After leaving Nantucket, the author attended college for two years, but did not know what he wanted. He left and joined the US Navy, which enabled him to see a lot of the world. He lived in Boston for fourteen years working in a distillery, but the city life soon paled. Nantucket was now out of the question, so he bought a small house on Peaks Island near Portland, Maine. Six years later he moved there and for eleven years commuted to Portland where he worked as a clerk at the Maine Superior Court. At age fifty, deciding to go it alone, he quit his job and moved to Matinicus Island, which became his Shangri-la and substitute Nantucket. He has been running Tuckanuck Lodge, a bed-and-breakfast, since. In addition to his duties as an innkeeper, he is also the clerk-treasurer for the Matinicus Plantation Electric Co., the smallest publicly-owned generating facility in the United States, and is the caucus chairman for the island Democratic Party, often attending state conventions in Maine. A bachelor, he enjoys long walks around the island with his beloved dog, Sandy.
