Upson Downes

About the Book

If you think you’re looking like the picture on your driver’s license, I’ve got a solution for you. Follow me to the Upson Downes, a place where you’ll cancel golf games on weekends in order to play tennis or attend a couple of parties or go fishing or throw a barbecue. That’s what Horace Binkbottom, a retired ex-navy man and investment consultant, did. And he meets a group of Quirky, lovable hodgepodge of retirees who knock his socks off.

About the Author

I grew up in a wonderful happy family. A minister father and schoolteacher mother, four brothers and three sisters. After high school, I went to art school, which led me into interesting jobs all my life. For instance, in the Second World War, I joined the Navy Waves and was a mapmaker. From there, I branched into ad agencies, went on a trip to Hawaii, fell in love with it, and stayed for forty-two years. While there, I was involved with a design company, and we did many resorts as well as commercial offices.

When I returned to the mainland, although I retired (sort of), I kept busy in the graphic-art field and became interested in writing. I sold mainly short stories to church-related magazines. Then I wrote a book about a coworker who was dying of cancer. It was called “In the Shadow of Rainbows”.

Writing Upson Downes—because of its humor and reaching out to accept, loving, and living with the human frailties we all have and still respecting each person—has been a joy.