The hotel parking lot. Early afternoon. He was packing his truck. Slamming toolbox lids. Reorganizing luggage in the rear cab. Iowa plates.
The first day of fall arrived in Birmingham. It came frighteningly quick. Yesterday it was summer, hotter than the hinges of hades. This morning it was cold as gumballs.
Jefferson, Alabama, is the epitome of small. The population here isn’t big enough to form a decent baseball team.
Today, I am no longer the little boy whose father died by suicide. I am a man now. A man whose life ambition is to help others who have fallen.
The first thing you should know about Joseph is that he isn’t an optimist. In fact, he has no faith in this world. And he has even less faith in people.
Somewhere in Alabama. It’s an old cafe. The coffee cups are bottomless. The waitress wears jeans. On the walls are mounted bass and a few buck heads.
They called us the TV generation. Because that was pretty much all we had. No smartphones. No computers. No internets.
Some fool once called her “white trash.” And that’s when she made up her mind. She wanted to better herself, and her family. So, that’s what she did.
I stop at a little seafood joint. The place is surrounded by marshland grass, a wide-open sky, scattered live oaks, and roughly 8 million Chrysler Pacifica minivans. The place looks like a tourist trap on crack. But it’s getting late, so I go inside and order a beer.
Jack was laid to rest today at 12 p.m. sharp. It was a small service in the Peterson’s backyard. There were folding chairs. Jack’s pinewood box was decorated with white flowers and his favorite chew toys.
Lake Martin is one of the top five cleanest and clearest lakes in the United States. It is like looking into glass. It is a lake so clear you can see all the Natural Light cans on the bottom. I stared across the lake and I was thinking about my old man.
In fact, top archaeology scholars at Columbia University now believe that the original Garden of Eden was located just north of Highway 52 in Geneva County. And most experts agree that the forbidden fruit consumed by Adam and Eve was originally purchased from the Hendrix Farm Produce tomato stand.
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was on television yesterday when my cousin texted urgently: “Check out that bloodhound!”