Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem testa diu 

“That scent the jar long retains, with which it first was filled.” Horace 

Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen. 

“Who knows no foreign tongue, knows nothing of his own.” Goethe 

Apprende une langue, c’est vivre de nouveau 

“To learn a language, is to live again.” French Proverb 

I was blessed with good parents and a happy home life with two older brothers, growing up in California in the ’Sixties, surrounded by the popular music of the time; at Berkeley in the ‘Seventies, I managed to acquire an excellent education in Greek and Latin language and literature, when American society and education, along with the fantastic growth of the computer industry, was drowning in an moral avalanche. I found the Catholic Church and found a wife who also found the Church. In the ‘Eighties we raised a family of five daughters and I took a PhD in Medieval Studies at Toronto, embarking on a thirty–year career of teaching, research and translation (1989 – 2021): in Germany (2 years), Philadelphia (17 years), and Belmont Abbey in North Carolina (13 years). I am experienced in the teaching of Latin, Greek and German, but I “specialize”, as a Christian Humanist, in researching, writing, and discussing topics such as philosophy, literature and science; German romanticism, mythology and Indo-European languages; American, European, and world history; and theology. 

Teaching at Canongate, I appear to have reached, in retirement, the summit of my career.