Bill Penrose is an aging chemistry researcher at "a well-known Midwestern
university" in the US. If that doesn't give you a clear picture right off,
remember what he tells his classes every year: "Chemistry is the only
profession that has no groupies." In fact, every time a chemist develops
something brand new and exciting, like buckyballs, or the polymerase chain
reaction, or Viagra, s/he scampers off and form a new profession, and calls
it anything, except chemistry.

Nonetheless, this red-headed, red-bearded descendent of a long line of
ex-Quakers nurses deep within his breast (note 1) a desire to observe and
analyze life's deepest mysteries. While still a teenager, he spent his
newspaper earnings on a new Remington typewriter (new in 1954, that is) and
wrote some very, very awful material, which brings the wrong kind of tears
to his eyes even today. This happened again at about age 24, and again at
age 40. Now waving a fond farewell to 60, he has at last achieved a
sufficient state of dementia to try to present some of his material to his
eager, imaginary groupies.

Bill is a family man, deeply in love with the endlessly indulgent Warrior
Queen, and surrounded by a scrabbling clan of red-headed children and
grandchildren, all of whom are asking him for money, and wanting to know the
terms of his will, and when is he going to die? He lives in a suburb of
Chicago, where his neighbors regularly try to burn him out, but succeed only
in raising his property taxes.

Note 1: Dr. Penrose does not techically have breasts. However, until a
recent successful diet, only a medically qualified person would have known
this. 

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