2. His nick name in high school on the football team was "squints" because he couldn't see without his glasses!
4. What does Richard do in his spare time? Read a lot, plan exotic trips, communicate with teachers in
Scotland and
New Zealand, and SLEEP.
5. Richard got his first ticket in a '66 Corvette for peeling rubbing on Classen Blvd. Showing off did it. Shouldn't drive that way. It was $5.00.
6. His favorite color is Aquamarine or Turquoise.
7. Favorite place to visit was London, England.
8. Favorite place to scuba dive, St. John, USVI. It was the scariest place to dive with shark infested waters off Catalina Island, California.
9. As a teen he had his own lawn mowing business. Mowed two lawns before noon and then went to lake all afternoon to water ski. He was self-employed like that until he was 23 years old.
10. Richard flipped burgers at Mr. Swiss in Stillwater while in graduate school, then sold reference books door to door.
11. He learned to hunt and shoot with his grandfather Harry Trout on his farm in the Arbuckle Mountains near a place called Pooleville.
12. He spent his growing up years in West Texas in Lubbock and Levelland. He still misses the Mesquite trees, cactus, the beautiful caprock valleys and arroyos, and riding horses till dark.
13. His mother was a horseman and had an appaloosa and two palominos.
14. As a teenager, Richard played in a 60's style rock n roll band playing rhythm guitar on a Gibson SG Cherry Solid Body with two Fender Bandmaster Amps. We were called the Checkmates and won several battle of the bands across southern Oklahoma and played live on KOMA after winning the Battle of the Bands at the Marlow 4th of July Festival. Miss America Jane Anne Jayroe was one of the judges.
15. When he was ten, he got his first microscope and had two more as a teenager. His chemistry lab was the broom closet in the garage in Lubbock. A recent owner of that house notified him that they found his name written on the wall in the closet and is sending him the piece of wall!
16. Richard met his wife on a blind date his freshman year of college, that was 41 years ago.
17. What makes Richard smile.....watching a colt run through tall grass, laying down in a bed of blue bonnets, sitting on the bottom of the ocean just watching the fish play, looking through his telescope as the planets line up all in one row (happens only once every ten years), standing in a sleeping bag in the winter and looking through his telescope with the ground covered with snow and knowing that he is the only one in miles looking into space, watching kids play in a playground, having his favorite football team play hard--win or lose, and hearing from a reader who found something in his novels that helps them do the right thing in life.