A collection of words

Ever since I was a little boy with a bad haircut, I’d always loved writing and telling stories.

I started out telling stories visually, through cartooning, and, eventually, made up my own sports articles based on real games – using an old typewriter that my grandmother had given me.

By the time I was in high school, working on the school newspaper, I knew that my future would be in journalism.

I started my official career with Contra Costa Newspapers, in 1995, as a part-time prep sports writer for the Valley Times, in Pleasanton. I was raw. I had a voice and a style, but without the skills that come with experience to deliver the story in the clearest, sharpest way. I struggled, found things that worked, struggled some more … but always sought to get better, and did.

By the time I ended my career, eight years later, I was proud of what I’d become – a general assignment reporter who was capable of writing compelling stories on a wide variety of subjects, from Foot-and-Mouth disease and city growth to 9-11 security issues and the county’s last dairy farm.

What I enjoyed the most, though, was finding these stories -- or angles to existing ones -- on my own. A man who repaired typewriters in the year 2000. The county's last almond farm. Two boys who grew up dreaming of playing professional baseball together, their dream severed, and renewed again, after one nearly dies in an auto accident. Then going out there and telling these stories -- with detail.

This is my compilation of words and stories – in no order whatsoever, sort of like a newsroom on many days. I dedicate all of these words and experiences to my son, Caleb.

A parting thought, courtesy of the late Hemingway: “Will work again on the novel today. Writing is a hard business, Max, but nothing makes you feel better.”