Author: Beverly Bowers Jennings
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781636253381
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
This book portrays the history of the people, places, and boats of the commercial shrimping industry in the Southeast. In addition to accessing research from traditional sources, such as libraries, museums and old newspapers, the author conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with the fishermen themselves. Many of these men were in there 60s,70s and 80s; and their stories, family recipes and poems give authenticity and color to the book.In addition to providing an accurate text describing the development of shrimping, the author believed that seeing the industry was as important as reading about it. Accordingly, there are over 800 pictures in this book which in addition to the boats and people include tools, maps and other equipment. These were gleaned from years of research, and travels to the many places where shrimping was born and grew. Some of these have never been published previously.Before the invention of refrigerated boxcars in 1875, the US shrimping industry virtually didn't exist. People ate what they caught. The book begins with the region's earliest shrimpers: Italian and Portuguese fishermen who came to Fernandina and St. Augustine at the end of the 19th century and combined an enterprising ingenuity with old-world fishing techniques to turn shrimping into a profitable industry. Subsequent chapters show life in major shrimping ports up and down the coast; St. Augustine, Fernandina, Thunderbolt and Savannah, Port Royal, Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, Bennetts Point, Edisto, Rockville, Shem Creek, McClellanville and Georgetown. Additionally, a chapter offers a colorful glimpse of the Blessing of the Fleet ceremonies. Finally, there is a chapter that examines the integral role that shrimpers played in keeping the German chemical company, BASF, from building a plant that could have devastated local fishing. This event was absolutely momentous, as it may have saved the future of many seaside resorts, like Hilton Head, that depended on clean waters.All proceeds of sales will go to the South Carolina Seafood Alliance, which advocates for healthy and safe seafood sourcesContains: 9 chapters, approx. 300 pages, more than 800 photos and imagesAuthor: Beverly Bowers Jenningswww.ShrimpTales.org
Shrimp Tales: Small Bites of History
Author: Beverly Bowers Jennings
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781636253381
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
This book portrays the history of the people, places, and boats of the commercial shrimping industry in the Southeast. In addition to accessing research from traditional sources, such as libraries, museums and old newspapers, the author conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with the fishermen themselves. Many of these men were in there 60s,70s and 80s; and their stories, family recipes and poems give authenticity and color to the book.In addition to providing an accurate text describing the development of shrimping, the author believed that seeing the industry was as important as reading about it. Accordingly, there are over 800 pictures in this book which in addition to the boats and people include tools, maps and other equipment. These were gleaned from years of research, and travels to the many places where shrimping was born and grew. Some of these have never been published previously.Before the invention of refrigerated boxcars in 1875, the US shrimping industry virtually didn't exist. People ate what they caught. The book begins with the region's earliest shrimpers: Italian and Portuguese fishermen who came to Fernandina and St. Augustine at the end of the 19th century and combined an enterprising ingenuity with old-world fishing techniques to turn shrimping into a profitable industry. Subsequent chapters show life in major shrimping ports up and down the coast; St. Augustine, Fernandina, Thunderbolt and Savannah, Port Royal, Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, Bennetts Point, Edisto, Rockville, Shem Creek, McClellanville and Georgetown. Additionally, a chapter offers a colorful glimpse of the Blessing of the Fleet ceremonies. Finally, there is a chapter that examines the integral role that shrimpers played in keeping the German chemical company, BASF, from building a plant that could have devastated local fishing. This event was absolutely momentous, as it may have saved the future of many seaside resorts, like Hilton Head, that depended on clean waters.All proceeds of sales will go to the South Carolina Seafood Alliance, which advocates for healthy and safe seafood sourcesContains: 9 chapters, approx. 300 pages, more than 800 photos and imagesAuthor: Beverly Bowers Jenningswww.ShrimpTales.org
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781636253381
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
This book portrays the history of the people, places, and boats of the commercial shrimping industry in the Southeast. In addition to accessing research from traditional sources, such as libraries, museums and old newspapers, the author conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with the fishermen themselves. Many of these men were in there 60s,70s and 80s; and their stories, family recipes and poems give authenticity and color to the book.In addition to providing an accurate text describing the development of shrimping, the author believed that seeing the industry was as important as reading about it. Accordingly, there are over 800 pictures in this book which in addition to the boats and people include tools, maps and other equipment. These were gleaned from years of research, and travels to the many places where shrimping was born and grew. Some of these have never been published previously.Before the invention of refrigerated boxcars in 1875, the US shrimping industry virtually didn't exist. People ate what they caught. The book begins with the region's earliest shrimpers: Italian and Portuguese fishermen who came to Fernandina and St. Augustine at the end of the 19th century and combined an enterprising ingenuity with old-world fishing techniques to turn shrimping into a profitable industry. Subsequent chapters show life in major shrimping ports up and down the coast; St. Augustine, Fernandina, Thunderbolt and Savannah, Port Royal, Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, Bennetts Point, Edisto, Rockville, Shem Creek, McClellanville and Georgetown. Additionally, a chapter offers a colorful glimpse of the Blessing of the Fleet ceremonies. Finally, there is a chapter that examines the integral role that shrimpers played in keeping the German chemical company, BASF, from building a plant that could have devastated local fishing. This event was absolutely momentous, as it may have saved the future of many seaside resorts, like Hilton Head, that depended on clean waters.All proceeds of sales will go to the South Carolina Seafood Alliance, which advocates for healthy and safe seafood sourcesContains: 9 chapters, approx. 300 pages, more than 800 photos and imagesAuthor: Beverly Bowers Jenningswww.ShrimpTales.org
Telephone Tales
Author: Gianni Rodari
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781592702848
Category : JUVENILE FICTION
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Reminiscent of Scheherazade and One Thousand and One Nights, Gianni Rodari's Telephone Tales is many stories within a story. Every night, a traveling father must finish a bedtime story in the time that a single coin will buy. One night, it's a carousel that adults cannot comprehend, but whose operator must be some sort of magician, the next, it's a land filled with butter men who melt in the sunshine Awarded the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 1970, Gianni Rodari is widely considered to be Italy's most important children's author of the 20th century. Newly re-illustrated by Italian artist Valerio Vidali (The Forest), Telephone Tales entertains, while questioning and imagining other worlds.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781592702848
Category : JUVENILE FICTION
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Reminiscent of Scheherazade and One Thousand and One Nights, Gianni Rodari's Telephone Tales is many stories within a story. Every night, a traveling father must finish a bedtime story in the time that a single coin will buy. One night, it's a carousel that adults cannot comprehend, but whose operator must be some sort of magician, the next, it's a land filled with butter men who melt in the sunshine Awarded the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 1970, Gianni Rodari is widely considered to be Italy's most important children's author of the 20th century. Newly re-illustrated by Italian artist Valerio Vidali (The Forest), Telephone Tales entertains, while questioning and imagining other worlds.
Fishing Yesterday's Gulf Coast
Author: Barney Farley
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603440461
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
Renowned fishing guide Barney Farley worked the Texas coastal waters out of Port Aransas for more than half a century. In these stories and reflections, Farley imparts a lifetime of knowledge about fish_silver trout, sand trout, speckled trout, redfish, ling, catfish, jack, kingfish, you name it_and gives advice about how to fish, where to fish, and when to fish. Perhaps no one could chronicle the changes in sport and commercial fishing along the Central Texas Coast more ably and more passionately than Farley. When he came to Texas in 1910, he reported that he could get in a rowboat and using only a push pole, make his way "to the fishing grounds and catch a hundred pounds or more of trout and redfish" in a few hours. A couple of years later, the shrimp trawlers arrived. As they plied the Gulf in increasing numbers, they depleted the shrimp populations in the bays, and Farley watched the fish move farther and farther offshore, following their ever more elusive food source. From his perspective in the mid1960s, Farley was not satisfied simply to lament the disappearance of onceabundant species. He also strongly voiced his views on the need for conservation. Many of the problems he identified are still with us, and some of the solutions he prescribed have since been adopted. This book is both an appealing reminiscence and a cautionary tale. Anyone who cares about fishing and the health of the Gulf's waters will find an authoritative and completely engaging voice in Barney Farley.
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603440461
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
Renowned fishing guide Barney Farley worked the Texas coastal waters out of Port Aransas for more than half a century. In these stories and reflections, Farley imparts a lifetime of knowledge about fish_silver trout, sand trout, speckled trout, redfish, ling, catfish, jack, kingfish, you name it_and gives advice about how to fish, where to fish, and when to fish. Perhaps no one could chronicle the changes in sport and commercial fishing along the Central Texas Coast more ably and more passionately than Farley. When he came to Texas in 1910, he reported that he could get in a rowboat and using only a push pole, make his way "to the fishing grounds and catch a hundred pounds or more of trout and redfish" in a few hours. A couple of years later, the shrimp trawlers arrived. As they plied the Gulf in increasing numbers, they depleted the shrimp populations in the bays, and Farley watched the fish move farther and farther offshore, following their ever more elusive food source. From his perspective in the mid1960s, Farley was not satisfied simply to lament the disappearance of onceabundant species. He also strongly voiced his views on the need for conservation. Many of the problems he identified are still with us, and some of the solutions he prescribed have since been adopted. This book is both an appealing reminiscence and a cautionary tale. Anyone who cares about fishing and the health of the Gulf's waters will find an authoritative and completely engaging voice in Barney Farley.
Shrimp
Author: Rachel Cohn
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439115532
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
If Cyd Charisse knows one thing, it's that Shrimp is her true love. Shrimp, the hottest pint-size surfer-artist in San Francisco. That boy (as her mother called him), who was the primary cause of Cyd being grounded to Alcatraz, formerly known as her room. The boy who dumped Cyd before she left home to spend the summer in New York City. Now it's the start of senior year. Cyd has changed, but maybe Shrimp has changed too -- and maybe Cyd and Shrimp will need to get to know each other all over again to figure out if it's for real. Can Cyd get back together with Shrimp and keep the peace with her mom? And can she get a life outside of her all-encompassing boy radar? This sequel to Gingerbread has all the sharp humor and searing attitude of the original, which ELLEgirl praised as "not just Another Teen Novel" and Teen People called "unforgettable." In Shrimp, Cyd might be a little older and a little wiser, but she's still the same irrepressible free spirit determined to find her own way in the world, on her own terms.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439115532
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
If Cyd Charisse knows one thing, it's that Shrimp is her true love. Shrimp, the hottest pint-size surfer-artist in San Francisco. That boy (as her mother called him), who was the primary cause of Cyd being grounded to Alcatraz, formerly known as her room. The boy who dumped Cyd before she left home to spend the summer in New York City. Now it's the start of senior year. Cyd has changed, but maybe Shrimp has changed too -- and maybe Cyd and Shrimp will need to get to know each other all over again to figure out if it's for real. Can Cyd get back together with Shrimp and keep the peace with her mom? And can she get a life outside of her all-encompassing boy radar? This sequel to Gingerbread has all the sharp humor and searing attitude of the original, which ELLEgirl praised as "not just Another Teen Novel" and Teen People called "unforgettable." In Shrimp, Cyd might be a little older and a little wiser, but she's still the same irrepressible free spirit determined to find her own way in the world, on her own terms.
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
Author: Jennifer 8 Lee
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0446511706
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
If you think McDonald's is the most ubiquitous restaurant experience in America, consider that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys combined. New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese). In her search, Jennifer 8 Lee traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0446511706
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
If you think McDonald's is the most ubiquitous restaurant experience in America, consider that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys combined. New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese). In her search, Jennifer 8 Lee traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.
Let Them Eat Shrimp
Author: Kennedy Warne
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610910249
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
What’s the connection between a platter of jumbo shrimp at your local restaurant and murdered fishermen in Honduras, impoverished women in Ecuador, and disastrous hurricanes along America’s Gulf coast? Mangroves. Many people have never heard of these salt-water forests, but for those who depend on their riches, mangroves are indispensable. They are natural storm barriers, home to innumerable exotic creatures—from crabeating vipers to man-eating tigers—and provide food and livelihoods to millions of coastal dwellers. Now they are being destroyed to make way for shrimp farming and other coastal development. For those who stand in the way of these industries, the consequences can be deadly. In Let Them Eat Shrimp, Kennedy Warne takes readers into the muddy battle zone that is the mangrove forest. A tangle of snaking roots and twisted trunks, mangroves are often dismissed as foul wastelands. In fact, they are supermarkets of the sea, providing shellfish, crabs, honey, timber, and charcoal to coastal communities from Florida to South America to New Zealand. Generations have built their lives around mangroves and consider these swamps sacred. To shrimp farmers and land developers, mangroves simply represent a good investment. The tidal land on which they stand often has no title, so with a nod and wink from a compliant official, it can be turned from a public resource to a private possession. The forests are bulldozed, their traditional users dispossessed. The true price of shrimp farming and other coastal development has gone largely unheralded in the U.S. media. A longtime journalist, Warne now captures the insatiability of these industries and the magic of the mangroves. His vivid account will make every reader pause before ordering the shrimp.
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610910249
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
What’s the connection between a platter of jumbo shrimp at your local restaurant and murdered fishermen in Honduras, impoverished women in Ecuador, and disastrous hurricanes along America’s Gulf coast? Mangroves. Many people have never heard of these salt-water forests, but for those who depend on their riches, mangroves are indispensable. They are natural storm barriers, home to innumerable exotic creatures—from crabeating vipers to man-eating tigers—and provide food and livelihoods to millions of coastal dwellers. Now they are being destroyed to make way for shrimp farming and other coastal development. For those who stand in the way of these industries, the consequences can be deadly. In Let Them Eat Shrimp, Kennedy Warne takes readers into the muddy battle zone that is the mangrove forest. A tangle of snaking roots and twisted trunks, mangroves are often dismissed as foul wastelands. In fact, they are supermarkets of the sea, providing shellfish, crabs, honey, timber, and charcoal to coastal communities from Florida to South America to New Zealand. Generations have built their lives around mangroves and consider these swamps sacred. To shrimp farmers and land developers, mangroves simply represent a good investment. The tidal land on which they stand often has no title, so with a nod and wink from a compliant official, it can be turned from a public resource to a private possession. The forests are bulldozed, their traditional users dispossessed. The true price of shrimp farming and other coastal development has gone largely unheralded in the U.S. media. A longtime journalist, Warne now captures the insatiability of these industries and the magic of the mangroves. His vivid account will make every reader pause before ordering the shrimp.
Potluck
Author: Jack Rudloe
Publisher: Out Your Backdoor
ISBN: 9781892590374
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Jack Rudloe is a independent insider on the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle, one of the last great places to get a total onslaught of Disneyfication. An effective, longterm fighter for conservation, Rudloe had set out to write the first nonfiction book about small family shrimping, a bellwether trade for the region. What he discovered instead prompted him to write his first novel.Rudloe found that as family fishing is forced into extinction due to greedy realtors, some die-hards refuse to give up their boats and shoreline property and turn instead to making the dangerous "run" to smuggle drugs in a desperate attempt to save their families. It's an astonishing case of traditional Baptist small-town people getting caught up in global crime. What resulted is his amazing tale, which goes like this...Preston Barfield was an upstanding small-family commercial shrimper whose vanishing way of life pressures him into accepting an offer he can't refuse.When Preston gets a panicked call from his brother-in-law Lupino that his boat is on fire, he turns his shrimp trawler offshore to the rescue, only to find Lupino's burning boat filled with smugglers and marijuana. Hard times and desperation force his hand into adventures that he never imagined.The "Forgotten Coast" is forgotten no longer in this riveting novel of plain folks on the edge. A major inside story of this culturally rich area is finally told.
Publisher: Out Your Backdoor
ISBN: 9781892590374
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Jack Rudloe is a independent insider on the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle, one of the last great places to get a total onslaught of Disneyfication. An effective, longterm fighter for conservation, Rudloe had set out to write the first nonfiction book about small family shrimping, a bellwether trade for the region. What he discovered instead prompted him to write his first novel.Rudloe found that as family fishing is forced into extinction due to greedy realtors, some die-hards refuse to give up their boats and shoreline property and turn instead to making the dangerous "run" to smuggle drugs in a desperate attempt to save their families. It's an astonishing case of traditional Baptist small-town people getting caught up in global crime. What resulted is his amazing tale, which goes like this...Preston Barfield was an upstanding small-family commercial shrimper whose vanishing way of life pressures him into accepting an offer he can't refuse.When Preston gets a panicked call from his brother-in-law Lupino that his boat is on fire, he turns his shrimp trawler offshore to the rescue, only to find Lupino's burning boat filled with smugglers and marijuana. Hard times and desperation force his hand into adventures that he never imagined.The "Forgotten Coast" is forgotten no longer in this riveting novel of plain folks on the edge. A major inside story of this culturally rich area is finally told.
Low Country
Author: J. Nicole Jones
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1948226871
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 157
Book Description
"From horse thieves to hurricanes, from shattered Southern myths to fractured family ties, from Nashville to Myrtle Beach to Miami, Low Country is a lyrical, devastating, fiercely original memoir" of one family's changing fortunes in the Low Country of South Carolina (Justin Taylor, author of Riding with the Ghost). J. Nicole Jones is the only daughter of a prominent South Carolina family, a family that grew rich building the hotels and seafood restaurants that draw tourists to Myrtle Beach. But at home, she is surrounded by violence and capriciousness: a grandfather who beats his wife, a barman father who dreams of being a country music star. At one time, Jones's parents can barely afford groceries; at another, her volatile grandfather presents her with a fur coat. After a girlhood of extreme wealth and deep debt, of ghosts and folklore, of cruel men and unwanted spectacle, Jones finds herself face to face with an explosive possibility concerning her long-abused grandmother that she can neither speak nor shake. And through the lens of her own family's catastrophes and triumphs, Jones pays homage to the landscapes and legends of her childhood home, a region haunted by its history: Eliza Pinckney cultivates indigo, Blackbeard ransacks the coast, and the Gray Man paces the beach, warning of Hurricane Hazel.
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1948226871
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 157
Book Description
"From horse thieves to hurricanes, from shattered Southern myths to fractured family ties, from Nashville to Myrtle Beach to Miami, Low Country is a lyrical, devastating, fiercely original memoir" of one family's changing fortunes in the Low Country of South Carolina (Justin Taylor, author of Riding with the Ghost). J. Nicole Jones is the only daughter of a prominent South Carolina family, a family that grew rich building the hotels and seafood restaurants that draw tourists to Myrtle Beach. But at home, she is surrounded by violence and capriciousness: a grandfather who beats his wife, a barman father who dreams of being a country music star. At one time, Jones's parents can barely afford groceries; at another, her volatile grandfather presents her with a fur coat. After a girlhood of extreme wealth and deep debt, of ghosts and folklore, of cruel men and unwanted spectacle, Jones finds herself face to face with an explosive possibility concerning her long-abused grandmother that she can neither speak nor shake. And through the lens of her own family's catastrophes and triumphs, Jones pays homage to the landscapes and legends of her childhood home, a region haunted by its history: Eliza Pinckney cultivates indigo, Blackbeard ransacks the coast, and the Gray Man paces the beach, warning of Hurricane Hazel.
Route 66
Author: Tom Snyder
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312254179
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Fully revised and expanded New stories-more details -Nearly 30 feet of strip maps -350 towns and attractions -More highway memorabilia -Mini-tours-rentals-discounts -Chicago-L.A. mileage table
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312254179
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Fully revised and expanded New stories-more details -Nearly 30 feet of strip maps -350 towns and attractions -More highway memorabilia -Mini-tours-rentals-discounts -Chicago-L.A. mileage table
Jackpot
Author: Jason Ryan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762767995
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
In the late 1970s and early '80s, a cadre of freewheeling, Southern pot smugglers lived at the crossroads of Miami Vice and a Jimmy Buffett song. These irrepressible adventurers unloaded nearly a billion dollars worth of marijuana and hashish through the eastern seaboard’s marshes. Then came their undoing: Operation Jackpot, one of the largest drug investigations ever and an opening volley in Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs. In Jackpot, author Jason Ryan takes us back to the heady days before drug smuggling was synonymous with deadly gunplay. During this golden age of marijuana trafficking, the country’s most prominent kingpins were a group of wayward and fun-loving Southern gentlemen who forsook college educations to sail drug-laden luxury sailboats across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. Les Riley, Barry Foy, and their comrades eschewed violence as much as they loved pleasure, and it was greed, lust, and disaster at sea that ultimately caught up with them, along with the law. In a cat-and-mouse game played out in exotic locations across the globe, the smugglers sailed through hurricanes, broke out of jail and survived encounters with armed militants in Colombia, Grenada and Lebanon. Based on years of research and interviews with imprisoned and recently released smugglers and the law enforcement agents who tracked them down, Jackpot is sure to become a classic story from America's controversial Drug Wars. “The adventures, the long-gone economy, and the sting that ultimately brought them down and changed US drug policy are meticulously documented and lucidly spun…. Part New Yorker feature-part Jimmy Buffet song. . . . The result is adventuresome, lavish, informative fun.” —GQ “[A] rollicking story, Ryan manages to pack in one amusing tale after another.... Jackpot is a rip-roaring good read.” —Charleston City Paper “High times on the high seas: Investigative reporter Ryan recounts the glory days of dope smuggling and their terrible denouement.... A well-told tale of true crime that provides a few good arguments for why it should not be a crime at all.” —Kirkus Reviews “Reads like an international thriller. . . . chock-a-block with hilarious and hair-raising anecdotes of fast times.” —New York Journal of Books “[A] thoroughly researched account of Operation Jackpot, the drug investigation that ended the reign of South Carolina’s ‘gentlemen smugglers,’.... Ryan recreates the era with a vivid, sun-drenched intensity.” —Publishers Weekly
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762767995
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
In the late 1970s and early '80s, a cadre of freewheeling, Southern pot smugglers lived at the crossroads of Miami Vice and a Jimmy Buffett song. These irrepressible adventurers unloaded nearly a billion dollars worth of marijuana and hashish through the eastern seaboard’s marshes. Then came their undoing: Operation Jackpot, one of the largest drug investigations ever and an opening volley in Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs. In Jackpot, author Jason Ryan takes us back to the heady days before drug smuggling was synonymous with deadly gunplay. During this golden age of marijuana trafficking, the country’s most prominent kingpins were a group of wayward and fun-loving Southern gentlemen who forsook college educations to sail drug-laden luxury sailboats across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. Les Riley, Barry Foy, and their comrades eschewed violence as much as they loved pleasure, and it was greed, lust, and disaster at sea that ultimately caught up with them, along with the law. In a cat-and-mouse game played out in exotic locations across the globe, the smugglers sailed through hurricanes, broke out of jail and survived encounters with armed militants in Colombia, Grenada and Lebanon. Based on years of research and interviews with imprisoned and recently released smugglers and the law enforcement agents who tracked them down, Jackpot is sure to become a classic story from America's controversial Drug Wars. “The adventures, the long-gone economy, and the sting that ultimately brought them down and changed US drug policy are meticulously documented and lucidly spun…. Part New Yorker feature-part Jimmy Buffet song. . . . The result is adventuresome, lavish, informative fun.” —GQ “[A] rollicking story, Ryan manages to pack in one amusing tale after another.... Jackpot is a rip-roaring good read.” —Charleston City Paper “High times on the high seas: Investigative reporter Ryan recounts the glory days of dope smuggling and their terrible denouement.... A well-told tale of true crime that provides a few good arguments for why it should not be a crime at all.” —Kirkus Reviews “Reads like an international thriller. . . . chock-a-block with hilarious and hair-raising anecdotes of fast times.” —New York Journal of Books “[A] thoroughly researched account of Operation Jackpot, the drug investigation that ended the reign of South Carolina’s ‘gentlemen smugglers,’.... Ryan recreates the era with a vivid, sun-drenched intensity.” —Publishers Weekly