I lived in Toronto, Canada, from August 1968 until August 1974. The first half of my book is the story of those years. All of it is original, although some brief sections rely on the Amex Archives, at the University of Wisconsin. I have lived in New York City since 1974, except 1987 to 1990, when I lived and worked with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. From 1965 to '68 I studied, first at University of San Francisco and then San Francisco State College. I left SF State in January 1968, and went to Canada in August of that year. I was born in Cottonwood, Idaho, and grew up in Pendleton, Oregon. I graduated from high school in 1964, with a scholarship to study at the University of Oregon in Eugene, but instead I went to a Jesuit seminary in Los Gatos, California, where I lasted just four months - didn't much like silent penitence or the prospect of lifelong celibacy! While in Canada I completed a BA in English at York University. I returned to the USA in 1974, first to work as a full-time organizer for the National Council for Universal Unconditional Amnesty. I then got "an honest job" as a typesetter, then moved to desktop publishing. I took this skill to Nicaragua, where I worked as a volunteer consultant for the Sandinista newspaper Barricada, and later for several other progressive publishers there. As detailed in my book, I have been a dedicated activist for social change ever since 1968.
