The Kindness of the Heart – BETWEEN THE TRACKS

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 curled together on cold linoleum floors beneath borrowed blankets, the children—twelve, nine, and just one year old—huddled close like puppies seeking warmth.

“We slept on the floor from Friday till today,” Gerald told a reporter, his voice steady despite it all. “The staff here, bless ’em, they rallied with other centers to bring hot meals when they could.”

Then a miracle happened. The kind that reminds you there’s still goodness in this old world.

A woman watching her television saw the Drivers’ story and something ancient stirred in her heart. She’s a therapist by trade, a healer of broken spirits, who preferred to remain nameless—not because she feared recognition, but because some gifts are meant to be given in secret.

“They hadn’t had anything hot for days,” she told the reporter. “Just beef jerky and fruit cups. And those babies sleeping on a hard floor.”

From her warm living room, she became their guardian angel. Her fingers danced across her phone, summoning pizzas and fried chicken through the ice-slicked streets. But food wasn’t enough for her Mississippi-sized heart.

Soon, air mattresses arrived like clouds descended from heaven. Baby wipes. Necessities that turn strangers into family. All weekend long, her text messages lit up their phones: You are not forgotten. You are not alone.

In the coldest February in recent memory, the warmest thing in Memphis wasn’t a heater—it was a heart that couldn’t bear the thought of children going hungry in the dark.

My mother had such a kindred heart. Perhaps, Mark Twain summed it so well: “My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart-a heart so large that everybody’s joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.”

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You Are Invited to a Book Club Meeting, Saturday Feb. 21 at 11 am at the Episcopal Church, to meet author, of BETWEEN THE TRACKS – Darryl Armstrong

“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 characters he has known remind me of flipping through a family album with an old friend, where every picture tells a story. So, take your time with this book, and let each story sink in as it is meant to. – Jim Mize, award-winning author ofA Creek Trickles Through It: A Collection of Fly-Fishing Humor, and The Jon Boat Years

For seventy years, Darryl Armstrong has been collecting stories like river stones—smooth, varied, each with its own weight and shine. BETWEEN THE TRACKS presents these “down-home-heartfelt” tales, illuminating those in-between spaces where life truly happens.

Books will be available for purchase for $19.99, and I’ll gladly sign them for you. AND TYBEE RESIDENTS, we will gladly deliver a personally signed one to you. Just text us at 270.853.9450.

You may also purchase one by scanning  this QCR code: