A classic in France, this moving first-person story can be read as a fictional account, as well as the best kind of material for historians of 19th-century French peasant life.

Justin Hayes is richly blessed. He grew up the son of a preacher and a school teacher, and like most boys in the rural South, he grew up hunting and fishing. He earned his money in the tobacco and hay fields surrounding his home, and joined his senior class in the jungles of Vietnam. After returning home he married his high school sweetheart and raised a fine son. But being blessed doesn't mean that life is easy. He worked as a lineman for the power company and was always available to help his neighbors on their farms. His wife suddenly left him for a rich man when his son was ten years old, so he was left with a son to raise by himself. But now that was all behind him. Having inherited fortythree acres of land in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains, Justin retired and moved to his new property looking forward to spending his remaining years enjoying God's creation and relaxing in his new home. Unbeknownst to Justin, he had just moved into the center of a hornet's nest-a nest filled with lies and corruption, an evil neighbor, and a crooked sheriff. A nest that was under surveillance and monitored twenty-four hours a day. A nest that has ties to terrorism and organized crime with the most wretched and evil people who have ever walked the earth. Not being someone to back down from a fight, Justin digs his heels in for the fight of his life, but he is not alone. Before this fight is over, the SBI, FBI, Homeland Security, CIA, and even the Pentagon line up behind him to defeat this monster. He will need all the skills he acquired in Vietnam, plus help and guidance from the Almighty to defeat this enemy.

This is a story about the life of a very simple man, not a famous one, who did live a very eventful life of eighty-five years of his present age of eighty-nine, soon to be ninety on October 2. It covers preadult years, followed by coverage of three careers, namely US Navy (twenty years), US Postal Service (twenty years), a three-year hiatus, then back to do a third career in banking. The main highlights of those careers were described in this book.

The first complete, unvarnished history of Southern rock’s legendary and most popular band, from its members’ hardscrabble boyhoods in Jacksonville, Florida and their rise to worldwide fame to the tragic plane crash that killed the founder and the band’s rise again from the ashes. In the summer of 1964 Jacksonville, Florida teenager Ronnie Van Zant and some of his friends hatched the idea of forming a band to play covers of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds and the country and blues-rock music they had grown to love. Naming their band after Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee Senior High School who constantly badgered the long-haired aspiring musicians to get haircuts, they were soon playing gigs at parties, and bars throughout the South. During the next decade Lynyrd Skynyrd grew into the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful of the rock bands to emerge from the South since the Allman Brothers. Their hits “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” became classics. Then, at the height of its popularlity in 1977, the band was struck with tragedy --a plane crash that killed Ronnie Van Zant and two other band members. Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock is an intimate chronicle of the band from its earliest days through the plane crash and its aftermath, to its rebirth and current status as an enduring cult favorite. From his behind-the-scenes perspective as Ronnie Van Zant’s lifelong friend and frequent member of the band’s entourage who was also aboard the plane on that fateful flight, Gene Odom reveals the unique synthesis of blues/country rock and songwriting talent, relentless drive, rebellious Southern swagger and down-to-earth sensibility that brought the band together and made it a defining and hugely popular Southern rock band -- as well as the destructive forces that tore it apart. Illustrated throughout with rare photos, Odom traces the band’s rise to fame and shares personal stories that bring to life the band’s journey. For the fans who have purchased a cumulative 35 million copies of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s albums and continue to pack concerts today, Lynyrd Skynyrd is a celebration of an immortal American band.

You want some? She snarls those words at him with barely concealed hostility the moment he arrives at her window to ask for her license and registration. After a few choice words, he lets her go with not one ticket, but three. Next time she should check the attitude at the door and realize that he's a cop, and just doing his job. Come get some. Fast forward a week, and he's still unable to think about anything else but her and her bad attitude--oh, and those sexy lips, angry eyes, and her promise to make his life hell. Knowing he should stay away, he takes a step back and tries not to think about anything that has to do with those long legs, and that mouth that could be used for much better things than spewing venom. Then she makes a mistake. At an interview, she rattles off a random number to use as a reference for a job that she desperately needs, and that number just happens to be Johnny's. She'll regret being so rude, and one day she'll think twice when she decides to throw attitude toward a man like him. Vowing to make her life hell, he decides to have a little fun. Never get enough. What he doesn't expect is to fall for her. The more Johnny learns about June, the deeper he digs his hole. Soon, he doesn't know which way is up, and he's just fine with that. Over time, he learns that not everyone bothers to dig past her prickly demeanor and get to the woman that lives deeper. When one too many citizens of Hostel, Texas tries to back her against the wall, he's had enough. After all, you don't mess with what's his.