This wide and diverse collection of one man's life's eclectic short stories, personal anecdotes, harrowing adventures, ill-advised doings, and concise wisdom gained therefrom, will be beneficial, entertaining, exciting, and compelling to those from all walks of life. All these I leave for you, my fellow life travelers. My credibility for you in writing this book for you is simply this; In the progression of my time on earth I have drunk deeply from life's bitterest cup - and tasted of life's sweetest nectar. This I have learned; The brave may not live forever, but the cautious may not live at all.
With time out for raising a family and climbing the corporate ladder in heavy engineering and high-rise building construction, I have also successfully started many small businesses, then to sell out from lack of interest when up and going, profitability established and curiosity satisfied. Shipping out on a tramp freighter and a stint in South America in the early 1960's as an undercover government operative and pilot only whetted my appetite and curiosity for more such doings, some as revealed here. Then years later a wonderful fifteen of my years were spent in Southeast Asia carried my adventures forward and through many harrowing happenings. Most rewarding, among others, has been helping Hmong Hilltribe people escape through the Army lines of the Communist regimes in Laos and Cambodia to a redoubt across the Mekong River into the mountains of Northern Thailand, there to live with them and help them build villages safe from their oppressors. All this saved me from utter boredom when I needed it most - and occurred while also delving into and trying to understand what was to me, convoluted cultures centuries older than mine and diametrically opposed to it. Through difficult and dangerous experiences, I found that people are basically the same the world over, and develop similarly, but with different customs, and even a different though process which evolves in different environments and separated by half a world away. Such differences obscures the basic humanity in all of us, and gentle tolerance is of the essence.
Stay on that mysterious, Eclectic Road of Life at your leisure by using this book of astounding, beneficial and informative things - then go forward and grasp your own adventures as they come. We are limited only by the smallness of our dreams ...and remember - all who wander, are not lost. ...ETM
Author Biography:
Of Irish descent, Tony was born in a little cabin in the rural piney woods of Carroll County in the state of Georgia, attended public schools in Carrollton and Stone Mountain, and attended West Georgia College. Striking out alone for Texas and arriving out of gas but with $7.50 still in his pocket, he has since made his own way in life. He has lived and worked in five states and South America (and is currently living in Southeast Asia). He has traveled extensively in the West and Southwest, in Mexico and Canada, hunting, exploring, and researching historical Courthouse records. Early in life he sacked groceries as most young men do, served honorably in the U. S. Army, was an auxiliary police officer in Houston, and a wiper on an ocean-going freighter. He has worked in a printing office, an aircraft factory, managed a large motel with an exclusive nightclub, and was a heavy equipment operator as well as a journeyman tradesman and foreman who worked his way up in every trade involved in heavy engineering, petro-chemical, and multi-story high-rise building construction projects in Texas and South America. At Austin Tony married a Texas girl, and together they raised three children. He was elected to the Austin, Texas Water District Board of Directors and was asked to serve three terms as president of the Optimist Club as he concurrently was a Little League baseball coach and player agent for three leagues. He became a Southern Baptist and served as a Deacon, Sunday School Superintendent, Teacher, and Youth Director. Tony rose to construction Project Superintendent, to tenure as Vice President of a large company. with projects also in South America where he was also an undercover Government Operative and unlicensed pilot during the time Castro's man Che Guevarra was agitating for the Communists. Later with the Texas State Building Commission, he was the Chief Construction Estimator and Legislative Advisor, co-authored the Texas Handicapped Accessibility law, was the Governor's State Coordinator and Team Leader for all declared disasters occurring in Texas and otherwise worked as an Architect/Engineer designing State buildings and facilities. Tony has been a partner in a construction inspection/estimating service, a real estate appraiser, bank Loan Officer, private construction consultant, developer of residential subdivisions, and built homes in his spare time. He has owned and operated a department store with auto repair and body shop, a sawmill, a suntan/fitness studio, two restaurants, an over-the-road trucking company, a snowmobile rental/touring business, a food catering business, and was a rancher/hunting guide/outfitter while living in Colorado. Tony has written engineering periodicals, constitutional Conservative political discourse in the form of guest editorials, op-ed articles, and has ghosted articles for notable columnists in national newspapers and written a memoir and five novels in the Historical Fiction/Adventure category. BY BRYAN MALOTT. [Bryan passed away, so I continue]]: For the last 15 years I lived in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Viet Nam. I dived into a culture diametrically opposed to my own to learn all about it, and poked my nose into remote places forbidden to such as I, with reckless abandon. Activities included helping Hmong refugees escape the communist regimes of Cambodia and Laos, and doing missionary work repairing remote Thai and Hill Tribe schools in the mountainous regions of northern Thailand. I have helped small group[s of Hmong refugees (our valued allies during the VN war, still fighting for their freedom) carry their equipment and belongings as they fled the pursuit of the Cambodian Army, at one time with mortar and artillery shells landing nearby. During this time I broke my leg while living among them. I helped established a Christian Boarding School for Hmong Children in Chaingkhum, and a Christian Church in Chaing Rai.
