A native of Auxvasse, Missouri, Tom Dryden graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. For 35 years, he wrote advertising in St. Louis, Chicago, New York and Connecticut, and, for nine of those years, a humor column for his local newspaper that won him an award from the New England Press Association. In 2011, he retired and moved to southwest Florida where he and his wife answer to the two spoiled dogs who run their household.