Chronology

1954

Born December 14, Albany, Kentucky, Ronald Wesley Stearns to Leah Rose Rector and Harold Stearns.

1954-1960

Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio. Sister, Rose Yvonne, born 1957.

1960

Parents divorce.

1960-1963

Dayton, Ohio. Mother works as a waitress. Thelma is our live-in baby sitter.

1963

Mother marries James David Tower. We move to South Florida.

1963-1973

School in South Florida. A few months in Hartford in 1963-1964. Adopted by new father and become a Tower. Graduate from Miami Palmetto High School, 1973. Brother, John David, born 1964. Wrote first poems at 15. All early poems are lost except "There Was a Man", written at 21, and "Koheleth and John", written at 25.

1973-1975

Hitch hike to Colorodo. Come back to Key West, where my parents have moved. Then Miami. Work in carpet warehouse. Then into a meditation ashram. Move to another ashram in Tampa.

1975-1979

College. One year Hillsborough Community College, Tampa. One year Florida Keys Community College, Key West. Two years University of West Florida, Pensacola. Graduate with BA in Mathematics. Publish a poem in Konglomerati.

1979-1985

Live in Dayton, Ohio with brief stays in Pensacola thinking of returning to school and in San Diego working. Work as software developer with NCR, in a small startup, and as an independent contractor. Marry Susan Poppa-Higgins in 1984.

1985-1995

Live in Granville, Ohio. Work at AT&T Bell Labs in Columbus as a software developer. Adopt our daughter, Shamsi, in 1986. Give away hand-made books of poetry under the titles Ballads and Pyrrhotown calling it the Junk Mail Project.

1995-1998

Live in Haifa, Israel. Work as a software developer. Publish three poems in Arc Light. Start an ongoing, growing, Web published collection under the title The Pyrrho of Martinsburg.

1998

Back to Granville, Ohio. Work at Lucent Technologies in Columbus as a software developer. Father, James David Tower, dies.