Florida Cracker Boy: Tales of Misspent Youth

By J. Lee Paulet

...As Yang to Betsy’s Yin, Lee Paulet’s “Florida Cracker Boy: Tales of a Misspent Youth” teems with adventures, fishing tips and crusty language. His yarn “On the Evils of skipping school” traces a teenage lark which mixes some incredibly dumb coincidence, a good friend Chuck, Chuck’s rifle, and a ’56 Nash Rambler. Lee describes the pair as “country boys, as stubborn as razorbacks and mean as shedding rattlesnakes.”
Despite the reader’s intrigue with a young man’s tomfoolery, Lee Paulet dedicates the book to the Boy Scouts of America --”who do a fine job of instilling values in America’s youth.”
Now living in Citrus, Paulet voices concerns about Florida’s fragile ecosystems and unwarranted growth. A genuine Cacker, Lee lives the finest lessons of scouting...

Previous is an excerpt from review of authors Betsy Bolger Paulet and Lee Paulet by columnist Jim Davis, Citrus County Chronicle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Betsy Bolger Paulet
• Release date: Nov 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466027763

J. Lee Paulet

After a life of work and war, Tampa born Lee Paulet wrote this charming account of growing up Cracker on his family's acreage in what is now Carrolwood. After his mother passed, finding they were now surrounded by development, he and his wife escaped the modern sour snare to the Nature Coast where he could go fishing whenever he wanted. Alternately imbued with the wisdom of the earth and the foolishness of youth buried in each of us, Lee grew up treasuring Florida in ways that have nearly gone extinct. His writing, like leaping mullet, jumps with the wonder of the natural world and the insouciance of youth. by Jim Davis, Citrus County Chronicle.

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Florida Cracker Boy: Tales of Misspent Youth

by J. Lee Paulet

copyright 1994 J. Lee Paulet

National Library of Congress, Washington DC

All rights reserved by J. Lee Paulet

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Foreword

If my parents had murdered me at a very early age, no jury in the country would have convicted them!! From my early childhood through my school years pranks, escapades, covert activities and, in general, all manner of debauchery, were to be my trademark, my purpose

Born out in the Florida country, I was introduced to hunting and fishing at a very early age. Dad, a consulting engineer and horseman, had kept my Mom and he well fed through the Depression years with what he could catch, or shoot.

This hunting and fishing became my first ― and to this day, my primary source of recreation and entertainment. I can remember my Dad's best friend, Robbie, coming over to the house for the Friday night prize fights. As my Mom would prepare the snacks and we'd listen to the pre-fight hoopla, their conversation would usually turn to hunting and fishing experiences. Both men had long practiced the fine art of storytelling, and both men had stories that would hold me spellbound for hours. Added to this fact was when, every now and then, they would drag me along. Something always would happen that would be strange or amusing and fodder for future stories.

I would quietly listen time after time as they told the same tale. Little flourishes and embellishments would be added, until, after five or six tellings, a masterpiece was born.

Beginning school and internally pouting that I couldn't fish