Book Description

I was born just before World War II began, and I am very surprised now that I am much older how much the world has changed and how I had to change careers with it to be successful. I wrote this book initially as a present to tell my grandchildren about the world I grew up in. I was fortunate to live in a beautiful small town in Massachusetts called Nahant. This book is my memory of how I grew up as a young fisherman and helped build several lobster fishing boats under the direction of a first-generation Italian lobsterman. I was paid to travel to Puerto Rico, war-torn Germany, England on a former troop ship, and South Africa where I discovered the evils of apartheid first hand plus the major ports of Eastern Africa and how they lived much different from us! After arriving home, I made two trips through the Panama Canal and visited all of the major cities on the west coast of South America. Two years later, I graduated from the academy and received a license to operate huge merchant ships and worked on some of the nicest cruise ships in the world to the historic ports of Europe, Greece, Egypt, North Africa, India, Pakistan, and Burma. Traveling the world gave me an education that helped shape the rest if my life. Eventually, I left the sea for shipyard work where I helped build the world's first nuclear-powered Navy cruiser and eight nuclear submarines. Eventually, the Cold War was over, and I moved on to nuclear-powered electricity-generating plants ashore with a Boston engineering firm. I was fortunate to marry Lily, a wonderful woman from Honduras born in a jungle hospital of United Brands, who unfortunately passed away. We were fortunate to raise two great kids: Jim, who is legally blind, and Pat, who now travels the world with the internationally known platinum record band Extreme. Many people and adventures were described. Many other people and places were discussed!