Tag: Alabama

Being a champion

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It was quite ironic, the note resting on the corner of his desk. 

I had come to interview the head football coach, to talk about his experiences as a coach in Texas and Alabama. I found out that Matt had made quite a few stops in his career. He was a walk-on wide receiver at the University of North Alabama before becoming a student assistant at the University of Alabama for two years. From there, he headed to Pittsburg State in Kansas as a graduate assistant. He moved to Tennessee to take a job at Carson-Newman University, where he learned to really get to know the hearts of his players. He left from there to head west again, this time to Missouri Southern State University as a wide receivers coach. After two years, he was promoted to offensive line coach and recruiting coordinator. That is when his love for high school football was rekindled.

He was assigned to recruit central Texas, a hotbed for star football players. Missouri Southern State’s head coach handed him a huge three-ring binder, full of schools and names. He was instructed to just start calling around, asking high school coaches if they had players worthy of being recruited. The list of schools was arranged alphabetically. Matt closed his eyes, slid his index finger down the first page and landed on a school. He called the head coach, who told Matt that he had a wide receiver that no one was recruiting. He had been one of the most prolific wideouts in the state’s history, but he was short. Matt traveled to Texas a few weeks later on a recruiting trip and met with the coach. There were pictures all over his office. The two had an hourlong conversation, just about life. Matt says it was likely the most genuine conversation he has ever had. Football, in terms of Xs and Os, did not come up.

“There was a heart about it,” he says.

After the visit, Matt, who was single at the time, called his mother to tell her about this coach and how impressive he was. He returned routinely to recruit the area and visit. He went to games with this coach. He stayed at his house instead of a hotel. He learned how important relationships were.

“That relationship just stuck,” he says.

That coach’s son was hired at a Houston-area high school. His choice for offensive coordinator? Matt, who took the job. He spent three seasons there, the first of which included meeting his future wife. They now have two daughters. As his third season as the offensive coordinator came to an end, an opportunity to move back to his home state of Alabama arose. He chose to take it. On his final day in Texas, as he was clearing things from his desk, a piece of paper caught his attention. It was a note from a player.

Matt tells the story from the beginning. He was teaching a weight training class for non-athletes, students who wanted to work out but did not play a school-sponsored sport. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, students in his class went outside and ran. One of his students was five feet, eight inches, maybe one hundred forty pounds. 

“He doesn’t look like a high school football player, especially in the state of Texas,” Matt says.

On one of those running days, the boy ran a forty-yard dash in a very quick 4.5 seconds. Matt asked him if he had ever thought about playing football. He told him that he could run down the field on kickoff coverage, maybe be the team’s twelfth man. The boy had never thought of playing. Matt took him to meet the head coach. The boy’s schedule was changed, and he became a member of the football team. He was never a starter. He practiced mostly on the scout team and played on kickoff coverage, though he did score a touchdown once.

“He was on the team, and it meant a lot to him,” Matt says.

Fast forward to Matt’s last day on the job. He finds the handwritten note on his desk. It reads, with just a couple typos corrected, “Hey coach, you probably weren’t expecting this but I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while. I hope you know you changed my life. Remember when you first recruited me, in weight training? That changed everything. You might not have known but before that happened I was in a lot of trouble, already been in (juvenile detention) and involved with a lot of bad stuff. You changed that you made me feel needed, needed on a football team. I think it was the best decision I have ever made. And you gave me the option, if you didn’t I wouldn’t know where I would be right now.” 

Matt keeps that note to remind him of the relationship side of football. It was on his desk recently because he had shared it with his Alabama team a few weeks prior. He told his players that they could talk to him that way, through a note, if they were not comfortable talking out loud. 

Sometimes, of course, he has to be firm with his players. Recently, he was working on a manifesto, of sorts. It would essentially serve as the football program’s Bible, a set of regulations and expectations every player was required to meet. There were rules for practices, conditioning, weight training, games, playing time, game days, spring training, offseasons, fundraising and, of course, academics. Everything is identified and clearly stated. If the players follow it, then everything else will take care of itself. 

“I used to think that I could motivate a fence post,” he says. “I used to think that. And I have learned that I don’t have all the answers.”

One answer he does have, however, is the message he shares with his team every Friday before games. He tells his players, “Men daily represent qualities associated with courage and strength. Boys make mistakes that men have to fix. So what are you?” It is an attention-grabber. What tough football player wants to be called a boy? On Fridays, this is solely applicable to football. But during the week, this is applicable to life. He wants his players to have courage to do the right things on a daily basis, to have discipline, to put in the work that greatness requires. 

“That’s being a champion,” he says.

As a head football coach, he does not get to spend as much one-on-one time with players as he would as an assistant. He has more administrative responsibilities. This also keeps him away from his wife and two daughters more than he would like. But they make it work. On occasion, his daughters spend time in his office just beyond one of the football stadium’s end zones. They go to practice with him. He wants his daughters to see that he is not missing time at home just for jet sweeps and all-out blitzes. He wants them to see that he is investing in other people’s lives.

“I’m hoping that I can be a good example that not just it’s important to work hard at whatever you do, but let’s make sure that the job we’re doing is investing in other people’s lives,” he says. “My hope and prayer is that my daughters see the investment that I put in other people’s lives, that it teaches them one day to do the same thing.”

Today’s news

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Today, I want to share some real news with you.

You’ve been hearing all about fake news. Your social media outlets have been inundated with clickbait.

Just today, April 10, 2017, you’ve endured a lot on your timelines. 

A murder-suicide inside an elementary school in San Bernardino, California, where two students were caught in the crossfire.

Russia allegedly having advanced knowledge of the Syrian chemical attack on its own citizens last week.

ISIS claiming responsibility for the Palm Sunday church bombings in Egypt.

A cell phone video of a man being dragged, screaming, from a United Airlines flight because it was overbooked. The airline’s CEO released a statement, saying he apologizes for having to “re-accommodate these customers.” 

And most of you reading this, what fills your airwaves today is your state’s governor finding himself in the middle of impeachment hearings, the text messages and documents released in the last few days as crude and abhorrent as anything we’ve seen — even for Alabama politics.

You see all of that. It’s everywhere. I want to tell you a quick story about something you won’t see on FOX News or CNN or hear on the radio.

It happened Saturday morning. My wife and I stopped at Bojangles, just over a mile from our house. She ordered the Cheddar Bo Biscuit, while I opted for a chicken biscuit. We both chose large drinks. The total was ten dollars.

When we curved around the building and reached the drive-thru window, we were told that our breakfast had been paid for by the vehicle in front of us. It had already left the restaurant. So, we paid for the breakfast for the people behind us. It was a dad buying his son a Bo-Berry Biscuit before heading to Saturday’s Little League baseball games.

He pulled up beside us, as we were still waiting on our food, rolled his window down, and thanked us. His son, younger than ten years old, smiled at us.

I read about these occurrences all the time on Facebook. It happens at Chick-fil-A, Bojangles, Jack’s, elsewhere. It’s always so fun and refreshing to read about. 

That’s real news today. So pay it forward.

Typical disturbances not in store

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I wrote about this shopping center quite a few times. It was never about a new store opening, or a door-buster sale.

It was always about crimes and disturbances. 

There was the possible flash mob in the summer of 2011. There was the alleged shoplifter in 2013 who fled from loss prevention authorities and struck an elderly man with his vehicle. 

The last quarter of 2014 was full. In October, I wrote about two alleged purse-snatchers at this shopping center. Their M.O. was simple: One suspect would approach the women, loading purchased items into their vehicles, and he would say “Hello.” He would then snatch the purse and jump into a SUV that fled. 

The next month, I wrote about shoplifters who crashed into two police cars during their attempt to flee the scene. The driver was caught after the wreck, while the passenger ran but was later apprehended. A responding police officer broke a finger in that ordeal. Luckily, I had the opportunity to also write about the suspects’ arrests.

After I left the daily journalism world, I often read about this shopping center. There was a weekday bomb threat at its anchor store in 2015. The store was evacuated. A year later, there was another bomb threat. 

In December 2015, I read again about a shoplifter who fled, made it not even a mile, and wrecked into another vehicle. I read about police having to respond to a large group of loiterers on Christmas night in 2016. This January, I read about two people being arrested for disorderly conduct, and another person with a gun.

These stories make me uneasy. My mom shops there, as does my mother-in-law. Friends shop there. I’m thankful for police presence, but my Lord, it shouldn’t be that much of a necessity. 

Today I went to this shopping center to eat lunch with my brother. I have become accustomed to seeing the red and blue lights here, the suspicious people strutting between the cars in the dark. Not today. Today was different. As I made the right turn into the shopping center, I saw a handful of people holding large white signs. 

Great, I thought. I have seen photos and videos from the political protests across the nation. I was in Atlanta recently and observed about a hundred people marching in support of Obamacare. I assumed this would be something similar. We are conditioned to believe it is always a protest, these days.

I was dead wrong.

I’m not sure who they were, a family or members of some church group. But printed on their signs in red were “Stop For Prayer” and “Jesus Cares.”

I just hope those past stories, of fleeing thieves and hoax bomb threats, didn’t scare people away and keep them from seeing this today. 

A higher calling

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The young coach keeps the text message as a reminder. 

It was sent to him by a basketball player from his former high school, where the coach was departing from to take a job at another Alabama high school. 

The text message, in part, reads, “I just wanted to let you know having you coach me this past season has truly inspired me. Before you I had quit going to church and praising God. I was lost but your enthusiasm for the abilities that God gave us helped lead me back to the path. I’ve been going every day that it is open and I have you to thank. I’m happy that God sent you to to help me see my errors not only in basketball but in life. It has truly been an honor to play for you and I will miss you yelling at us at practice.”

“I keep this message with me to remind me that, yes, I love winning and want to win championships more than anyone, but reaching kids, helping to make them better people, is a higher calling, one I never want to lose sight for,” the coach says.

The coach played at a small school in Walker County, and in one of his seasons, helped his team post a 30-5 record and finish as the state runner-up, the best season in school history. His coach demanded excellence and held his players to a high standard.

“I want to have that same impact on my players that I come in contact with, and help mold them to be successful young men and women, to let them know that anything is possible with God, hard work, dedication and belief,” he says.

After his playing days ended, he coached at his alma mater for two years, one of which included a run to the state Elite Eight and a 29-5 record. He was then the head junior varsity and assistant varsity coach at another Walker County school for three years. In his time there, he also helped with the middle school boys’ and girls’ teams. 

“I got into coaching first and foremost because I love the game of basketball, and what it can do for a player both spiritually, academically and athletically,” he says.

He is now the head coach of the varsity girls at a school in Jefferson County, and an assistant for the varsity boys’ team. He says he has been a part of some good teams and some not-so-good teams in his young career, but the one thing that remains his top priority is helping his players become good men and women, which can translate into them becoming good fathers and mothers, employees and citizens. 

“Sports can help play a critical role into a young person’s life,” he says. “I tell my players continually that they have to believe in themselves and work relentlessly for their goals and to never give up.”

He translates his point into real-life scenarios. He uses job loss as an example. Are you going to not look for another job and have a pity party while your spouse and children depend on you? Or are you going to fight with everything inside of you to find a way to provide for your family? When circumstances pop up, and they will pop up, don’t give up. That’s the time to dig deep and fight with all that’s inside of you to make a way. He stresses to believe in God and believe in yourself because God has placed greatness in everyone. He tells his players that it’s up to them to tap into that belief. 

“I want my players to remember not just how many games we won but that I taught them how to be a good man and woman,” he says. “I want them to come back and have a good career and family. I believe that most kids are afraid to strive for greatness because they are scared that they will fail. I feel that the only way a person can truly fail is not putting every ounce of their being into something.”

Departing with my longtime truck

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For the first few weeks I lived in Mississippi, I drove a Honda Accord. It was a great car, a crimson-magenta exterior and black leather inside. I was often surprised at how fast it could go. 

But it was a car. And being a man with a car in Mississippi must be a lot like being a woman in New York without Louis Vuitton. You just don’t feel like you fit in.

At some point in the summer of 2010, my dad got a new truck, which, to me, meant one thing — I’m getting the Tacoma. It was sleek silver, had four doors, a hardcover top and a couple of those Toyota Racing Development Off Road stickers. It had running boards, a V-6 engine and a six-disc changer.

And now it was mine. 

The first morning I drove it to work in Mississippi, my co-workers, all women, complimented it. They asked if it was mine, and called it beautiful. I probably goofily grinned.

In Mississippi, I drove it to football games on Friday nights, to Wal-Mart for groceries, and even tailed fire trucks and ambulances to house fires and car crashes.

When I moved back to Alabama, I did the same, steering it to wherever there was news. I navigated a residential area of south Trussville, where cops were searching for an attempted murderer, a career criminal who had beaten a police officer and stolen his car. I conducted phone interviews from the truck’s front seat, recording many people who laughed, and some who cried. I waited in the truck for city council meetings, school board retreats, football games and Habitat for Humanity key ceremonies. 

In March 2012, I nervously waited in the truck for a girl to show up at a spring carnival for our first date. We had fun, popping balloons with darts and riding a stomach-churner called Moby Dick. We saw a movie after the carnival, and she even rode to the theater with me in the truck.

Later that year, just before Christmas, that girl, who had become my fiance, and I were in a wreck in downtown Birmingham. Some knucklehead from California without insurance, driving his brother-in-law’s vehicle, turned left across a busy intersection. I tried to veer hard to the right, to avoid hitting the man, but we collided. It spun him all the way around. No people were injured, thank goodness, but my truck’s front apron had to be re-weld, among other repairs to the front fender. I drove my granddad’s Army-green Nissan truck for a week, and I missed the Tacoma every day.

Other than the one accident, the Tacoma has never been in a crash. It has never been stopped for rolling through a stop sign, or going too fast on the interstate. For the longest time, the interior smelled of Bobs Sweet Stripes Soft Peppermints, which I kept a stash of in the console’s cup holders. 

It has inched its way down icy roads, pulled onto the shoulder during rainstorms and had the fuel door cover protecting the gas cap filled with shaving cream by mischievous groomsmen. 

The Tacoma has seen many places in its more than 120,000 miles. It has seen the green mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Ellijay, Georgia. It has seen Escambia Bay in Florida and a lakefront home in Andalusia, Alabama. It has carried friends through the drive-thru at Krispy Kreme late on a Friday night, a shotgun-riding dog to the baseball park, furniture from one house to another to another, boxes of new books to signing events, and an old chest freezer full of okra up Interstate 65.

The Tacoma has also heard many different things. Its speakers have blared an assortment of musical genres. There has been a rock band shouting about all the small things, a rapper hilariously rhyming about how the FCC won’t let him be, and a country star singing about how a girl leans the seat back, steals his ball cap and pulls it down over her blue eyes.

I have had this truck for almost seven years of its eleven-year life, and it is starting to show its age. It seems to need more and more TLC. It has needed more brake repairs, new struts and an air conditioner compressor. We have put hundreds and hundreds of dollars into this truck, and now has come the time to sell it and move on to something new. We got a pretty good deal through a used-car retailer, and we will be moving on to a mid-size SUV. 

Recently, I was driving the truck for one of the last times. I was listening to Kip Moore’s debut album when the third track on the CD began to play. The final line of the song seemed appropriate.

“Ain’t nothin’ ‘bout it luck, there’s somethin’ ‘bout a truck.”

‘The Good Lord was next to him’

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You hear some odd things, when you sit ten feet from a police scanner.

When I worked in Mississippi, the police scanner was constantly abuzz, sitting atop the long desk where we spread that week’s newspaper pages for editing. 

There were conversations about suspicious people walking through neighborhoods. There were notifications of warrants being served. There were calls for assistance at house fires. 

But I never thought I would hear a call about an eighteen-wheeler ramming through someone’s house. In August 2010, in Magee, it happened. 

The call came over the police scanner shortly after three o’clock, and I looked at a co-worker, befuddled. I grabbed a camera and a notebook and headed out. 

I drove over somewhat skeptically, wondering why an eighteen-wheeler would even be on Laurel Drive Southeast. And even if a vehicle did slam into someone’s home, I was sure that it just scraped a corner. 

When I arrived, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Power lines flickered with orange in the street. Debris floated in the air. Up a steep, grassy bank, there was an eighteen-wheeler jammed into the side of a brick house. It had gone so far inside that just its back half was visible. The sight was rather unbelievable.

I stood with police officers, first responders and curious neighbors. I wondered if anyone was home, shortly after three o’clock on a Monday. Turns out, someone was. The man was elderly, and he was taking a nap when the crash happened. 

The driver of the eighteen-wheeler had apparently had some sort of heart-related episode, and lost control. He barreled over light poles, causing some homes to lose power. 

The man living in the home was in his bed, near the back corner of the house, opposite of where the big truck crashed. But an eighteen-wheeler with momentum doesn’t just stop instantly. It tore through the man’s house, reaching his bedroom. The homeowner suffered a laceration on the back of his head, as well as other cuts and bruises. He was airlifted to an area hospital.

While I milled around the truck, curious what it was transporting, what had happened to the driver, the police department’s chief investigator emerged from the rubble. He knew I was there to get the story. He told me that when first responders got inside, the homeowner was in his bed, the truck’s front fender resting against him. It had stopped just in time.

“The Good Lord was next to him in that bed,” the investigator told me.

It was the only quote I used in the story.

Above and beyond

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My first job as a college graduate was in Magee, Mississippi, four hours away from home. I rented a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for five hundred bucks a month, and it felt like grand theft real estate. That house was huge. In fact, the previous renter used a a large picnic table as his kitchen table. I could have rollerbladed around that kitchen, there was so much room.

Magee is situated along a main highway that takes you to the blackjack tables and slot machines in Biloxi and Gulfport, or to the Mardi Gras beads in New Orleans. Magee is a stopping-off town along that highway, to fill up with gas or to grab fast food. Without Highway 49, I am not certain many people would ever know about Magee, a small town situated about halfway between Jackson and Hattiesburg. But I found it, and I am glad that I did, even if it was for a short six months in 2010.

On my first day as a reporter there, I was told to grab a camera and snap some photos of what was believed to be the largest catfish ever caught in Simpson County. In my first week, I was told to drive down to Highway 49 and interview the man with a human-sized cross who was preaching — shouting, really — the gospel to passersby. When I interviewed him, his ramblings made little sense. I covered so many things and not much at all in Magee. I wrote about a water culvert being replaced. I previewed an elementary school book fair and also attended it to take pictures. I spent a few hours with an amateur radio operator in his tiny control room behind his house. News in Magee was never earth-shattering. I do not recall a time when a reporter from the statewide newspaper attended some event or meeting. I remember just once seeing television cameras, at a brick house an eighteen-wheeler had crashed into as a result of the driver falling asleep. The elderly man living at the house was taking a nap when it happened, and the eighteen-wheeler came to rest against the bed where he was sleeping. People talked about it for weeks.

One of the things that stood out the most to me in my short time in Magee was the football team. The team’s head coach made covering the Trojans a piece of cake. He spent time with me during weekdays in his office and the team’s stuffy locker room recapping and previewing games. My God, that locker room was a sauna. He gave me great quotes immediately after games on Friday nights, whether they were big wins or disappointing losses. I never saw him in a bad mood. I lived not even a half mile from the football stadium, and the practice field was a thirty-yard flag route from my front yard. The coach knew that. Often on the weekends, he would call me and let me know that he left the official stats from the last game in my mailbox, so that I had the most accurate numbers for my game story. It sounds like a small thing, but I remember him doing that. 

Six years after covering his team, I spoke to him about moments in his thirty-year career that transcended pancake blocks, A gaps and all-out blitzes. One memory stuck out the most. He was coaching in Raleigh, Mississippi, in the late 1990s and the week before spring training began, he received a phone call. One of his players had been in an argument with his stepdad and was shot at point-blank range, he says. Coach rushed to the hospital. When the boy woke up in the hospital, he asked for one person — his coach. I asked him why he believed the boy asked for him and not a relative or a best friend.

“I think it’s just that I developed that relationship with him,” he told me. “A lot of times as a coach you’ll go above and beyond. I think it’s important to build those relationships with them, and let them know you’re there for them.”

Coach says that boy went on to become a pastor and has done well in life. The boy tells his former coach when they talk now how thankful he is that he was there for him.

“We got to be pretty good friends,” Coach says.

This impact is why he, like so many others, got into coaching. He felt like he had something to give back. 

“Sports teaches you a lot more than just winning and losing and about football,” he tells me. “It teaches you that sometimes things don’t go the way you think they should go. It’s how you deal with that. If things don’t go well, they can tuck tail and run or stand and fight and battle through it.”

He realizes that coaches need to win to earn their time at a particular program. Winning keeps coaches in their positions, and that consistency allows them to have long-lasting impacts. But, he cautions, coaches who want to focus on Xs and Os and only win are “missing a tremendous opportunity.” 

“I feel like being a true coach is a calling,” he says. “You’re more than coaching a sport. You’re saving some people’s lives. I think coaches have that influence over guys. Sports have influence over them. You can kind of hold something over their head to make them act right, do right.”

He was at a coaching clinic not long ago, and some words caught his attention. A speaker stated that coaches were in one of the last professions in which someone can be tough on someone else and hold that person accountable. 

“We can offer them discipline, character, things that help them be successful,” he says. 

He says he has always tried to do that. He has always tried to treat other people’s kids the way he treats his own. He’s old school, so he is tough on them, but he is fair. He always lets them know that he loves them, even when he is being tough on them.

“You hear something enough, you start believing in it,” he says.

He can’t imagine doing anything but coaching. He believes it is the greatest profession in the world. It is a calling, as he tells me several times. 

“If you’re doing what you’re passionate about, you never work a day in your life,” he says. “That’s how I feel about coaching.”

So much focus on coaching and sports is on the result, not the process. It is on wins and losses. There needs to be more room in the win column for lives positively impacted, lives saved. 

“Any coach worth his salt will tell you that between the white lines is a very small part to what the overall picture is,” he says.

1.1 miles

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It is hidden in the heart of town, in plain sight. It is never overcrowded, so we go when it is not too warm, not frigid. Those weather requirements vary from day to day in an Alabama January. 

Today was a perfect day to go. We went in a hurry, to beat the forecasted rain. It was cloudy, but the breeze was pleasant. The 1.1-mile walk is not very tiring.

I loaded Sonny in the back of the truck, and we listened to Kane Brown on the five-minute drive over, arriving at 2:40 p.m. We made our way around the soccer and football fields on the paved walking path, reaching the monument on the right that honors the victims of the April 27, 2011 tornado. 

Just to the left is a slow creek, which separates the ballfields from an open green lawn, where people hold picnics, where a local church hosts a trunk-or-treat event in October, at which enough Tootsie Rolls and Skittles are handed out to give a toothless man a cavity. There are picnic tables under a metal blue awning, and nearby is a basketball court with two hoops, both with wooden backboards. Old school, like it used to be. There is also a small playground, where moms push their babies on the swings, making them smile. 

Back over to the right side, a dad underhands pitches to one of his two sons. The boy manages to make contact with every swing, despite the lime-green bat being almost as tall as him. He will be a good player, someday. His brother chases foul balls, waiting for his turn at the plate.

We pass a middle-aged woman power-walking, and she says hello. The two teenagers we come to also say hi. So does the old man who has to be sweltering in those blue jeans. 

We continue our walk, and there is a Little Free Library behind the batting cages, a barn-shaped red mailbox, essentially, where people can place a book they think others may enjoy. You bring a book, you take a book. It is empty for now, but it is new. I think maybe I’ll bring a couple of my books next time. 

Over to the left there is a baseball field designed specifically for individuals with mental and/or physical challenges. It is popular here. Beyond its right field fence is a Veterans Memorial Wall, covered in names.

We get past the baseball fields, and there is another open green space. An old man has jabbed a white pole in the soft ground, a light orange flag attached to its top. It appears the flag was likely once red, decades ago. The man is set up about 65 yards away, maybe a dozen golf balls at his feet. He winds up, swings and hits one right on line, just short of the flag. His next shot lands even closer, maybe five feet. I holler that it was a heck of a shot.

“I get one every now and then,” the man cracks.

We pass him, and I turn around to see one more shot. He does the same thing. He is modest.

Now, our walk is almost over. We pass park and recreation workers in a green John Deere 6×4, riding field to field, turning the damp dirt. Both workers wave at me. So does the lady driving away in her SUV. 

It takes just 25 minutes for this walk, from start to finish. We left the house at 2:35, back by 3:10. Sonny is tired for now, thank goodness. There were no ringing cellphones on this quick trip, no need to know who just Tweeted what, no Facebook debates about marching women or inauguration populations.

Yeah, I think we will do this again tomorrow.

First 2017 book event scheduled

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My first book event of 2017 is scheduled. 

I’ll be toting books and heading north to Guntersville, Alabama, on Saturday, June 17, 2017 for the Authors on the Lake event. It is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

There will be around 50 authors on hand with their books.

The physical address of the event is 1120 Sunset Drive, Guntersville, AL 35976.

I’ll bring copies of Trussville, Alabama: A Brief History, Deep Green and Heart of the Plate.

Who knows, maybe there will be another book out by then.

Hope to see you there.