When I retired in 1999, now divorced, I opted to leave the "big city" and return to my roots. In 2001, to get some much needed exercise, I began walking each day on the streets and alleys of the not-quite one-hundred acres that make up this dot on the map called Ranier. These walks became an unexpected but ultimately pleasurable journey of rediscovery for me.

Memories of long-ago people and events came flooding back. I decided to draw the places I knew so well as a child. The rules I set for myself (which I fudged on only a couple of times) were: 1) the must be only of Ranier; 2) they had to be in existence when I was a kid; and 3) they must still be in existence today. Some people have asked me why I didn't include the Ranier Schoolhouse; D.J. McCarthy Sr.'s fish house; The Graylite Bar; or Little Mexico Tavern and the answer is , regrettably they no longer exist except in photos or people's memories. I sketched all these scenes you will soon be looking at in person, on-site, in pencil, the way they appeared the day I drew them, then took them back to my studio to apply ink and color. The stories that accompany each drawing were strictly an afterthought, due mainly to others cajoling me to write them, but I think they explain, at least in part, why these places have so much meaning for me.