It was a mild December morning in 1981 when my Mother dropped me off in front of Rahway High School. It would be some time before I recognized that the day’s events would transform my life.

As I had done the day before and the day before that, after my mother was out of sight I walked away from the school. Unlike those two days I intended to go to school but had procrastinated on forging a note from my mother. Once that was accomplished, I would go in late.

I ran into Greg Ford down by the Junior High and, bless him, he had stolen some reefer from his Dad. As we began to get high a fellow I didn’t know all that well named Greg Gordon approached us. He had dropped out a while before so he had ample time to join the party. (No word on whether he ever tuned in.)

We got in Greg Ford’s car and decided to grab a six pack. I should have known right then I was not going to school that day but continued to delude my self. Eventually Greg Ford decided he would go in late. So Greg Gordon and I went to his house and borrowed his Mother’s station wagon. We got more beer and rode around for a while.

Then Greg decided to see what was up at the High School. We went in the parking lot from the back and headed toward the smoking section outside the very back of the school. Greg’s next maneuver surprised everyone.

He sped up and, to the amazement and delight of the smoking teenagers, flew past them and rode onto the grass on the Stone St. side of the High School. We went half way up that side of the building and started doing donuts in the grass. After completing this dizzying display of defiance Greg rode back out the way he came. With a casual wave of his hand he acknowledged the leaping, cheering, smokers as we passed in a blur.

A performance like that deserved another joint which I eagerly provided.

Eventually I made my way home. My mother worked evening shifts at the WE Kearny works making telephones. So I was greatly surprised when she was home upon my arrival. She asked if I had gone to school that day. Her tone suggested she already knew the answer.

Too upset to wait for my answer she explained that tonight was her Post est Training Workshop and she had off to attend. She had come to the High School to pick me up when the crossing guard walked over and told her how I almost never attended school. He told her how I would walk away after she dropped me off in the morning. I remained silent to prevent anything I said from being used against me.

She then asked if I was going to attend her Post Training Workshop? Smoking pot tends to make one forgetful and I had completely forgotten about that evening’s event. Before the rat masquerading as a crossing guard screwed me over, I had no intention of going to this thing. Now I saw the event in a different light. I took my first chance to speak a favorable word and said yes.

The event was held at the New Jersey Area Seminar Site deep in the bowels of an industrial park called Raritan Center. The post seminar was to celebrate the “graduation” of the prior two weekend’s participants and give their unenlightened loved ones the opportunity to pony up 375.00 dollars and say “I Got It!”

One thing est did have going for it was an unusually high number of beautiful girls. By the end of the evening the pressure had grown quite intense to sign up. When my mother indicated that she would pay for the Training, I began to suspect that just attending that evening would be insufficient to get me out of the woods. Plus there were lots of pretty girls there so I enrolled in the est training.

It was during the est Training that I got in touch with the unexpressed grief over my father’s death. The glimmer of an idea that daily drinking and drug use might not be so good came to me during those two weekends. Shortly after completing the Training I sought professional help for the depression that has afflicted me my whole life. I am also uncertain whether or not I would be abstinent from drugs and alcohol today without est. Later the darker side of est would be revealed to me. But initially est was a huge help.

That’s how the crossing guard and the cult combined to change my life that mild December day in 1981.