“Just another rite of passage, another of childhood’s puzzling and uncertain moments. American writers are mesmerized by childhood, the quizzical journey from innocence to adulthood. What a journey it is, too: precarious and wonderful; frightening and alluring; delightful and tragic. Not one journey, but many, and every one of them different. I am told that money and privilege sometimes make for a smoother passage. I would not know. I only know about being a soldier’s son: the military life and the unexpected fortunes such a life brings. Luck has a lot to do with it, and I was lucky in that my luck went sour early and put me on another road altogether, a road that took me deep into the mountains, a road that led to a trout stream and into the curious and captivating lives of three old men who, by having so little, laid claim to having everything that mattered, was worthwhile, and would last.”