When, at the age of three, you have your feet lopped off in a hayfield by a horse-drawn haymower and by some miracle a surgeon delicately reattaches them; then, over the next 14 years have one surgery after another that solidly fuses the fragmented ankle joints and prepares your feet for an active adult life – wouldn’t you think you qualify as some kind of an expert in survivial?

And when the research for a trucking novel you are writing, concerning a recon vet suffering from PTSD, discloses to you that YOU also have been suffering from PTSD, probably from the very day of your accident a lifetime ago – wouldn’t you also say you have some kind of credentials when it comes to discussing PTSD?

Well, guess what?…you don’t! (more…)

Who says a novel can’t be predictive?

And if a novel about such things as trucking, salvation, and finding the truth is to save your financial skin, you’ve first got to PAY ATTENTION !

Last week, local and national TV newscasters were posting no notices. But if you happened to scour the financial pages, you’d have caught the price of an ounce of gold closing Friday, September 11, 2009 at a new all-time high of $1005.

Why should you give a hoot? Does this means we’re inflating?…deflating? Gold might rise in either instance. But with economic confusion reigning supreme at the present, it’s most likely a sign that substantial portions of the world (not just folks here at home) think that the currency of the United States of America is due for more shrinkage. (more…)

In 1865, when the Civil War ended, Thomas Spalding’s tabby mansion at the south end of Sapelo Island lay in ruins. Spalding had passed on some years earlier, in 1851, and was interred with his wife at Ashantilly near Darien. But through the war and the following period of Reconstruction, Spalding’s descendants had been unable to continue his success. By 1912 Thomas Spalding’s entire island kingdom had fallen into ruin. (more…)