David L. O'Neal looks back at a lifetime filled with adventures, beginning with his childhood, to his time at Princeton University, in the Marine Corps, and his career as a rare book dealer.

Born in Miami in 1938, his family settled in Long Island, New York, where he met his best friend at seven years old. For the next several years, they played war games in the woods, impersonated Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and enjoyed being kids.

But O'Neal had a difficult relationship with his father--a distant man who he blames for his lifelong stutter. For years, he had trouble...