Biographical Note

I was born and raised in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a city of forty thousand in the northern part of the state, along the Massachusetts border.  Woonsocket shares the typical history of most New England mill towns.  By the 1970s, the city had long been in economic decline, and came complete with a polluted river running right through it, dozens of abandoned textile mills long past any point of safety or beauty (if they ever had either), a few real characters, and a number of (tasty!) greasy diners.  You can learn more about Woonsocket here, but to get the best sense of the place and its people, you really should just read a Richard Russo novel.  (Pretty much any of Russo's novels will do, though Empire Falls won a Pulitzer). 

I haven't been back to Woonsocket in a long time, sadly enough, though I hear it's been undergoing some nice changes.  A number of old mills have been, as they say, "structurally enhanced" and converted into townhomes, apartments—even a museum or two.   A park now runs alongside the entire cleaned-up river.  The park and river make up part of the Blackstone River Historical Corridor, and are home to an annual Riverfest and to several venues for outdoor activities, including canoeing and ice skating.  That is quite a change from my childhood days, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it all when I return for a visit, hopefully sometime sooner rather than later. 

The heart of Woonsocket, though, was neither its river nor mills, but the five generations of hard-working, boisterous, French-Canadian immigrants who worked them.  Because of these immigrants, I inherited a hometown suffused with Quebec French, Roman Catholicism, large families, patriarchy, and rough sports, like boxing and hockey.  So, not surprisingly, we—my three brothers, one sister, and bunch of friends—grew up worshiping Our Father and our Fathers, in addition to our fathers and the Boston Bruins, though not necessarily always in that order.  Our middle school rebellion, if it was one, consisted of transferring our devotion to the Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics.  So, I grew up watching and playing all kinds of sports, though by high school and college, I focused mainly on track, cross country, and, er, a little poker.  (So much for the rough sports.)  It was all quite fun.

My college "career" was somewhat odd in that I attended just about every kind of college it is possible to attend:  military institution (US Naval Academy); community college (CC of Rhode Island); small, private, religious, liberal arts institution (Providence College); mid-level "directional" university (University of Central Florida); and major research university (University of Florida).  From Providence, I received a BA in political science; from Central Florida, I received a BA in philosophy; and from UF, I received my MA and PhD in philosophy.  At some point between these degrees, I seem to recall being a salesperson—sorry:  "Account Consultant"—selling copy machines and yellow page advertising, though I'm still not sure these "memories" could be veridical.

After receiving my PhD from UF in 2003, I became Assistant Professor of Philosophy at California State University Bakersfield.  I officially left CSUB in 2007 to join my wife, Michele,  who had accepted a job offer with Hilton Uptown, in Charlotte, NC.  Nowadays, Michele is loving her new position as Client Coordinator for Whitehead Manor  Conference Center, and I'm loving my new position in the philosophy department at UNC Charlotte.  "Officially," I have two stepsons, Marc and Michael, who live in the Orlando area, though they had long been on their own when I entered their lives.  So they are more like very close friends rather than sons, step or otherwise, though the situation makes for great jokes around Father's Day.  I still enjoy watching and playing all kinds of sports, as well as spending time with family and friends, especially if that time is spent in the mountains of Western North Carolina.