It's All Chicken and Booze

It's All Chicken and Booze is the fourth book I've written, and my third collection of columns previously published in the Boone County Journal, an independently owned and operated weekly newspaper serving the communities of Ashland, Claysville, Englewood, Hartsburg, and Wilton in mid-Missouri.I began writing for the Journal in July of 2011, just as my wife Bethany and I were preparing to travel to China to complete the adoption of our daughter Tiana. My column was originally intended to document the misadventures of a stay-at-home dad as he navigated life as a parent of three young children-including two who were adopted in China. Along the way, it became so much more. Over the years, I gradually broadened the scope of my weekly missives to include stories about local heroes, opinions on various topics not necessarily related to parenting, and the occasional political rant. Since the beginning, my ultimate goal has always been to help the reader see the world through the eyes and words of a Midwestern writer/husband/father/citizen-an often-overlooked perspective in today's literary world.The end result, enshrined in this volume, is an eclectic assortment of vignettes that I hope you will find uniquely entertaining, amusing, and inspiring.