A Man On A Raft

Klink: ASTOR

Welcome to Blue Springs Creek, in the Ocala National Forest, where Lee Allen Young lives on a raft he calls the Huckleberry Finn with a faithful mutt he has named Becky Thatcher.

A barefooted man of 59, he says he is looking for Tom Sawyer — that is, he is looking for the kind of free and irresponsible life all but gone in modern Florida. He has no bank account, no credit cards, no telephone. "Civilization," Mark Twain once declared, "is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities." Young has no spouse, no commitments, no immediate plans except to fry a few fish for supper.

"I've done so much for so long with so little I can do almost anything with nothing," he says.