I was finally home. After the long flight from Heathrow the PanAm 747 that had flown us all the way from New Dehli via Karachi landed at JFK airport. 8 hours later I was back in New Vrindavan. From there my parents sent me to live with my grandma Jane who lived in Severna Park, Maryland. My Grandma Jane had a wonderful home on the Magothy River about a mile up from where it flowed into the Chesapeake Bay. From my Grandma Jane’s back porch you could see out across the mouth of the river to the tip of Gibson Island. To the south was the United States Naval Academy and the city of Annapolis.
I lived upstairs in a single room with my Uncle Scott and my Uncle David. Scott was attending Anne Arundel Community College and Dave went to Broadneck High School and played in a band. Scott taught me how to sail and to fish for crabs and how to throw and catch a football. Dave taught me about the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Floyd, Zeppelin, CCR, Fleetwood Mac and later Eric Clapton, Bruce Hornsby, and Dire Straits. On Sundays we attended Hope Presbyterian Church where my grandfather the Reverend Allen Moore had preached before he had been paralyzed by a stroke at the age of 55.
This was a happy time for me but I have to admit that it was the strangest time of my life. All around me I saw what I had been taught was wickedness but I didn’t care. Eating meat was a sin but now everyone in the house except for me ate meat and they seemed like nice people. Alcohol and tobacco were everywhere too and nobody seemed to even notice. Gambling was supposed to be a sin too, but I didn’t care. Sex was supposed to be a sin, but it was in every advertisement and I found myself thinking about it more and more. At the time I had no idea what Ganja or any other drugs were for that matter. All I cared about was fitting in which was not easy. Americans were completely foreign to me. I watched TV and read books and retreated into my fantasy world of comic books. I now immersed myself in the lives of American heroes like Mack Bolan, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne and Matt Murdoch.
I found myself living in two worlds, the real world in which I did not fit in and the world as I imagined it could be. I decided that no matter what career I chose I would also have a secret identity. I began to plan my life as a superhero. I began a regular exercise routine and I started to sprint a mile every morning. I would jump out of bed, put my shoes on and head out the door. From there I would run to the end of our lane, then make a right on Magothy Avenue until it ended at Shore Acres Road. From there I would take a left and really get moving before making the climb up the hill to the dead man’s curve before Deep Creek Road. At the top of the hill, I would turn around and sprint down the hill running faster and faster until the trees and the houses were nothing but a blur. On the cold winter mornings, the warm tears would stream from my eyes freezing on the side of my cheeks. Sometimes I would grab a handful of snow from a low hanging tree branch and let the snow melt in my mouth as I blazed my way toward home. It may have looked like I was running but I felt like I was flying. Though I rarely spoke in class at Magothy River Middle School or Severn River Jr. High School, on the playground no one could beat me in a race.
When I was 14 years old I moved out of my Grandma Jane’s house and back in with my parents. My dad had been drinking every day since he had been fired from his job as construction manager at New Vrindavan for drinking. Up until that time he had been the guru Kirtananda Swami’s right-hand man and a respected member of the community, but now he was persona non grata. He was never the same after that. He would eventually get sober but I don't think he ever forgave himself for the terrible things he did when he was at his worst. To one who has been honored, dishonor is worse than death.
We were all sitting on the couch watching Magnum PI and my mom bought my dad a sandwich and a bowl of soup. He looked at the sandwich on the plate, and punched her in the jaw sending her flying across the room into the kitchen table, the stainless steel dishes crashing onto the linoleum floor.
“Is it too much to ask that when I come home after working all day that I can get my sandwich cut the way it’s supposed to be done!”
He screamed, jumping to his feet towering above my mother. She laid still on the floor sprawled amid the dishes, the soup and the sandwich. She was covered with pieces of lettuce, and pickles. The spilled tomato and cauliflower soup on the side of her head looked like blood and brains seeping out of her ear.
I jumped to my feet. I clenched my fist and aimed for the spot on the right side of my father’s jaw that I knew would knock him out cold. Or so I thought. Only a few weeks ago I had watched Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini kill Kim Deuk-koo in the ring and I aimed my punch for the same spot on my dad’s chin. I swung and caught my dad cold in the jaw. At the last second I worried that I might kill him and decided that I didn’t care. It was a beautiful sucker punch. I caught him completely off guard. Bam! Right in his bearded jaw. But he didn’t budge. Instead, my eyes started to water and my vision got blurry. I tried to gasp for air, but I couldn’t. My dad’s grizzled, calloused hand hardened from years of swinging a rigging axe gripped my throat like a sandpaper vice. I started to see stars flicker. I made one more pathetic attempt at taking a swing before everything went black. I collapsed on the floor unconscious.
Two days later the Sheriff of Marshall County came to our house and told my dad to stand aside. Then my mom piled my 8 brothers and sisters in her brother’s Oldsmobile station wagon, and they were gone. The Sheriff had made it clear that he did not want to get involved in any more trouble at the “critter farm.” “Hairy Critters” was what the locals called us Hare Krishnas. We called them “billies” for hillbillies and “necks” for rednecks but mostly we called them karmis. A Karmi was someone who was bound by the laws of Karma. Devotees of Lord Krishna were free from the laws of Karma and therefore not subject to the Maya, the illusion that made the Karmis work like dogs, hogs, camels and asses to gratify their senses.
I stayed behind with my dad in the two-bedroom cabin he had built with his own hands from the timber he felled from the woods on our property. I was there to make sure he stayed away from my mom as the Judge had ordered him to do and to make sure he didn’t commit suicide like he threatened to do if my ever mom left him. I ended up being my dad’s lookout for the summer and his mule in the fall. I got stuck with this assignment after I had convinced my mom to drive down to the Marshall County Sheriff's office in Moundsville to file charges against my dad. When she moved out I didn’t want my dad to be alone and so I stayed behind.
It was only after my mom left him that my dad told me that his plan was to harvest a bumper crop of weed, sell it in Maryland and then somehow use the money to get my mom back. He had already planted about 50 of the Ganja seeds from Afghanistan in the corn field behind the garden. By the middle of July the plants were in full bloom. I spent the summer with my dad’s Remington 20 gauge shotgun keeping the deer and the racoons out of the garden while my dad worked 10 hour days at the Miller Sawmill across the river in Neffs, Ohio.
In the fall we harvested and dried the plants in the living room. After spending days trimming the harvest we bagged the Ganja in Hefty trash bags and packaged it in two cardboard boxes. My dad bought me a bus ticket and dropped me and the two boxes filled with Ganja off at the Greyhound bus station in Wheeling, West Virginia. I rode the Greyhound bus from Wheeling, WV to Cambridge, Maryland while my dad followed behind in his blue Chevy Van.
It was a long trip along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I hoped that my dad’s plan worked. He had stopped drinking and was going to AA meetings now. He seemed truly heartbroken by his terrible behavior and to really miss my mother and my brothers and sisters. As we drove past the farms in the mighty Susquehanna Valley, I thought about my dad’s life and all that he had gone through. He was dyslexic, he had no high school diploma, and at just 30 years old he already had 9 children. Still he had already accomplished more than most people do in a lifetime. I wanted my dad’s plan to grow a big weed crop, sell it and get my mom back to work. I didn’t know exactly how it was going to work but I knew that when we had money my parents got along. Now that we didn’t have money my parents fought all the time. I wanted my dad’s plan to work and I wanted my parents to get back together.
We made it all the way to Salisbury, Maryland, with me riding the bus with the two big brown boxes of homegrown weed below with the luggage and my dad following in his blue Chevy van. When the bus pulled into the Greyhound station on Phillip Morris drive my dad was already waiting for me. I got the big brown boxes loaded with ganja from the luggage compartment under the bus and my dad loaded them into the back of his van. We drove quietly out of town to my grandma Connie’s house.
My dad’s mother Connie was a perfectly proper, chain-smoking southern lady who ran a furniture reupholstery business. She had excellent taste and she and her third husband Leroy, collected antiques. They had a teenage son Ricky who had long hair and drove a metallic blue Chevrolet Camaro which I thought was the coolest car in the world. Their house was decorated with beautiful furniture, rugs, grandfather clocks, china and pottery. Union and Confederate flags, swords, pistols, uniforms and medals decorated the walls. I was given strict instructions not to touch anything but I couldn’t help myself. When no one was around I would take one of the swords and pistols from the wall and imagine myself battling against the British at Yorktown or fighting for General Lee against the Yankees in the War for Southern Independence as my ancestors did.
My dad sold the weed in 2 days and after staying for the weekend, we said goodbye to my Grandma Connie. On our way out of town my dad told me that he had a new plan. He wanted to use the money he had made from the weed to and to go out to Denver, Colorado. He would rent a house and then send for my mom and the kids. He just wanted to get out of West Virginia. I did not want to spend another winter alone in the holler with my dad who now took to drinking again. Not a lot. Just a few beers in the evening but as I said I wanted things to work out. So I kept my mouth shut and we headed west. My dad said that there was plenty of work in Colorado and so we headed straight to Denver. He even let me drive on the highway while he slept. When we got to Denver my dad rented a house on Cherry Street just off Colfax Avenue and enrolled me in Gove Middle School for the fall.
My mom and my brothers and sisters did not come to Denver as my Dad had planned. Now that my dad was out of the house, my mom moved back into our house in Marshall County, got a restraining order against my dad and filed for divorce. I decided to stay with my dad and live with him in Denver. I was making $5.00 an hour working for my dad and for the first time in my life I had money of my own to spend. He had started drinking again but he seemed to be okay now.
I attended Gove Middle School, a predominately black school, and I was the only white person in most of my classes. I was not cool at all and I got picked on a lot. The black kids used to make up dis raps about me all the time but since I couldn’t think of anything to say back to them, I would have to take it without saying a word. So, for the first half of the year I didn’t really talk to anyone at Gove. Then one day I guess I’d had enough. I was in Auto Shop class and this kid named Kris was ripping on me and so I made up my own rap and spat it back at him. It went like this.
“His name is Kris
He smells like piss
If he don’t watch his ass
He’s going to get my fist.”
It was terrible, I know but I think it was the first time most of those little black kids had heard me say a word and they burst all into laughter. When the kids in Shop Class started laughing at him Kris got mad and I could see that trouble was brewing. Kris took a swing at me. I ducked his punch and slammed him up against the lockers. He managed to punch me a few times but I didn't notice. I looked around and all the kids in Shop class were cheering for me. Now my fists flew on their own, faster and faster landing blows on his cheeks, the sides of his head and his face, before the Shop teacher pulled me off him. He made us shake hands and sent us to the principal’s office. The principal suspended us for 3 days and sent us home early.
When I got home, I found my dad in bed with our neighbor Kjirstin. She had been over a few times but I had never suspected anything until now. He tried to explain to me that they were in love but I was through with him. My dad had got a DUI the previous weekend and I had spent almost all the money I had saved up bailing him out. I went to my room, packed a bag and walked out the door and straight to the bus stop. I bought a ticket and I was on the next Greyhound bus on my way to Wheeling, West Virginia. I never did tell my dad that I got suspended from school that day.
My mother had already filed for divorce and had moved back into our house in Marshall County, West Virginia. My sisters Vishaka, Radha and Sara and my brother Syamantaka had been living in the ashram but now would live at home with my sister Saci and Lakshmi and my brothers Vrindavan and Krishna Das Up till then I had lived in the ashram and then with my Grandma Jane and then with my dad. For the first time in my life I was living with all my brothers and sisters. Counting my mom there were 10 of us, 5 girls, 4 boys plus our mom in a two-bedroom cabin. The boys slept in one bedroom and the girls slept in the other. Our Mom slept on the couch. We had one bathroom so we took showers at night before school if we wanted hot water. In the winter we heated the house with a woodstove. If someone didn’t get up in the middle of the night and put wood on the fire, the house would be freezing in the morning and in the winter the pipes would freeze leaving us with no water.
Growing up on welfare and food stamps in Marshall County, West Virginia we certainly did not have a lot of money, but I never felt poor. There were plenty of people in Marshall County who used food stamps, but they looked poor and acted poor. We had grown up with money and so when my dad ran off and we had to get on welfare we didn’t know how to act poor. To deter welfare cheats, the state of West Virginia had mandated that benefits would only be paid up to 5 children. My mother and her 9 children received $435 a month in cash ($75 for each of the first 5 children) and $500 in food stamps a month $11,220 a year to feed and clothe 9 children and herself. We were probably the poorest people in the county and I’m sure we got by on far less than anyone else in the county.
The Detamores back in the day.
While writing this I called up my sister Radha who is a CPA in Columbus, Ohio and asked her to help me figure out. In the 5 years our family was on welfare Uncle Sam shelled out $56,112 to feed and clothe all 9 of us plus my mom. Since 1995 we have paid more than $1,215,986 in income taxes and $540,348 in property taxes.Even if you don’t count the $70,274, in alcohol taxes and $13,274 in tobacco taxes we have paid that still amounts to a return on Uncle Sam’s investment of 1,070,022 from $56,112 an over a 3000% return. People can say what they want about welfare but as far as I’m concerned the Detamores may have been one of the best investments Uncle Sam has ever made.
It made things a lot easier for us that my mom grew the best high-grade cannabis in Marshall County from the seeds my dad had brought back from Afghanistan. My mom never did sell the bright green Afghani plants with the giant purple crystals that grew every summer in the cornfield behind the garden for fear that she would be arrested and put in prison. She did trade the grass with the locals to get her car fixed, to get bulldozer work done on our road after flooding, for firewood and even to get a new well dug. The Marshall County locals took a lackadaisical attitude toward work even when they were getting paid in cash. Most of the locals already had everything they needed, a truck, a trailer and a dog but when it came to scoring top notch grass, something they could not find, they were there at the drop of the hat. The locals may have called us “hairy critters” behind our backs but everyone in the Ohio Valley knew that the “critter weed “was the stuff of legends.
It was 1986 and my sister Vishaka and I were enrolled in Sherrard Jr. High School in Marshall County, West Virginia. At the time no one knew that my parents were Hare Krishnas or “Hairy Critters” and we wanted to keep it that way. I went by Jason and my sister Vishaka was going by the name “Vicky” to conceal her identity at the time. I had lived with my grandma in Severna Park, Maryland and I had gone to Gove Middle School in Denver, so I had already had 2 cracks at Jr. High School. I wanted this time to be different.
On the first day of school, I tried to sign up for the football team but Mr. Batista who taught US History and coached the Sherrard Rams told me practice had started 3 weeks ago and would not let me play. After gym class some of the kids from the football team had come up and told me that I got a raw deal. In school I had gotten a few of them to say “hi” to me in the hallway. I wasn’t in with the cool kids, but they knew who I was and most people were nice to me probably because I was the “new kid.” Later that year I tried out for the Track and Field Team. The football coach Mr. Batista, who also coached the Track team, discovered that I was by far the fastest kid in Sherrard Jr. High School when I dusted everyone in the 100, 200 and 400 meters. While running track that year, I also met Lisa Marie Henry, the girl I would eventually marry. Things were definitely going my way.