Paul Hemphill

The South lost one of its longstanding writers over the weekend. Paul Hempill died of cancer. He wrote for the Atlanta newspapers and before that a string of other ones. Hemphill was a Birmingham native whose main gift was writing about ordinary things and ordinary people. To put him in context, he was the predecessor to Lewis Grizzard. After that, he wrote books and taught at Emory University.
Read his obit here.
I first discovered him many years ago through one of his books, "Me and the Boy." It chronicles his thru-hike attempt of the Appalachian Trail with his son, David. In a small-world moment, I came across a mention of Billy Winn. Billy is a dear friend and is my husband's former boss, and was good friends with Hemphill from his own newspaper days in Atlanta. (Wherever I was living at the time, I wrote to Billy and said: "Is this you?")
Paul had to get off the trail a couple of times during the hike and convalesce in Atlanta, thus he and David didn't get all the way to Maine. He had knee problems (the eventual diagnosis was not enough bulk in his thighs. Oh, that we all could suffer this malady). His Atlanta doc suggested that when he needed to make camp, because of his pain, he tell his son: "Here we camp."
It's a wise person who knows when to say when.
Rest in peace.