Jack Smith never wrote a book before, never intended to. Just too much work, he says. Besides, he figures that he's already written a jillion words in news copy, speeches for the big bosses, reports, and such.

And that's not counting the eight thousand student story assignments he has graded and edited over the twelve years he taught in the Auburn University jounralism program. 

"That right there, " he says, "is enough to make a body want to stop and rest awhile." 

So when he retired from Auburn's Extension System in 1992 and again as an adjunct in the journalism department in 2007, he says his goals were simple: play golf, read Sports Illustrated, and stay awake until Bill O'Reilly went off.

The Lawrence County, Alabama native claims he really didn't want to write The Ghost. But we know he did, and if you press him he will tell you it was one of the great experiences of his life. "I got to know Mom and Dad all over again," he says. "And the more I dug into their lives from 50 years away, the prouder I became of them." 

He was an Alabama fan who went off to Auburn and earned an English-journalism degree, and later, as an Auburn fan, earned a master's in journalism at Alabama. Among his career honors were his induction into the Alabama Cooperative Extension Hall of Fame and his selection in 1992 as the outstanding senior extension educator among 13 Southern land-grant universities.

What about your next book, Mr. Smith?

"Are you kidding me? Where's the first tee and what's the course record?" 

 

(About that picture: What a sourpuss! I didn’t mean it to look like I’d just eaten a green persimmon. The idea was to capture the workplace at which I wrote My Father, the Ghost. That’s Dad’s picture over my shoulder. He watched as I wrote every word, and believe me, I felt his presence.) Photo by Joan Terrel, who did fine considering what she had to work with.

   

The author, Jack Smith, and his late wife Martha. They were married 50 years.