The Ordinary Man Chronicles: A Tale of Robert Smith

Born in 1948 in Jasper, Alabama, Robert Smith expects a life as predictable as his father's: mill work, hats off in church, and a paycheck that's always a little short. Then a draft notice rewrites the plan. Vietnam, a hostile welcome home in San Francisco, a frozen missile silo in Montana, and the Fulda Gap in Cold War Germany all stand between Robert and the one thing he actually wants - getting home to Linda, the girl with the bouffant hair who told him to come back. Across five decades of dodging history's punches, Robert raises two kids on a sergeant's pay, watches the world reinvent itself every ten years without asking his opinion, and finally lands on a porch in East Texas trying to make peace with nine-dollar coffee. Wry, warm, and quietly moving, it's a tribute to every ordinary person who just kept showing up.