Born in New York City in 1946, Dexter lived first on the island of Curacao, then Newtown, Connecticut and later Queens and Manhattan. He attended undergraduate school in New York and Connecticut receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1969. He published prose and poetry in college and in some small regional literary magazines popular in the 60’s. He lived for a year or so on 8th St. in Greenwich Village and then hitchhiked for another year or two around Europe, Canada, and the United States. While travelling, chance brought him to Las Vegas, New Mexico, a gritty, magical city located by the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
Las Vegas felt like he had come home. He enrolled in graduate school at Highlands University, a small state school there. Once settled in, school became secondary to him. He lived there for several years, going to classes at first but then, increasingly as just another citizen of this unique place. He worked at various odd jobs in the area… construction worker, ranch hand, laborer and later, through his friendship with some locals, he secured a teaching position at the West Las Vegas High School. This reinforced his status with the community and his Hispanic heritage helped strengthen his acceptance with the local “gente.” He even managed to get some prose and poetry published, again in small regional literary magazines.
Fate intervened when his father became ill with cancer. He chose to return to Connecticut to care for him, leaving his master’s degree unfinished.. After his father, Benno, passed, his mother sold the family home and moved to Florida. Dexter headed West, to California with the ultimate goal to return to Las Vegas. His old Plymouth broke down outside of Denver on I-70 and he never made it over the front range of the Rockies. Out of money, he got a job in Boulder, Colorado. He still lives there today.
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