Sam Ivey
Bewildering Stories biography
to Bewildering Stories bibliography
I was born in Coldwater, Michigan, in the year of the “crash,” 1929. There I attended high school, declining my parent’s suggestion to attend college since I had not the foggiest idea of what career path to pursue. My head — my heart as well, I suppose — was in the skies at that time, and I had dreams of becoming an executive pilot. In the meantime, I worked in the grocery business as a meat cutter.
Still, with flying in mind I began flying lessons, soloing on August 31, 1947 and obtaining my private pilot’s license at age 17. However, marriage was destined to curtail such a vocational future, and at 19 I was married, on August 28, 1949, to a fine young lady with whom I have spent the last 57 delightful years. In 1950 we moved to San Jose, California where I began working for Owens-Corning Fiberglas.
In 1951, with the Korean “police action” still in progress, I enlisted in the Navy. There I completed schooling that qualified me as an aerial photographer. As such I served with the Fleet Camera Party in San Diego, and later spent the last two years of a four-year enlistment aboard the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea in the south Pacific. In the course of that maritime stint, in 1954, I became father to a daughter whom we named Aurora. We have since acquired eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Following my discharge from the Navy in 1955, I returned to Owens-Corning, working there until taking up work as a tile setter’s helper in 1957. About this time my wife and I became Jehovah’s Witnesses, spending much of our time in Bible study, and researching related fields such as archeology, history, etc.
Four years later we moved to Yuma, Arizona, where I again worked in the grocery business before taking a position in advertising with the former Yuma Daily Sun newspaper. There I spent the next 10 years, designing advertising and writing dazzling copy.
The next 9 years were mine, as I left the paper to operate my own advertising business. During that time we built a new home, incorporating an unusual theme for Yuma: nautical. Living, then, in such an environment, I felt the need to acquaint myself with some knowledge of sailing and of the sea. Ergo, the beginning of my preoccupation with the romance of ships, boats and of things pelagic. Then came the purchase of a 23-foot cutter (sold since then), and my subsequent twenty-plus years of sailing.
Shortly prior to retirement and a move to Washington State in 1997, acquisition of a computer gave breath to the idea of writing. So I tried a short story. When completed, it occurred to me that it had the earmarks of a chapter. So rewriting and fleshing out the original idea resulted in Crooked Triangle, a 208-page trade paperback, published in 2004 by PublishAmerica.
I am now 76 years young, and plan to live a lot longer. And as a poet once said:
“He’s in love with the ocean, the earth and the skies,
He’s enamored with God’s beauty wherever it lies.”
And I guess that’s pretty much me.
Copyright © 2006 by Sam Ivey
