Bøger af J B Crawford

Elof looked out the large window of the shiny Boeing 787 Dreamliner and saw the dramatic peak of snowy, icy Mount Rainier rising from a surrounding sea of clouds. He was on his first cross-country flight to visit his grandfather in DeSoto, a small fishing village on Florida's Gulf Coast.Elof just completed his freshman year at the University of Washington at the early age of 16. His PSAT scores were perfect and UW offered him early admission on full scholarship. His junior year of high school became his freshman year of college. He wants to be an engineer and study aeronautics and astronautics - he wants to be a rocket scientist.Elof learns about his family history from his grandfather and sees how his people helped build the country and keep it safe. The young engineer-to-be serves as a green deckhand on a deep-sea grouper boat in the Gulf of Mexico. He meets 15-year-old Miranda, already an experienced grouper boat crew member. They have many exciting adventures together. Miranda jumps overboard and frees Elof when he is dragged into the water by a fish hook imbedded in his bloody hand. They make a special trip to the 171-year-old Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, 70 miles out in the Gulf from Key West. They rescue two crew members from a grouper fishing boat struck, burned, and sunk by lightening. Later, they make a trip on land to Cape Canaveral for a special rocket launch. They even visit Snooty, the oldest manatee in the world, at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton. After juicy burgers at Council Smith's, Elof learns humility as Miranda creams him in billiards, running the solids in a single turn and deftly sinking the 8-ball with a solid think against the back of the pocket.Elof and Miranda have a future together. Open these pages and share in the adventures and fun they have as shipmates and sweethearts.

Several enterprising young men saw an opportunity. They harvested hemp plants growing wild along fence rows and roadsides in Iowa farmland. They dried it, processed it and blocked it into small units, easy to move. They sold it like cotton candy in New York at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, the three-day, rock and roll, joint toking, Aquarius jam fest of peace and love. Fueled by greed with testosterone for the after-burners, they gathered money in the $1,000s, then the $10,000s. They jumped up to the $100,000s after one bungling run to Jamaica. Only the powerful ganja gods of luck kept them from sinking, starving, getting robbed, killed, arrested, and jailed for life by both the Jamaican and US authorities. Soon, the deals jumped to the $1,000,000s and before long to the $10,000,000s. Truly, marijuana millions.This book tells the Florida marijuana story from the point of view of the participants, the people who lived it from both sides, the smugglers and the narcs, the preachers and the offloaders. Woodstock was just a small initial run. By 1973, the runs were in the tons of Columbian Gold. Eighteen-wheel semi-trucks loaded with hash burned up the interstate highways, reaching every hippie in every corner of America. There was a common feeling that the smugglers were just good ole boys out for a good time like Robin Hood and Little John evading the evil Sheriff of Nottingham. When four people were murdered and dumped down a sinkhole, attitudes changed. By the mid-1980s, law enforcement shut down pot smuggling.Everything in this book is a matter of public record, reported in newspapers, court documents, and in books by others interested in that period and those events, notably by Steve Lamb, Loren G. "Totch" Brown, and Ben Green. Every name in this book is made up. I put the fictional fishing village of DeSoto on Perico Island, a real place. Anyone looking for new dirt will be disappointed. It is not in here. No long-kept deep secrets are revealed. Sit back, enjoy a good read, and learn about the marijuana millions of the 1970s and 80s.

Arianna stretched out on the Florida beach sand. Her new friend, Bubba Two, traced letters on her back, squeezing a bottle of sun tan oil. She asked, "What are your writing?" He whispered in her ear, "Eye-el-oh-vee-ee-y-oh-u."She joins him for bait fishing - netting Spanish sardines - as well as for scuba diving, jet skiing, and all-around fun. She also meets his devilish twin brother, Bubba One. She doesn't like him at all! And for good reason.

Nathan was understandably confused at LAX on the way to visit his grandfather for the first time in the historical fishing village of DeSoto, near Tampa Bay. His grandfather had been to the La Crescenta home of his parents and he knew and loved the older man. His mother shied away from talking about the little tucked-away spot where she grew up. When she did talk, Nathan got the idea that the people back there were bumpkins with no concept of civilized life, barely literate, certainly not cultured. His mother attended California College of Arts and Crafts in Berkeley. She earned a degree in fine arts with distinction, lived the Berkeley life, worked at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' world-renowned restaurant, then re-located to the Los Angeles area, invited by Wolfgang Puck. She is a foodie and likely a snob as well. After all, she serves polenta, but never grits."I can't live back there," she told him firmly, "but it is time for you to see it for yourself and make up your own mind." Nathan does see DeSoto for himself and makes up his own mind about these sturdy, resourceful, hard-working, talented people. He meets Pat and they become the best of friends. Pat wants to be a marine diesel mechanic and open a shop in the little village, even though Pat's father, also a DeSoto kid once, now a circuit judge in state court, objects.Nathan's carelessness results in near-fatal injuries to his friend Hands, first mate on the crab boat, Moondown, but redeems himself by attending professionally to the first mate's injuries. Hands is med evaced from the offshore boat by a Coast Guard chopper.

For 130 years, the little fishing village of Cortez, Florida, flourished and succeeded, showing a determined sense of community pride and cohesion. It was never a question of just survival. It was always a question of succeeding, and nothing succeeds unless a lot of effort is put into it. Cortez succeeded.Through seven generations, life has gone on in the village. During every year of the village's history, challenges threatened. Some challenges were so huge that the very existence of Cortez was at risk. The 1921 hurricane wiped out the waterfront without warning. Red tide destroyed all fishing, both commercial and recreational. The villagers outlasted the red tide and came back strong. They blocked undesirable developments. They stopped a marina whose proposed docks would block the natural channel. They sent the Florida Department of Transportation back to the drawing board by opposing a 65-foot high-rise bridge that would have encroached into the small hamlet like the elevated railroad in Chicago.The biggest challenge of all came in 1994, when recreational and sport fishing interests took to the polls and banned the use of nets for fishing. Cortez Village found new ways to harvest the sea and support families, never giving up on repealing the net ban some day in the future.Turn these pages and see why it takes a village to succeed.

This is a collection of 77 case studies from life in modern America covering a wide range of human activity in politics, economics, the environment, law enforcement, medicine, and related issues.