Wind in the Pines

Epilogue: “Happy and Sad” This is the final chapter from Wind in the Pines. It contains a wonderful fable about gathering memories and friends. I hope you enjoy it. As we conclude this journey together at the end of another book, I want to thank you for walking along beside me. The fact that you’ve made it to the end …

Branded A lesson on keeping your mouth shut I came of age in the 1960’s and early 70’s. It was a time of great upheaval and change in America. I saw the events of this time one by one on TV – the assassinations and an unpopular war that brought down one president followed by the political underhandedness that brought …

Unused Power I was born during a period of history when many World War I veterans were still alive. Of all those old men, the one that sticks out was a veteran named Manuel “Curt” Green. Curt Green was one of those country men who had never been anywhere, nor desired to, until World War I broke out. He traveled …

Burned, yet Blessed, by the Fire… “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is today.” We’re just finishing burning season in Southwestern Louisiana. Five days of rain and the greening of the grass ended one of the driest winters we’ve had in years. The following story is from my 2004 book, Wind …

Rusty Thompson on the highway In the coming weeks, we’ll be blogging our funniest stories. Some will be new and others will be old favorites. The following one, entitled “Rusty” is from my third book, Wind in the Pines. It’s a favorite story of my friend Peggy Benoit. Let us know your favorite funny stories from my books, and we’ll …

This is an excerpt from my third book, Wind in the Pines. As I watched today’s inauguration of Barak Obama, I was reminded of an estimated one- million- man crowd I was a part of on the National Mall. This is a story of what God taught me there. “From ‘Big D.C.’ to ‘little d.c.’” …Sometimes the best place to …

The first short story in my first book, Stories from the Creekbank, continues to be one of our reader’s favorites. It is entitled “The Evening Holler” and I’ve told it and read it to literally to hundreds of groups over the past ten years. At the end of this short story is a special picture from Africa and a postscript …

The Pine Knot Pile: A Lesson on Earthly Treasures (Below: Dry Creek’s finest pine knot pile at the Jay Miller estate)     All of a sudden, the February wind picked up and turned out of the south. Instantly what had been a small controlled fire in my back field became a raging monster. The flames spread rapidly through the …

The Pine Knot Pile: A Lesson on Earthly Treasures All of a sudden, the February wind picked up and turned out of the south. Instantly what had been a small controlled fire in my back field became a raging monster. The flames spread rapidly through the dead knee high grass – as fast I as I could, I ran ahead …

Burned, yet Blessed, by the Fire This is one of my reader’s favorites. The original story is in Wind in the Pines. This updated version will be in my new book, The Mockingbird’s Song. (It is due out in early 2007.)         The once green pine forest, now charred and blackened, lifelessly stares back at me. As …