I thought a lot about my author bio and how I wanted it to look.  Should it read, I mused, chronologically, year by year, like a statistician’s ledger?  Nah, too boring.  Maybe it should read like a resume, with glowing reports on my ability to do almost everything, with some impressive “name dropping” along the way.  Possibly, but who likes resumes and I have no one’s name to drop anyway.  Maybe I should write a flowing short story in which I regal myself with so many platitudes that the reader would be left dazzled, with amazing juxtapositions of past and present time frames.  Even I laughed at that one.  Or, as Jack Webb once famously said, how about “just the facts”.    

As I write this sometime in January of 2008, I will be 62 years young on June 13.  I was born in Lebanon , Indiana , the first born to Robert Paddack and Bonnie Shoemaker.  Three sisters followed, Candee, Valerie, and Jackie. 

My family was one of many who could not resist the call of the west, eventually migrating to Southern California after a stop in Chicago for a few years, in which my father got involved in a strange new industry ― television. 

In California and fascinated with electronics, by father got a job with Lockheed Aircraft and became a field service representative, which meant that he had to be on site at various military installations around the country.  That made me a civilian version of the military brat, and our cross country travels took us to Pat uxent River , Maryland (Navy), Cape Cod , Massachusetts (Air Force), West Springfield , Massachusetts (Air Force), and Jacksonville , Fl orida (Navy).  There were other stops in between, but in 1959 my mother put an end to our gypsy lifestyle and insisted that we take root.  We settled in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California .  My mother, you see, had the hardest job of all ― raising four kids.  She did that while living temporarily from site to site and not having a place to call home.  She was a courageous woman and, like most children, I guess, I learned to respect more as I got older.

I went to Granada Hills High School in the early 60’s, and barely passed, escaping with a diploma in 1964.  I took residence at a junior college for a year, but decided to take a shot at the ministry and moved to London , England for a time in 1965 – 1966.

Deciding a life dedicated to the church was not for me, I made a poor choice in timing and came back to the good ole’ US of A too early to get back into college and take advantage of the deferment.  I was welcomed home by Uncle Sam. 

 I spent 1966 – 1968 in the United States Army, taking basic training at Ft. Ord , California , aviation mechanics school at Fort Rucker , Alabama , and then, thank the Lord, avoided Viet Nam and ended up at Fort Wainwright , Fairbanks , Alaska for the duration of my short two year military career.  My writing interest might have developed there.  When I reported for duty at my company on that cold Monday morning in January of 1967, the first sergeant looked us over and asked, “Can anyone here type?”  Now for the life of me I can’t remember why, but in high school I took a typing course, one of the few smart things I’ve done in my life.  So I answered in the affirmative, and became the company clerk that day.

I was honorably discharged in June of 1968, and went back to junior college that fall, finally graduating in 1970.  Then, of course, I moved again, this time to Honolulu , Hawaii for no other reason, I suppose, than moving was in my blood.

Back home in Southern California after my Hawaii adventure, I decided to return to school and entered California State University at Northridge, finally getting a four year degree about 11 years after I graduated from high school (remember that “barely graduated” part). 

All set to start graduate school in the fall of 1974, life decided to throw me a curve ball and I was suddenly and unexpectedly embroiled in a divorce, my wife of less than 3 years walking out on me.  So I skipped grad school and kept skipping along until I landed at St. Thomas , United States Virgin Islands , where, even as I approached my 30^th birthday, the life of a beach bum seemed very appealing.  Finally, left with a choice of beach bum, going back to grad school, or reaching out for the preverbal “bird in the hand”, I made a career decision and became an Air Traffic Controller at the St. Thomas Control Tower. 

I lived on the island for almost four years before transferring to the control tower in Tucson , Arizona in 1978 with an eye on returning to the west coast.  So, of course, I transferred to New York in 1980, working at the New York TRACON in the JFK sector. 

On August 3, 1981, life changed when myself and 12,000 or so other PATCO controllers went on strike and I watched the President of the United States warn me, on national television, that I had 48 hours to report back to work or I would be “terminated”.  Yeah, right, was my retort to the television screen.  Never happen.  Well, it did.  Despite President Clinton lifting the ban in 1993, I was never rehired back into the profession I loved. 

If you don’t consider some short stays in Washington , D.C. , and Las Vegas , Nevada , I have managed to plant myself, living in the same house on Long Island that I bought in September of 1980.  I met Jane Testaverde my second day on Long Island and the self-made promise of never marrying again went out the window pretty quickly.  Jane and I were married one year to the day we met on May 31, 1981.  It was also 63 days before the PATCO strike.  For reasons only she could understand, she has put 100% of her effort into making our marriage work.  Yes, that’s an admission of my basic immaturity. 

For the past 20 years I have been working as a machinery and equipment appraiser.  Of course, I chose a profession that would put me on the road and moving about.  I’ve to all 50 states and travel internationally as well, although international travel is mostly limited to the Caribbean , Canada , and Mexico .  Being on the road a quarter of the time may also explain why the marriage has worked.  No one could put up with me all the time!  Jane needs those breaks.

  I laugh when I tell people that I know restaurants in airports and places to eat in roadside rest areas better than I know restaurants in my own town.

 People always ask me which airline is the best, and I say none.  They are all equally bad.  It saddens me that a once great industry has been reduced to “cattle car” type service.  I’m also asked which cities I have visited do I like the best.  That’s a little more difficult.  Eliminating the Caribbean (the “beach bum” is still in me, you know), and noting that I rarely get time to spend much time at a place (I am there for work, after all), the three places that have intrigued me the most are San Antonio, Texas (if you have never been to the River Walk in San Antonio, shame on you!), Nashville, Tennessee, and Las Vegas, Nevada. 

My marriage was never blessed with children, so there had to be things to take up my time other than work.  I love boating and I’m on the water every chance I get.  And writing.

Now I must regress a bit.  The 1981 strike left me empty, angry, and bitter.  I struggled for control and meaning for a number of years, and put Jane through a lot of garbage that she didn’t need to go through.   I was once told that “being an ex-air traffic controller seemed to be far more important to me that anything I might be doing at the time”.  I found that to be a fair and accurate statement.  It was recommended to me that I write my feelings down as a means to take away the anger and bitterness.  Thus Crossing Runways was written and, I will admit, its writing was cathartic in nature ― something I had to churn out from inside my soul.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, but was never good at English or grammar in school, as some of you know from reading my books.  That’s a big regret now as I struggle to learn the tools to help what limited writing skills I have. 

My two novels and the novel I’m working on now, Border Heat, are all about what I know ― air traffic control.  After 26 years, it is still a passion, although the Federal Aviation Administration has reverted back to its pre-1981 mentality and is making the working conditions for the current controllers pretty much intolerable.  That is very sad for me. 

“Thank you.  I know all that, but I’m down to fumes now - and, even if I had the fuel, I’m not going anywhere into this head wind.”   

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