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CREDIT
WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
(Book
Acknowledgements)
Credit Where Credit Is Due
One of
the difficulties that arise when you try to thank a large
number of people who have aided and abetted you in some
personal endeavor is that you will invariably omit someone,
or unintentionally downplay another person’s contribution.
So, I apologize in advance to anyone who feels that
he or she should have been counted in this section but was
not. I meant no
harm.
First,
thanks to Michelle and Tabitha, the best servers in the
entire Longhorn Steakhouse®
chain.
Anne
Fisher was a tremendous help in sorting out the garbled mess
of a book I started with, getting things on the right track,
and offering her unconditional encouragement to go forward.
I
thank my father and all five uncles for those wonderful
family stories and legends, true or not.
My uncle Eugene Talmadge Deriso provided much of the
background for the stories about “life down on the
farm;” he also provided several sections of the chapter,
“The Stuff of Legends.”
Thanks
also to my
South
Georgia
cousin
Charles
Deriso
for being
able to remember so much of the technical information that
was important in setting the stage for some of the stories.
Actually, one of the best Deriso stories ever is about an
adventure Charles and I experienced on a double-date coming
home late one Saturday night from a restaurant in
Albany
,
GA.
named “Gargano’s.” However,
I honored his wishes and left the story out of this book,
demonstrating my compassionate and caring nature.
(My date never spoke to me again; his date ended up marrying him.)
My
Colorado
cousin
Kenny Crockett provided much of the information about
Grandpa Jones’s young life in
North
Carolina
and
Colorado
.
Also, I just want to thank another
Colorado
cousin, Jo
(Juanita Crockett) Hanawalt for being so doggoned good
looking. She was
a fox then and is still a fox now.
My
special thanks go to one of my Colorado Aunts, Dora Jones
Berry
, “Auntie
D.” She has
been more like a big sister to me than an aunt.
She has a wonderful sense of humor, and the patience
of Job. She used
to let my brother and me get away with a lot of things we
should have been punished for when she looked after us
during the 1950s’summers in
Americus
. My Aunt
Ruby also supplied some valuable books that helped me
understand the state of
Wyoming
, where I
was born.
My
sister Margie Deriso Everett provided wonderful ideas about
the general format and content of this book.
She is, in her own right, an excellent wordsmith and
creative writer. Her
help and encouragement was indispensable.
Thanks, sis. My
brother
Tom Deriso
helped keep me in check when the
storytelling got a little farfetched and out of the box.
He also let me use him as the “fall guy” in many
of the stories. Thanks,
bro.
I have
a special place in my heart for the teachers I had while
attending grades 1-12 in the
Americus
,
GA.
public
school system. They
were a big part of the high quality of my primary education.
I thank all of these teachers and especially thank a
couple of my very dear high school teachers, especially
Rebecca McNeill (Miz Toughboots) and Gladys Crabb, who,
after forty-five years, finally gave me an A+.
It was worth the wait.
Dessert
is served at the end of the meal for a good reason; the
sweetest part is always saved for last.
I thank my wonderful wife and helpmate for the last
three and a half decades, Bonnie Linda Pratt Deriso.
She, without flinching, agreed to accompany me on my
thirty-two hundred mile lark, driving from our home in
Marietta
to
Fort Collins
and back on
a memorial trip to honor my father’s memory during the
formative stages of what eventually morphed into this book.
She drove when I couldn’t, maintained a positive
attitude when I wouldn’t, and never fussed when I did
things I shouldn’t.
She
has read every word in this book dozens of times, never
offering anything other than an encouraging note, although
she has, on more than one occasion, said to me, “This part
here is interesting.”
That’s like dating a girl who has a good
personality. When
she said those words I knew to revise my poor effort without
further ado. She
has also “shivered my timbers” a number of times with
excellent suggestions for improving the ebb and flow of
words and thoughts. She
also insisted I remove or modify stories that she knew were
blatant lies. For
the most part I complied with her wishes.
I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, have been able to begin
or finish this book without her help and encouragement.
She is truly one-of-a-kind.
Thanks, angel.
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