Costa Rica's Stories

About the Book

Some years ago, the author of these columns was sitting in a Zen monastery in California, blissfully meditating, when someone slipped a folded note, underneath his cushion. The note had the word “Help”, and no other information, except for an email address. When he wrote to the email address, to inquire as to what “Help”, exactly, was needed, he received only the response, “Thank you.” Two days later he received a second email advising him that someone of importance had greatly enjoyed reading these columns when they were originally published, and that they, a publishing house in New York, had funds specifically allocated for a guidebook on Costa Rica, and that these funds would be reassigned elsewhere, unless a Costa Rica guidebook could quickly be assembled, and would he be the one to do this. Not being one to pass up allocated funds, he assembled the columns and produced this book, which has turned out to be unquestionably the definite book on all things Costa Rican.

About the Author

The author is what is referred to as a senior citizen. This means that he is old. He has been writing professionally since he was young. Sometime during the 1950s he won a writing award of a small amount of money and a handsome certificate. At that time he observed that the girls in attendance at the awards ceremony were smiling at him. It was then that he decided that he would “be a writer”. Now, almost 60 years later, he is still writing, and long ago forgot why he started writing in the first place. In addition to “being a writer”, he has, during these 60 years, “discovered” Costa Rica. He had been given an amount of money by an eccentric multi-millionaire to go to Costa Rica and see if it might be the best place in the world to establish one of several utopian communities that the multi-millionaire wished to build. He went to Costa Rica and saw that, in fact, it might be the best place in the world to establish such a community. The utopian community was never built, but the author remained. In addition to writing, the author has found time to, among other things, become married on four occasions, including 20 years to his most recent wife, an extraordinary Costa Rican woman. He is father to two wonderful children, who are now very much adults. He has sailed around the world, founded and ran one of California’s first vegetarian restaurants, built and remodeled homes in California and Hawaii, and helped to start up Surfer magazine. When drafted into the U.S. Navy, he was obligated to spend two years living and surfing in Hawaii. At one point he became a Scientologist and was L. Ron Hubbard’s personal representative for his works of fiction, including, among other works, the lengthy novel, Battlefield Earth, which has the distinction of being listed among “The Ten Worst Novels of All Time.”