I consider myself to be very blessed. Though I can seldom recall my cell phone number or the year of our last family reunion, I do remember my childhood with extraordinary clarity. I attribute this gift of recollection to my early fascination with animals. I loved them, all of them. The more I learned, the more I questioned; my little head brimming with facts and images. Just knowing that in Africa, elephants were walking around loose and I was missing it, made sleeping difficult. I was crazed. What I learned and when I learned it marked the passing of my youth.

My curiosity and passion for nature propelled me through what my friends tell me was a very unusual childhood. Growing up on the outskirts of Fort Worth in the Fifties was a wonderful time for being a child. I know it sounds strange, but this was partly due to my parents' divorce. I was four. I visited my Dad, Uncle, and Grandma on the weekends where they did their very best to civilize me, but during the week, I lived with my sister Georgia and my mother, the most beautiful nurse in Texas. Picture Vivian Leigh as Scarlet O'Hara in a starched white uniform complete with red lined navy cape and crisp white cap. The many demands placed on her by career and beauty occupied her time and left me with the maternal supervision of a young jackrabbit. I was free! Wild as any animal of the live oak and pecan woods and fleet as any grassland critter, I knew what it was to be a boy in cutoffs, tanned as an acorn under the Texas sun; no shirt, no shoes, no curfew, nothing but the pure joy of being a child on God's green Earth.

So naturally, I followed my heart. Furred, scaled or feathered, I pursued. Always alone, never afraid. I was among friends. And as I quietly watched, a powerful need to draw what I saw came over me. It was a way to hold on to the moment, that particular animal, and keep it with me. I'd observe and draw, later comparing what I'd done to pictures in my animal book.

Horned Lizards, at the time common as grasshoppers, were a very favorite subject appearing in my mind as tiny replicas of the magnificent dinosaurs! Like most children, I was in awe of these prehistoric animals, spending hours modeling them in red and green clay, then watching in despair as they began to droop and sag in the summer heat. So I'd pose them quickly and find a spot next to the ice trays in the tiny freezer of our Frigidaire. Frozen, I could play with them for a couple of hours before the extinction process began again.

My Dad was instrumental in my becoming an artist/naturalist. He was kind and loving and wanted me to be happy. Though money was always scarce, he gave me a precious gift; his time on weekends. Every Saturday, and I do mean every Saturday, he would take me to the Fort Worth Zoo. At the time, admission was free and there was never a thing I would rather do. It wasn't just Texas animals waiting there: it was the whole world! I drew everything; I read everything as Dad patiently looked on. I had to know more. That's when he introduced me to the city library.