10 Foolish Fortune Hunters : The True Tale of a Female Marijuana Farmer [Paperback]

Cal Morgan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0967457408 | ISBN-13: 978-0967457406 | Publication Date: January 1, 2000

10 Foolish Fortune Hunters begins on the day Cal was busted for growing half a million dollars worth of marijuana in 1984. While she's standing at the window waiting for the police car that's going to take her to jail, time stops and the reader is taken back to the day she and fellow growers vowed to live in peaceful fellowship and never cultivate just for the sake of making money. During the ensuing five years those vows collapse like a house of cards while she poaches from poachers, lies to liars, and swindles swindlers. Knives, guns, threats, broken contracts, rattlesnakes, and rats are part of the drama. She forms several nefarious partnerships--with an aikido teacher, a former prostitute from Starlight Ranch, the owner of a Mexican restaurant, a former 49er football player, an embezzler, and an airplane pilot. Each succeeding season she plants more marijuana and finds herself deeper in trouble. Then she meets the espresso cafe owner, Wing, a Buddhist who teaches her we can master the art of camouflage so well we become a mystery to ourselves. Wing writes his speeches for the day on cafe napkins, enlightening us on such topics as why the cafe is the best part of culture, the secret of the fountain of youth, the driving force behind the DNA code, alpha versus beta brain waves, and why it is we prefer myths rather than genuine reality. His speeches trace the history of words back to the first shaman, revealing the hypnotic power words have over us and how they prevent us from discovering the basic sanity that resides at the still center of the storm.

10 Foolish Fortune Hunters is a fancy-wrought breath of fresh air. Light in tone and illuminating in content, this autobiographical novel of a counter culture outlaw transcends the social differences that divide by exploring the hypnotic power of words and money. Cal's search for a story to write about adventurous women who don't die at the end turns into its own unique adventure and a tightrope walker's exploration of the fine, flexible line between imagination and reality.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

We will look back on the Twentieth Century as the one in which we lost touch with the heroic. We are living in the era of technical special effects relying heavily on violence, whose heroes are generic video game figures that conquer by destroying everything in their paths. The question is being raised, where are the stories that do not depend upon violence and killing to hold our interest and what does this dilemma say about us? Surely we will find our new heroes at the heart of our current challenges. What challenge is more important than preserving our environment?

Whutaworld Book Company is dedicated to the preservation of the natural world. It is up to writers to offer our children heroic figures who reveal ennobling challenges worthy of confrontation. The author Cal Morgan has set a literary precedent in her book 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters. To take on the theme of our endangered planet is no easy feat. How do you make interesting the current tragedy occurring to the earth and the endangered creatures that live on her? How to you make this story illuminating without boring readers to death? Cal has solved this problem by craftily constructing a humorous, action packed true story interlaced with such things as global newspaper headlines, bits of Buddhism on cafe napkins, a dialogue with the moon, and a sardonic stance toward herself and the other nine foolish fortune hunters in the book. Only after one has read the book does one realize a message has been delivered that has struck at the heart dead center. This is not a pro or con marijuana book, not a counter cultural last hurrah, not about the noble and self-important human being in any one of its masks. It is a book upon whose heroine we all depend: our earth home.

About the Author

Cal Morgan is the pseudonym for the author Cynthia Morgan. Other books by her include: If You Love Somebody Who Smokes: The Confessions of a Nicotine Addict (also offered here at amazon.com), The Unconscious Conspiracy, and, The Other Side of the Mirror. She has chosen a pseudonym for 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters because it is a true story and, as stated on the copyright page, all the character's names have been changed to protect the guilty. In 1984 she was busted by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department for growing half a million dollars worth of marijuana. Figuring she couldn't be tried for the same crime twice, she sat on this story for many years thinking about how to present it in book form. What has emerged is a tale more than the sum of its many daring escapades and the individuals who played out their parts. The author finally concluded that the strongest element to survive the counter culture revolution was the concept of "wholistic" as reflected in the ways in which we have begun to focus on ecology, medicine, psychology, and spirituality. She has therefore made the theme of this story not so much about what one woman learns on her hinterland journey, but about all of us and how it is we lose sight of our responsibility as caretakers of the earth we trod. She is currently finishing a novel that takes place in Amazonia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Whutaworld (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967457408
• ISBN-13: 978-0967457406
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,040,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Laughs!, April 27, 2000

By 

Elizabeth Means (Aptos, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters : The True Tale of a Female Marijuana Farmer (Paperback)

I was happily surprised to find this was not your stereotypical story about hippies. The characters were all unique and there were surprises at every turn.I couldn't put it down, read the whole thing over the weekend. Now that I've read this very funny book I understand why the author calls it a "true tale". I highly recommend this book to parents to give as gifts to their teenagers. This is the first thime I've bothered to write a review, but I believe this book deserves applause.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read!, April 6, 2000

By 

Stefan Reich (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters : The True Tale of a Female Marijuana Farmer (Paperback)

This book has everything... I loved it. Adventure, suspense, mystery, and marijuana, what more could you ask for? Id recommend this to anyone looking for a good nonfiction story.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 10 foolish fortune hunters, May 3, 2000

By 

michael rogers (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters : The True Tale of a Female Marijuana Farmer (Paperback)

I think we have found our female Tom Robbins. Luaghed all the way through but also found it very very thoughtful and provoking. Raising many issues about how we value money,our lives, and the environment. Finally a novel that presents meditation as a way of dealing with our life. Hurrah. hurrah Cal Morgan keep it going.