We decided to move together into a rental house in Boulder; ultimately, we were to share three rented houses before buying one of our own. Our early years together were notable for the ease with which we defined our mutual goals and the energy and competence we applied to attaining them.

We had been living together for several years when I introduced her to cocaine, and it wasn't long before we shared a drug habit that took an incredible toll on our finances and our social life. In those days we both had jobs, and I think it's fair to say that one of our incomes went to support our coke habit.

Perhaps it was Suzanne's pregnancy that caused her to come to her senses; perhaps it was just the intrusion of common sense. Regardless, she simply reached a point where she could no longer continue to abuse that foul drug.

My long-time friend and business partner, Bob, had much earlier become a Scientologist, and he suggested Suzanne could rehabilitate herself with Scientology's help. At his urging, she went to the Boulder "Mission," where she was enrolled in a course called "Life Repair."

After Suzanne became pregnant, in 1976, she and I married. Rise and Aimee, my daughters by a previous marriage, had been living with Suzanne and me for a couple of years by that time. We discussed possible plans for the birth. Because we were then living just a block from Boulder Community Hospital and, since I had been present at Rise's birth and had delivered Aimee without assistance, Suzanne and I decided I would deliver the new baby, with assistance from the two girls. Suzanne was strong and healthy, the girls assisted ably, and your brother Benjamin was born without complications, on December 26.

Suzanne’s endeavors in Scientology did not end when she completed the “Life Repair” course. In fact, during the next several years, I observed her continuing and deepening commitment to Scientology. It became a source of friction between us. She desperately wanted me to discover for myself what she was experiencing, while I remained too suspicious of it to agree to any involvement. Occasionally, our differences led to arguments.

I have to admit that my loyalties to my work and to my addictions were then serious rivals to my loyalty to my family. Rise and Aimee perceived that and, since their mother had re-married and remained in Boulder, they decided to leave our house and move into their mother's. This they accomplished through conspiracy and secrecy.

I was furious with them, but in that part of me into which I dared not look, I knew they were doing what was best for them, and the problems to which they were reacting were those I was continuing to create.

In December, 1980, Suzanne again became pregnant. She and I took a series of classes in the Lamaze techniques to enable her to give birth without painkilling drugs. She learned exercises to strengthen muscles used in childbirth and breathing techniques to mitigate pain, while I was taught to coach her in her breathing and to be encouraging and supportive while she was in labor. We also decided to have a midwife deliver the new baby, partly because we then lived much further from the hospital than we had when Ben was born.

Suzanne and I joined a number of friends for a week-long rafting trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho that summer. Although several of our friends were dismayed by the prospect of sharing a long wilderness trip with your obviously pregnant mother, she had few difficulties; indeed, she was a helpful, committed member of the group, and her condition didn't prevent her from enjoying the intense white water thrills we encountered on that beautiful river.

In the middle of September, Suzanne's water broke and she went into labor. I summoned her long-time friend Susan and the midwife, and Susan and I spent the ensuing hours coaching and encouraging Suzanne and doing whatever we could to help the midwife. The birth took many hours but proceeded without complication, and that night, September 15, 1981, our beautiful daughter was born. That baby, of course, was you.

While Susan and the midwife soothed Suzanne and cleaned the birthing area, I wrapped you in a blanket and took you to my easy chair, where you lay for hours on my lap and we began to get acquainted.

But all was not well with our marriage. I had shouldered the full financial burden of supporting our family in order to free Suzanne to be a full-time mother, but my long hours at work were limiting my time at home. She, on the other hand, was devoting ever more of her time to her pursuits in Scientology, which detracted from her family time.

We also encountered a serious financial issue: I, as the bread-winner, was unwilling to have her spend increasingly large sums on Scientology “courses,” while she resented my attempts to limit those expenditures.

The one positive note was that I had quit using cocaine and was otherwise gaining control over my tendency to abuse substances. But my newly-reformed wife was impatient with me; in her eyes my efforts were both slow and inadequate.

I recall questioning Suzanne about her Scientology beliefs and her refusing to explain, on the grounds that she might not explain them precisely. She suggested I go to the "Mission" for an explanation. When I told her I was more interested in her personal beliefs and perceptions than I was in the party line, she remained evasive. She was no more forthcoming when I asked what her plans were for future involvement in Scientology. She merely expressed faith in her mentors; at the appropriate times, she said, they would suggest the next steps on her path.

I should tell you that the Suzanne I knew and loved was a bright, inquisitive person who made decisions and purchases with great care. She was well accustomed to exercising judgment and critical thinking. When I observed that she was not applying those skills to decisions about her future in Scientology, I was confused. I understand her attitude better now than I did then.

My questions led to friction between us on several occasions. I began to notice that she reacted with what I considered inappropriate anger whenever I asked questions she perceived as even vaguely critical of Scientology. What's more, she made it clear that dire consequences would result if I were to express outright criticism of Scientology.

I still had little idea what Scientology really was, and Suzanne was hardly helping me to find out. I had seen some of the “church” brochures she had received in the mail; their outrageous claims and unbridled self-promotion aroused my suspicion. But most suspicious were the changes I was observing in my wife. The threats and anger with which she reacted to my questions made me even more wary.

Ultimately, Scientology was the main factor in our divorce. I have long suspected that one of Suzanne’s mentors at the “Mission” suggested to her that she either recruit me or dump me, though I have no proof of that. Regardless, Scientology was playing an ever greater part in her life, and I wasn’t about to grant it any greater part in mine than it had already usurped. I decided to move out of our house.

Our separation and divorce occurred during your third and fourth years. Those were difficult times for all of us, but I soon moved into an old cabin in the mountains, and you, your brother, and I settled into a routine of frequent visits.

Because Suzanne had been an excellent cook, I had not felt the need to acquire that skill. Now that I was living alone, with a regular need to provide nourishment for you and Ben, I felt that lack of ability keenly. I can remember, during the early part of my stay in that first cabin, buying a chicken and phoning your mom to ask her how to fry it!

I also remember, a bit later, deciding to fry oysters for supper for you kids and me. You and Ben were helping. My skillet was small, so they had to be fried in several batches. As I neared the end of the process, I realized there weren't nearly as many cooked oysters as there should have been. I suddenly realized you and Ben had been filching and eating them as soon as they were done!

Although I had been too suspicious of Scientology to become involved in any way, I was not sufficiently wise to insist that our divorce decree include precautions to protect you and Ben from becoming involved. Feeling that the ultimate losers in a custody battle are usually the kids, and knowing your mom wanted custody (joint custody not then having become common), I agreed to allow her sole custody. I was later to regret both decisions very much. As a friend of mine says, "Hope is not a strategy."

For two years or so after the divorce, you kids and your mom remained in Colorado, and my time together with you and Ben became routine. As I recall, we spent every Wednesday night and every other weekend together.

On one occasion, your mom took a week-long vacation trip without you and Ben. I accepted her invitation to stay in her house and look after you two. Typically, we would prepare and eat our meals together; later, I would read to you both while you sat on the arms of my chair or on the floor nearby. We were becoming the loving threesome that would come to blossom in future years.

Perhaps it was during that week when you brought me down to earth regarding my burgeoning cooking skills when you told me you didn't know what that stuff was that I had made to put over the mashed potatoes, but it certainly wasn't gravy!

By then, your mother and I were finally realizing that, whatever serious differences we had, we shared you kids, and we needed to do that with civility. In fact, we did better than that; it wasn't long before we were again on friendly terms, and we remained so for many years. Of course, there remained matters we dared not discuss.

After a year in my first cabin, I was able to move into another one nearby, one I had known and loved for many years. Each of the three of us loved it, though our reasons were somewhat different.

Ben, the budding pyromaniac, loved it because we were so utterly dependent on fire: wood stove for heat, kerosene for light, and a match-lit propane stove for cooking. He also liked practicing his climbing skills on the logs that projected beyond the cabin's corners.

You loved it because of its beauty, the abundant wildlife and the wildflowers of spring and summer. But mostly, you liked the warmth, the comfort, and the love we shared there. I'll bet you have some fond memories of that place.

I loved it because it was remote but accessible, affordable, and beautiful. It felt good just to be there.

Both of you enjoyed spending time with Paul and Pauline, people who spent their summers in a nearby house. They kept children's books, crayons, and coloring books on hand just for you two. Whether or not Pauline was a bit lonely, she certainly enjoyed your company.

The autumn after I moved into that cabin, there was a forest fire about a mile away. The following weekend, the three of us took a long walk through the burned area, experiencing and discussing the devastation. As we walked downhill toward Boulder Canyon, you grew tired, so I hoisted you onto my shoulders, where you soon fell asleep. Thus you remained as Ben and I walked to the bottom of the canyon, then down to the junction with Sugarloaf Road. You only awakened when we secured a ride up the road with some young people, who kindly took us to a road junction near the cabin.

Do you remember the "scratchy deer"? Deer, of course, are abundant in that area. One night, I was reading aloud when we heard a strange noise coming from outside. We soon discovered it was a deer walking on the driveway; its hooves made a scratchy noise on the gravel. Somehow, you became afraid of it, and for some time after that, Ben and I would tease you about your fear of the "scratchy deer." The next week, I bought a powerful flashlight, which we later used to spot deer and other wildlife in the dark.

How about Henry, the baby chickadee we found abandoned outside its nest in our spring house? Although we succeeded in feeding him, and certainly lavished attention on him, he died after a couple of days. It was a sad time when we put him in a matchbox, buried him under a pine tree, and erected a little cross of popsicle sticks over his grave.

While you, Ben, and your mom remained in Colorado, we three continued to spend time together on a regular, frequent basis. During summers, we'd usually travel a bit, visiting friends in other parts of the state, adventuring, and camping. I can remember attending a couple of "mountain man rendevous" in South Park, hanging out at Valley View Hot Springs in the beautiful San Luis Valley, and exploring Anasazi Indian ruins at Mesa Verde and Hovenweep.

Of course, that changed a lot when the three of you moved to Los Angeles in 1987.

Your mother made no secret of the fact that she was moving in order to be closer to Scientology headquarters. I feared the days of your freedom from the influence of that organization were numbered.

Your having moved so far away necessitated a different arrangement for our spending time together: You and Ben began visiting me in Colorado twice each year, once in the summer and again during the Christmas holiday. Your summer visits were long ones, a month or six weeks, while your Christmas visits lasted about two weeks.

We were charting new ground then, trying to find ways to use our time to our best advantages. After a couple of years, for example, I realized I could close my shop during your visits and thus be free to take long trips during summers, or devote more time to Christmas-related activities.

Your mom re-married about that time, to a fellow named Dennis. They were both working full time for Scientology, and you and Ben had been enrolled in a Scientology school. You and your newly-enlarged family were living in an apartment in Glendale.

Sometime not long after your move, your mom called me to explain that you and Ben would be out of school for Spring Break, but she and Dennis had to work during that time. She invited me to come to California, and offered me the use of her car while I was there. We hatched a plan for me to fly into Burbank with camping gear, stay the night in your apartment, and commence a week-long camping trip along the coast the next day.

That was when I met Dennis for the first time. I liked him; he was kind, and he expressed a sincere interest in you and in Ben.

I don't remember much about our trip, but I know we spent some time on several of California's beautiful beaches, and I have a clear recollection of being shown poison oak by a ranger in a state park. That must have worked, because that was one of the very few camping trips I've ever taken in that area in which no one got into poison oak.

I also remember finding a good deal on live crabs on our way back to Los Angeles, and how amazed and delighted you were when we cooked them, back in your apartment.

Bob, my long-time friend and partner, the man who had recruited your mother into Scientology, had by then sold his half of our business to me so that he could take advantage of his newly-acquired computer programming skills by starting a company of his own. Sometime after you moved to Los Angeles, he parted company with Scientology. He was soon to become one of its most vocal critics.

As time passed, you and Ben continued to visit me twice a year. I realized my hopes that you wouldn't get more deeply involved in Scientology were ill-founded. Realizing that your time with me might be the only time you spent free of Scientology’s influence, I decided to become your personal guide to the joys to be found in life “on the outside,” a role I took seriously for many years.

Of course, I hardly considered my self-imposed mandate to take time off work and have a good time with you kids a hardship! Our visits kept getting better and better.

During your visits, I began to observe your use of Scientology jargon in your speech. Rarely did I fail to understand you, but it bothered me. Often, I'd say nothing about it, but occasionally I'd ask you to explain what you meant in plain English, if only to make certain you could do so. I was concerned that your education seemed to include definitions of words that were different from those in common use, and you were using abbreviations and acronyms that non-Scientologists might well not understand; in short, I feared you were being taught to use the language in such a way as to hinder your ability to communicate with people who were not Scientologists.

I suspect you and/or someone else observed my discomfort, because, after a couple of years, you rarely used “Scientologese” in my hearing.

Another thing I observed, about Ben first, and later about you, was that your educations were not progressing as rapidly as I thought appropriate. I began to notice that Ben's linguistic skills were not what they might be, and his knowledge of current events was poor and his opinions about them somewhat skewed.

During my first conversation about that subject with your mother, she said her goals for your educations were that you acquire a good grounding in academic subjects while receiving additional training in Scientology methods for learning how to study, and for conducting your lives generally. She also said some problem had been discovered in your school, but it had been corrected; things would be better from then on. (Little did I suspect how often I was to hear similar lines from Scientologists!)

But, as the time passed, I could detect little improvement, and my concerns in this area grew more concrete.

I was to have several further conversations with your mother about this, but she was generally evasive and uninterested. She criticized public education freely, and insisted you kids were being given tools to enable you to live successful lives, tools far more important than any of the useless subjects taught in ordinary schools. I protested that I had benefitted from a good public school education and, while some of it hadn't proved useful to me in later life, much of it continued to be very useful, and I wanted you and Ben to have opportunities at least as great as mine had been.

My entreaties fell on deaf ears; the general tone of Suzanne's responses to my expressions of concern was: "Butt out!"

I marveled silently at the turn-around in your mother; when we'd first met, and for years afterward, she had held a teaching certificate and had been largely responsible for the entire operation of a small, private grade school. I knew she had once valued her own education, but her failure to insist that similar opportunities be made available to you and Ben demonstrated that her values regarding academic education had changed.

Your half-sister, Rise, announced plans to marry in Santa Cruz in 1988, and we made plans to attend the wedding. What a trip that was! Because it is illustrative of our travels, and because I recall it in some detail, I'm going to recount it here.

I drove to Los Angeles to pick up you and Ben, then we drove through Santa Cruz and into the mountains to a state park in a beautiful, secluded grove of redwood trees, where we set up camp. The day of the ceremony, we donned our good clothes in the park's bathrooms, then went to the bed and breakfast where the wedding took place. You were lovely as a flower girl, and Ben made a handsome ring bearer. Ben, who was recovering from an illness, felt wobbly during the ceremony, so he just sat down!

I have admired his poise ever since; I suspect, had I been in his shoes, I would have remained upright until I keeled over.

After the wedding, we drove to San Francisco to spent time with a friend. Ben was still not well, so I arranged to take him to a doctor--an idiot, as it turned out. Not bothering to determine whether Ben was allergic, the doctor gave him a shot of penicillin. Later, when I realized his condition was continuing to deteriorate, I phoned your mom, and we agreed to fly him back to Los Angeles, where his regular physician recognized the symptoms of an allergic reaction to penecillin, and Ben was soon on the road to recovery.

After we put Ben on the plane, you and I had almost a week to ourselves. We drove north to Humboldt County, where we looked up a long-time friend of mine, Barbara, and had lunch with her. Later, she performed as "Beep the Clown" in the parking lot of a super market, and we laughed at her antics. We rented a canoe and paddled on a large lake. We camped in the mountains of Northern California and Oregon, where you got into some poison oak.

It wasn't a bad case, fortunately. We went into a rural store for a bar of that soap that would as readily remove one’s hide as clean it, and I explained to the clerk why we wanted it. She told us about a relative of hers who had died after having inhaled smoke from burning poison oak. You looked at me as if to say, "What have you gotten me into this time, Dad?" It took some effort to reassure you.

We later met Ben at the Portland airport and continued our trip as a threesome.

We visited Bonneville Lock and Dam on the Columbia River, explored the exhibits, and watched from the subterranean observation window as salmon and other fish swam up the fish ladder.

Later, as we were driving east on I-90, I decided it was time for a coffee break. As you know, when I'm driving long distances, I usually pick a time in the afternoon, stop somewhere, get out my Coleman stove, and brew and drink a cup of coffee the likes of which you'll not encounter in restaurants. That afternoon, I passed the first rest area after the urge came upon me, but pulled into the next one. There, we encountered someone I had known in Boulder years earlier. He had since moved to Missoula, and he had a problem: His car was failing, and it contained a lot of his important possessions. When he recognized me, traveling in the right direction with a not-quite-full station wagon, he must have thought he'd been blessed.

But I had a problem of my own. My last interactions with this fellow involved his having borrowed, with my permission, a valuable tool belonging to a woman for whom I was house-sitting. He hadn't returned it, and my woman friend had become upset with me. In fact, I'd decided he had never intended to return it; in other words, he'd stolen it. So I briefly recounted my memories to this fellow, and refused him any assistance. After I'd made and drunk my coffee, we continued our trip, leaving him to his fate.

You and Ben had heard this entire exchange, and it must have impressed Ben, because he later said, "Dad, you handled that situation really well."

We continued our journey to Colorado, stopping in Wyoming for a soak in the hot spring at Thermopolis and buying some higher-powered fireworks than those available in my home state.

We spent the rest of that summer at my cabin. I recall having to wait until after rain had fallen so we could set off our new fireworks in safety, then after we'd done so, having to endure the wrath of our nearest neighbor, who clearly believed the tranquility of the meadow we shared was mandated from on high, and our fireworks were an insult to heaven above.

After you'd been in Los Angeles for two or three years, in the summer of 1989, a forest fire raged through the mountain area where I lived, destroying my cabin and 43 other homes. One of the most difficult tasks I faced as a result, and believe me, there were many, was phoning to tell you what had happened. We spent some time crying about our loss.

We divided our time during the next summer's visit between a borrowed teepee I had erected near where my cabin had been and the Boulder home of a woman with whom I was then having a relationship. We stayed pretty close to home that summer, visiting neighbors, watching videos, and going to movies and restaurants.

We decided to end your summer visit with a car camping trip to your new residence in Los Angeles; you and the rest of your California family having recently moved to a large house on Coronado Terrace, which was owned by a wealthy Scientologist and inhabited by quite a number of Scientologists and their children. After a little time there, I remember thinking, "For all Scientology's emphasis on sanity, the environment here is anything but sane!" In fact, it was a madhouse; I felt sorry that you and Ben had to live there.

You lived in Los Angeles for about four years. Then, your mother joined Scientology’s "Sea Organization," and you, she, and Ben moved to Clearwater, Florida, its headquarters. Apparently, Dennis declined to make a commitment to the "Sea Org," because he did not join the rest of you in your move to Clearwater. He was not to be a part of your lives again, as far as I know.

A lot had happened during those years. I had fallen in love with, married, grown distant from, and been divorced by Suzanne. Along the way, we had become parents of two wonderful children, whose well being had become very important to me. And, although I couldn’t pretend to understand Scientology, I had certainly seen some of its effects on Suzanne, effects that gave rise to more questions than answers.

Why had she apparently abandoned her usual critical faculties and furthered her involvement in Scientology with neither plan nor control? Why had she been so sensitive to the merest hints at criticism of Scientology as to react with anger and threats? Why had her respect for education been supplanted by an apparent lack of commitment to the excellence of that made available to her children? Hadn't her loyalty to Scientology been greater than her loyalty to Dennis, her husband?

As far as you and Ben were concerned, why were you being taught to use language in such a way as to potentially impair your ability to communicate with those of us who speak plain English? Why weren't you two in an environment that promoted and provided a decent academic education?

Finally, why was the environment in the house on Coronado Terrace so completely devoid of the "sanity" which is a Scientology buzz-word?

Whatever Scientology was, I perceived it as a threat to your and Ben’s well-being, and I resolved to remain a major presence in your lives. Although our access to one another had been impaired by your move to California, we had managed to work out ways of spending long periods of quality time together, and I was determined to maintain that situation, even expand on it.