Shot At and Missed

Out of the woods after a very long walk, the wanderer makes a shocking discovery, a forgotten account. He retires the tent and sleeping bag and is about to take the first step toward whatever comes next…with some coins in his pocket. His compass gives just a hint which way to go--toward the sun.

He's aimed at Cuba when he bumps into a Cuban. Natasha, Russian and Italian by name, but not looks or temperament, knows real estate and is scheming for a windfall when the "big one" hits South Florida. She's an opposite pole but is disarmed and amused by the bumbling Jesse. He thinks her plan is harebrained.

Brain in a muddle is part of the story. How else to explain eight years on the Appalachian Trail? There are conversations, some with himself, some with the woman in the hot car, and the ongoing one, a back and forth with a prickly little gnome that shows up from time to time on the protagonist's shoulder. The earliest scene is right at the end of World War Two, the next one just starting.

There are lots of places, Vermont, Paris, a beach in California, home in a tent under the bridge in Savannah, and "mosquito swamp Florida," what one character calls it. Jesse will attest that the nasty little bloodsuckers also inhabit the north end of his journey.

Jesse thinks he has one of three puzzles figured out, money. It makes fools of most of us. That genes are pulling his puppet strings hasn't fully registered yet. The third befuddlement, introduced by the woman in the Red Dress bump, is the weather. More correctly, it's the weather and the other stuff Mother Nature has in store for us in that very thin sliver of the earth where we live. It's changing.

You'll find Amish and airplanes and Alpacas, but no violence in this book…and probably not enough sex. It is a safe read for your teenagers but maybe not as entertaining for them as for somebody old enough to know there is another world...off the screen, one you can smell and taste and touch.

That other world is also where a bullet can get you. Aren't we lucky! One hasn't gotten us yet. Enjoy.