He took a job in a grocery store, stocking shelves from midnight to eight in the morning. He had to work full-time to pay his exorbitant tuition and rent, and soon he fell behind in his assignments. After two months he had to leave school to avoid flunking out.

He found himself in a strange town with no friends and barely enough money to survive. He started drinking beer every morning with the night crew in the parking lot. He drove home in a stupor and slept through the day until his next shift. With the added expense of alcohol, Robert had to hock his cameras to pay rent, and with them went his last hope for a future beyond stocking shelves.

One morning after his shift the manager called him into the office.

“Do you know anything about this?” The manager pointed to four jars of peanut butter that lay open on his desk. “These were returned by customers yesterday.” On the smooth surface of the peanut butter in each jar was etched, “Help, I’m trapped in Supermarket Hell!”

Robert stocked the glass aisle. There was no denying it. He had written the messages one night during his shift after drinking several bottles of cough medicine he had stolen from the shelves.

“Pick up your check on Friday,” the manager said.

He shuffled away, broke, unemployed, two thousand miles from home, a failure at nineteen. As he left the store, one of the cashiers, a pretty redhead about his age, who was coming in to open the store, stopped him.

“Your name is Robert, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You’re the photographer, aren’t you?”

“I was.” Robert was in no mood to chat.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I saw your portfolio sitting in the break room one morning and I looked at it. You’re very good.”

“I don’t do it anymore.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I have a friend who’s getting married on Saturday, and she needs a photographer.”

“Look,” Robert said, “I appreciate the thought, but I just got fired and I’m going home to get hammered. Besides, I hocked my cameras.”

The girl smiled, she had incredible blue eyes. “You were wasting your talent here. How much would it cost to get your cameras out of hock?”

Her name was Jennifer. She paid to get his cameras out of hock and showered him with praise and encouragement. Robert began to make money picking up weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, but it wasn’t enough to make rent. There were too many good photographers competing in Santa Barbara.

He moved into her tiny studio apartment.

After a few months of living together they were married and they moved north to Pine Cove, where Robert would find less competition for photography jobs.