I was born at a very early age, in a cabin I helped my father build. My earliest memories were of bundling up each morning in many layers of clothes before walking to school. Which was odd, since I lived in Central Florida. Caught up in the space race of the Sixties, I originally wanted to work for NASA, until I realized that it did take a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist. At the age of nine, while I was spending the summer with grandparents in Biloxi, my family moved to Atlanta. I'm sure they really meant to tell me. For the next 20-odd years (and believe me they were 20 of the oddest years, with apologies to Groucho), I grew to be a man through a wide range of residences, hairstyles, and jobs. Taxi driver, mechanic, fast food manager, paralegal, courier, road crew laborer - and that was just the hairstyles. Finally, with my diploma from Kennesaw State University (Harvard in the pines) in hand, I moved to New Orleans to embark upon the career of which every boy dreams: federal bureaucrat. Now on the cusp of my 40th birthday, I'm happily in North Carolina with my wife and five- count'em, five- kids, preparing disability evaluation ratings (talk about creative writing) for the VA and dipping a tentative toe into the chilly waters of composition.

If you want my view of history, there's some things you ought to know: The 3 men I admire most are Larry, Curly, Moe.

--Jim Steinman