Bruce Filbeck was born in the "Thumb" of Michigan a handful of years more than a half century ago. In spite of assurances from his mother that he would come to an early end if he didn't behave himself, he is, at this writing, living in the "Thumb" of Michigan. It appears that the ability of mothers to predict the future is highly over-rated.

During the many years since his birth, Bruce "worked" at a variety of things. He has been an FAA Certified Flight Instructor and Ground Instructor, has run a mail-order business selling postage stamps to collectors, was a reserve police officer in a small North Texas city for 5 years, raised crops and critters on a farm for a few years, and did a bit of free-lance writing. He has done some computer repairing, some classroom teaching, some parachuting, some machine gun shooting, and even a bit of recruiting.

He has lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, New Jersey, Vietnam, Washington State, Michigan, Illinois, Texas, and Michigan again.

He has been married a couple of times, raised a couple (three actually) of kids, had a couple of cats, several dogs, and a lot of really great times in his life. He loves people, plants, dogs, music, reading, writing, bourbon, and chocolate ice cream.

He has written a lot of non-fiction. His published work has ranged from book reviews to computer related technical pieces to how-to articles on raising honeybees. He writes an occasional guest column for the "Opinion" page of the local daily newspaper. He has enough opinions left to supply him with column material well into *his* next century.