Tripping Across 1969: A Novel

By Josef Ferri

Daniel Cottone had a magnificent and tumultuous year in 1969.

There was the contentious, ongoing struggle for civil rights for minorities erupting across America and the continuation of an excruciating, unpopular war in Vietnam. The forces obstructing the civil rights effort and supporting the devastating conflict were stubbornly steadfast.

Cottone looks back at the eras events, as well as the painful memories of his first lovea love that he lostin this epic novel. Amid that backdrop is the pressure of the military draft, the Woodstock music festival, and the narrators increasing doubt about the war and American values.

His experiences mirror the road that many of his peers traveled, but inexplicably, by the end of 1969, that intangible something that defined the era had already begun to fade.

The title of the book contains and embodies the word Tripping. With respect to the story, it has three primary definitions: tripping as in traveling; tripping as in searching and stumbling; and, finally, tripping as in tripping (on drugs).

Join Cottone as he travels across America in search of new places and new peoplebecoming an active participant of history in Tripping Across 1969.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532037214

Josef Ferri

Josef Ferri attended the fortieth-year gathering at the site of the Woodstock Festival in 2009, which was his first time back to Bethel, New York, since attending the original festival. While he touched on the eras events in his autobiographical novel, Trying to Catch the Wind: Memoir of a Love That Was More Than Love, he explores them more fully in this autobiographical-based novel. Ferri currently lives in Buffalo, New York.

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Copyright © 2018 Josef N. Ferri.

Cover Graphics/Art Credit: Talia Rosmarin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-3722-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3720-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3721-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919490

iUniverse rev. date: 02/26/2018

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1     Venice Beach

Chapter 2     The Woodstock Music & Art Festival—A Phenomenon for the Ages

Chapter 3     Cape Cod—A Magical Mystery Weekend

Chapter 4     Cookie in the Sunshine

Chapter 5     Stumbling Across a Piece of a Lost Dream

Chapter 6     San Francisco

Chapter 7     Allegany Times

Chapter 8     Alphonso Cottone

Chapter 9     Opposing Bigots

Chapter 10   John Redding—A Friend for Life

Chapter 11   Whirlwind End to an Epoch

Chapter 12   Near Muse

Chapter 13   Last Trip in ’69

Chronology

Appendix

Introduction

POWERFUL MEMORIES—FANTASTIC AND horrible and everything in between—revisit us repeatedly throughout our lives. Sometimes in dreams or in waking reveries, we relive those experiences because of the impact they had on our lives. Our present—real time, real life—seems to stop, and our minds are mysteriously and magically transported back to the time and place where these influential episodes occurred.

The following journey in 1969 is based on real events experienced by one of that year’s many eager, curious explorers; it captures a cross section of the numerous musical and sociopolitical activities that occurred. The wondrous and painful memories of a lost first love seep in and out of the mind of Daniel Cottone throughout his travels and activities during that magnificent year. In addition to that memory was the constant pressure of the military draft. His growing awareness of and doubt about the Vietnam War had prompted an increasing scrutiny of core American values. Those two things—his lost love and his opposition to the Vietnam War—are the primary driving forces behind this story.

Daniel’s most important memory in his early life was his first love. Though that relationship took place in his early manhood, its memory returned throughout his life, triggered by an old song, a perfume, the color of a woman’s hair, or countless other inscrutable and seemingly mysterious stimuli.

Though he was destined to be periodically reminded of his lost love, he thrust himself into life and experienced it. His desire to see the world beyond his hometown and his impoverished early life drove him to travel across America in search of new places and new people and to be a part of the amazing history taking place. During his journey of discovery, he became an active and impassioned participant in arguably the greatest year of his generation.

The sampling of those experiences in this story paralleled and mirrored the road many of his peers traveled. His activities followed the trajectory and crescendo of that remarkable year. Inexplicably, by year’s end, an epoch and era had begun to fade. Daniel and every questioning and active person of his generation would be left to wonder what happened. And why. Theories about it would abound. Daniel constantly analyzed his journey in an attempt to understand it.

The final year of the decade was a watershed year with incredible happenings, but the era between 1965 and 1970 (more specifically, 1967 through the start of 1970) was not a utopia, an El Dorado, a Shangri-La, a Xanadu, nirvana, or any other flawless, perfect, idealized time. But there was something incredible, extraordinary, and fantastic that young, sensitive people experienced during that historic, memorable time.

An entire generation, the baby boomers, was under siege by the US government to participate in one of the great and regrettable follies by America after World War II. An imminent death notice—or, as it was euphemistically called, a draft notice—hung over the heads of most men between ages eighteen and twenty-six. Unless they had one of the legal exemptions, such as being enrolled full-time in school, being a conscientious objector, in the military reserve (a so-called weekend warrior), or having a documented physical or mental impairment, a male baby boomer was destined to be drafted and face the high probability of being sent to Southeast Asia. The pressure of a possible death sentence had a way of uniting their generation.

At the onset of the war, which was often referred to as a conflict (one of the many sugarcoated twists of language to distract attention from the cold realities of warfare), some young men were volunteering to fulfill what they believed was their patriotic duty. Joining the military before receiving a registered letter from the draft board seemed to be an honorable demonstration of their love of country and freedom.

For a couple of the early years of the war (mainly 1964 and 1965), young men stepped up and even eagerly volunteered to be part of the country’s effort to stem what was characterized as the spread of godless communism before it extended its vile tentacles clear across the sea to our shores. At least, that was what many of these truehearted young patriots thought they were doing.

Disabled

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light of blue trees,

And girls danced lovelier as the air grew dim-

In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim

Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands.

All of them touch him like some queer disease.

There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He’s lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked blood smear down his leg,

After the matches, carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he drunk a peg,

He thought he’d better join.- He wonders why.

Someone said he look a god in kilts,

That’s why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts

He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg;

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,

And Austria’s, did not move him. And no fears

Of Fear came yet. He drought of jewelled hills

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;

And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;

Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man brought him fruits

Thanked him; and then enquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,

And take whatever pity they may dole.

Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come

And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?

—Wilfred Owen

In 1965, Dan’s exceptional high school teacher, Miss Angela Faso, had her students read and discuss Wilfred Owen’s poem Disabled. The firebrand of a teacher was in her midfifties and was physically small but had a booming, passionate voice. She knew young men seemed to be mesmerized by an ideal of heroes in war stoked by sanitized images from Hollywood or TV. They were unaware of the reality of the real battlefield. Many young men like Daniel played football and participated in other physical activities such as track, baseball, basketball, and swimming. Most of Miss Faso’s male students reveled in the actual or imagined accolades of competing and winning in high school sports. Being a hero in their favored sport excited their innocent imaginations.

His English teacher had her classes read, discuss, and write about Wilfred Owen’s haunting poem. Though the poet was English, and his poem referred to the Great War (World War I), it focused on the misconception young men engaged in by naively attempting to transfer the ideals of adolescent sports to the battlefield of real wars.

What happened to Wilfred Owen’s young star athlete when he transferred his vision and personal delusion of sports heroism onto the deadly and unforgiving battlefield in the trenches in France is a sobering wake-up call to all unworldly adolescents. The poem is a cautionary tale of the grotesqueness of war. It’s an indictment of young men’s naïveté and, yes, the dangerous and mortal ignorance of a battlefield reality.

Miss Faso’s intent was to dash the idea of war as some sort of game in which young men competed for ephemeral glory without the chance for horrendous consequences of actual, real-life warfare. She was not instructing her students not to join the military and go off to war but rather instructing them to be aware of the harsh and horrific realities of war. War is no game, and even if one survives physically unscathed, deep psychological scars can last a lifetime. Daniel’s influential English teacher challenged her students to think about the meaning and consequences of not only the Vietnam War but all wars.

Nearly a half century later, the stark lesson derived from Wilfred Owen’s poem remained fresh in Daniel’s mind. That class, poem, and teacher’s inspiration provoked an intellectual awakening in him. It fostered a deeper awareness and a questioning of the motives and rationale for any war. Miss Faso helped him develop his critical and analytical skills that’d be part of his thinking process throughout his life.

Like many others of his generation, he questioned the war and many other elements of American society. Due to backlash from the establishment and the older generation because of their generation’s antiwar stance, young folks naturally gravitated toward other hassled and persecuted baby boomers to bond, commonly at music festivals. The Monterey Pop Festival, Newport Folk Festival, and even the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto (among other events there) became refuges for beleaguered men of draft age.

Of all the various festivals over the second half of the 1960s, the greatest was the Woodstock Music & Art Festival in 1969. It was a primal plea for America to see the younger generation’s humanistic philosophy in action. From every corner of the country and beyond, active, nonviolent warriors for peace and love came to celebrate their generation and demonstrate to the world the possibility of hope.

For most of the people attending the event, it was a validation of their core belief in the basic goodness in their peers, themselves, and people in general. It wasn’t as much a protest of war and death as it was an exuberant celebration of peace, love, and life like nothing ever witnessed on such a grand scale. Those who attended Woodstock were ambassadors of peace. (That festival and its impact on the year and decade will be discussed in more detail in a later chapter of this story.)

But 1969 witnessed other great events that lent credence to its uniqueness and specialness. Daniel’s travels and experiences touched on and were influenced by the great highs and lows of forces that would culminate by the end of the year, decade, and era. His journey was like that of numerous other Woodstock Nation citizens. Beside the many music festivals and concerts by numerous and insightful voices of the age were political and social events. In many places around the country, music celebrations were taking place and reached their spectacular zenith in a cow pasture in a corner of Sullivan County in New York State.

Chapter 1

Venice Beach

REVERSE THE CHARGES, he meekly instructed the mysterious stranger in a voice of a child calling home from the principal’s office. He waited nervously for a special person’s voice on the other end of the line saying yes to the robotic-sounding operator’s simple question. During the short interlude of silence, his chest felt as vast and empty as the Grand Canyon.

The time between the question and answer felt like an eternity. The anxious, temporary former student gazed out of the phone booth toward the splendid sun that would soon kiss the sea. The glass panels in the phone booth contained the residue previous callers had etched across their surfaces. He imagined what a forensic scientist would identify in its Jackson Pollock pattern. But through the filth on the glass, he could still see the desertlike sand stretching to the edge of the ocean like an enormous, textured, beige carpet.

While he stared out at the soothing Pacific, bits of Beach Boy tunes played in his head. He recalled landlocked memories and the joy associated with them. It seemed like an eon ago in his earlier youth that he’d last felt that unfettered optimism. His thoughts were of surfing, beautiful girls in bikinis, woodies with surfboards on their roofs, perpetual waves, and the feeling it would never end. It had all been positive, and remembering it made him glad to have been alive, to have been young and so innocent back then.

That was before the war, before anyone had heard of Vietnam or could find it on a Rand-McNally map even for a million bucks. It was prior to brave young friends and peers being duped into joining the cause to stop the unholy spread of communism before it reached America’s shores, before his friends and acquaintances began coming home in closed caskets to conceal the consequence of the great lie of the age.

Karl Marx said religion was the opium of the people. In the 1960s, Daniel believed Marx would have said that an uncritical patriotism was the opium of the people. This perverse nationalism would be used by those in power to drug the thinking of unworldly young men into willingly surrendering their bodies and souls. It’d be the scheme to ensure the wealth and well-being of the captains and lieutenants of industry and business and their bourgeois families and friends living country club lives. Old Karl would point out that those in political power would wave the red-white-and-blue banner of noble but blinding nationalism to fill military uniforms in parts of the earth where conflicts had nothing at all to do with American freedom and liberty.

The piercing wind of clarity blowing across the country in 1969 was pushing away the smog of all those deceptions used to seduce and recruit the hearts and bodies of a generation. As the reality of this terrible, fatal folly began to unfold, a pacifist army of opposition was steadily rising. The young man in the unsanitary phone booth in Venice Beach, California, was an active member of that growing legion of resisters.

But as he awaited the word yes to be spoken by the life-giving voice on the other side of the continent, his head was overflowing with troubling thoughts. How would the owner of the anticipated voice saying yes react to the serious information he’d reveal? Would she think he’d lost his mind as many of his uninformed relatives were claiming? Or would she carefully and compassionately listen to the incredible details of the travesty that had just occurred and believe it would be okay? After all, she always believed in him, and he always told her the truth. Both had pure hearts. Their imminent conversation would test that bond.

While the flood of thoughts and images spun around in his mind like a roulette wheel, a single word halted that process cold. The yes announced by the soothing, familiar voice closed the valve of the stream-of-consciousness dialogue spinning wildly around in his head. The single, simple word acted like a stun gun immobilizing the young man in the beachside phone booth.

Danny? Are you there? his gentle-hearted, concerned mother implored in the face of the temporary and unusual silence coming from her usually talkative son.

Ahh, hi, Mom. I arrived in California two days ago as Mac and I planned. We went to my friend’s place in Manhattan Beach after we landed and stayed with them our first night. The next morning, they told us it was great to see us but we couldn’t stay with them.

Dan didn’t mention the relief he and Mac had felt as they were being shown the door. Their friends from Western New York had become active LSD entrepreneurs on the local beach scene.

"So, we went to Mac’s friend’s place in Venice Beach. While we waited for John to get home, we were hanging out near the beach. Without any warning, a police car came along and abruptly stopped by us. Mac and I were just standing near the street doing absolutely nothing other than watching people and waiting for his friend to get home.

One cop opened the back door of their police cruiser and ordered me to get in. I asked him politely if there was some problem, and he told me, ‘Oh there’s a problem all right. Look what you’re wearing!’

The troubled young man explained to his understanding mother the nature of his so-called wardrobe problem. An artist friend in Buffalo had given him a pair of white Levi’s cutoffs on which he had skillfully and creatively painted an approximation of the American flag. Nothing subversive or disrespectful; it was a youthful tribute to the old stars and stripes.

On the very first time wearing this youthful homage to the symbol of America, just twenty-three hours after setting foot on the promised soil of California dreamin’, he was whisked away to jail for the heinous crime of expressing a personal interpretation of respect for the American flag. From a jail cell in Venice Beach, he was transported to the Los Angeles County Jail to be fingerprinted, photographed, and housed near other hardened criminals and placed alone in a prison cell.

He had been charged with three obscure misdemeanors. Each charge was punishable by up to one year in prison and carried a monetary fine. Given the chauvinistic hysteria of the time, it was possible that Daniel could be sentenced to three years in jail and fined $1,800. Along with that, his life would be stained with a criminal record that would have a lifelong impact. All of it would be the result of innocently wearing a pair of painted cutoffs.

He continued to tell his mother the rest of the awful, bizarre story. As he waited for his friend Mac to arrive with the necessary cash bail, he studied the small, steel enclosure that he alone was locked in. The cold vertical and horizontal metal bars represented the antithesis of his physical freedom. They were the denial of his hopes, his dreams, his youth, his very essence. He felt a terrible void within and a certain panic as he gazed at cold, cruel, impregnable bars of apathetic metal.

Life is filled with all sorts of symbols, he thought. For thinking people like himself, identifying and studying symbols was always intellectually stimulating, even fun. But as he ran his fingers along the crisscrossing lines of unyielding steel, he became conscious of a darker, more-sinister level of symbols. A point is sometimes reached when the abstract and symbolic crosses from the theoretical into cold, hard, painful reality. The imprisoned Daniel had crossed that threshold.

For the first time in his life, without the unlimited freedom of physical movement and with the stifling confinement in a cell, a terrifying grimness gripped his spirit. How long would he remain there? Would his friend come through with the $625 for bail? What legal hurdles would there be? Questions, too many of them, inundated his thoughts like water rushing into a sinking ship ship. He felt the air being sucked out of him. Those unbreakable bars were mocking his youth and ridiculing his freedom. The cell felt as if it were shrinking. Panic was setting in. For the first time in his life, he began to understand the meaning of madness.

Thankfully, Mac made it there with the money, and Dan was released. An ominous cloud would hang over his head for the foreseeable future and cast a shadow across his whole life. The feeling and experience of being caged like an animal in an inhumane cell would stay with him for a lifetime. It was a black hole in his existence; his memories of it would haunt him like a never-dying Hollywood Halloween ghoul.

His good mother’s voice was a soothing balm. He needed to hear the voice of the virtuous woman who had brought him into this maddening world. She needed to hear the voice of her older son, the one born after the untimely death of her firstborn son. The arrival of her second, Daniel, had been the gift that had helped her heart survive the unimaginable grief of losing that little talkative three-year-old dressed in his favorite clothes—a sailor suit—in the tiny casket, the vessel he’d sail through eternity from its dock six feet below the surface of the earth. In her womb, she had carried the second Daniel during those three horrible days just before a Christmas long ago. Her anguish and sorrow coursed through her being and the yet-to-be-born second Daniel. It had created a special covenant between them unlike any she had with her other four living children.

The sound of his mother’s caring voice asking what she could do to help him was enough. Knowing that she was on his side, that she was behind him in his upcoming battle with such a miscarriage of justice, was all he needed to hear. He didn’t know what was ahead, but no matter what, he would fight like hell against the law enforcement and judicial machines and not be crushed beneath, in this case, the mindless, misdirected wheels of injustice.

He recalled the personal words given to him by the folk singer Tom Paxton when they accidently met following Tom’s concert in Buffalo, New York, a year earlier. After finding out Daniel was a member of the antiwar movement, Paxton wrote on an underground newsletter that Daniel gave him to autograph, Never give the bastards a minute’s peace! (see appendix #1 p. 254). Words to live by, words taken to heart, the shibboleth by which he’d rally his irrepressible spirit against the California judicial system and those trumped-up charges.

Though Daniel was but a wiry five five, within him was a fierce warrior—no surrender there. His mother’s words of encouragement played in his mind; they would inspire him for a lifetime. She often told him, Keep working, keep trying. Things will work out for the best. With time to reflect and connect the dots between his formal learning and his life experiences, he thought about those simple, eloquent words of wisdom his mother had imparted to him.

In high school, as a reinstated dropout student in his senior year, he received the opportunity to pursue his academic curiosity and passion for poetry from his English teacher, Miss Faso. During that journey of independent intellectual discovery, he came across the works of Dylan Thomas. Daniel was allowed and encouraged to read and explore the written and spoken words (on vinyl LP) of the great Welsh bard. Dylan Thomas’s recording of his poem Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night was a revelation. It opened one of the pathways to his soul and would be another important lifetime inspiration for him.

As he thought about those simple words of encouragement from his wise mother, he realized they had the same sentiment as those in Dylan Thomas’s poem. The poet said, Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light. His mother’s simple words expressed the same sentiment. His mother and Dylan Thomas were telling him, Don’t give up! Keep trying. Keep resisting. No surrender in either message, he thought.

The three messages—one from his mother, one from Dylan Thomas, and one from Tom Paxton, came together and jolted his sullen spirit out of its understandable funk. He felt a call to action, a summons to rise from the despondent thoughts that had temporarily stunned his spirit in his six-by-nine cell. Keep going. Never give up! If it’s right, if you’re right, fight those bastards until the very end! Thanks Mom, Dylan, and Tom! He felt the reinvigorating power of righteousness. Knowing the truth, knowing he was right, gave him a sudden and massive surge of moral empowerment.

Mac and Dan remained in Southern California for a couple of weeks to deal with this unanticipated legal mess. Daniel, who was a temporary college dropout, would use his extensive knowledge and experience as an active member of the student movement back east to find legal representation. Having attended trials of fellow war protesters who had been railroaded by biased law enforcers and a complicit judicial system, he knew how critical it would be to find a good lawyer.

The two enthusiastic wanderers hitchhiked to the two major Los Angeles college campuses—UCLA and USC—to connect with members of the student movement for leads to get gratis legal advice and counsel. A student at one of the schools told Dan that the public defenders in Los Angeles were outstanding and would do a superlative job refuting the bogus charges. This news was in sharp contrast with what he knew about public defenders back east who seemed more interested in plea bargains favorable to the courts rather than to indigent defendants. But hey, maybe it’s different out here.

With a copy of the charges that spelled out in cold legalese the three misdemeanor laws he had violated so recklessly, Mac and Dan went to see his public defender at the LA County office building near the court. Daniel had a good feeling about the meeting based on the glowing recommendation from the UCLA student.

Prior to the crucial meeting with the public defender, he had carefully read the document that detailed the three misdemeanor laws he had supposedly violated. Each was punishable by up to one year in prison with a monetary fine. He never nor would ever take a legal course in college, but he was an astute student of literature and language and could read anything closely, carefully, and analytically. He was excited and optimistic after reviewing the document accusing him of three misdemeanors. All the charges were based on the destruction, mutilation, and/or public display of an altered American flag. Bingo! There it is, the basis for the dismissal of all those ludicrous charges, he thought.

When he met the young public defender assigned to his case, he was almost bubbling over with his brilliant discovery. All he needed to do was point out the massive flaw in those trumped-up charges and the legal beast would be slain and he and Mac could resume their West Coast exploration with clear minds. Daniel proudly and quickly gave the public defender his interpretation of the wording on the formal document thinking they’d throw a party to celebrate the swift end to the legal farce.

The attorney barked, You don’t know that!

A bit stunned by this unexpected negative response, Dan said, It says in each of the three charges that a United States flag had to be ‘mutilated, destroyed, and/or displayed in public view.’ My white Levi’s cutoffs were never an American flag. All the charges against me are predicated on the mutilation, destruction, and display of an actual, real, and damaged American flag!

The public defender was perhaps embarrassed by the energy, passion, and certainty expressed by this novice’s legal interpretation; he replied in a less hostile tone, I’ll have to look into it.

His arraignment was to take place the next week. The hesitant attorney told Dan that he’d see him at that arraignment. His words smacked of skepticism and suspicion.

Daniel felt uncertain about his lawyer’s belief in his innocence, but he was sure of his innocence and his interpretation of that damnable legal document. There was no doubt in his mind about his innocence and the injustice of the whole situation.

He had an unflinching belief in language and the meanings of words. His ability to express experiences and observations would allow him to gain a deeper understanding of his existence and relationships with others, the world—even the universe. Yes, language was sometimes imprecise, but wasn’t the search for words to describe what we perceived in the world and what we felt in our hearts an ongoing process? He passionately believed language was the essential tool needed to discover the mundane and the profound truths of existence.

Written words are concrete thoughts we can analyze. Despite the uncertainty raised by the apparently skeptical and green public defender about his own patently sound argument against the infernal legal document, Dan never doubted his own reading and interpretation of those three misdemeanor charges and his self-evident innocence. Instead, he found his own skepticism was for the public defender, who unbelievably didn’t seem to understand the meanings of words.

After a long weekend of pursuing and indulging in the beauty and pleasure of several beaches, Dan and Mac arrived at the courthouse for his arraignment. He hoped the public defender had had time to review the charges and had come to the same sound conclusion as he had about the wording. Dan had a powerful ray of hope that this legal mess would be quickly blown away.

To his surprise, he discovered the crowded Los Angeles courtroom where his proceeding was to take place was a judicial mishmash. Every type of case under the sun was handled by the one proper, middle-aged judge who seemed almost jovial as each offender and offense was brought before him. Daniel’s sense of optimism grew with every successive disposition. The judge, with a salt-and-pepper, receding hairline, seemed to have a compassionate heart and a desire