About Finding My Way

Finding My Way is a picaresque book, a collection of stories that made-up a good bit of my life. I wrote it for my wife, Kirstan Arestad, my children, Joe, Chris, Katie and Tova, and my grandchildren, Jacob, Olympia, George and Luke to give them the one gift I wish I’d received from my father and grandfather … a look back at their world and how they navigated its twists and turns; how they dealt with its triumphs and disappointments, the mistakes they made and the lessons they learned from those mistakes.

I realize my writing falls far short on all of this, but I hope it at least conveys a flavor of the life I spent in second half of the twentieth century, as well as the early decades of the twenty-first century.

Click on the Categories button on the upper right of this page (it’s a scroll-down menu) to join me as a young teen on the first day of my first real job (How to Sell a Newspaper Subscription to a Blindman); or as a 16 year old runaway in Los Angeles (Lost in LaLaLand); or as a young man driving his VW around Europe (Driving Around Europe Without a Map); or as a reluctant soldier answering the call of his country (How I Won the Cold War); or many other of the misadventures, schemes and semi-successes I endured.

I hope you can spend an occasional moment or two with these stories, musings and songs; and. I hope you enjoy these remembrances of a life well spent. All the best, Joe