Rumor has it that the first noise to come out of my mouth at birth was not “wah” but “why”? Maybe, maybe not. The question of how a passion for understanding became fixed on matters related to the recorded history of humanity presents a deeper mystery. Was it born at St. Mary’s Hospital in July 1955 or five years later in the balcony of the West Theater watching the film Ben-Hur? Did the movie find it there or put it there? Was what happened in that darkened Duluth theater an implant or an extraction? It would take five teams of the world’s most eminent archaeologists to even begin to scratch the surface of that conundrum.

Do you know the line in William Wordsworth’s 1807 poem, My Heart Leaps Up: “The child is the father to the man”? I kind of believe it to be true. My earliest memories include countless encounters related to historical subjects—from “Mr. Peabody’s ‘Wayback Machine’” segment of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Saturday morning cartoon to The Time Tunnel, a prime-time TV show that recounted, episode by episode, the bewildering experiences of two physicists “lost in the vortex of time,” stumbling through major tragic events in history. I also got more than my fill of tales of the American frontier with The Adventures of Jim Bowie (and his cool knife), Davy Crockett (and his way cool coonskin cap), The Rifleman (whose modified rifle could be whipped around for rapid fire with its large-ring lever), and Daniel Boone (I still remember the theme song). And don’t get me started about Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wah, Yancy Derringer’s silent Pawnee partner who carried two concealed weapons: a customized double-barreled shotgun and a holstered throwing knife (behind his neck). The list is endless.   

No big surprise that when I decided to attend college I majored in history. I earned a B.A. and M.A. at the University of MN, Duluth. Next step was PhD work in Russian history at Indiana University (Bloomington). When 1970s academia suffered a major shift in the weather with turbulence in the Middle East shuttering teaching prospects for Russian/Soviet studies, my ambitions turned to the private school sector. Fortunately, I landed a position at Breck School in Minneapolis. For the next forty years I taught a wide variety of mandatory and elective courses and wrote most of the curricular materials for both.

I’ve served as a consultant for several historical documentaries, including the eight-part series Life in the Middle Ages; the five-episode A History of the Renaissance for Students; the eight-part examination of our 35th president, JFK: A New World Order; and the eight-part series Ronald Reagan: The Life and Legacy.

My work as both a student and a teacher has earned recognition and numerous awards. I received the Washburn Award for “Outstanding Achievement as an Undergraduate,” the Excellence in Teaching History Award from the Minnesota Historical Society, the Distinguished Teacher Award from the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars, and the Jean Wigley Teaching Excellence Award from Breck School. I even received a shout-out from one of America’s premier novelists, Louise Erdrich, who mentioned my work in her “By the Book” interview in The New York Times Book Review (April 28, 2016).