my book is not about any damage this may have caused, if there was damage to be done, my tour in Vietnam saw to that, permanently! I enlisted in the U.S.Navy in 1968, not the time to enlist in the military, especially when you are a prime spokesperson against the war! I made a deal with my Uncle which allowed me to finish my AAS degree (2 year Associate Degree) one week after I graduated, I was gone. After a stint on a Destroyer out of Norfolk I was sent to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where I got into an argument with a Marine doctor who then wrote me a prescription for Vietnam. That impacted my life ever since! Read it!