Navy fighter pilot Tim Johnson returns home to South Florida from Vietnam in 1973 with a plan. In order to execute it he will need the help of his younger brother Tommy and his less than scrupulous friends but trying to keep things a secret and off the radar of law enforcement may be harder than he thinks. Based on events and accounts, A Time to Hustle is a gripping pulse pounding ride into the illegal and dangerous underworld of the narcotics trade in the 1970's. This story is fiction. It is loosely based on actual events that happened a long time ago. All of the names and locations have been altered. Please do not try anything described or depicted in the following pages. Personal injury or death may result. Drug use, organized crime, and smuggling are illegal and not encouraged by the author. Any similarity to persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author. Reader discretion is definitely advised.
About the Author: George Garrett Shepherd III was born November 22, 1969 in Birmingham Alabama. He spent most of his childhood and summers working on his Grandparents farm (now Ruffner Mountain Nature Center) or fishing on Lake Mitchell in Clanton Alabama. After his parents' divorce in 1976, George and his Mother Betty moved to Pompano Beach Florida where he would regularly skateboard at Solid Surf in Fort Lauderdale and Cadillac Wheels Skate Park in Pompano. He also played guitar, little league baseball and raced Bicycle Motor Cross at the Boys Club in Pompano Beach. In 1980 Betty moved them to Coral Springs where George continued to play baseball, street skate and race BMX. In 1986 he got his first car and now he was mobile. Surfing became a passion and he would regularly go in search of the best waves along the East Coast. After graduating from Coral Springs High School in 1988, George moved to Kansas City Missouri to help his father with his Restaurants. He enrolled in the Auto Mechanics program at Longview Community College in Raytown. His goal was to go auto racing. In 1990 George returned to South Florida and started South East Properties, a lawn and landscape management company which eventually included a tree farm in West Palm Beach which is still growing today. He was introduced to the Florida Prairie by a friend and would take regular trips to Okeechobee. He started writing A Time to Hustle in 1995 and after losing the material to a computer crash, it was reborn and he has worked on it off and on ever scene. In May of 1999 his daughter Sarah Melissa was born and George was diagnosed with skin cancer. The doctor told him to stay out of the sun. Hard to do when you surf, fish and work outside. A few hard, gut wrenching decisions were made that year and one of them included a new computer. In October of 1999, George earned his Class A Commercial Driver's License with a HazMat endorsement. He began transporting gas and diesel throughout Florida until 2003 when he formed G.G. Shepherd Transportation Co., a refrigerated common carrier specializing in less than a load seafood and shell fish transportation. Over one million miles and a thousand loading docks later, it was time to move on. Currently, George lives in West Palm Beach and is actively writing and working on a non-profit urban reforestation project. He still enjoys doing a wide range of activities and passing them on to his daughter. Sarah sings, ice skates and works with rescue horses..