Robert James Shand grew older (he has yet to grow "up") in Brewer, Maine. A very small but proud and prosperous town on the Penobscot river.  He, like everyone else in his neighborhood, lived in what is now called an extended family.  Bob lived with his mother and father, his younger brother, Donnie, Aunt Anna, Uncle Mike, and Nana Wood, his grandmother.  His childhood was marked with summers of freedom to explore and discover nature as well as his own place in the world and long, dark, cold winters marked with boredom, depression, and pain.