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I’m writing from my parents' swimming pool.
When they broke ground last summer, I couldn’t believe it. My dad mows his grass twice a week and runs a sprinkler sun up to sun down. When I think of my dad, I think of him in the yard, picking weeds, planting wildflowers, or digging ditches of various lengths and depths.
So, yeah, I was shocked when he decided to tear up his sanctuary and put in a pool.
After the last few weeks, the first few weeks of no-school summer, I’m starting to understand why Dad was willing to make such a sacrifice.
No amount of candy or TV time can pull my kids away from the pool. We live on the lake. We have canoes, paddle boards, a pontoon boat and a dock, all at their disposal, but nothing beats the pool.
My daughter learned to swim a few years back. My son, on the other hand, has clung to his floatie like a man lost at sea.
That is, until this week.
This week, my son learned to swim.
I wrote a song once that starts with this line: “Learning to walk’s got to feel like learning to fly, with each new step you rise up closer to the sky.” I think the same is true of swimming.
I can’t remember the first time I swam for real. Legend has it, I swam before I walked. My mom was a lifeguard at the Forrest City Country Club. I spent every summer in that pool, jumping off the high dive, zipping down the blue slide.
Watching my boy dive into water and start paddling for the first time took me right back to those nearly forgotten days. He’d jump off the edge and swim to the other side. Hang on long enough to catch his breath, then off he'd go again.
The water’s always given me a certain kind of freedom I can’t find anywhere else, a cool, protective membrane from the weight of this world. Watching my boy go, I know he feels the same way too, and trust me, he needs all the protection he can get.
My son is allergic to fire ants, and when I say allergic, I mean we carry an EpiPen with us wherever we go.
I don’t remember fire ants back when I was a kid. They’re everywhere now. I’m sure there are worse allergies for a 3-year-old boy to have, but I can’t think of any.
We don’t step foot outside without combing the grass for mounds. We spread ant killer on our yard monthly. My boy wears high black socks, long pants, and tennis shoes every day, even in the heat of an Arkansas summer. He cries some mornings before school, begging to wear shorts like the other boys.
One thing I’ve found in this life is that the bad paves the way for the good. The bad makes the sweet stuff even sweeter.
There’s nothing sweeter than watching my son prance around in his shorts at Mom and Dad’s pool. Bright blue trunks like he’s seen his friends wear. No socks or tennis shoes either. When he swims, I see something even better than what I can remember from my first time in the water — I see a boy finally getting to be a boy.
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
• Writing from 2022
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• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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