Three score years and ten. It says it in the Bible, our allotted time upon this planet, the time we can expect to wander and walk and wonder, because nobody lives forever. From dust we come and to dust we return and that is one of the great equalizers for all Humanity - in the end, we're all the same. Well, most of us. The need for humans to forestall their deaths is understandable, because what comes next is perhaps the greatest mystery of all. Most of us can expect a final resting place for our remains, though more and more the trend is the scattering of ashes. As the poet said long ago, the grave's a fine and private place, a little piece of real estate for eternity. But for some, their journey to that final destination is full of detours and winding ways. Take the story of Elmer McCurdy, late of Washington and Bangor,Maine. Washington, Maine. Even today, the little village has a post office, a fire station, a general store and a bookstore. That's about it. It has not changed much since 1880, when Elmer was born January 1, 1880 in Washington, Maine- a New Years's baby - to 17 year old Sadie. His father was not in the picture nor did he ever know him, though it was rumored to be her cousin,Charles. In order to save his sister from the stigma and also to give little Elmer support, Sadie's brother, George, adopted him. Sadie lived with George and his wife, Helen. So Elmer had a father for the first ten years of his life, someone to guide him. He was brought up to think that George was his natural father and Helen his natural mother and that Sadie was his spinster aunt. In 1890, when Elmer was ten years old, George succumbed to tuberculosis. With no one to support them, Sadie and Helen took Elmer and moved north to the bustling city of Bangor, alongside the Penobscot. It was a working man's town, a drinking man's town with places no ten year old boy, especially without a father, should ever go, either in the daylight or after dark. By the time Elmer was a teenager he had discovered his true parentage. Elmer became a rebellious teenager, with no guidance in a town where beer and whiskey ran like water on nearly every street corner. It was during these formative years that Elmer became an alcoholic. Things went from bad to worse in Bangor. The fighting, the drinking and the lack of any focus in his life sent Elmer into a downward spiral that somehow, he found his way out of. When he had male guidance in his life, he had done well. When he had none, he fell hard from grace. To that end he reached out to his only other male relative, his grandfather who still lived in the town of Washington. There he learned the trade of a plumber. Away from the night life and rowdiness of Bangor and in the presence of his sober grandfather, their plumbing business thrived until 1898, when the economy took a downward turn. His grandfather began to suffer from dropsy, hemorrhages, and other symptoms what would eventually be diagnosed as Bright's Disease. He died from a ruptured ulcer. After a month of illness, Elmer found himself without a male force in his life to guide him. He was young, he had no connections, but he did have a trade. Why he left his trade for a life of villainy, we will never know. Maine was too quiet a setting to hold the anger and rambunctiousness that Elmer had when on a tear. With no one to stop him, Elmer took to the bottle again and then, he took to the road. He went from job to job, rambling the country. He tried plumbing for awhile, but it lacked adventure, it lacked the excitement that he was craving, so he went west and tried his hand as a lead miner. Roaming from job to job and town to town, drinking along the way found his first real run-in with the law: he was arrested for public drunkenness in Kansas. As soon as he could, he left Kansas for Missouri. Elmer must have wanted a better life. He must have longed for something better. Perhaps his recent run-ins with the law made him reconsider the cours