Introduction
Why did I Write this Book?

It is said that everyone has a story to tell. The question that is being constantly posed to me is "you are always writing about or talking about everybody else's life, who is going to write about your life?) Although this is not a complete autobiography of my life, it does include many examples of an amazing journey, shared and supported by my wife of 67 years and 15 days. Like the geese in flight, when she saw me getting tired, she got in front so I could draft off of her. Before beginning to write, I was wondering what I would include? I did not want to write another rag-to-riches story; that seemed too commonplace. I did not write about my amazing journey to boast about my career, but thought that my story is something with which many can relate to theirs. My success is not conventional and I wanted to tell the readers that they can "stated as a viewpoint from Michael Coles, in which I concur, that they can face their own Goliath-like challenges and still refuse to let anyone tell them, what their limits are." I have been fortunate during this phase of my journey to have had people come into my life at just the right moment. No one's success in life is without the help of others. No doubt there are people who have done more remarkable things than me in their lives, yet my journey has been hugely transformational for me. When I look back on it now, so many years down the track, I wonder how I managed to end up where I have. From having no idea about how my future would look, or even how I wanted it to look, to finding so much fulfillment.
Of course there is another reason I decided to write this book. Although you may start your career as a non-descript blue collar worker, through life experiences and some more education you can become a recognized scholar. I hope me telling my story will help dispel a long held myth, that people who study vocational education did it because they could not learn academically oriented subjects,
If this book helps or inspires just one person to pick themselves up and move in a new direction, I'll have achieved my goal. Every journey ends (before it begins again) with returning where you started to share what you have learned. For me, I am contemplating returning back to the idea that I enjoy telling or writing about people's life, so I am waiting to read or tell about yours.

Dr. Alfred O. Taylor, Jr., Ed.D
2020