Wayne Christeson

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: The experience of holding an infant bear in your arms, and feeling it snuggle under your coat for warmth, is unforgettable.

We were a community then, and Tommy remembered.

When I was a freshman at Vanderbilt, 18 years old, I heard a rumor that there was a market down on Elliston Place that would sell beer to you, even if you were underage, as long as you were cool about it. It was called the Hurry Back Market, and I was underage.

I happened to be at an afternoon performance under the tent on July 20, 1969, when the conductor suddenly halted the orchestra in mid-flight, turned to the audience, and shouted in a joyful voice, “I’ve just been informed that the Americans have landed on the moon!” Then he turned to the orchestra and whipped it into the Star-Spangled Banner.

The elderly woman greeted everyone as though she knew them and gave each a bright smile.

Thomas Stribling won the Pulitzer Prize for a trilogy he wrote about Florence, Alabama. But when I was growing up in the 1960s, no one in Florence spoke of Stribling anymore.