Imagine the shock! As a parent you are worried and concerned. Your 2-½ year old child is not “normal.” You seek out specialists. The diagnoses are all the same. “Severe Autism” the parents are told. The doctors doubt if the child will ever speak. “Institutionalize him.”

Instead, parents Rick and Jo Soria of Fort Walton Beach ignored the doctors. They took their son Reid home and raised him like the rest of his siblings. Rick and Jo believed Reid was born with a gift, “just like every child.” They simply had to discover what his gift was.

I first saw Reid perform in a production by the Pyramid Players, a Fort Walton Beach theatre troupe of performers with disabilities. The house was packed. Proud parents, supporters and interested friends created a buzz in the theatre. Urged to attend the performance by my wife, I prepared myself for an evening of not- so-great theatre. I was pleasantly surprised! The production was refreshing with performers working through whatever physical disability they had to flourish creatively in the imaginary world of theatre. The performers gave and the audience received. I smiled a lot that night.

I’d heard of Reid from my wife and later met him through his parents. Urged by his parents to read my film and television credits, he was enamored with me. Reading and knowing his story, I was equally impressed with him. We formed a mutual admiration society. Through the chain of my wife and his parents, I sent Reid the proverbial actor’s good luck charm that performers and supporters give each other before any show, “Break-a-Leg.” He did.

Reid Soria soared that night and every time I have seen him since. He is a serious entertainer who works hard to please his audience. From his beginnings as an actor, and now as a singer/entertainer Reid and his team, parents Rick and Jo, sister JoAnna, his vocal coach and fan club, have embarked on a journey of entertainment and creative discovery.

His first CD is Imagine The Possibilities. He’s performed live from Pensacola to Panama City, and as far away as central Florida and Birmingham, AL. He prefers singing smooth songs, but can also rouse a crowd with his version of the Star Spangled Banner, which he sang for the Pensacola Wahoos and The Birmingham Barons Professional Baseball teams. He is on Facebook, You Tube and his CD sells on Amazon.

Rick, a retired educator, says, “I’m amazingly proud of him. He works harder than anybody I know.”

Reid, in a message for others facing disabilities says, “Autism isn’t a downer. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing and I have no problem with my diagnosis.”

Reid and his team have crafted a theme that chronicles his journey, “When words fail, Autism Sings.”

*April is National Autism month.

Got an idea for Thom? Send your idea to Media@BestGurl.com

Got another Birthday coming! I‘m tingling! My birthday does that to me. I love my birthday! It’s fun!

It goes back to childhood. My mom made our birthdays special. It was your day of celebration. There were few big parties. But from morning ‘till bedtime, it was your day. Mom baked the cake of your choice. Dad froze your favorite flavor of homemade ice cream. I’m a homemade vanilla and chocolate cake with pecans guy. OMG! The family sang Happy Birthday. It was your day!!!

1/21 is my day. Every year.

This year I’ll work the weekend before my birthday and take my day, Wednesday, off. My ideal day: Do the gift thing with joyce, walk the beach, a good bike ride, sit in the backyard and reflect; appreciate the “Happy Birthdays” that come my way, an afternoon movie, and dinner at Pandora’s occupying “The Gossom Booth” courtesy of the owners, The Montalto’s.

At 7:30 pm, I will think of my mom. I was born at 7:30 pm. Thanks Mom.

I’m smiling, thinking about it.

Last year on my birthday, I visited the doctor’s office for some routine thing.

The “I got an attitude,” receptionist demanded of me, “Birthday?”

“One Twenty-one,” I answered cheerily.

“What year?” she snorted.

“What’s her problem?” I’m thinking.

“Every Year,” I answered.

She didn’t appreciate the humor. I let that be her problem.

1/21 is my day. Every year.

It’s the Christmas Season! I’m in New York City, Times Square. It’s cold and overcast. People are everywhere. The Disney store is packed out. Horns blowing! There’s an excitement in the air! It begins to rain.

There’s a hole in my schedule today. Last night, was the black tie gala I attended with my niece, a student at NYU. Tomorrow is lunch with my publisher and dinner with business associates. Today, in a city of eight and a half million people, excluding tourists and visitors, I’m looking for something to do. The hotel concierge comes to my rescue.

The Lunt–Fontanne Theatre on West 46^th is a block and a half from the hotel.

Being in “the business” for thirty years, I seldom get excited about a performance, whether mine or someone else’s. I’m too critical. Seeing things the general audience’s eyes don’t see sometimes makes a theatre performance or film a critical exercise rather than pure enjoyment.

The moment the hidden orchestra hit the familiar opening notes on the guitars and the smooth as gravy voice of David Ruffin slid into, “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day….” Motown The Musical was on!

When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May. Well, I guess you say, what can make me feel this way? My Girl, My Girl! My Girl.

The audience exhaled! We allowed ourselves to be transported back to innocence lost. I laughed. I cried. I sang. I held hands with the man next to me as instructed by “Diana Ross.” I danced. Yes, I was excited.

The storyline traveled back over the twenty-five year history of Motown. From the founder, Berry Gordy’s reluctance to attend the twenty-five year reunion, back to quitting his job 25 years earlier to establish a music empire that created “Race Music.” The Music of Motown changed minds, touched lives, and took the world by storm. Diana Ross and the Supremes, Smoky Robinson and The Miracles, Little Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, The Jackson Five, The Commodores, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Rick James, Edwin Starr all came alive in the context of their music and its relationship to our lives.

The innocence of songs like ABC, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, I Heard it Through the Grapevine, I Hear a Symphony, Please Mr. Postman, and My Girl, gave way to more serious music like What’s Going On, Ball Of Confusion, War, and Super Freak.

The accompanying dancers and singers dramatized the era’s music and for many of us, those life moments permanently etched in our heads.

Watching the performers, I teared up when President John Kennedy was killed, that memory, taking me back to the sixth grade. There were the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam War, first loves, the decadence of the 1980s and more. It was the music many of us in the theatre grew up on and those younger had heard before in movies, commercials, or on someone else’s iPod.

At one point, “Diana Ross,” asked us all to join hands over our heads and sway back and forth to the music. I grabbed the man’s hand next to me. He reciprocated, grabbing my hand and then his wife’s. We swayed back and forth. The Marvin Gaye character sang, What’s Going On. We all knew the words and joined in.

Mother, Mother, there’s too many of you crying. Brother, Brother, Brother, there’s far too many of you dying. We know we got to find a way to bring some loving here today.

What a show!

I left the theatre on a cloud. Walking back toward my hotel, it began to snow. Big, flakey snowflakes, softly floating to the ground. I smiled and thought, “Christmas in New York.” The promo material for Motown the Musical says, “An experience you’ll never forget.” I won’t anytime soon. 

Back in yesterday, which is a couple of decades beyond “back in the day,” I was a garbage man. A garbage man? Yes I was, and I’m proud of it, even thankful. Before I became an actor, business owner, corporate executive, etc, my summer jobs were always adventurous. With few business connections, I took whatever job opportunities I could find. While in high school and college, I was a bus boy, a women’s shoe salesman (that was a hoot), worked construction, worked in the Birmingham steel mills, and my favorite summer job; which I did two summers, I was an ice cream salesman, truck, cute music and all. (That one deserves it’s own story).

The garbage man job occurred the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I was not able to find a summer job and a friend of mine told me about the City of Birmingham satellite lot a couple of miles from my home. He told me many of the guys who worked as garbage men were hired on a Monday, got paid on a Friday and if they were not diligent and got drunk on Friday; they might not show up for work on Monday. Thus, on Mondays there were job openings.

I needed a job! We took off walking for the lot.

Keep in mind these were the days before the municipal garbage trucks were equipped with a lifter that picked up the cans and dumped the garbage in the truck. Men working as laborers did the work, working three to a truck one perched on each end of the truck with a man in the middle. There was also a “set out man,” whose job was to walk the neighborhoods before the truck arrived and set the cans out to the curb and a “set back man” who set the cans back in the yards after they were dumped. I became “the middle man” on the truck.

Getting hired was a story in itself. When we arrived, at least 30 to 40 men, all black, were lined up in anticipation of getting hired. A lone white man was inspecting each of the Men. I was in shape for football. He felt my biceps and asked me to step in the office. My friend, bigger than me, was also selected. We filled out paperwork and we were hired. Being hired on the spot was a surprise. There was no application process, references, etc. I was told which truck on the lot to report to and my first day as a garbage man began.

I met the men on Love’s truck. Love was our driver, a nice man who shook my hand and welcomed me to the crew. I met Stumpy and Ricky the two end guys. They told me Hotshot, the set out man, was already out working ahead of the truck setting out the morning’s cans. Bear would follow along behind and set the cans back.

Stumpy and Ricky wore gloves, soft brogan shoes and worn clothes for the days work. Not knowing what I was getting into, I had on converse tennis shoes, jeans and no gloves. Stumpy and Ricky stood on their perches on each side of the truck holding onto the handrails. With no handrails in the middle of the truck, I stood over the garbage hopper on the slippery ledge of the back of the truck, the truck metal cutting into my hands.

We were off for the day.

Traveling along sometimes at 40-50 miles per hour to our neighborhood destination. It was scary hanging onto and sliding along the back of the truck.

Stumpy, a grouch and the unofficial leader of the backend of the truck gave me a worn extra pair of gloves. I thanked him.

We reached the neighborhood and the slow crawl up and down the crowded streets began. Stumpy flew from the truck, grabbed a can with one hand, spun around and slung the house’s garbage into the hopper of the truck.

I was officially a garbage man!

Love maneuvered the truck. The truck never stopped rolling. Stumpy and Ricky, like athletes ran behind the truck, dumping the days waste into the truck’s backside. I ran along between the two men until one of them called out “two,” meaning there were two cans on one of their respective sides. That was my cue. The second can was mine. I struggled. It was hard work, a grown man’s work. There was much laughter and fun at my expense, Love grinned in the side mirror.

They were men. I was a seventeen-year old boy. The laughter challenged me. I wanted to be accepted into their world.

For lunch we stopped at a service station, and the men bought sodas and pulled their homemade lunches from inside of the truck. Again not prepared, without any money, I sat alone and pretended not to be hungry. Ricky volunteered and bought me a soda. Stumpy loaned me money for a bag of chips. We all sat there like grown men, enjoying a quick lunch before finishing our day. Love, the white driver, ate with us, which was rare in those days.

By the end of the day I’d gotten the hang of it. “Two, College Boy,” Stumpy would shout. That was my cue. Stumpy had given me the name, “College Boy,” when at lunch, I had made my intentions known that I was headed to college in a year, a place neither of them had been. Stumpy and I glided to the cans in tandem, pirouetted like dancers, grabbing the cans and let the garbage fly into the truck. It was almost beautiful, poetry in motion. By now, I was smiling.

When we were done, Love pointed the truck in the direction of the city dump. Naturally, I got the job of sloshing into the muck of stinky, filthy garbage and guiding Love backward before he dumped the day’s garbage. We were done.

We headed for the lot.

Love pushed the truck along at about 50 miles an hour. It was agreed they would let me off within a half mile of my house to save me the two-mile walking distance. The time came for me to get off, but Love didn’t stop the truck. He slowed some, but we were still moving along at a pretty good clip.

“Come on College Boy, jump,” Ricky called out. It was my last challenge of the day. Would I jump from the rolling truck like they did, the pros? Love smiled in his side mirror. “Let’s go college boy,” they urged. “We want to get home.” Love slowed a little more for me. I hit the ground running, gliding into a stride like I had been a garbage man all my life.

“See you tomorrow,” I yelled as the truck roared off to the lot. “Thank you.”

The morning newspaper has always been a staple in my life. From childhood to this morning’s paper, it’s been one of the few rituals I’ve religiously followed. Oftentimes I’m up before dawn making my way to the rolled up bit of news that’s been left at our house. When traveling, which I do often, I always grab a local paper to get the feel of that community. A newspaper, in my opinion, represents the community’s pulse, good or bad. Want to know if a community is progressive or stuck in yesterday? Grab a local paper.

In my childhood home, we grew up reading the newspaper, Mom, Dad, my two sisters. We all took turns reading both the morning and evening editions of the two dailies in Birmingham. I started out in sports and cartoons, progressed to news, and then became particularly fond of features and opinion pages. I wrote for both my high school and college newspapers and then professionally for newspapers and magazines for many years. I was and am interested in information that prods thinking and connects dots. Don’t try and tell me what to think, please. I resent it.

My childhood newspapers were neither progressive nor truthful. With civil unrest raging a few city blocks away in downtown Birmingham, the local papers ignored it.

They pretended the grand old southern way was the way of the world. As an old friend of mine often says about those days, “Good men and women remained silent.”

Today the local paper where I live wears its bias on the editorial/opinion pages. From mid-August to mid-October I counted 24 negative cartoon images denigrating the current President of the United States. Twenty-four and these are just the ones I saw when I was in town. (I was out of town over half the time). Now, take into consideration the paper does not run its own cartoons. It has to scour the country for these negative images. Somehow they managed to come up with 24 of them oftentimes several days in a row.

Okay, I get it that they don’t agree with or think the guy is a good President. But community leadership brings a responsibility of fairness.

Attack the man’s policies with truth and fact and insist that your letter writers do the same. Otherwise I dismiss it as bias. Your personal bias should never get in the way of your community responsibility.

[Bias: To influence somebody or something unfairly or in a biased way. An unfair preference for or dislike of something.]

Admittedly, the newspaper’s politics, business and life philosophies, I very seldom agree with. I’m sure many people don’t agree with me. That’s what makes us a great country. We can disagree civilly. Still we ALL, regardless of beliefs, want fairness.

When you allow letter writers to call the President, “a dictator in chief,” or write things like:

“catering to his socialist and ethnic base,”

“…more low class than ever,”

“…most corrupt administration ever known”

“…laws are no impediment to Barack Obama,”

“Obama has become the most economically destructive president in our history,”

“…Why have he and his communist cohorts…”

“Obama’s reason is affiliated with treason,” and

“audacity of criminal activity in this Obama society,”

you lose your own credibility. When you continue to do that everyday, you cast a negative pall on your own community. You ferment divisiveness. Business stays away. You become “talk radio” in print. Blah, Blah, Blah, us vs. them, name calling, bias, little to no diversity on the staff or in its thinking, and very little of value in terms of shedding new light on any subject. All of this paints a picture of our community for visitors and potential residents or businesses to read.

During the last election cycle the editorial page adopted a policy of no negative letters in support or against any political candidate. “…Keep your letter positive,” they wrote. “And please don’t insult our intelligence by attempting to make us believe your opponent is a lowlife unworthy of existence… We want to hear why you think Candidate A is an upright citizen. We’re less interested in why you think candidate B is a creep.” Somebody at the paper didn’t get the memo.

I’ve always been leery of newspapers with no voices from people of color and no different political, business or philosophical voices. The local paper does carry one black opinion writer whose opinions mirror those of the editorial page.

For example, on August 1, 2014, in the piece titled Black Political Clout hasn’t done much for blacks he wrote, “In my opinion there appear to be no standards of performance low enough for blacks to lose their loyalty to their black political representatives.” I wonder if the same could be said for whites?

There’s more. President Obama negative editorial cartoons appeared in the following editions of the paper on these days:

8/9, 8/ 16, 8/17, 8/18, 8/19, 8/23, 8/ 27, 8/28,

9/8, 9/15, 9/20, 9/22, 9/23, 9/26, 9/27,

10/1 10/8, 10/2, 10/4 10/22, and

11/17, 11/19, 11/20, 11/21.

I’m sure I missed some; remember, I was out of town half the time.

On August 5, I wrote a friendly, confidential e-mail to the Publisher who I thought I had a community/civic relationship with, expressing my views. It addressed community, leadership, enlightenment, a lack of diversity, the stagnation of economic development when you freeze out whole segments of your population and the role a newspaper plays in all of the above.

I ended by thanking him for listening and welcomed a friendly discussion about these issues. I’m still waiting to hear back. “Good men and women remained silent.” 

I’ve been involved in Television since the late 1970s. In those days of yesterday, I worked in television news at the local CBS affiliate in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. I was young, fresh, and somewhat of a hit in town because I had made a name for myself as pioneering black athlete at Auburn University. I was also one of the first two blacks anchors to be featured on the television evening news in Birmingham. It was fun! I learned a lot from very experienced people who were outstanding at what they did. I’m grateful to them for what they taught me. 

In the 1980s I did my first paid acting gigs. Some were for big screen movie theatres and many were for the small screen of television. I occasionally continue to do these, working as an actor for the big three networks, CBS, ABC, NBC, and pay channel HBO, among others. These jobs have always been fun, paid well, provided work opportunities throughout the United States, and opportunities to attend dress-up, star studded premiere parties in Los     Angeles. I’ve worked with stars Carroll O’Connor, Della Reese, Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Candice Bergen, Luther Vandross, Sally Field, Alfree Woodward, Lawrence Fishburne and many, many others.

One season, I hired on as a radio sports analyst for a Canadian League football team and traveled all across Canada broadcasting games.

Never satisfied, and always seeking more, I’ve written a play, had it produced in Los Angeles, and wrote an autobiography that was published and sold in national retail outlets.

So it seems only natural, at least to me, that an evolutionary move would be to write, produce and direct a film for broadcast television.

That’s where Quiet Courage comes in. Quiet Courage is the story of James Owens, the first African American college scholarship football player in the powerful Southeastern Conference Deep South states of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Owens made history by signing with Auburn in 1969. He says now “I didn’t know what I was getting into.” My two favorite taglines from the film’s promotional materials are, “Owens loved his University. She learned to love him back;” and, “He was Bo Jackson before there was a Bo Jackson.” The film premiered on Auburn’s campus on November 10 to a sold out crowd of 350 excited and very appreciative supporters, who laughed, cried, and stood to applaud as the ending credits rolled.

Back to television. The film Quiet Courage will make its broadcast debut on November 26^th on the nine-station network belonging to Alabama Public Television. To say I’m excited is an understatement. Working as talent on television is a role I enjoy, but producing, writing, guiding and directing this project from ideas, to concept, financing, preproduction, hiring, collaboration, post production and identifying a broadcast partner is a joyful feeling of immense satisfaction.

Quiet is quite a story. It’s a story I’ve always wanted to tell. James is my friend. We were roommates for a couple of years at Auburn. I lived much of his story with him. To be entrusted with it is quite an honor. If past experience is an example, Quiet Courage will be around for a while. Talks with other broadcasters continue. DVDs are for sale at bestgurl.com.Check it out. You’ll laugh, cry, and gain a full appreciation for the film’s title and its relevance to the protagonist. Quiet Courage, “the ability to face difficulty, uncertainty, or disturbance without being deflected from a chosen course of action.”

Morning dawns and the anticipation builds. Good weather makes it even better. But “bad weather” doesn’t stop me. It’s time.

I get dressed. No fancy bike riding gear; a worn t-shirt and shorts in summer, a sweatshirt and sweat pants in winter. I stretch; kiss the wife, and I’m off.

The minute I climb on “Big Daddy” and we roll out of the garage, the morning bike -riding grin, a telltale sign of contentment, beams from my face. Big Daddy and I are ready to roll.

I’ve been riding Big Daddy now for 20 years. A big, sturdy, throwback to the bicycles I knew growing up, Big Daddy my 26” Schwinn, my faithful morning companion gives me endless pleasure.

I grew up riding bicycles in my community of Rosalind Heights in Birmingham, Alabama. We were masters of bicycle riding. We could and would go anywhere and do anything on a bicycle. We would ride double, triple, if we had to. I grin now thinking about it.

My current neighborhood of flat streets, long roads and very few cars is perfect for a morning ride. The sun hangs over the bay. Spanish moss dangles from the live oaks. Eagles, foxes, and dolphins occasionally demand my attention. The ride is one of physical exercise, but much more. There’s the brain exercise of thought, the senses admiration of nature’s beauty and of course, the prioritizing of today’s decisions.

“Good morning.” I’m barely out of the driveway when my across the street neighbor, Melvin, greets me with the first “good morning” of the day. There will be more. One morning, I counted 20. Vibrant Good Mornings, big beautiful smiles, waves behind auto and pickup truck windshields, “hellos” from parents accompanying schoolchildren to the bus stop. All-seeming to wonder, “Why is he so happy?”

My unconscious grin attracts others. “ Good Morning,” another neighbor calls out.

It’s morning. Morning before the day’s politics, murder statistics, talking television heads, and ESPN screamers take center stage.

Another neighbor gives me a wave from the passing car. I try and figure out who it is? I don’t know. But, I enthusiastically wave back.

The morning is on!

Once I settle into the ride, comfortable on Big Daddy, I say the ritual of a prayer, I’ve been praying daily for years. “Enlarge my coast O Lord, Bless me. Do all the things you want to do in my life.”

The name, “The Bicycle Man” was bestowed on me one day at the neighborhood Publix Supermarket. I bike to the market, the post office and downtown. I’ll even bike 5 miles to get a donut, convincing myself that by biking to the donut shop, I’m burning up the calories I’ll intake from eating it. Don’t know that’s that is true but, I get the donut and 10 miles of biking exercise

“You’re the bicycle man, ” the woman approached me in the supermarket in astonishment. “I see you everywhere on that bike,” she marveled.

An employee of the supermarket grinned in concurrence, “Yep, he’s the bicycle man.”

“Yes,” I hesitantly responded.

A Star is born.

I’ve been the bicycle man ever since. In the neighborhood, at the Post Office, the Supermarket, downtown restaurants, breakfast meetings at the Waffle House, concerts in the park, and Saturday morning neighborhood meetings. I do them all on Big Daddy.

“Good Morning,” they greet me.

Visiting friends who take the morning ride with me (I have a spare bike, of course) are pleasantly freaked out by the number of people out walking, riding, and greeting their fellow human beings.

“Do you know all these people?” I’m asked.

“Not many of them by name,” I respond.

“So they know you from television?” I’m quizzed.

“Some, but not all,” I answer between pedals.

A hearty “Good Morning” rings out from the lady who walks a baby in a stroller, then returns to the street later for her own walk.

“Good Morning, ” I respond with my grin.

What a way to start a day! 

I never thought I’d write this column. I never knew I’d feel this way. A teammate has passed on and I can’t stop thinking of him. Our journey together brought us a long way. Because we accomplished great things on the football field 40 years ago, the sports media named us, “The Amazins.” As we grew older, had families, and matured, learning to love each other along the way, we coined our own phrase, “Teammates for Life.”

That’s how I feel about David.

David Langner, died Saturday April 26, 2014. He was one helluva football player. A little guy, I often said he was crazy on the football field but if I had the first choice, I’d take David. I’d rather have him on my side than be against him.

David and I traveled a long way in our journey to friendship. I knew him before he knew me. We played against each other in High School. He was a star at Woodlawn High in Birmingham. They were very good. The night we played them they dressed nearly a hundred guys. They came out of their locker room, cocky and proud and ready to feast on the 40 or so players we had from the small Catholic school who had no business on the field with them. David, his brother, his cousin, and their teammates blanked us 39-0 and it wasn’t that close. David, a winner of all kinds of honors, became a highly touted signee of Auburn University.

I walked on at Auburn. One of three blacks on the practice fields of over a hundred players and the only black walkon. David and I didn’t start out as friends.

Walkons have it tough. David didn’t care for the fact that I had dared to walk on to that hallowed ground that he had already earned a spot on. To further confuse things, we had both grown up in Birmingham in the 1960’s when legal segregation meant we could not play ball with or against each other. Friendship was out of the question.

We didn’t get along. David had further to go than I did. We fought often on the field. But we were ballplayers and together we won many games. I won a scholarship and in 1972, we shocked the Southeastern Conference by winning 10 games, losing only once and finishing #5 in the nation. David was a hero that year with his two touchdowns against Alabama in the now famous “Punt Bama Punt” (look it up if you don’t know) game against Alabama. He also led us in interceptions, made All-SEC as a defensive back, and instigated many of the fights we had with other teams. He was a bad ass and we were glad we had him. We always knew he would make a big play.

As we won games, he and I tolerated each other the way teammates will do when they are not friends. Winning does that.

When we were done, he went his way and I went mine. Many years later in Nashville, while filming a Legends of Auburn video, we sat across from each other at dinner. We talked and laughed. He’d already had some health issues and discussed them freely with me. It was a great night for me and, I believe for him. After those many years, we were learning to be friends.

Later, at the thirty-year reunion of “The Amazins,” David came up and gave me a hug. Not one of those quick man hugs but a real hug. He wouldn’t let me go. I hugged him back. I remember standing there in the middle of the floor hugging. Hugging for what seemed like a very long time. That is my favorite memory of my friend David.

Since I heard of his death, I can’t stop thinking of him. I’m proud that we overcame society to be friends.

David will be celebrated for the touchdowns against Alabama, and the great career he had at Auburn. There’s talk that David belongs in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. You will get no argument from me on that. But most importantly, I will fondly remember the impact we had on each other’s lives. We are teammates for life, and now beyond.

I love what I do. It’s fun!!! I’ve been doing it for a number of years now and it only gets better. Whether it’s acting for television, writing a collection of short stories, producing a documentary, consulting with a client or making a speech before hundreds of foundation board directors. It’s all a blast to me. Fun!! Most of the things I do today in the early stages of my career I did them for free. That’s how much I enjoy them.

So why was I taken aback last week when, during a Q and A session after a speech, I was asked, “What does it feel like to be a celebrity?” I hesitated. Had to think. I was kinda embarrassed. You see, I’ve never thought of myself as a celebrity. To be a celebrity, I always thought you have to have an entourage. I’ve never had an entourage.

But for my next trip I decided to try out the celebrity thing. I flew to Los Angeles rented a car and drove to the Palos Verdes Peninsula for a speech the next day.

I was given a suite in a resort overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with walking trails into the surrounding mountains. Gorgeous! Even though I didn’t have an entourage, I allowed myself to feel very celebrity like. As I walked along the walking trail, people spoke to me, and gave me big smiles. I checked in with the client who had purchased my services and they made me feel like the second coming of Brad Pitt. They were all over me, “Do you need…?” Someone came up and asked me for an autograph and I hadn’t even spoken yet. I thought, “Okay, maybe I am a celebrity.”

Later that day, enthused with my newfound celebrity, I blew the audience away with a forty-five minute keynote address for nearly 450 people. They were generous enough to give me a standing ovation. Afterward, there were questions and answers; people lining up for photos that I knew would go straight to somebody’s Facebook page. There were autograph and business card requests. Man, I was feeling like somebody! After an hour of celebrity-hood I retired to my suite, called my wife, and wondered why if I was a celebrity, she kept telling me about issues at the house I would need to solve when I got home. Things like, the motion detector floodlights not working and getting the cars serviced. I reminded her that celebrities have “people” to handle those kinds of things. She laughed. Reminded me that she did have “people.” Me. Where in the hell was my entourage when I needed one?

My celebrity-hood ended at that point.

Without an entourage, I awoke at 4:00 the next morning, packed up the rental car, and headed to the LA airport for a 6 am flight. Who schedules a 6 am flight for a celebrity? I sure as hell didn’t do it. In the airport, no one recognized me or gave a hoot that I had rocked the Association of Governing Boards’ annual conference at the Terranea resort the day before. I was just another passenger. Still, my first class seat reinforced my celebrity-hood until the lady in front of me who obviously didn’t know I was a celebrity, laid her seat back in my lap damn near pinning me into the seat behind me. “Damn, woman don’t you know who I am?” I wanted to say. “Man,” I thought. “If I had one of ‘my people’ here with me, I’d tell them to handle this small fry sitting in front of me.”

Landing in Houston, my celebrity star not only faded, it lost all luster.

Because of an ice and snowstorm, across the country, my connecting flight was cancelled. I was directed to a nearby hotel. After being constantly assured for an hour and a half that the hotel shuttle was on its way, while standing in twenty-degree weather, I took a taxi. “Damn, Don’t they know I am a celebrity?” I thought.

Believe me, nothing from that point on was befitting a celebrity. Fifty-four ninety-five was the room cost. Need I say more? It was musty and uncomfortable. The funky heater would have made me laugh if it wasn’t twenty degrees outside. I sank onto the floor when I sat on the couch. My electronic key would never work more than once. If I needed to get back into the room, I would have to go to the front desk where there was never anyone present, and ring the bell. “What’s wrong?” would be the response. “Nothing,” I would answer, “other than I need to get in my room.” If ever I needed an entourage, being stranded in Houston would have been a great time to have one.

Last year, I did nearly 125 days on the road. It’s part of the gig. None of those days turned out to be as hectic as the twenty-four hours in Houston. I reminded myself of the gangster Hyman Roth’s admonishment to Godfather Michael Corleone in the movie, The Godfather. Roth tells Michael, “This is the life we have chosen.”

Upon landing at home, finally, “my people” (my wife), were at the airport to greet me. As usual she had her smile on. She gave me a big hug and said, “Sorry you got delayed in Houston. Your agent called and they want you to shoot next week in Charleston.”

I smiled back and asked, “Can you go with me?”

“Sherman is Sherman,” I accidentally coined the phrase when describing, to a former Auburn teammate, how our mutual friend and teammate Sherman was doing. Immediately, the teammate understood and giggled. Everyone who knows Sherman understands. Keep reading . . . you’ll understand too.

I’ve known Sherman Moon since 1971. In those days of yesteryear, we were competitors for the same position on the football team at Auburn. We remained competitors on the field, but friends off the field. Forty years later we lived one street from each other. Our visits consist of football debates, reunions with teammates, parties at our neighbors’, and enjoying Sherman’s BBQ. The man can throw down on a grill.

Sherman, then and now, always has a smile for you.

You see; with Sherman the glass is always half full. Smiling, laughing, talking, talking, and talking until you reluctantly have to interrupt or ask for a break.

“Oh, Okay TG,” he’ll say, and relinquish the floor for a few – a very few – minutes before jumping back in. He’ll throw his head back and take you on another one of his verbal journeys. Upbeat, head held high, and fun. That’s Sherman. Rain or Shine. Sickness and in health, stage four cancer not withstanding. My phone chimes and there’s his familiar voice on the phone, “Hey TG, what you up to?”

Sherman beat prostate cancer. He got ahead early in that game, recovered, and came out with a victory. The carcinoid tumor he’s been battling for the last three years has proven to be a booger that, even Sherman has to admit, has tested his mettle. The cancer has metastasized into his stomach, liver, and lymphatic system. Doctors in the US have thrown their hands up and cried, “No Mas!” But you didn’t get to be a teammate on the Auburn teams of ‘72, ‘73, and ‘74 without a lot of courage and fortitude. We’ve never backed down from a good fight.

I have not once heard him complain. I’ve not once seen him in a bad mood.

Several former teammates, who have occasionally run into him, call me and ask, “Is Sherman still sick?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“I saw him, and he was as upbeat as he’s always been,” they counter.

“Sherman is Sherman,” I respond.

Sherman says, “I have Cancer. Cancer does not have me.”

My friend Sherman is on his way to the Netherlands for treatments that, over the next few months, will cost him upwards of $70,000. With all the debate about Affordable Health care in the US, there is little doubt that remaining healthy and finding cures is expensive. In Sherman’s case, it has cost him dearly. He and his wife have lost their income and their home. His final chance at a Hail Mary pass, to regain his health, needs assistance.

Sherman’s teammates and friends are lining up at his side.

Sherman reluctantly agreed to have his story told and to have others solicit funds for him. Nineteen thousand dollars flowed in instantly from family and life-long friends. Next up, was a benefit golf tournament that included a dozen former teammates, some who had not seen him in forty years.

Teammates drove to Florida’s Fort Walton Beach from Mississippi, Tennessee, Central Florida, and Auburn, AL. Sherman made a brief appearance and took pictures with his friends. Then he took off for the airport, leaving for his trip to the Netherlands and the first of four treatments. His teammates and other golfers raised another $8,000 that day.

In Sherman’s honor, we laughed, reminisced with some great Sherman stories, and realized how special we are that Sherman came into our lives. Those who hadn’t seen him in many years marveled at how fun, positive, and upbeat Sherman was.

Just like always.

Sherman is Sherman.

**Want to support Sherman and Vicki Moon?**

Send donations to:

Sherman Moon

PO Box 2077

Fort Walton Beach FL 32549

Or contact Sandy North:

sandy_north@earthlink.net