Michael E. Arth, Dark Horse of the Week

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Michael Edward Arth was born near Liverpool, England at a U.S. Air Force Base on April 27, 1953. In 1955 his parents moved to New Mexico. This was followed by a move to Midland, Texas where he was taught at a parochial school by the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, all of whom were named Mary, but none of whom were immaculately conceived. His own mother however was born on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, but named Evelyn Yvonne instead of Mary. [...]

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On his father’s side the family name, Arth, means “Bear” and is an ancient Celtic form of the name Arthur, which may just be a lazy way of saying the Welsh phrase, “Arth Vahr.” Arth Vahr means Bear Great. It is not known why they did not just say “Great Bear,” but backwards or forwards it still refers to the Great Bear Constellation, the mythological source of the King Arthur legend. [...]

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If you have not guessed by now, this is actually an autobiography written in the third person partly because some of the Marys considered I-itis a disease. I was also convinced that it looked more professional to pretend that I just happened to find someone to write my biography who knows as much about me as I do….

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So anyway, I sought solace from the frocked Marys and the scorching desert sun by digging underground forts in the desert wherein I could utter the shortest word in our language without shame. The nuns would surely have found my underground activities to be quasi-pagan in nature, thus adding the lure of the forbidden to one of the reasons for crawling into a desert spider hole long before a certain ex-dictator publicized the practice.