C. Joseph Socha is like that watch commercial: “He takes a licking but keeps on ticking.” He survived life in The Great Depression, served in the Navy in WWII where he survived the sinking of his ship off Anzio, Italy; then on to Pacific duty in Okinawa. (His ship was only around 625 miles from Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the American atomic bombs were dropped and the war ended.) After the war, at home, the day before his wedding, a freight train plowed into his car, but he survived, and made it to the church on time. Marriage lasted 47 years! In a business where one person in ten survived the first year, he lasted twenty-seven! “Writing for a living is not easy,” he says, “but he’s not going to stop until his ticker does.”