Pickens County, Georgia, sits in the northwest part of the Peach State. Only 33,000 people live in the county, and almost every one of them has heard about the fire and the puppies. But if you haven’t, here’s the story. Fire Department Lieutenant John Isaac Holaway and his crew kicked down the front door of […]

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read that pulled me in and became personal to me; I’m ready for Armstrong’s next book. Between the Tracks, Darryl Armstrong’s latest book of short stories has rejuvenated my outlook on reading books. I haven’t finished many books in the past few years, mostly because I’ve only found a […]

The Memphis, Tennessee winter came with teeth this year, all bite and no bark, leaving the Driver family—Gerald, his wife, and their three little ones—with nowhere to go but the Ed Rice Community Center. The kind of place where good folks do their level best with what little they have. For three nights, the Drivers […]

What had begun as a carefree family outing on a sunlit stretch of Western Australian shore suddenly spun into a harrowing ten-hour struggle—and an extraordinary testament to a 13-year-old’s resolve. The morning had been bright, the surf a glassy blue, as Joanne Appelbee and her children—Austin, 13; Beau, 12; and Grace, 8—launched their paddleboards and […]

She stood before the metal cages, fingers trembling slightly against the chain-link doors. Twelve months had passed since she’d buried Milo and Jasper beneath the oak tree in her backyard, twelve months of empty food bowls and phantom purrs in the night. The shelter smelled of antiseptic and damp fur. Her eyes settled on a […]

The evening light on 2nd February in Gilbert, Arizona, was the color of copper pennies when Al Wilsey made his final request. His voice—raspy from the years his body had weathered like an old fence post in a thunderstorm—carried across the bedroom to where Roberta sat. “I want Mexican,” he said. Just that. Three little […]

“A fellow writer once told me that if you weren’t making your readers laugh or cry, you weren’t doing your job. Well, Armstrong’s BETWEEN THE TRACKS certainly did this. He can let us see the world through a child’s eyes or make us want to hug our dogs while we still can. His chapters about […]

Maria never expected her evening stroll to change a life. The sun was setting, painting the neighborhood in gentle amber hues when a sound—fragile as a whisper—reached her ears. She paused, head tilted, listening. There it came again: a trembling whimper that tugged at her heart like a child’s hand. Guided by compassion, Maria followed […]

The fluorescent lights of Walmart in Stillwater, Minnesota cast their usual harsh glow that Tuesday afternoon, but what unfolded beneath them was anything but ordinary. Dani Dircks stood in line, keys jingling absently in her pocket, when she noticed an elderly woman ahead of her—shoulders hunched with dignity despite her obvious distress—trying repeatedly to pay […]

There’s a fella up in St. Louis who’s got more heart than a Valentine’s Day clearance sale. Kenneth Harrell—remember that name—spent his own hard-earned cash (about five hundred hard earned American dollars, which ain’t peanuts these days) to rent himself a Bobcat and plow the living daylights out of neighborhood streets that the city apparently […]

Only in Tennessee, where the state bird is the pickup truck and drunk driving is listed as an official county sport, could this tale unfold. In Lebanon, Tennessee, a police cruiser sat outside Bubba’s Bar & Grill after last call, like a bullfrog waiting on a lily pad. The officer watched a feller stumble out […]

Sister Mary Foeckler came to me one humid afternoon in 1970 at St. Mary’s High School in Paducah, Kentucky, her hands fluttering like flecked sparrows whenever she spoke. She was a Sister of Charity then, and my mentor, she was stationed at that school deep in the Southern dirt, and on the day I packed […]

Rev. J. Bazzel Mull and Lady Mull When I drifted into Knoxville in the early ’80s, I holed up in the old and storied 1920s Maplehurst Court apartments alongside a gaggle of retirees, grad students, the odd professor, and a smattering of divorced types like myself. I had a soft spot for the place, even […]

I never knew Pete until this morning. I learned about him while waiting in line at the post office. A man ahead of me peered toward the window and asked why six bright-orange Kentucky Department of Transportation trucks were parked at our village’s lone stoplight. I’d noticed them myself, their flashing beacons pulsing in the […]

I’ve been thinking about time lately. How it slips through your fingers just when you finally get your ducks in a row. Just when the mortgage is paid, the kids are grown, and you can finally afford that fishing boat you’ve been eyeballing for twenty years—that’s when your knees start to creak, and your back […]

Our little street on the island is straight and short, unremarkable, ordered with weathered signs that tourists breeze past, their rental carts kicking up dust from our deliberately unpaved road. We prefer the gravel’s gentle percussion, nature’s way of saying: breathe, notice, be here now. As twilight drapes itself across our homes, the neighborhood cats […]

At nine years old, we made the journey from the knobs of rural western Kentucky to the Atlantic Ocean crammed in the back of Father’s pristine white ’59 Impala. Grandma, Momma, and I watched America blur past the windows while he drove straight through, pausing only when the gas gauge dipped low or when hunger […]

Noel The Precious A plaintive alert rippled through our tight-knit Tybee Island neighborhood: Noel had gone missing. Noel—a French name that conjures soft candlelight and the promise of Christmas morning—was no ordinary cat but a silken-gray enigma, slender as a misty dawn. Though I’d never met Noel in person, I understood all too well the […]

There’s something about those preschool classrooms that stays with you. The smell of finger paints and animal graham crackers. The sound of little voices singing “The Wheels on the Bus” slightly off-key. The feeling that anything—absolutely anything—is possible. Sean Folloder knows this feeling well. It was in just such a classroom at Shlenker School in […]