Denver and Ron would like to thank the Wednesday Watchmen, Union Gospel Mission, Sister Bettie Hedgpeth, Pastor Henry Stanford, Riteway Missionary Baptist Church, Mighty Men, Best Friends, Buckaroos, Vitas Hospice, All Saints Hospital, doctors and nurses, CTRC and a host of friends, family and business partners who prayed without ceasing, phoned, sang, cooked, wrote, cleaned house, ran errands, gave back massages, gave foot massages, walked dogs, kept dogs, cleaned up after dogs, adopted dogs, sent money to Mission and H.O.P.E. Farms, managed well wishers, prepared cemetery and loved us from near and far.
And to my agent Lee Hough, a true believer who went against protocol to read an unknown writer’s manuscript and then tout it to the best people in the industry . . . and to Lynn Vincent who spent hours with Denver and me in Texas and Louisiana developing our characters and shaping our story . . . and to Caryl Avery who taught me about punctuation and verbs and encouraged me that my manuscript, with a little luck, might get published.
Thanks to Jack Temple Kirby, whose book Rural Words Lost: The American South 1920–1960 (Louisiana State University Press, 1987) provided invaluable historical background for this book.
To David Moberg and Greg Daniel—taking a risk on an unknown first-time author telling a wild tale about people they didn’t know!
And especially to my Aunt Vida who has typed this whole thing more than twenty times without complaining.
God bless you all.