Pope, James: - Born March 25, 1937, in Avoca, Iowa at home on a family farm. Attended a one-room country school for two years. At age fifteen upon my fathers death, I became an INSTANT ADULT taking dads job as janitor of Macedonia, Iowa Consolidated School, supporting my mother, older and little sisters. At age sixteen, I worked as a hired man on a farm for four years. After graduation, I joined the Navy and served twenty-seven years in submarines. After I retired from the Navy, I went to work for a utility company as a production controller supervisor of the computerized maintenance department. Starting out life in the "cash n' carry" world, where needs and savings were the law, we lived by. At the age of sixty, after working all my able life, I just stopped going to work. I have a wonderful partner. She and I have been together for thirty-two years traveling the world extensively. I don't know if I am a writer or just a storyteller that can uniquely connect the dots.