Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my friend and fellow writer, Chris Davies, for his initial positive response through his accidental reading of the original version of the book.
Thanks for the cover design concept to Craig Dillon.
Thanks to Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli for her copy editing and creative graphical expertise and sensibility in the book design.
Thanks to Mark Weiman of Regent Press for seeing the project through to the end of the publishing process.
Thanks to Leonard Trupin for turning mr on to Claire Burch.
Heartfelt thanks to Claire Burch for her artistic craft, wonderful editing, and comments about the book.
Thanks to Martin Dreger for the read-through feedback.
Thanks to my family: my wife Susanne and son Max and my other son Ariel, for their patience while wondering what I was doing “on the computer” over an extended period of time.
And thanks to all of those wonderful friends, teachers/guides and family members with whom I have had contact and from whom I have learned and, perhaps, received some wisdom through my journeys in life so far.
Prologue
This novel is offered as some kind of a positive, perhaps humorous, read from the perspective of one person among those who experienced something profound and meaningful growing up in the fifties and through total immersion in the sixties. The story begins in America, on the West Coast of California with the Pacific Ocean, and progresses across the Atlantic Ocean to Middle Europe: Vienna, Austria, which is a whole other ball