Dr. Ron S. Nolan lives in
Aptos, California near the sunken ship at the
end of the pier in SeaCliff Beach. He spends
his days working out, running, writing and
performing investigations as an independent
tech patent researcher.
I was born as Roland Orn
Scott, III in Goodland Kansas and until I was
three, I lived in a farm shack that had no
electricity, plumbing or telephone on a
section of land which my father purchased from
his parents who owned the Scott Ranch. My
mother was a true beauty and as the story
goes, was born in the caretaker's quarters of
Emily Dickinson's carriage house in Amherst,
Massachusetts and grew up in high style on
Pelham Road in a house complete with a
greenhouse, gardens and a lawn tennis court.
After receiving her teaching credentials from
Salem State College just as WW II wound down,
she met my father, a handsome sailor at a
local USO party, fell in love and was swept
away to a shack located in the wheat fields of
Western Kansas. My mom taught grades 1-6 in a
one room school house—some of the kids rode
horses to school which must have been a major
culture shock, but ended abruptly when my
student pilot father was killed in a mid-air
collision with his flight instructor and
burned to death before our eyes.
She remarried to William
Joseph Nolan—a friend of my father Roland--who
tragically had lost his family as well. When
they married, Bill hadn't finished
high school so he studied and passed his GED.
Meanwhile he worked as a Holsum Bread truck
driver, set ties on the railroad and finally
opened a grocery store in Sharon Springs.
During that time we lived in a run down former
restaurant on the outskirts of town. Full of
ambition, Bill ran for the office of Wallace
County Sheriff and my mom ran for County
Superintendent—both were elected. Bill went to
sheriff school in Lawrence, Kansas and was so
impressed with the fabulous Kansas University
that after his term as sheriff (including one
jail break and car chase) moved us to Lawrence
where he became an honor student in Latin
American studies and taught Spanish at Central
Junior High School then went on to get his
Doctorate in Latin American Affairs at K.U.
My mother also taught at
Woodlawn Lincoln Elementary School and
eventually attended KU where she became an
Assistant Professor developing innovative
reading curricula. We spent my 10th grade year
in Cali, Colombia—quite a change from
Lawrence. After I graduated from KU, they took
leave of Lawrence and joined the faculty of
the University of Western Kentucky where they
went on to explore Mexico, Central and South
America and socialized with artists,
presidents, and local educators.
I was accepted into the
graduate program at the UC San Diego Scripps
Institution of Oceanography where I
specialized in coral reef ecology building
artificial study reefs in the lagoon of
Enewetak Atoll in Micronesia. (Enewetak is one
of the primary locations in the Telepathic
Dolphin Experiment.) My original mission to
Enewetak was to survey of fish populations
inhabiting nuclear test craters where I camped
out on Runit Island with fellow graduate
students. Later on the Atomic Energy
Commission found chunks of raw plutonium at
our campsite and thought better about sending
unprotected adventurers to the Runit Island
where the Cactus Crater nuclear test crater is
now covered by a massive concrete dome and
rumored to be leaking radiation into the
marine environment.
After completing my degree at
Scripps, I founded an environmental consulting
firm on the Big Island of Hawaii and an
advanced technology marine shrimp hatchery and
farm on Molokai which led to the formation of
the Island Shrimp Shop in Encinitas,
California and the North Shore Seafood Company
in Ketchum, Idaho where my wife at the time
and I shared great rapport with our own cast
of world famous celebrities, actors and
musicians. From there I became a Research
Associate in Computer Engineering at UC Santa
Cruz and worked with Dr. Patrick Mantey to
develop some of the earliest interactive,
multimedia CD-ROM titles. It was not until we
had worked together for over a year that we
discovered that he was also from Sharon
Springs and as a kid had even worked as a
grocery bagger in my father's market—small
world!
I am now working on a new
series of novels called the Metamorphosis
Chronicles that explore the impacts of
technology upon human longevity, the
environment and society--quite a leap from my
earliest years of sharing the outhouse with a
nest of half frozen rattlesnakes and learning
to read with the light of a Coleman lantern!
Check out Backstory Connections to learn
about some of the remarkable experiences
that I have enjoyed and that play various
roles in my novel plots.
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