Growing up in the coal camps and poor neighborhoods of Eastern Kentucky in the 1940's, 50's, and 60's required an extraordinarily tough disposition and a strong will to survive despite the odds. This volume details the exciting and sometimes difficult times in which a young man struggles to overcome the worrisome prediction of an early death while living in extremely poor economic conditions. As if that wasn't enough to worry himself and his parents, he develops a sudden onset of obsessive compulsive disorder at the age of 12 years, drops out of school at 16, gets married at 17, is drafted into the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War at 18, becomes a father at 20, and narrowly escapes two coal mine explosions after coming home from the military. In the telling of his very interesting and unusual story he manages to convey the complexity, the humor, the seriousness, and the good and bad times of his varied experiences.