Kenneth Cable

I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in a dark-blue collar suburb east of the city. My town was famous for having more bars and parolees per capita than probably any other small town in California. I went through school with kids whose futures were never part of the curriculum. Just teach them to read, write and cipher and turn them loose in the labor market.

I left home, school and town at seventeen by joining the army. I did not return to my education until well into my chosen career and had a family. Over time I acquired a degree in Journalism from Cal State L.A. and an MPA in Public Administration from USC. I also taught part time at these universities.

I was, and am, an avid reader – of everything. As a kid I read product labels, billboards, comic books and adventure novels. I rode the range with Zane Grey, pretended I was Ken McLaughlin in Mary O’Hara’s My Friend Flicka and Thunderhead; dog sledded in Alaska with Jack London and fought pirates with Jim Hawkins in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. I used new words from stuff I read at the dinner table that drove my brothers’ nuts. They would a accuse me of not knowing what words like ‘gregarious’ and ‘relish’ meant. Often they were right.

As a kid, I wrote poems of the “Roses are red, violets are blue” genre, and cowboy songs.

Law enforcement was my profession. I retired after thirty five years of pursuing justice for all – and sometimes achieving it. It was fascinating to follow criminals around writing accounts of their depredations – and occasionally catching them in the act (this part was the most rewarding).

I write about lots of things now, wildlife, travel and fiction are favorite subjects. My wife, and best critic, Dorothy, and I have traveled fairly extensively in the world and accounts of these journeys appear in our local paper. We live in a community that has plunked itself down in the middle of an extensive wildlife habitat. Much of it has still not been driven away. I call these creatures my Wild, wild pets and write about their comings and goings for my local paper. Keeping wild pets in the wild doing what they normally do is far more entertaining than watching them in a cage doing nothing.

Am I a good writer? That, of course is, as always, up to the reader. In any case, I intend to keep writing.