Shot at and Missed

Out of the woods after a very long walk, Jesse Burnham makes a shocking discovery, a forgotten stock market cache. 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 hints the direction to go, generally toward the sun.He's aimed at Cuba when he bumps into a Cuban. Natasha, Russian and Italian by name, but certainly not looks or temperament, knows real estate and is scheming for a financial...
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Out of the woods after a very long walk, Jesse Burnham makes a shocking discovery, a forgotten stock market cache. 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 hints the direction to go, generally toward the sun.He's aimed at Cuba when he bumps into a Cuban. Natasha, Russian and Italian by name, but certainly not looks or temperament, knows real estate and is scheming for a financial 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.It's a family story, more than one generation. There are family conversations and some back and forth with a prickly little gnome that sometimes shows up 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 important character calls it. Jesse will attest that the nasty little bloodsuckers also inhabit the other end of his Appalachian Trail 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 what Mother Nature has in store for us in that very thin sliver of the earth wherer we live in. It's changing. You'll find Amish and airplanes and Alpacas, but no violence in this book?and probably not enough sex, a safe read for your teenagers. It might not be 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! Not hit yet. Enjoy.