Me with my wife Cindy shortly after we got married in 1978. The Mississippi River is in the background. We met in an Episcopal church in Madison, Wisconsin a year after I joined the choir and she became the new choir director.	The kids. Stephen, Emily, and James Stephen started his own DC band, "Svenzarelli and the Toads."  "Sven," (as we call him) plays drums, guitar, and trombone. Emily is working on her Ph.D. in Creative Writing at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. James is the drummer for the band Arizona www.arizonatheband.com Arizona opened for the Indigo Girls in October 2006, recorded with Amy Ray of the Indigos on her upcoming solo album, just completed a national tour, and Arizona is featured on the soundtrack of the film "Anywhere USA" which just won an award at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.  He divides his time between NYC and Asheville, NC.	All of us at Oak Alley Plantation near New Orleans, 2003
The Mom and Dad N. George and Ruth E. DeDakis Summer, 1939, a year after they got married. Dad served as an artillery officer in World War II with the 104th Infantry Division (Timberwolves). His unit helped to liberate the port of Antwerp, Belgium and the Nordhausen concentration camp in Germany. He and I were going to practice law together, but then I went over to the Dark Side and became a journalist. Mom was an elementary school teacher. Whatever teaching ability I have, I got from her. They were married for 53 years.	Georgia Ann 1942-1980 My "big" sister	My favorite picture of me with my daughter, taken about 1987. Emily is a writer now. Her cogent, nit-picky editing of FAST TRACK helped make it better.
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	I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru in September 2007 as research for my second novel (working title "Bluff")