About Us
About me
Secret of success
Please excuse me. I was just listening to a whispering Sycamore tree, and I rudely left to write this down. The tree was just saying.... Never mind, you might not understand.
Joseph Ball
Author
My father was a tenured horticulture professor, and my mother served a long career as a public-school teacher. She married my father right after he told her she was pretty as a speckle pup under a red wagon on a green hillside on a summer day. We lived in several rural southern states as my father followed his dreams, so I am a graduate cum laude of the South. The University of Arkansas issued me a bachelor's degree in Zoology one day when the Dean wasn't paying attention. Later, the George Washington University slipped me an MBA in exchangefor a shameful bribe. They called it tuition. I think they preferred cash, but I paid by check.
A major state University in Florida hired me for a highadministrative position. One summer day, I slipped away to a management position in Florida Citrus Industry.That was pure fun. During weekends and summers, I lived years of grey ships, endless training exercises and some great sea stories, I retired from the US Navy Reserve as a Navy Captain.
These were all just diversions. Family was real life. My wife and two sons raised me and taught me how to live. After my wife passed away, my grandson taught me why to live.
Dusty roads, kudzu barns, whispering forests and cinnamon skies. My life began at the edge of nowhere.
If you'd like to walk with me, I'll introduce you to my understanding parents, several colorful relatives, and we will walk in some golden fields with walls of yellow sun. I will tell you how I saved many baby turtles from sinning. We will sit next to a few sweet little old blue hair berry hat church ladies. You will meet long tail, liver spot, flap-earbird dogs. And you will see why I never mentioned pizza at my mother's table.
Today, I live in Central Florida with a wonderful woman who talks to celery, holds doodle bugs and lost turtles, and she tolerates me. Her name is Cheryl, and she is almost normal. Her road job is stopping traffic while I save turtles crossing the road. Usually, she doesn't get hit.
I hope you'll take a moment to walk with me. Wait, I think I just heard a wild juneberry. It made a noise like...
About book
My name is Joseph Edward Ball. I'm a Southern writer. I invite you to take a country walk with me.
You will meet my Aunt Faye, who upset the postmaster when she accidentally shut down the post office for an entire day. Daisy, my long tail liver spot, flap ear, wide grin Government registered Catahoula Hound will tail-tap hello to you.
Come walk with me into green woods, where leafy trees have low voices, tall sycamores reach for the yellow sun, and a lonesome redbird talks to me. Join me with my childhood friend, John Allen Kirkpatrick as we sit on a fallen barky brown log in a whispery forest watching two small leggety beetles take a leisurely stroll.
I will introduce you to my Aunt Edith, who had lipsticky lips, smoked filter cigarettes and opened her own car doors. You will meet my father who spoke little and said much. And I want you to meet my mother, who taught me poetry. She served speckle butter beans and yellow cornbread, but she never served pizza. Sit with me and some sweet little old blue hair berry hat church ladies at a country picnic and I will tell you why to always eat the fried chicken first. And we will sit the iron trestle bridge over the tadpole creek that drank Tommie Jean Wilkins one hot summer day. You will want to meet the consecrated dog and the cow who went to college.
I'm a picture of my past. Come walk with me now and meet my world.