Thanks Books, sharing backgrounds is a great idea. The people on this site have impressive resumes ranging from former active duty military and history majors with a passion for field research to newcomers who know how to shoot but really want to feed the soul on the core American experience.
I'll share mine and everyone, please contribute as well.
I became a shooter at age 8 and got heavily involved in scouting also. Through my childhood into adulthood, my family had a cabin up in the San Bernardino Mountains and I spent a lot of time at various outdoor camps and taking outdoor, flora & fauna, tracking, & survival classes. I soon branched out on my own tracking, hiking, hunting and camping. As a teen, I got recruited into the mountain man scene and started doing everything from frontier colonial to American Civil War and Frontier Expansionist. I lost interest in the bang-bang battle scenarios pretty fast because they did more to spoil my sense of historic immersion than they did enhance it. My focus centered more on tracking, trailing, primitive camping, hunting, equestrian and the various aspects of non-electric homesteading. Simultaneously, I developed a strong interest in ancient history and studying the pre 1900 United States while amassing a pretty extensive collection. I am also involved with a lot of modern stuff that really does not apply for here. I harbored all this as my various hobbies keeping my life as an outdoorsman separate from my career in international sales/marketing and journalism. After talking with some publisher friends, I made the decision to shift my writing from audio-visual technology to my true passion which is the outdoors.
So here goes...
Okay, what's the next member's story?
-Dave