I love to write. However, I must earn a living. So, just for fun, I decided to list the jobs and businesses I have owned.

As a child I was a caddie at the Concordville, Pa and Mahoning Valley Golf Courses. I got $5 for 18 holes.

As a child, I worked on a milk truck as a runner at 4 a.m. and delivered newspapers, the Allentown Morning Call and Panther Valley Times News. I was in sixth grade at the time and got $2-3 dollars a week.

While my father was stationed at Fort Gordon, GA I worked at the army base cafeteria bagging ice and busing table. The soda was free.

When we moved back to Pennsylvania shortly after graduation from Hephzibah High, I worked in a cemetery cutting grass and filling in graves.

My first full-time job was working for Loomtogs Sprotswear in Summit Hill at the age of 18. My starting wage was $1.86 and hour. Six months later I joined the International Lady Garment Workers Union and got a pay raise to $2.36/hour. I worked my way from the Marking Room, where they made patterns, to the Cutting Room. I operated both a straight and round knife.

A year later I decided to go to college. I had no clue what college was about. I used my saving from the factory to buy a canoe, which was the very beginning of my whitewater career, little did I know at the time.

In college I worked as a camp counselor and campus landscaping. But my big break came when I got a job working as a whitewater river guide on the Lehigh River after I'd built my own whitewater kayak.

On weekends I'd guided, and then worked after kayaking all day, at the Pocono Hershey Resort as a bartender, barman, and bouncer.

Of particular importance was the summer of 1976, I worked at Unity House as a Front Desk Clerk. It was just like the movie Dirty Dancing. Ironically, Unity House Resort was owned by the ILGWU. My union card was active at the time.

The following year, I decided to get a construction jobs, given that most of the guys from Jersey bragged about working construction all summer. I worked for PACE Construction at a lead recycling plant. My co-worker Burton lost his foot while we were jackhammering brick inside a rotary kiln. Seconds before he was hurt I'd asked if he wanted me to take over the jackhammer. Burton said, "no" and moments later the kiln caved in on us.

I wasn't hurt. Burt lost his foot. The next year, another co-worker was killed. His name was Johnny Lawton. He was run over by a forklift. When I graduated from College I was going to work as a river guide for a while, then pursue a masters in Geography and possibly a Ph.d.

That year, I got married and had children and couldn't move on, because I needed a way to feed my family.

For many years I harbored the notion of being in control of my own destiny. My first business was Lehigh River Company. I published and sold river maps. It amazed me to discover I could print something for .50 cents and sell it for $5.00.

I left Whitewater Challengers April 1987. I was the operations manager at the time.
Mariel, my third child was in the womb.

I planned on buying Whitewater Rafting Adventures. However, the recession hit, and no one would lift a finger to help this talented young man. Determined, I went to college on credit cards and Stafford Loans and got an MBA. Quickly, I realized no one in the Coal Regions in Pennsylvania would hire me, because I wasn't politically connected. So I pursued getting a CPA license because they seemed to have nice cars.

Meanwhile, I worked as an adjunct accounting instructor at several Community Colleges. It took nearly 10 years to get my CPA license.

I started an accounting firm in the small town of White Haven, and with a good friend Ted Newton, opened Lehigh Rafting Rentals in 1989.

My wife of 13 years decided to leave me,which left a rather stressful custody battle. I was awarded the children. However, after several follow-on legal battles, decided that the process was entirely to destructive on my children's mental state. It was the story of Solomon's Baby. I had to let them go.

My accounting firm grew and provided for me. Lehigh Rafting Rentals became successful in that it did well as a business. I sold my interest to Ted in 2000, who subsequently sold to Pocono Whitewater in 2003. It was truly a beautiful business.

It was too difficult to live in my hometown after my son Chris moved to California, so I got a real CPA job working for W.H.Simon, in Clearwater, Fl. I lasted two years and got a job working at the University of South Florida Small Business Development Center. I was there 12 years and taught entrepreneurship and health care management adjunct.

Currently, I work for the City of New Port Richey, Fl as the Economic Development Director. It is a challenging position to revitalize a small town. Let's hope I can succeed.

And I still write, with the dream to do it fulltime someday.