After years of attending night classes, he finally was able to acquire a Master’s Degree in English, but this came after he bailed out of such courses as geometry, algebra two, physics, chemistry, trigonometry, calculus, and, ah, comparative religion. In his teens he was a Boy Scout for several weeks but discovered that he had no aptitude for knot tying or camping out. He preferred the security and simplicity of McDonald’s. As a high school student, Mr. Koelsch realized in shop class that he had no real aptitude for handy man work either. The idea that a nut could be turned right to loosen it and left to tighten it, as in a gas valve, just would not register. Hence, Mr. Koelsch wrote a poem in Mrs. Smith’s English class at a junior college and received an “A”. This success launched his teaching career, but his writing career and first novel were entirely in the hands of VICTORIA.