Meet the Author

I want to tell you the story of a young high school student I met over 50 years ago.  In some ways it is the story of a modern-day Don Quixote; of a young man who chased larger than life dreams; who conquered enormous heights; who manage to travel the world and meet with iconic names in the world of music, dance, and politics.  These include John Lennon; Yoko Ono, Cynthia Lennon; Julian Lennon; Michael Jackson, Mikel Baryshnikov, Sid Bernstein.  Yet in the end he never saw any of his dreams come to full fruition.  Some failed due to his lack of sophistication; some failed because he was a young kid from Milwaukee with no real financial resources; some failed because of unscrupulous actors who unflinchingly cut him out at the first opportunity to do so.

So why is this a story worth your time to read?  Because it is the story of a dreamer who didn’t know he couldn’t do what he was trying to do.  Yet he persevered, and in the end has written his story to share.  For what would the world be if all the dreamers quit dreaming?  This isn’t a story of a glass being half full or a glass half empty.  It is a story of a glass being full. Of a life fully lived; Of dreams pursued.  Some of my personal greatest learning lessons came not from success, but from failures.  So, with this backdrop let me introduce you to Perry Muckerheide and his remarkable story or i should say, stories.

in order to put this into some perspective I have to go to the very beginning of the story.  This story begins with an nonprofit organization, The American Freedom From Hunger Foundation (AFFHF).  AFFHF was founded at the direction of President John Kennedy in January of 1963 (see attached).  In 1968, former Congressman Leonard Wolf, upon returning from working with US aide programs in Brazil and India, visited England where he learned of a program begun by Oxfam; they had come up with a way of raising money for their programs by having “walks”.  Upon arriving in Washington to head up an essentially defunct organization with no money or active programs, he created the Young World Development Program and its Walk for Development.  I am able to write this story because I was one of the original 3 persons Leonard hired to turn his ideas into reality.  One of the very first Walks took place in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  It was headed by a 17-year-old high school Junior, Perry Muckerheide.  And this is where this story begins.

Harvey Silver, Friend and Publisher