Born William Richard Girvin on February 19, 1952, Bill grew up in south side Chicago, Illinois. He was the second son of Richard Bernard Girvin and Elaine Girvin. At a young age the family bounced back and forth between Texas and Illinois eventually ending up at the south end of the San Francisco Bay Area. His mother passed away when he was 14 years of age and his father moved in his girlfriend and soon to be second wife, Victoria, who had been working at the Playboy Club in San Francisco. He spent little time at home during those years, camping in the Santa Cruz Mountains, traveling to Mexico via cars and motorcycles and living with friends as much as possible until he moved out shortly after graduating from Cupertino High School in 1970. That was when his brother died in a motorcycle accident and life began to dramatically change. Along with his best friend, Mark, Bill took one final ride on his 750 cc Honda to Acapulco, Mexico from his home in San Jose, California. Upon their safe return he sold the bike never to ride motorcycles again.
After a short stint at De Anza Community College graduating with a Liberal Arts Degree, and having so many family members and friends pass away, Bill began traveling around the world feeling it best to “live for today”. He hitchhiked to Canada and hopped freight trains across the Rocky Mountains eventually coming back into the United States through Niagara Falls to visit a girl he had met living in Vermont. From there it was down the East Coast to Florida and back to home. Not long after there were many adventures in Europe, including being captured by the underground, Ulster Defense Army, in Belfast, Ireland. On that same journey he became stranded in Israel during the heart wrenching Munich Olympics where many from Israel’s team were murdered. With no plane ticket home, Bill was forced to work in the Sinai Desert carrying bricks to make enough money to get out of the Middle East. He also worked in Switzerland cutting Blue Fir Trees and eventually earned enough cash to make it back to his girlfriend in Vermont. A year later his longest adventure took him overland from Holland to India in a Volkswagen van. That journey became the inspiration for this book – The Volkswagen Van. His last major overland excursion was hitchhiking and taking local transportation by himself to South American. His final destination was Machu Picchu high in the Andes. There he spent time with the local Indians in various villages exploring the jungles. During all of his travels Bill kept daily diaries and his writing career began. By the age of 24 he thought it best to begin thinking about his long-term goals in life.
Within the next several years Bill had fallen in love and married Rosemary Boyle in Madera, California. They eventually settled down in Sacramento where they enjoyed raising their two boys, Jonathan and Ricky. Joining the family advertising agency with his father they grew the business to become one of the largest and most successful firms in Northern California. They eventually sold the company to one of the top 10 advertising agencies in the world where Bill continued his career. During that time Bill went back to college receiving his B.A in Journalism with honors and a Masters Degree in Education.
After 28 years in advertising Bill found a new path in life and formed a partnership with one of his best friends, Sherri and his son, Ricky. Together they formed a top producing real estate team. During that time his family purchased a small villa in Costa Rica next to one of the top 10 parks in the world, Manual Antonio National Park. It is currently used as a rental property and place to get away when they need a break. Bill hopes the villa called, The House of the Dancing Monkeys, remains in the family for generations. His family continues to travel and have visited such distant lands as Brazil, Cuba, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand, Norway and India together, not to mention excursions around the United States.
Bill continues to enjoy writing novels, many of which are based in part on his travels and turns them into both fiction and non-fiction stories. He recently received rave reviews from Kirkus Media for his novel The Legend of Trolltunga based on his travels in Norway. Other favorite past times include managing a good size organic vegetable garden, shooting photography of people and nature and writing contemporary Blues music. He has completed two albums “playing” with the piano and harmonica and exercising his vocal cords. “The first album will never see the light of day,” says Bill jokingly. “The last album titled Don’t Give Up would have made the top of the charts if I hadn’t been singing all the songs!” Bill rarely gets embarrassed and will try just about anything including visiting tigers in Thailand, repelling from high heights, racing around Daytona at 170 miles per hour, water rafting in flash floods, snow skiing, surfing the ocean waves, sky diving through clouds and scuba diving kelp beds and old ship wrecks. “Do I have a death wish or what?” Bill questions himself. The truth is, he loves life so much he doesn’t want to miss anything and sleeps only a few hours a night because of that.His goal in life – “Find the Vid in my novel, Quest for the Fountain of Youth, and live forever!”
