Jacob Fishman had a rough childhood on the streets of Brooklyn on his own from a young age. He escaped via the US Navy which took him to San Francisco where he became a student at the SF Art Inst. where he heard about Suzuki Roshi and the Zen Center where he started practicing in 1968. He's still living near the ZC but a lot happened in between.  See  the photos he took in the zendo while people did zazen on shunryusuzuki.com , linked to from his cuke page and the photo page on cuke.com.