This is a book of stories compiled by the writer during his life's journey that illustrate eight basic themes of our humanity: Fear of the Unknown, Triumph over Adversity, Dreams and Illusions, Love, Hope, Despair, Faith, and Redemption that he has grouped into eight sections of the same names. Four additional stories are included in a section titled, Most Unforgettable Characters.

This is a story, buried in the archives of the past, about a young, unfledged teenager, John Graham Jr., who dreamt of becoming a digger on the Panama Canal like his father and who romanticized the experience as "the moving of mountains and the braving of swamps and jungles." To him it was going to be the greatest adventure that he looked forward to. When, in the year 1910, his father sent for him to come to Panama to join him, his dream came true, but not in the way that he had expected. ...

The plight of the so-called "West Indians" who came by the tens of thousands from the Caribbean islands to the wilder- ness of the Isthmus of Panama at the dawn of the twentieth century and who gave, in most cases, the last ounce of their strengths, and in many cases their lives, to help create the miracle of the Panama Canal, has always been a special and very dear subject to me. The disappearance of La Boca, Ca- nal Zone, as a West Indian town (like many other "silver" towns), and soon p...