I’m on Facebook but that page won’t tell you right out that I’m in my 70s now and have had quite a range of experiences in my time. I was a college professor, taught English literature and writing for 30 years. I’m a husband, a brother and a father. I’ve been a homeowner all my adult life and a dedicated do-it-yourselfer. One of my projects in the 1970s was to put back on the road a VW Bus that was all pieces in boxes when I bought it. I have played guitar all my adult life, began serious study of the mandolin at age 34 and now my wife Kate Hulbert and I have worked up a little acoustic musical act of roughly half songs and half instrumental tunes.

I completed the book  Our Experience, Ourselves: How Experience Came to be Valued  so Highly by People in the West, in November, 2012. As the ad says, the book traces the evolving dispute about the value of experience from classical Greek times to our own, especially the shift during the European Renaissance by which people’s experience, especially artisans, saw a spectacular increase in authority. Once the Enlightenment Era set in, the notion began to grow up that our whole lives should be experience-based, or evidence-based. For the ad in the header I owe thanks to Brad at BLCreative.com.