“Please, Bill, don’t shoot!”

A blast from a shotgun would change young Joe Overby’s life forever.  After his father shoots the county sheriff, three-year-old Joe sets out on an unimaginable series of adventures.

Just A Dumb Kid From Nowhere will take you back to Depression-era Mississippi.  There, you’ll join Joe as he experiences life in an orphanage, a series of sharecropper’s shacks, a log cabin, and a farm.  You’ll learn what it was like to pick cotton by hand, to harvest sorghum and make molasses, and to work the wheat harvest during World War II.  With Joe, you’ll experience the joys, yearnings and desperations of a growing boy as he discovers the world and his place in it.  Through this anything-but-dumb kid, you’ll laugh and cry, always pulling for the boy who was determined to make something of himself.

Do you want a true feel for what life was really like in the rural South during this formative time in America’s history—the food, clothing, culture and customs?  Just A Dumb Kid From Nowhere is your express ticket there. 

Movie stars, cowboys, and German spies...

at Mayport?

Those who see Naval Station Mayport as it is today may not realize that the property where they now stand once held a thriving resort called Wonderwood By-the-Sea.  Acres Aweigh! is the story of that time, and of the woman who developed the resort, Mrs. Elizabeth P. Stark.  Get to know and love this fascinating woman as young tug master Overby himself knew her.

But Acres Aweigh! is more than Mrs. Stark's story.  It's also the story of a growing Navy base during the author's tour of duty there and his adventures aboard his aging tugboat, jokingly called "June-Moon-Uniform".  It will bring a knowing smile to the face of any sailor who's ever served at Mayport or aboard a Navy ship.

This book is selling like hotcakes! If you enjoy a good story and a personal view of history throughout the 20th Century, you'll enjoy it.