Totch: A Life in the Everglades

In the mysterious wilderness of swamps, marshes, and rivers that conceals life in the Florida Everglades, Totch Brown hung up his career as alligator hunter and commercial fisherman to become a self-confessed pot smuggler. Before the marijuana money rolled in, he survived excruciating poverty in one of the most primitive and beautiful spots on earth, Chokoloskee Island, in the mangrove keys known as the Ten Thousand Islands located at the western gateway to the Everglades National Park.Until he wrote this memoirrecollections from his childhood in the twenties that merge with reflections on a way of life dying at the hands of progress in the ninetiesTotch had never read a book in his life. Still, his writing conveys the tension he experienced from trying to live off the land and within the laws of the land.Told with energy and authenticity, his story begins with the handful of souls who came to the area a hundred years ago to homestead on the high ground formed from oyster mounds built and left by the Calusa Indians. They lived close to nature in shacks built of tin or palmetto fans; they ate wild meat, Chokoloskee chicken (white ibis), swamp cabbage, evenwhen they were desperatemanatee; and they weathered all manner of natural disaster from hurricanes to swarms of swamp angels (mosquitoes). In his grandpas day, Totch writes, outlaws and cutthroats would shoot a man down just as quick as theyd knock down an egret, especially if he came between them and the plume birds.His grandparents were both contemporaries of Ed J. Watson, the subject of Peter Matthiessens best-selling Killing Mr. Watson, and Totch is featured in the recent award-winning PBS film Lost Mans River: An Everglades Adventure with Peter Matthiessen. He also appeared in Wind Across the Everglades, the 1957 Budd Schulberg movie in which Totch and Burl Ives sing some of Totchs Florida cracker songs.
ASIN: 0813012287
VSKU: RDV.0813012287.VG
Condition: Very Good
Author/Artist:Brown, Loren G.|Matthiessen, Peter
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: This book is in excellent condition. There may be minimal writing on the inside cover or cover page. Cover image on the book may vary from photo. Ships out quickly in a secure plastic mailer.