In Spite Of! . . . but Because Of!

In 1954, in West Shawmut, Alabama, it was a kinder, gentler, and more peaceful time in life and society. Gas was twenty-two cents a gallon. This is a community memoir chronicling, detailing, and reflecting upon some of those memorable events, experiences, and adventures of youthful yesterdays. West Shawmut, Alabama is a nondescript small town and quaint, folksy community nestled in southeastern sweet home Alabama, not even a dot on the Alabama map. But it is a village haven of genuine love, hope, dreams, and aspirations for its perhaps one thousand inhabitants. Its not too far from the West Point, Georgia, Kia Automotive Plant, a hoot, holler, and a skip from Valley, Alabama. Submerged in the heart of the backwoods of Chambers County right across the Georgia/Alabama boundary line and the Chattahoochee River resides the West Shawmut community. In Spite of! is a time-captured portrait of humble beginnings transformed to hardworking determination, overcoming impoverished circumstances with academic achievement, and overturning obstacles by divine intervention and fate. Kerry The Hawk Meadows transports the reader to a kinder, gentler, and more peaceful time in life to a quiet, leave-your-door-open community of neighborly down-home, homegrown, genuine, sit-on-the-front-porch, yall-sit-a-spell, real folks. The detailed imagery is steeped in thoughtful homespun language and old-school relics as old as rabbit-ear antennae wrapped in aluminum foil, outhouses, and eight-track cassette tapes.