Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

We dug the hole and laid the tree gently in. With our bare hands Dad and I firmed the soil around it. I remember my Dad next to me. We placed it in the midst of a land that had experienced tremendous pain, the land of my late-aunt, Elenita. Her first born died within weeks of being born, then her second-born, Maria Elena, a graduate of Boston College and Babson was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently passed away. Maria Elena had been building playgrounds in eastern Europe with the non-profit organization championed by President James Carter, Habitat for Humanity. This was in the years after the Chernobyl nuclear fallout. Her work with the organization was not far from it. The whole family went through the saga of her long and drawn-out fight and death. It utterly brought us all to the ground in a gut-wrenching, yet beautiful way. There where constant communal prayers that involved Elenita’s and Maria Elena’s friends, special family dinners, and constant visits. ...

My home in Oahu’s North shore town of Haleiwa was a 2 bedroom ‘shotgun’ plantation wood structure left over from the 1940’s. It sat on a raised level just across the towns only 7-11 store on Kamehameha Highway. My backyard overlooked the pineapple fields and the massive mountain range that shoots out to Kaena Point, the most westerly tip of O’ahu. While in Hawai’i, I worked as a life skills trainer to a young, feral girl on the autism spectrum. On my time off, I would explore the island, surf, join bonfires on the beach and race through the pineapple fields. There was always talk of protecting the North Shore’s natural environment and warding off big development was very important to the people of the town. Everyone liked the way things where. My neighbor, originally from Oregon, was an exceptional Mormon surfer guy who use to go out at midnight off Sunset Beach with a spear and long flippers to fish all alone. I was amazed he stayed alive.  A jack-of-all-trades...

What is this television thing? What visions does it tell? Are they not like food for our mind? Is there not nutritious food AND junk food? How much food is enough? Do we eat all day long non-stop? What happens when we eat late at night? Is it smart to eat junk? What do we feed our children? What kind of diet do we sustain them by? How can we empower our children? How educational is Dora and Barney actually? I saw a boy yesterday playing on some sand dunes talking up a one hour story all to himself.. completely entertained. A bright boy, big smile coming out of his big cheeks, a happy boy.. loves his tech time, but he seems to equally love his non-tech time. He sings his heart out through a microphone, seeks me for our made up 'Adventure Minecraft' time where we basically become artists. We dance a special tai chi.. all free styling, with Coach Bill throwing him into the air, around his back, 180 flips and all the time talking the story. Everything else stops in those mo...