Jack Taylor has a story to tell – many stories, actually.
At age 76, he has just self-published a compendium of short stories on what it was like to grow up in poverty in Central Mississippi and later move through a variety of law enforcement agencies until he found his true calling as a member of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
“Overcoming: My Journey from Abject Poverty to the American Dream” recalls details of his impoverished upbringing and stories of his years fighting the war on drugs. He is selling the book online through amazon.com.
“Dad never owned any property; he was a sharecropper,” Taylor remembers now. “We lived in at least seven different places (in Mississippi) before I was 18.”
One of those areas was Carmack, where he lived with his parents and 11 other siblings.
“We had no electricity until I was 10 or 11, and we never had indoor plumbing,” he said.
He and his siblings often didn’t report to school in Spring when planting needed to be done, or until October in the fall because they were helping harvest cotton on the families few acres.
“I repeated the fourth grade and the seventh grade, and I dropped out after the ninth grade,” Taylor said.
At 18, he joined the United States Army and eventually earned his GED. Discharged at 22, employment was hard to come by for a young man without a college degree or experience.
He finally found employment as a full-time Greenville police officer from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and attended Delta State University during daytime hours.
Asked how he had the motivation to both work and attend college full-time, Taylor’s answer is simple.
“I got tired of being poor. I was determined I was not going to stay at the poverty level for the rest of my life,” he said. “It was up to me to do something, so I did.”
Taylor said he served in the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Customs Service before finally landing at the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, from which he retired after 24 years in various posts.
“I found that was my calling in life. You’re fighting a war against drugs that are destroying the fabric of our families,” he said. “You can help someone turn their life around.”
The DEA gave Taylor opportunities in locations ranging from Jackson, MS, all the way to Bolivia.
The time in Bolivia was spent collecting intelligence on drug operations that were transporting coca to Columbia and then on to the United States, he said.
Much of his DEA work was slow and meticulous, requiring diligence to connect the dots to make the bigger case, rather than focusing on the small-time dealers. He regularly went undercover.
One such case, referred to as “The Little Cajun King” in the book, resulted in the seizure of 833 acres of Mississippi land along with $1.5 million in currency, an airplane and 10 other vehicles, he said.
But Taylor said his primary goal in writing the book is not to recount his time in law enforcement, but to inspire others who believe that poverty prevents them from achieving their goals.
“If someone had the desire and are willing to delay gratification, they can attain what they want,” he said. “I don’t want to hear ‘I can’t do…’ It doesn’t fit in my vocabulary.”
Taylor is married to Cheryl and the pair have three children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Although he enjoys time spent with family, the man who now resides in Murfreesboro, TN, said he isn’t ready to fully retire just yet.
In addition to writing the book, he said he still works freelance for the Federal Bureau of Investigations conducting background checks.
“I know my job and I enjoy it. I get to meet a lot of interesting people,” he said of the work.
“I’m too young to quit. I’m a driven person. I need purpose to get up every morning.”
