James A, Gorman writes this coming of age story during the turbulence of the 1960s counter-culture in an era of sex, drugs, rock and revolution. Meet an eclectic cast of characters and hear their stories, some hilarious, some tragic.
For his 18th birthday he would be busted for smoking flowers while his girl picked flowers in the woods. After serving thirty days in the county jail, he would earn the respect of twenty harden criminals.
He attended the Woodstock music festival before heading to California, then lived in Mexico where he smuggled thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border. After witnessing the horrors of Viet Nam, he would get tear gassed in the biggest anti-war demonstration in the history of Washington D.C.
He would escape arrest in New Jersey by fleeing to Cocoa Beach, Florida. In a story of redemption, he would return to school to study solar engineering and spend ten years doing research for the Florida Solar Energy Center at Cape Canaveral. Needing a change, he would spend a couple of years sailing and diving the coasts of Mexico and Central America while exploring the jungle shrouded ruins of Yucatan.
Returning to Florida, he would begin work as a stagehand with I.A.T.S.E. Local #631 in Orlando working on concerts, Broadway tours, operas, ballets and trade shows. After being accepted to a prestigious film school designed by Steven Spielberg he earned an Associate of Arts degree in film production and worked on film and TV productions at Universal and Disney MGM Studios.
He would spend five months at sea volunteering for Seashepherd Conservation Society on the Ocean Warrior busting shark poachers off South America and ended up on the Department of Homeland Security watch list as an ecoterrorist after a raid by the FBI in Monterey Bay.
