I'm recently retired and am hungry to see the world, have experiences and meet interesting people. I had a late blooming career in the law and now I'm most anxious to leave that all way behind me and become seriously frivolous - a seeker of adventure driven by curiosity and whimsy.

I live in that part of West Virginia that is close to Washington D.C. and Baltimore (about an hour from each) and even closer to Dulles Airport. My brilliant and engaging twenty-two-year-old son William lived with me until a year ago, and because he's in a wheelchair my house is accessible. After my son moved out my beautiful and wise daughter Sarah, along with my granddaughter, moved in with me and they live upstairs.

My delightful, sparkling and brave partner Linda, while slightly younger than me, retired a year earlier and is now more active than ever. She loves to travel, hike and adventure and she is my constant goad, example and inspiration.

When home in the Eastern Panhandle I like bicycling (great roads and dedicated trails) and canoeing (lots of good rivers and creeks very nearby) and hiking (the Appalachian Trail comes through Harpers Ferry with ten miles of my house).

I'm a movie buff and a bit of a foodie and I am interested in news and politics (although lately it's discouraging). I like spicy and exotic food (Indian, Thai, Mexican, Chinese) and good beer (stouts, porters and ales) and red wine. My partner (because she's smarter than me) is a vegetarian and that's good too.

I've been to, India, Kenya, Tanzania & Zanzibar, Germany, Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Luxembourg, Azores (Portugal), Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Cuba

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To enrich my experience of life and to widen my horizons by getting to know all sorts of other people. I also like that couch surfing immediately draws you into a community - both of the physical place you are and the community of couch surfers, of open, positive and adventurous people.

I had my first couch-surfing experience as a guest in Portland Oregon. (I've also couch-surfed in France plus I've hosted surfers from Europe.) When I told my then 21-year-old son about counchsurfing he was perplexed and asked "why would anyone want old people on their sofa?"

Music, Movies, and Books

I seriously like Tom Waits, Miles Davis is a genius ("Kind Of Blue" and so many other great albums), Tal Farlow is a brilliant original ("Isnt It Romantic" is one of my favorites), Bill Evans is cool, very cool, I like Cumbia and Chambachu that sexy shuffling beat from Colombia, I like anything with accordions (especially French or Italian music), "Love Me Or Leave Me And Let Me Be Lonely" by Nina Simone is the greatest single jazz performance, "Cest Si Bon" by Eartha Kitt is terrific- "What's New" by Helen Merrill is perfection, I love anything with John Coltrane (especially "Lush Life" - Frank Sinatra is always a kick - Bobby Darin's version of "A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square" thrills me (if you haven't heard it you need to) - I love that crazy Louie Prima (Just A Gigalo) - just lots of music, even musicals (The Music Man, Oklahoma and Caberet) and opera arias by Pavoratti and others and classical (Chopin, Mahler, Ives) - rock The Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart, The Talking Heads, Dion and the Belmonts ("Run Around Sue" is fantastic - Dion's voice is like a saxophone! )

Movies would be Oh Brother Where Art Thou, No Country For Old Men, Body Heat, Chinatown, Sabrina (Billy Wilder version), Terminator II, Dr. Strangelove, many more can't think of them right now.
I loved Breaking Bad and House of Cards, and am wild about the TV series Fargo (even better than the movie).

I loved the novel "Shantaram," read and loved the entire Patrick O'Brian Jack Aubry swashbuckling Brtish navy series - like the Lincoln Lawyer series - enjoyed the Plantagenets by Ron Jones - really liked Harold Lamb's "The Crusades" (a very old book) - and liked Alan Moreheads "The White Nile." Have always liked Thomas Hardy, Flaubert and Balzac plus Death on the Installment Plan by Celine. I also liked the racy mystery novel "Adios Muchachos" by Daniel Chavarrïa.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I was present in the room by the operating table for the birth of both of my children, which was an intensely emotional experience like onto discovering a true religion. I was also, along with my two children, my mother and siblings, by my father's hospital bed when he died at age 92. Years ago I bought a small house in a village near Madison Wisconsin and by myself built on a wing (doing the masonry, the plumbing, the carpentry including building roof trusses, and the electric) which more than doubled its size. Twenty-seven years ago I ran for election in a contested judicial election against an entrenched incumbent and won - surviving two subsequent elections.