I'm very happy to have landed in the Gulch...I was born at Los Angeles, California on May 2nd, 1933. I served as a U.S. combat Marine in the Korean war. Following my discharge from the Marine Corps, I attended a Los Angeles Art Institute to become a magazine illustrator.
My wife at the time was an avid reader, mostly of historical novels. She was working for a major ad agency to assist me in my education as an artist. One day, she brought home a very thick paperback book that a co-worker had loaned her and urged her to read. Night and day for the next six days she became totally engrossed in reading that book from cover to cover. When she finished it, she urged me to read it and said it would answer a lot of my questions regarding society, politics and personal freedom.
At the time, I was only 23 and had not read many books. In particular, I found the prospect of reading that book of more than a thousand pages intimidating, to say the least.
I, too, was consumed by Ayn Rand's philosophy as expressed in "Atlas Shrugged"
For me, the experience was as though my entire life to that point had been lived in a totally dark and fathomless cave. Rand's words were as though someone has ignited a match, flooding the darkness of my young mind with blazing, blinding light. Reading "Atlas Shrugged" became a pivotal event that has remained an inherent part of me to this date. That experience launched me into a lifetime of questioning, searching, learning and expanding my understanding of what is real and what is not -- of what is actual and what is contrived by others for the sole purpose of using and exploiting my intellect, my talents, my labor, and my beliefs.
I am grateful for this opportunity to join others of like mind in this modern version of Galt's Gulch.