Jim is originally from Brooklyn, New York. The eldest of four children born to Sicilian-Irish American parents, he passed his formative years learning the advantages, disadvantages, glories, and guilt associated with these ethnic backgrounds. The lessons were dispensed in usually humorous but sometimes contentious parental bickering at the dinner table. Despite this rehashing of European history, he survived with a minimum of psychological damage, partial to the Sicilian perspective but proud of his Irish lineage. He was a mediocre student, excelled at barely passing his studies, and had been gifted at birth with neither athletic, artistic, or intellectual abilities. Fortified with this impressive background he decided to become a television cameraman and remained a part of that amazing business for over fifty years. You can often find him sitting in his Florida garden wondering what the hell happened.