I grew up listening in awe to the stories handed down from my family’s frontier past. The mystery of ancestry seemed to always be hidden in each story and my mind was puzzled by it. How did my family finally come to rest in the never ending sky country of the High Plains of Colorado where I was born. Ranch and farm life consumed my interests as a child. The animals, flowers, and insects and Fly, my horse, and Brownie, my dog, took charge of my education. I didn't really learn to read until I was nine years old—and then it happened, the printed word exploded and the outside world thundered into my life. Family, the Plains—life itself, took on new meaning and for the next twenty-five years the printed word took the place of all that had went before.

A degree later I found myself in Africa—on a frontier like I had envisioned for my ancestors. Instead of vast herds of buffalo and pronghorns it was equally vast herds of wildebeests and gazelle. A second degree later, with a magnificent family to draw strength from, the pendulum of life is returning, and now, nearly seventy years since I sprang up like a weed on the prairie, the circle of life has brought me back to the wonder of those lazy spring days in the sand-hills of Colorado.

I have discovered the real wonder of the book is in creating it—reading sparked the dream.

My wish for all who read my book is that it will stir your dreams into reality.