by James C. Stephens
Sunday, November 21, 1971
Tonight, I really have a dream. Something has really been lacking in my life lately and I am sure it is changing. My dream is really to go to Montana and go to school there. There are no members there and I could really test Gohonzon and really develop my own life. There are so many people there that really, No the whole town needs Gohonzon. I don’t want to go there to escape, I know just through my practice that you can’t, but there I would be forced to practice. I really want to change. Maybe, it would be a mistake, but really don’t feel that for some reason. It’s true you should be able to get happy no matter where you are, I know that, but for some reason I really feel I must go to Montana.
In retrospect: My Dad Carlton and I during my first quarter at the University of Montana in 1969. My first vehicle was a Toyota Land Cruiser. Although I was on the ski team, we had no snow that season. Played a lot of socceer and rode my ten speed in the mountains to get in shape. I had gotten depressed and homesick for family and a girl friend I was corresponding with. I met some of my old friends that I had previously known, but they seemed distant and one of my friend’s Patrick Flaherty who I had respected as a top debator in the state had become heavily involved drugs. I was clean cut and sought encouragement in the bookstore and strangely found solace in Peanut’s cartoons. That Christmas I headed back to California and drove straight through 24 hours with a fellow student from California. I never did make it back to Montana, that is until I was married and had three children in 1997.
Journal of a Young Buddhist Radical 