ABOUT THE BOOK
In When I Wore S’s on My Collar, I share stories I gleaned from life journals I kept over several decades. Stories about some extraordinary ordinary people I came to know, respect, love, and admire at various stages of my life. Some of the stories are funny, or at least they caused me to chuckle when the events happened and again when I first wrote about them. Some have sad elements, of course, because they deal with loss, loneliness, and hurt. But mostly, they are stories of people who have blessed, humored, challenged, inspired, and empowered me—and so many others. Some were characters, some saints, some both. Many of them possessed the joy of the Lord and the ability to laugh at circumstances, at self, at the idiosyncrasies and imperfections that typify even the most pious. People who saw the humor in both trivial and momentous occurrences of life but did so without taking for granted or diminishing the sacredness of things spiritual and eternal. Stories about my life experiences involving real people and actual events, my childhood and teen years in Tennessee and the Carolinas, and my 31 years as an officer in The Salvation Army, serving in ten different cities and two countries. In essence, When I Wore S’s on My Collar is a collection of selected stories about some of the unforgettable people who impacted my life when I was a soldier (member) and then an officer (ordained minister) in The Salvation Army.
