My growing up years were all spent in Juliette, Georgia. As I've stated in my book "Sex, Dead Dogs, and Me - The Juliette Journals", life was pretty much school, church, and home during those years. I loved my family and enjoyed all the good times we had together. Juliette was a close-knit community and everyone pretty much knew everyone else. None of us had much money but we did enjoy ourselves immensely.   

  When I was in the fifth grade, Ray Pippin (one-third of the Brotherhood, the most elite social organization in the world) and I wrote a book together. We did about thirteen or fourteen pages of one sheet humourous bios on people in our class at school. We drew caricatures of them and made a cardboard cover for our book. Then, we bound it with a needle and thread that we literally ran through the sheets of notebook paper and cardboard.   

  During my high school years I made pretty good grades without trying real hard. This enabled me to cut up alot and enjoy lots of various escapades and pranks. I also played alot of sports - I was a varsity football player at Mary Persons High School in Forsyth and played on two county championship teams in baseball. In fact one year I was the most valuable player in the entire league.   

  I graduated from Mary Persons in 1974 and spent the first two years of college at Gordon Jr. College in Barnesville, Georgia, In 1976 I graduated from Gordon with an Associate's degree in Business Administration. Went on to Georgia College in Milledgeville and received my Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1978. (I also got my MBA from Georgia College in 1991 - 3.91 GPA and forgive me, but I am proud of that).   

  The first job I held was as a management trainee for the KMart Corporation. During my three years there I met my wife Debbie. I acted so damn crazy after I met her that my father, Ed Jr. told me that I should either marry Deb or get the hell away from her. I listen to Ed Jr. religiously and thusly married Debbie in 1981. My daughter Alison came along in 1983 and Will (Ed IV) in 1987.   

  Also in 1981 I went into Human Resources Management with YKK (USA) Inc. in Macon. YKK is the largest zipper manufacturing company in the world. They have 14 plants spread over tons of acres on two large sites. I ended up being the Human Resources Manager for five of their plants and the Training Director for all their locations.   

  In 1987 the Trane Company located a new plant in Macon. I got a call from a headhunter wanting me to talk to with them. I did, and ended up accepting the Human Resources Manager's position for this facility. Trane was a very innovative company and I loved working for them (and YKK and everywhere else I've ever worked, for that matter). In 1993 another headhunter called and offered me the Human Resources Manager's job for Paragon Trade Brands. Since the Paragon facility (they manufacture store brand disposable diapers) grossed $125 million dollars a year (and they offered me more money) I took the position.   

  I left Paragon and became the Human Resources Director for Dry Branch Kaolin Company in 1996. Although I've worked for some great employers, Dry Branch is the best of them all. Its so neat to drive out through a rural area like Dry Branch and then come up upon this large company - its like a city out in the middle of the woods. Besides being the finest kaolin company around, we have facilities like our own conference center, lots of land for hunting and fishing, our own softball field, skeet shooting range, and even have a big screen TV in our conference room that we use to show pay-per-view events to our employees. Dry Branch Kaolin is where I intend to finish my working career - it is that good a company. We also recently bought Nord Kaolin Company so I guess I'm now officially the Human Resources Director for both facilities.   

  About a year and a half ago I got a wild hair to write - I'd never written anything of consequence in my life. I began writing about anything that popped into my head - most of it anecdotal experiences about life in Juliette. I had so much fun doing this that over the course of a year I ended up with a book length manuscript. I finished it in April of 1996.   

  I can remember printing out a copy and giving it to my dad and being embarassed about doing so. It seemed so presumptuous to say I had written a book. My dad did read it and I gave out some copies to a few friends and relatives. I also filled out copyright forms and got the manuscript officially copyrighted.  

  In July of 1996 I decided on a rainy Sunday to do a web search for literary agencies to send the manuscript to. I found about six or seven and sent the book out to them on a disc with a cover letter. I really didn't expect a positive response but in August I got a letter from an agency in Dallas that said they liked the book and were willing to send it to a few publishing houses. They did this through the latter part of 1996 and the early part of 1997.  

  In total they sent it to about six houses - most of 'em the big ones like Ballentine and Pocket Books. I was genuinely astonished that they sent it to those places. Of course, they rejected it but basically said good things about it. They said the book was funny and if marketed right could do something. They all said it was publishable.  

  The Dallas agency told me that they did not work much with new authors and that I should find a literary agent that had some contacts with some of the southern- based publishing houses. I didn't really think I was gonna pursue the agency route much further and had sort of written the book off in my mind.  

  In March of '97 I read in the Macon paper that a group called Georgia Writers was going to have a local meeting in order to form a Macon chapter. Everyone attending was encouraged to bring something with them that they had written.  

  I attended and found about 30-35 people there. Most of them were like me. They were novices at writing and wanted to learn more about it. Cliff Chandler conducted the meeting and Geri Teran (the Executive Director of Georgia Writers) attended as well. After introductions, Cliff asked us if we would get up and read our stuff. In fact, he pointed at me and said, "You seem fairly outgoing - why don't you get up and read yours?"  

  I have never been as scared in my life - I have done scores of business presentations but this was something far different. I got up and read a story about my dad catching the choir leader at our church screwing one of the ladies in the choir down in the bottom behind our house. It was a pretty humourous episode, if I do say so myself.  

  When I read it I got some laughter from the crowd. After the meeting ended, I talked with Geri and we exchanged email addresses. In a week's time she offered to edit the book for me. I don't mean a small edit - I mean a line edit of the entire manuscript. Then, Geri and Jeannie Hogue started getting the manuscript out to some agents and publishing houses. After some fairly serious interest from a couple of houses, I was offered a contract (Jan. '98) to publish my book by Tom Kyle of Abique Books in Dallas, Texas. Tom is a very straightforward guy and I am very flattered that he has interest in my book.  

  The latest I've heard is that my book is coming out this July under the title of "Sex, Dead Dogs, and Me - The Juliette Journals." From what Tom tells me, people can buy it first as a hardback, and later as a paperback. My father is pretty excited about it, although he does worry that some of the folks in Juliette might be mad with him after it comes out. We do reveal a number of unusual local episodes in it. Be that as it may, we are ready to see it come out and hope that anybody that reads it will like the stories.  

  Thanks for reading this, and, thanks if you do decide to go ahead and purchase my book. It really makes me feel good inside knowing that these stories will be shared and appreciated by others. That's the best thing about writing a book - it lets you share meaningful parts of your life with other people.