Another step closer...

Things happen for a reason. Well, that's what they say. Does anyone know who 'they' are? Sometimes my regular life seems enough to handle. And stepping backward to try to find some way to gather the pieces of my so-called 'real life' is a crazy mess of another kind. Whoa! You think you understand what you're up against. Then you find another strange 'I had no idea' and you have to take another step back and take another side road that you somehow missed during your travels to 'the answers.'

To be fair, I know that 'the answer' is God. He has always been my answer. He has seen me through extraordinary tragedies and blessed me to make ends meet. I guess it's hardest of all to admit just how challenging things have been financially for me.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't think things would be handed to me on a silver or any type of platter. But how in the world did life get so off track? How was I supposed to rub a frying pan and a thistle to make sparks for a fire to help warm my spirits to make it yet another day?

I couldn't. I didn't. God did. He still does. I have so many examples that it is absolutely unreal. And even as I type this, I am looking at another 'I have no idea how I'm going to get through January' crisis in front of me.

I have gotten scared and I still do. Yes. This happens even with my faith in God. I get weak even knowing how He will make things change from insane to sane. If you want to know what happens, send me a message. I'll send you a private note to tell you just what happens.

So, here I am in another moment that has nothing I can see in front of me and nowhere I can go behind me. Who was Merriman Smith? I mean who was he behind closed doors in his own home? That's just one of the many mysteries I'm working on as I put another group of sentences together toward my book.

Please pray and let me hear from you.

A Rich, Journalistic Heritage

To know me, you have to know about my father. Albert Merriman Smith was known as 'Smitty' to his friends, US Presidents and people all across the globe.

'Smitty' attended Oglethorpe University in Georgia. He never graduated from college. But his skills as a writer and ability to always 'get the story' landed him from what is now known as The Atlanta Journal Constitution to the Dean of the White House Press Corps. Okay. Maybe he wasn't Dean of the White House Press Corps the first day on the job working for UPI (United Press International) in Washington, D.C. Never the less, in his time serving as Dean of the White House Press Corps., he had the distinction of ending every press conference with, 'Thank You, Mr. President.'

One of his most notable moments in journalism happened on a very somber day in Dallas, Texas in 1963 as President John F. Kennedy's motorcade made its way past throngs of onlookers.

It is said that knowing the difference between the sound of backfire and a gunshot was one of several things that kept my father ahead of the rest of the press that day. And not soon after arriving at the hospital where President Kennedy was being tended to, he grabbed the only phone left and dictated verbatim the story of JFK's death, which won him the Pulitzer Prize.

Following his dictation online, he made a mad dash to Air Force One where he was one of a handful of people who witnessed Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as the next American President.

He is the author of four books, was a chain smoker and loved my mother passionately. My father died when I was 3 years old. His work, the way he captured a story and brought personalities to life in his books are all things near and dear to me.

Maybe this can provide enough information 'about me' to know that this is where I found my passion for news, my desire not to simply write the facts but look deeper into the human character and understand each person as he/she is. To me, that's what my father did best.

Today, I call it 'the good stuff.'