My name is Tom McFarland and I was born and brought up on the coast of Maine. During my childhood in the Fifties, I remember mostly the odd attitudes of the local people. It was as if they were envious of the rest of the nation but didn't want to change their own lives, they wanted "their cake and eat it too". It was a time of great excitement though, people were beginning to have credit and owning their own houses and cars. I believe it was the birth of the "Material Age".

I was educated in the small community of Camden. During high school, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy and shipped out shortly after graduation. Thinking I might go to Vietnam, I married my childhood sweetheart at age nineteen.

After my stint with the Navy, I returned home and went to work at the local bank, settled into a small house and had one of two children. Ambition led to a divorce. I then remarried, to Carol McVicar from Winchester, Massachusetts, and we moved to Texas.

I have been employed in many occupations and have found that middle management offered me the most in my life. Perhaps being a middle child made it a natural home for me, observing leadership above and directing below. I was brought up in the Baptist church and as soon as I left home, I left the church. I still won't belong to an organization who won't accept me and my beliefs.

The morality and responsibility I adhere to today was taught to me by my mother and father. My life lessons about birth and death, family and friends were etched deeply into my soul. Its difficult to find unconditional friendships or relationships today along with honesty and integrity. I guess that is why I have started writing, to put a message out to remind people they're out there.