Synopsis: “The Real Deal”

Preface and Introduction:
This opening lays out the Hero, Vision Quest Motif that resonates throughout the book and illustrates the hero’s journey to transcendence. Coming of age during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as a member of the baby boom generation, I paint the picture of one mans experience from a youthful perspective to the decision to embark on an adventure of discovery through his involvement in an illegal prohibited marijuana and hashish business.

Chapter One: Childhood
This first chapter tells the story of my youth as I grow and experience the safety and love of two educated, loving parents and three brothers, seven sisters and a home grounded on Christian values and a love for family, education, church and civic duty. I share my experience confronting a real life Boogie Man who takes me out of my youthful place and thrusts me into another world. I illustrate my energy and enthusiasm, my zest for life and my ability to make something quite simple into a true adventure. The story brings the audience into my blood family and allows them to share what it was like growing up in an educated home with eleven siblings. As my youth is coming to a close I experience rebelliousness and an attraction to an altered state of consciousness. As it ends I find myself in a world of many different colors and textures with the goal to maneuver my way through the maze and find the path I was set to travel. I was definitely restless and wanting to very much taste, touch and feel my way through the experience of life.

Chapter Two: Adolescence
Adolescence starts out with my running away from home and taking a Greyhound Bus to Sumter S.C. where I get picked up by the local Sheriff and spend several days in a southern jail with my youthful friend. It is the beginning of my true adolescence and the path or rather the slippery slope to adulthood. I communicate the birth of the shadow side to my life experience and the deepening estrangement from my parents and their Christian values. My relationship with Brother Chris is introduced and developed illustrating our dream to emulate Joseph P. Kennedy and his involvement in a prohibited business. It closes with my emancipation and the death of Speedy Shook who had taken me on as a fifth son.

Chapter Three: Prohibition I, The Path
Opens with the short history of Prohibition and the fact that Joe Kennedy chose to take a chance and profit from what would later be repealed and legalized. It lays out the fact that Brother Chris and I saw ourselves as the next iteration after Woodstock and we were willing to take a chance in a covert action to decriminalize and legalize a prohibited natural herbal high, marijuana. I cover the early years of the business and the path to building a distribution system that would later become one of the largest marijuana and hashish smuggling/distribution systems of its kind. This chapter communicates my experimenting with drugs, getting sick and making a decision to transform myself from a small time pot dealer into large scale marijuana and hash smuggler. The new age family dynamic and the fact that Chris and Robert had the ability to organize like minded men and women to participate in a covert effort to “save the planet from sure destruction, one joint at a time” utilizing an alternative lifestyle and a prohibited business. I also incorporate the times we were living and the disconnect that took place within my own blood family. This chapter covers the early years of multi ton loads of pot from Tucson Arizona and the building of a national transportation system to move marijuana on a national scale.

Chapter Four: Prohibition II, Lost Direction
I open with Barry Toombs who introduces me to a new level of involvement and exposes me to business practices that are shaky at best. This chapter brings all of the elements concerning large scale marijuana and hash deals, non stop illegal activity that culminates with million dollar deals and large sums of cash that get deposited off shore, buried in the ground and invested in gold, silver and precious gems. I cover the first hash deal that was smuggled into Hilton Head, South Carolina where we brought in 25,000 pounds on a 71 ft. sail boat and I was responsible for distributing it and turning it into money. Lee Harvey and I become partners and unleash numerous smuggle trips from Lebanon, Columbia, Jamaica and Thailand. We go on to become notorious for our success and eventually come under investigation by the Organized Crime Strike Force headed by Ms. Karen Tandy who later becomes the new head of the DEA, under President George W. Bush. This chapter closes with the story about my son Nicholas drowning in our swimming pool on Cape Cod (he was later revived after being found at the bottom of the pool purple and lifeless) and my spiritual awakening, my epiphany, and eventual commitment to my “Transformation of Consciousness”

Chapter Five: Investigation
The initial fatal mistake was made when both Chris and Robert decided to come out and show a visible show of wealth. Washington, D.C. is in many ways a small town fish bowel and the federal city took notice when two young men from McLean, Virginia bought property and came out of the closet. The fact that Barry Toombs was kidnapped by the DEA, from his home in Costa Rica, and brought back to the United States, for trial started what would become known as “The Reckmeyer Case”. It also started my “Transformation by Illumination” in that I decided to frame my unfolding experience in spiritual terms and chose to hold on for the ride. I hire an attorney, John Dowd who takes advantage of a young man in trouble and involves himself in several currency violations that cause him to have a conflict in his representation. I choose to quit the smuggling business and take a path to my spiritual awakening while my brother Chris chooses to try and salvage the business. The lead Assistant United States Attorney for The Eastern District of Virginia breaks two court orders and is disqualified from further involvement in our case only to be reinstated several days’ later. This chapter ends with my taking responsibility for my failure to communicate forcefully with my network and in effect I walk away from the gathering storm.

Chapter Six: The Case
I am indicted and charged with running a Continuing Criminal Enterprise, close to 300 tons of marijuana and hashish, a gun charge, income tax evasion and intimidating a federal witness. In short I was in a lot of trouble and facing life in prison without the possibility for parole. The Case culminates with an early morning raid on my personal residence in Centreville, Virginia where my two son’s age four (4) and seven (7) witnessed my arrest and the arrest of their mother on a drug conspiracy charge. I communicate the abrupt change in my reality from one of freedom, wealth and family to facing life in prison without the possibility for parole while incarcerated in the notorious D.C. Jail. I cover my sentencing and my statement before the court articulating my remorse and my willingness to face my punishment. I am sentenced to a term of seventeen (17) years without the possibility for parole.

Chapter Seven: Star Fighter School
My first initiation into Star Fighter School would be filled with mental, emotional, physical and spiritual exercises that were designed to build me up and train me for the work ahead and build the strength I would need to overcome my new reality. I had been taught, as a youngster, to be ready for anything and to believe that I was super naturally protected by multi dimensional beings that had power to utilize natural universal laws that most terrestrial human beings were not aware of. My mother had trained me in the spiritual disciplines and taught me to “reach for the force” and allow God’s source energy to fill me up. I was trained in the “Jedi Knight” school of thought and I always knew deep within my soul that source energy was extremely powerful and able to empower me with an ability to transcend our three dimensional understanding. Now I would be trained in spiritual disciplines of the fourth and fifth dimension. If I could maintain my focus, on my training, and leave my past behind then I could overcome the pain associated with separation and the loss of my freedom. The hard work of educating myself and completing Star Fighter School was dependant on my willingness to sacrifice and grow even when I was hurting deeply by the loss of my freedom and liberty.

I framed my thoughts to be a willing participant in a level of spiritual training that was beyond my human understanding and yet I was able to see through the glass partially. I was on a life changing adventure that had the potential to remake me into a true Jedi Knight and a graduate from Star Fighter School.

My prison experience is set forth as I make my way through 16 jails for a total of ninety four (94) months. This chapter covers my deepening transformation into a monastic lifestyle and the dissolution of my marriage and family. I am confronted with numerous challenges that build me up and bring me to a place that can only be described as transforming. I include a short story written while I was incarcerated in Petersburg that illustrates my journey through the eyes of one who must stay centered on a spiritual dynamic in order to maintain his personal sanity. This chapter closes with my release from Federal Prison entering the deep dark forest and a new path on my quest for enlightenment.

Chapter Eight: Starting Over
Upon my release to the Halfway House in Washington D.C. I find myself in a world of new and exciting possibilities. I am picked up by my ex-wife and her new four month old baby, Christine. My three sons greet me with open arms and yet I find myself challenged to connect on their terms. My parents support me unconditionally with their love and their money. I am thrust back into the real world where I seize the bull by the horns and jump in head first trying my best to fit in and connect with my family, my freedom and the choices that go along with them. I cover the early years in the Tanning business utilizing the business as a teaching tool for the growth of my three sons and their involvement in a family business. I speak to why we suffer and how we frame our suffering and the truth that our reality is something we create with our thoughts and either a positive filter or a negative filter.

When my children ask me about prison I tell them it was not really prison but rather a deep CIA cover story enacted to fool the public because I was really in Star Fighter School being trained to save the planet from sure destruction. I was on a secrete mission and it was part of a grand design that was bigger than any of us. I have told them that life is never what it seems when you look on the surface. One must dig deeper to find the gem.

Chapter Nine: A New Life
This chapter covers my new life with my wife Deborah and my four daughters living in the country experiencing the blended family dynamic. I share my personal growth as a husband and a father utilizing the spiritual and multi dimensional understanding that comes from our close personal family relationships.

Chapter Ten: Waking Up
Even with a book like this, I write from a conviction that people are ready for more than entertainment when they read a book. It is a deep longing for answers to fundamental questions. People want enlightenment and it is not something any of us can have in an instant. It really does take a commitment and a lifestyle change. It becomes the driving force in ones life and it is a force for positive change. It is the one effort that we can take with us when we do leave this material world. Utilizing the Christian metaphors and developing oneself through a personal relationship with the Christ within opens up unlimited possibilities for spiritual, mystical growth. I cover my level of awareness and my take on where I believe we are collectively on a human consciousness level. I ask the question “Can one man or women really make a difference? I speak to the interplay between God-Man and Earth and the fact that we live in a vibrational universe that is a system of love. I lay out the truth that we can change the world if we believe we can.

Chapter Eleven: Staying Awake
My introduction to the paranormal and altered states of consciousness started when I was a young boy and found my mothers book shelf to be a wealth of material. I was introduced to Edgar Cayce, UFO’s and life after death. I took it upon myself to educate my young mind and in the process found a life long interest in comparative religion, quantum mechanics and the study of reframing our personal reality. We learn to evolve and grow or we die and in the process we find ourselves on a vision quest journey to enlightenment. In this chapter I challenge the reader to make a commitment to a transformation and an inward spiritual journey to transcendence.

Chapter Twelve: Mystical Journey
The focus on the present moment and coming to terms with the mindless chatter of the ego is spelled out in the final chapter. Trying to stay connected to the consciousness of “Now” enables the true seeker to experience a transcendent state. I share my own struggle with giving up my personal power and the final success of taking it back. The Mystical Journey completes the story with examples of people who have influenced me in my own journey to a transformation of my consciousness. Jesus, Joseph, Robert E. Lee, Edgar Cayce and Joseph Campbell are illustrated with an example of their personal principals and characteristics. It follows with a short teaching on the vibrational universe that we live in and is followed by a teaching on our emotional guidance system, the creative process and how our thoughts manifest in our experience. It is followed by the Gnostic Eight Fold Path to the Christ Consciousness. I end the book with “It’s a Process”.

This speaks to the “build a little test a little” approach that has worked well for me as I have developed my inward spiritual life.

I am praying that this book encourages people to set out on a journey of exploration through the inner-space dimensions of ones being. My life story has been quite a journey and I have a sincere hope that through the words spoken each person can find something that calls them to examine their being ness their essence and motivates them to seek more. “Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened”.

That’s my story and I am sticking to it…………………………………………………