My life was as a normal boy from a regular home. I loved to walk the train tracks in the morning to find the small trail trains left behind as they went through the New Jersey Pinelands. As an adult the train went by faster and little or no useful remnants were found. I continued traveling to strange places and was greeted with reservation and suspicion. I suppose at times people feared me. The myth of me became the myth of every young boy becoming part of the invading army, the noise and smoke coming in the distance, when the earth shakes, and dirty, dusty boys line the roadsides afraid but drawn to the train-like truck convoy. Their life, though in a different country was a life as many poor boys in war and trauma who collected soda bottles for candy throughout South Jersey. We were the poor farm boys with little secrets we told through stories of half truths. Eventually my brother and I told the truth about what we were taught and I am sure it was taken as just more of the stories boys told while listening to tall tales for adults who traveled the world. Most of those men came back with pieces missing and lived lives that were remarkable. My grandparents and the Jewish farmers that tutored us asked if we would want to be like them. Foolishly we said we did. Over the course of our lives, we traveled the world and came back from war. By this time our grandparents, the Jewish tutors, and most of our friends had died. But on occasion, a couple of us gather together in warm remembrance of them as they appear and remind us of their tendency to twist fate and cheat death. After all, they would say, "If you don't like those cards that were dealt for your life draw your own." What constant kidders they were, of the truth and power of the spiritual path.
