Richard ValentiniRichard Valentini spent thirty-two years teaching, working mostly with special education students. Today he continues to tutor in math and algebra at the local public school charter academy. He has written many plays and stories over the years for hi students, which often revolved around the fun times he spent working at state beaches as a young adult.

Every summer when Richard was a boy, his mother took the whole family to the beaches every weekday. As a teenager, Richard was inspired to get a job at the place he loved so much. He ended up spending four summers working at Rocky Neck State Park. He still spends every summer at his cottage in Madison, Connecticut, and visits the beaches there most every day.

During the spring, summer, and fall months Richard often takes a train from Boston to Old Saybrook, passing by the beaches and parks of his youth. On one such trip, he was inspired to write down those stories-while he could still remember them all.

Richard loves to read and write, including fiction and poetry. His other hobbies are playing tennis and pickle ball. He enjoys the study of history, geography, and social studies: knowing the history of an area, the people, their work, and what they overcame and achieved is important to him. Richard loves to visit beaches to bike, hike, and swim. He belongs to the Middle Mountain Interpretive Hike Educational Program, where he volunteers every Thursday taking students on nature hikes through the Sutter Buttes, a small mountain range nearby his residence in northern California. Those trips remind him of the summers when his mother took him to the beach so long ago, the excursions of his youth.

Richard and his wife, Alice, live in Yuba City, California. But they spend most of the months from June through October in Madison, Connecticut at their seasonal beach cottage, enjoying the gentle surf and salt water of Long Island Sound. Read More Read Less