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author
Douglas Patterson
With the exception of a three year stint in the U.S.Army, I have spent my life in and around the public schools. My parents were both teachers, and I have taught language arts courses at the high s...view moreWith the exception of a three year stint in the U.S.Army, I have spent my life in and around the public schools. My parents were both teachers, and I have taught language arts courses at the high school level for a total of 37 years.
I was born during the great depressions and grew up in Southern Idaho (both literally and figuratively) just north of Poverty Flat. I lived in the very small town of Bellevue, Idaho, that had a population of some 500 people and an equal number of dogs. In this rural environment, I enjoyed a Tom Sawyer like life, not on the Mississippi but rather on the Woodriver where my friends and I fished an swam and roamed the riverbottom and the surrounding hills from morning til night. My parents never locked the doors to our house, and we never worried much about it being burglarized. (For you skiers,Sun Valley is seventeen miles north of this town.)
After graduating from Hailey(now Woodriver) High School,I enrolled at the University of Oregon at a time when the school had a student body of 5,000 students and the football team rarely won a game.
After graduation, I spent a marvelous tour of duty with the U.S. Army which took me to Europe. I was stationed in Germany for a couple of glorious years and became a dedicated Europhile.
After I was discharged, I started my teaching career in the small town of New Plymouth, Idaho, near the Oregon border. After three years, I moved to Yakima, Washington, where I worked as an English and German teacher for the next 34 years.
After retiring,I quickly grew bored and began writing books primarily for my own amusement. Four of the books that I am publishing with Smashbooks are language arts textbooks focusing on linguistics, critical thinking, and literal and literary composition. The other two deal with self-improvment and very basic economics.
Because breaking into the traditional publishing business has always been such a long shot,I was very pleased to see ebook publishing develop into a platform for people like me who are looking for an inexpensive way to offer their materials to the public.
Since they say that confession is good for the sould, I must admit that my picture was taken by a yearbook photographer at least twenty-five years ago. I have no defense except to say, "Vanity thy name is not woman alone!"view less