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The Pinecone Kicker
Short Fiction Greer never gave up on his dream, although his body had reservations Greer Davidson took a light and guarded step, planted his foot onto the football field, shifted his weight, and swung his right leg toward an object perched in the grass in front of him. Eighty-thousand fans stopped screaming and, for the moment, breathing, while Greer readied to kick a football through the yellow uprights at the back of the end zone at Legion Field, sealing the victory for his beloved Alabama Crimson Tide. A stoic-faced Coach “Bear” Bryant — his face was always stoic — stood frozen on the sidelines with a look of “Boy, you better not miss this”…
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Check your water source
Everyone needs clean water. And we all expect to get clean water, especially if you are a soldier and approach a “water buffalo” that has the word “potable” clearly stamped on the side. (A water buffalo is just a big portable metal tank with clean drinking water.) Usually. They give soldiers and Boy Scouts (or anyone really) access to clean water out in the middle of nowhere. But someone has to clean it out occasionally and refill it and transport it back to the middle of nowhere. So, once upon a time an Army captain and his soldiers were out in the middle of Camp Shelby, Mississippi. They’d been walking…
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Lame Claim to Fame
To successfully navigate the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, one must have a sponsor to steer the drunk from continuing on his or her destructive path. My dad had just such a sponsor. He is the guy in the photo (below). I’ve listened to my dad, through smoke-filled rooms, give testimony to his life with and without alcohol. I preferred without. Thankfully, he did too. After sitting through more than a few AA meetings, I’m convinced that all alcoholics really just trade the alcohol for coffee and cigarettes. In our little town in South Alabama, there was a house on the banks of a small river. In this house, converted…
