[gofastsandman]

Hi Father,

I had a roofing accident after Wilma and was in a wheelchair for 9 mos. with staph infection as a result of the surgery. I had a hole in my skin going down to the bone in my ankle that just would not close.I was carrying around enough lymphatic fluid in my leg to fill a very small livewell. This overwhelmed my right inguinal lymph gland and turned into non-hodgkins b-cell lymphoma. During my down time , I started to think about an idea I had when I first came to Florida and found the price of live bait to be $60 per dz in 1990.

Back then I wondered if you could raise them and made an appointment to go see Bill Halstead at the national marine fisheries snook and redfish restoration project in Tampa Bay. Not being a marine biologist, I ended the grand tour with answers for my 30 or so questions. The problem was that my 30 questions had now turned into hundreds. I was out of my depth. But the idea of doing this just would NOT go away.

My down time gave me the perfect excuse to get back on the horse.After thousands hours of surfing and bothering biologists and anyone else who would listen, I caught a break. We set up a little experiment and voila.

My wonderful wife Janet thinks I must be part of the Flintstone gene pool , but I believe. I`m fighting massive medical bills , but threw caution to the wind and took a portion of my embarassingly insufficient workers comp settlement and bought my `89 20 sf. With Janet`s blessing of course. I will start driving to the Keys to purchase and sell locally in W.P.B. this winter as part of stage 1 of my new future. I hope to be a pioneer in the industry when all is said and done.

Things may look a little bleak now , but sometimes ,some of the most trying circumstances in life, can truly be a blessing, or in my case an awakening.

Thanks for all you do here and elsewhere . We will leave a light on and say a prayer for you.

Sandy and Janet