There are a few places that have a profound influence on making me the person that i am today. South Jersey is one of those places.

I was suspended from the Military Academy for one year. South Jersey became my purgatory. Still a cadet, but no longer at the Academy, I was stuck between two worlds. In some ways I was glad to be free of the strict system of rules and regulations as only a place as steeped in tradition as West Point can be; In other ways, I was sad and disappointed with myself for having let my life and future career spiral out of control.

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I drove down to South Jersey to meet some old friends. When you are travelling, your time is your own. For my friends, however, their time was very much controlled by their jobs. While I had nothing to do all day, they had to work. Consequently, I couldn’t see everyone I wanted to. And though I was close to most of them, five years of being apart has a way of shifting you down on the priority list of things to do.

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I stopped at the Moorestown Mall to get some grub and to make a few phone calls to see who was around. I had about 6 hours to kill before meeting Richie K.

I called Missy. As luck would have it, she was taking the rest of the afternoon off from work to buy an outfit for her son to attend his cousin’s Bar Mitzvah. She was on her way over to the mall; she had enough time to do this errand before going to her son’s school to be a mystery reader. Not a problem. A half hour was better than nothing.

I have know Missy for 15 years. We met through her sister Debbie whom I was working with at Living Well Fitness Center the year I was suspended from West Point. We were both single then. Her sister was married, and I needed a wild thing child to hang out with and party. And we did a lot of partying together during that one year.

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Missy walked into the mall wearing all black….