Prime for Life originated in the mind of Meredith Blevins, who recruited my help for a book on fitness for baby boomers.  It would not have been possible without her.  I will be forever grateful to Meredith and her husband, Win Blevins, for their support and friendship and gift of this opportunity.  Meredith was responsible for much of the writing, laughter and spiritual guidance.  She was my partner in crime for most of the project.  I may owe my current sanity to Meredith and Win for their support during the tough times in writing this book.

             Edward B. Claflin provided wonderful, insightful editing help in the final stages.  He helped me rediscover Prime for Life.

            This book would not have been possible without the extraordinary faculty of the Physical Therapy Department of Washington University in St. Louis.  Many ideas in this book are due to their genius.  Movement Impairment Diagnoses, touched on lightly in Prime for Life, were conceived by Shirley A. Sahrmann, PT, PhD.  Her insights in showing that faulty movement patterns provide potentially more powerful diagnoses than traditional medical ones has dramatically improved physical therapy care. Barbara J. Norton, PT, PhD deserves thanks for patience in my academic work.  Special thanks, too, go to Michael J. Mueller, PT, PhD for extraordinary patience and for inspiring a key concept in Prime for Life.  His Physical Stress Theory powerfully shows that individuals have a significant choice regarding maintaining health of all tissues.

            To Mel and Enid Zuckerman, founders of Canyon Ranch Health Resort, I owe 27 years of thanks.  They provided me with the best job I could ever have envisioned.  In this magical place I got to work with amazing other health care providers and meet wonderful people who come from all over the world.  Every day in the Life Enhancement Center was an adventure of brave people striving to be open to the possibility of change.

      Rancho La Puerta (which in Spanish means "Ranch of the Door") was truly such a door for me. I walked through their front gate in 1980 and it led to all I have - my wife, my son and my career and an understanding of what life can be.

     To Carondelet St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson, whose fabulous physical therapy department taught me about patient care and cutting edge physical therapy. Returning back after 10 years has been a coming home. This facility provides unparalleled care for patients in pain. Only in places like this, with a wide spectrum of patients and great colleagues from whom to learn can one become an excellent physical therapist.

    Courtney Conroy, my editor at Rodale, has been wonderful in helping shepherd this book to completion. Celeste Fine, my agent, has also been involved since the beginning.

    Special thanks go, too, to the talented Brian Pinsonneault, for designing this website.        
    
    Finally, I will be eternally grateful to my beloved family, Lynne and Tyler for giving me time to write this book.