Who’s Bud?

Bud was born in 1944 in New England and though he’s lived  in California since 1971, he’s still a New Englander at heart.    He’s been married (to the same woman!) for 43 years and has two grown children, a son and a daughter.   There is nothing that shapes you like life’s long-time companions and his family has shaped him for the better.    He is an electrical engineer with a PhD in something called Communication Sciences, which has more to do with how radios and radars work than with communication.    While science has provided an interesting and lucrative career, it hasn’t fed his soul, which hungers for music, art, theater, and books.   Musically, he’s mostly a listener inclined toward classical, jazz, and older rock with some new age and country thrown in for spice.    He loves the Impressionists, especially Monet and Renoir, and his paintings and drawings reflect that love.    Metropolitan Los Angeles provides hundreds of stage venues and since moving here 31 years ago, a constant has been live theater, from local storefront companies to major productions with Hollywood stars at the Music Center.    At Border’s, he’s an omnivore.  You might find him in the mystery (think Elmore Leonard) or literary (try Alice Hoffman) sections but there’s a 50-50 chance he’ll be checking out the self-help or spirituality aisle.    His affinity to bookstores goes beyond mere interest.   At crucial times in his life, he’s found exactly the book he’s needed placed where he would find it … an airport bookstore, misplaced in the wrong section, left out on a table.

Then there’s writing.   For years, he’s written everything from technical proposals to fiction.    Nearly every morning, he writes two or three pages, a habit Julia Cameron calls Morning Pages in The Artist’s Way.    He’s written short stories, essays and one novel, most of which reside in countless notebooks and desk drawer paper-stacks but one short-story, Cameos, was published in Byline magazine.    Lately, the essays have gathered, like summer moths to the back porch light, around the ups and downs of being sixty … which brings him to Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog.