October 19, 2025 • 16 mins
Truly Significant presents the one and only Homer Hickam, best selling author of multiple books including Rocket Boys that was adapted for the feature movie October Sky.
He was born in a small West Virginia coal town called Coalwood — a place where dreams were supposed to be buried as deep as the mines themselves. His daddy ran the mine, his mama ran the house, and young Homer Hickam? Well… he ran outside one October night in 1957 and looked up.
There, streaking across the heavens, was Sputnik. And that—ladies and gentlemen—was the spark that lit a boy’s heart on fire. While other boys were learning to swing pickaxes, Homer was learning to launch rockets. He and his friends—the “Rocket Boys”—turned a scrap heap into a laboratory, a coal-town canyon into a launch pad, and failure after failure into something far greater: faith in possibility.
They were ridiculed by some, doubted by most. But Homer believed that curiosity was a kind of courage. He believed that science and wonder could lift a man out of his circumstances, without losing sight of where he came from. And years later, after college, after the Vietnam War, after NASA… Homer Hickam came home—not just to Coalwood, but to America’s imagination.
His memoir Rocket Boys became the book that inspired the film October Sky. A story that reminded us all that genius can bloom anywhere, that small towns can grow big dreams, and that sometimes—just sometimes—the most significant discoveries aren’t found in outer space… …but within ourselves.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
He was born in a small West Virginia coal town called Coalwood — a place where dreams were supposed to be buried as deep as the mines themselves. His daddy ran the mine, his mama ran the house, and young Homer Hickam? Well… he ran outside one October night in 1957 and looked up.
There, streaking across the heavens, was Sputnik. And that—ladies and gentlemen—was the spark that lit a boy’s heart on fire. While other boys were learning to swing pickaxes, Homer was learning to launch rockets. He and his friends—the “Rocket Boys”—turned a scrap heap into a laboratory, a coal-town canyon into a launch pad, and failure after failure into something far greater: faith in possibility.
They were ridiculed by some, doubted by most. But Homer believed that curiosity was a kind of courage. He believed that science and wonder could lift a man out of his circumstances, without losing sight of where he came from. And years later, after college, after the Vietnam War, after NASA… Homer Hickam came home—not just to Coalwood, but to America’s imagination.
His memoir Rocket Boys became the book that inspired the film October Sky. A story that reminded us all that genius can bloom anywhere, that small towns can grow big dreams, and that sometimes—just sometimes—the most significant discoveries aren’t found in outer space… …but within ourselves.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome back to success, made the last. I'm Rick Tokeeni.
We appreciate you joining on our Legends show. And today
we have one of our favorite authors, Homer Hickham. He
wrote Rocket Boys, Colewood book series and Carrying Albert Holme. Homer,
welcome back to our success made the last show.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, Rick, thanks for having me. It's always great to
talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Would you be so kind to tell us about your
most intriguing career drink well.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm probably best known for writing that book Rocket Boys.
They made the movie October Sky based on it. I've
written a lot of let's see carry Albert Holmes now
up to eighteen books, so most of them have been
national bestsellers, and I'm very proud of that. And my
(01:00):
first book. By the way, let me announce that this
is a world premier announcement that the very first book
I ever wrote was Torpedo Junction, was about the U
boat wars up and down the East Coaster or in
World War Two. It has now been optioned for a
major motion picture, just out of the Blue, that was
published back in nineteen eighty nine. And we think that
Carrying Albert Home probably has some Hollywood aspects about it
(01:23):
as well, so we anticipate maybe getting a little action
out there.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Homer, that is great. Congratulations. I've got to ask you,
are you now helping to coach screenwriters so that your
original narrative is told with great authenticity, especially in feature films.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah. I mean they've actually hired me to help write
the screenplay for Torpedo Junction for Rocket Boys that became
October Sky not so much. I had a battle royal
with Universal Studios about changing that book into a movie.
I won some battle, I lost some battles. Ultimately, the
(02:02):
book is so much better than the movie, but the
movie's good, and so that's the way that works. With
Carrying Albert Home. I will probably put it in my
contract that I'll have a little bit of input to
that one. So it really kind of just varies in
some cases when it's a book about it's a total
fiction book. If I've got a number of those options,
(02:24):
they haven't made it to green light yet, but I
don't care if you're fiction. But in the case of
Rocky Boys, that was a memoir and Carrying Albert Home
is a somewhat true story of a man, his wife
and her alligator and that man and his wife happened
to be my parents before they were my parents, so
naturally I have an interest in that.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Homer, you know that we love your storytelling. And as
a compliment, over the course of your many books, is
it possible that you're getting better as a storyteller?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Well, thank you. Of course, all West Virginians we tend
to be pretty good storytellers, I can tell you. And
then dot dot dot he meets a serial killer, just
to give you a little bit more intriguing there. But anyway,
the let me give you some bick background on this.
The reason that I ended up writing this novel was
(03:16):
that after the movie Ol Cobra Sky came out, I
thought my parents were horribly misrepresented in that movie. My
dad was presented as this the dour harsh fellow, and
my mom presented as a whimp and nothing less truthful
about them. So I used to go out when I
gave speeches, I would always tell him the story of
Albert the Alligator. How my mom when my dad asked
(03:38):
her to Marian back in nineteen twenty nine, and she said, heck, no,
I'm going to Florida. I'm going to get away from you.
I'm going to go live with my rich uncle Aubrey.
And I've seen pictures of rich uncle Aubrey. He's standing
in front of his trailer, was kind of a dead
palm tree behind it. But nevertheless, she headed down to
Orlando and working a diner down there, she met a
young man whose parents owned the dance studio in Orlando,
(04:03):
and his name was Buddy Enson. He later became Uncle
Jed at the Beverly Hillbilly and a lot of other
He was a pretty famous Hollywood actor. They fell in love.
They were going to get married, but Buddy was called
up to New York and all of a sudden he
was on his way to Hollywood and my mom. After
a while before she was my Mom figured out that
(04:23):
Buddy wasn't coming back. She went back to West Virginia.
One thing or the other happened, and she ended up
marrying my father, Homer Hickham Senior. Buddy sent her as
a wedding gift a baby alligator and with it a
love note that said, to remind you forever of our
time in Florida. Loved Buddy well. Mom raised that this true,
(04:45):
that part is true, absolutely true. That she raised that
alligator in the bathtub until he got so big at
chased Dad outside and he said, all right, Elsie has
either me or this alligator. And after giving in a
few days of thinking it over, she said, all right,
but we have to carry out Albert home. And so
this began the thousand mile journey to Orlando through Key West.
(05:05):
Geography was at their strong suit that I tell the tale.
It's a family legend about all the things that happened
to them along the way, including meeting John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway,
goes fighting, joining the Albert actually joins the Coast Guard.
They do have the thunder road thing happen. They are
(05:26):
in a Tarzan movie down in Silver Spring, Florida. They
endure the worst hurricane in Florida ever, nineteen thirty five hurricane.
And so there are a lot of things that happen.
Folks that read this, they just they have a lot
of laughs along the way, and there's also a few tears,
especially at the end. So I hope that folks are
really going to like this family legend. I'm starting a
(05:48):
new genre. It's called family legend genre. So we'll see
what happened.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Do you think in contemporary times that marriages like your dad,
Homer Senior and your mom Elsie would last today.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Probably not. And this is one of the reasons why
I think all Mary couple should read this book. This
book will tell you how it was that my parents,
Homer and Elsie Hickhams, stayed together for over sixty years,
even though they never agreed on anything. So I'd like
(06:23):
to say the story of how they carried Albert home
is the It is more than this fanciful tale of
adventure put all together. When I put it all together,
and these are from the stories they told me. It's
their testimony to what's Heaven's greatest and perhaps the only
true gift, that strange and marvelous emotion we inadequately call love.
(06:44):
I'm just reading from the back cover here, so yes,
it's a love story. It's an adventure story, it's an
animal story. It's a fun story. But also it has
a lot of meaning to it too.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Do you think that readers will like Albert? And if yes,
what makes that alligator so likable?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Everybody's going to love Albert. It's really funny that we
have now fifteen international publishers of Albert. That's more than
Rocket boys after twenty years and some of the comments where, well,
when I started this, I didn't think, you know, why
would I want to read about this reptile. Well, in fact,
everybody falls in love with Albert. He's a cute little alligator.
(07:24):
He's got a big grin on his face all the time.
He says hey, yeah, yeah all the time when he's
excited and happy, and no, no, no when he's not.
And he hangs his head out of the car as
they make this thousand mile journey. And he has, for
no apparent the reason a rooster that likes Albert, and
Albert likes him, and so the rooster has joined him
(07:44):
in the backseat. The rooster keeps it appearing and disappearing.
We don't really know why the rooster is on this
journey or what it's about. That's going to be something
that the book clubs are going to argue about, is
why is the rooster on this journey? And who is he?
I have my belief, but some people say is an angel?
Some people say, hope, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Your interaction with other authors reminds me of Midnight in Paris.
Why did you happen to choose John steinback and Ernest Hemingway.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, Steinbeck is my favorite author other than I don't
know my faff but just kidding. But I will say
that you've got to realize that this story, though it's
a somewhat true story, actually is based on the stories
that my parents told me, and they told me that
they met Steinbeck, and they met him anyway, So I've
(08:40):
just flashed out their story. And you to remember they're
traveling in the midst of a depression, the Great Depression,
in nineteen thirty five, and Steinbeck is out on the road.
If though you'll look up his history, you'll find he
indeed was out on the road in the South at
that time. So it's very possible that my parents did
indeed meet him as they said that they did. Also Hemingway,
(09:04):
I have a picture of my mother in Hemingway's garden
in nineteen thirty five, and they said that they had
met him down there. So it's a somewhat true story.
That's why it's a novel. It's going to be in
the fiction shell, not the nonfiction shells. But in fact,
this is a family legend based upon the stories that
(09:27):
I was told, and then I just enlarged upon it,
and I'd like to say it's all true except the
parts that are not, and they're true too, because family
legends have a purpose. There's always something behind these the
grand and sometimes fantastic tales that are told by folks
(09:48):
within the family that have great meaning. And it's one
of the I really encourage all families do not lose
their family legends, to tell them over and over again
so the people actually know who they are and what
your family's really like.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Homer, I think that you are onto something huge for
the publishing industry when it comes to family legends.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah. I really do recope that I'm starting a new
genre here with family legends. You know, I teach in
a training class through my church, the Methodist Church here
in Huntsville, and I have so many people come to
me that have these memoirs that they want to write,
stories that they want to write about their family, but
(10:32):
they get so hung up on the truth, the absolute truth,
and it's like, no, never let the truth get in
a way of a good story. And family legends allows
you to tell a story about real people that maybe
seem a little bit fantastic the way that they were
told to you, and that it's okay to enlarge on
the truth as long as the kernel of truth is
(10:53):
in there, and it makes for an interesting story. And
now Albert Albert was actually carried home, and my mom
really did have this alligator given to her by Buddy Ebsen,
So all of that is true. But then I get
to spin. I get to spin a great tale and
and make it a little bit fly and a lot
(11:14):
funny in the process they're telling it. So yeah, let's
have a family legend genre. The memoir genre has kind
of waned over the years, so it's time for a
new one.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And just a few more questions for our special guest,
Homer Hiccum about your mom? Why was she so lovable?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Well, I don't know if she was lovable. I think
she was a pretty difficult woman actually, And some of
the reviewers that have read this book said, you know,
I didn't like Elsie when I started reading about it,
because she is obviously not in love with Homer, and
Homer is so much in love with her. But as
we see, as we go along, both of these characters,
my parents, they develop, and we see why Homer loves
(11:57):
Elsie so much. She can independent woman, she's a press woman.
No matter what is offered to her, she says, Oh,
I always wanted to do that. Whether it's being a nurse,
or a writer, or a boarding house manager, or playing
Jane in a Tarzan movie. She says, I always wanted
to do that. And so Homer comes to admire her
for who she is, and gradually Homer's client strength makes
(12:22):
her realize what kind of man that she has, and
all that is really shown and comes to the forward
from the great nineteen thirty five hurricane that hit the
Florida Keys when they were there, and so we all built,
we build up to that climactic moment of the great
hurricane and then all that came after that.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Homer, we are so thankful to have you on this
success made to Last show. There is a beautiful tone
of encouragement with all of your words, and it's truly
a gift to us. I'll let you have the final word.
Why should families continue to tell a family legends to
their future generations?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh, it's just so important. We don't do it enough anymore.
We don't sit around the kitchen table and tell stories
about our families. And that's a real shame because people
who don't know where they came from or who their
families are. They lose their moorings, they lose their underpinnings,
and so the young people really want to know who
(13:24):
their parents were, how they met, any adventures they had
when their kids, even though they claim they don't, they
really desperately want to know that and their grandparents to
So it's really incumbent on the adults in the family
to spin these yarns, tell these stories so that kids
know who they are and carrying albertame, I think especially
for people who are in love or perhaps already married.
(13:49):
Believe me, the great gifts from one to the other,
because carrying Albert home will tell the story of how
love endures no matter what travails come into the lives
of the people who love each other. So ultimately it
is a story of love and adventure, but hostly love.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Well. Thanks again, Homer, it was great to have you
on our success made the last. Please join us again
for another show that was author Homer Hickham. We appreciate
him being on today's program and look forward to talking
to him in the near future. I'm Rick Tocchini. As
we always say here, keep talking, but listen more intently.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
This is Marcus Aurelius reappearing to proclaim that truly significant
conversations with big hearted people is a rare piece of literature.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
This book reminds me of one of my more stirring quotes,
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be be one. If you're stepping into your next life
chapter of your career and questioning what lies beyond success,
this book is for you. Dive into forty soul stirring
(15:20):
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Emily Chang, stories that urge you to pursue purpose, serve others,
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(15:43):
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(16:04):
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be truly significant
Welcome back to success, made the last. I'm Rick Tokeeni.
We appreciate you joining on our Legends show. And today
we have one of our favorite authors, Homer Hickham. He
wrote Rocket Boys, Colewood book series and Carrying Albert Holme. Homer,
welcome back to our success made the last show.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, Rick, thanks for having me. It's always great to
talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Would you be so kind to tell us about your
most intriguing career drink well.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm probably best known for writing that book Rocket Boys.
They made the movie October Sky based on it. I've
written a lot of let's see carry Albert Holmes now
up to eighteen books, so most of them have been
national bestsellers, and I'm very proud of that. And my
(01:00):
first book. By the way, let me announce that this
is a world premier announcement that the very first book
I ever wrote was Torpedo Junction, was about the U
boat wars up and down the East Coaster or in
World War Two. It has now been optioned for a
major motion picture, just out of the Blue, that was
published back in nineteen eighty nine. And we think that
Carrying Albert Home probably has some Hollywood aspects about it
(01:23):
as well, so we anticipate maybe getting a little action
out there.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Homer, that is great. Congratulations. I've got to ask you,
are you now helping to coach screenwriters so that your
original narrative is told with great authenticity, especially in feature films.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah. I mean they've actually hired me to help write
the screenplay for Torpedo Junction for Rocket Boys that became
October Sky not so much. I had a battle royal
with Universal Studios about changing that book into a movie.
I won some battle, I lost some battles. Ultimately, the
(02:02):
book is so much better than the movie, but the
movie's good, and so that's the way that works. With
Carrying Albert Home. I will probably put it in my
contract that I'll have a little bit of input to
that one. So it really kind of just varies in
some cases when it's a book about it's a total
fiction book. If I've got a number of those options,
(02:24):
they haven't made it to green light yet, but I
don't care if you're fiction. But in the case of
Rocky Boys, that was a memoir and Carrying Albert Home
is a somewhat true story of a man, his wife
and her alligator and that man and his wife happened
to be my parents before they were my parents, so
naturally I have an interest in that.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Homer, you know that we love your storytelling. And as
a compliment, over the course of your many books, is
it possible that you're getting better as a storyteller?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Well, thank you. Of course, all West Virginians we tend
to be pretty good storytellers, I can tell you. And
then dot dot dot he meets a serial killer, just
to give you a little bit more intriguing there. But anyway,
the let me give you some bick background on this.
The reason that I ended up writing this novel was
(03:16):
that after the movie Ol Cobra Sky came out, I
thought my parents were horribly misrepresented in that movie. My
dad was presented as this the dour harsh fellow, and
my mom presented as a whimp and nothing less truthful
about them. So I used to go out when I
gave speeches, I would always tell him the story of
Albert the Alligator. How my mom when my dad asked
(03:38):
her to Marian back in nineteen twenty nine, and she said, heck, no,
I'm going to Florida. I'm going to get away from you.
I'm going to go live with my rich uncle Aubrey.
And I've seen pictures of rich uncle Aubrey. He's standing
in front of his trailer, was kind of a dead
palm tree behind it. But nevertheless, she headed down to
Orlando and working a diner down there, she met a
young man whose parents owned the dance studio in Orlando,
(04:03):
and his name was Buddy Enson. He later became Uncle
Jed at the Beverly Hillbilly and a lot of other
He was a pretty famous Hollywood actor. They fell in love.
They were going to get married, but Buddy was called
up to New York and all of a sudden he
was on his way to Hollywood and my mom. After
a while before she was my Mom figured out that
(04:23):
Buddy wasn't coming back. She went back to West Virginia.
One thing or the other happened, and she ended up
marrying my father, Homer Hickham Senior. Buddy sent her as
a wedding gift a baby alligator and with it a
love note that said, to remind you forever of our
time in Florida. Loved Buddy well. Mom raised that this true,
(04:45):
that part is true, absolutely true. That she raised that
alligator in the bathtub until he got so big at
chased Dad outside and he said, all right, Elsie has
either me or this alligator. And after giving in a
few days of thinking it over, she said, all right,
but we have to carry out Albert home. And so
this began the thousand mile journey to Orlando through Key West.
(05:05):
Geography was at their strong suit that I tell the tale.
It's a family legend about all the things that happened
to them along the way, including meeting John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway,
goes fighting, joining the Albert actually joins the Coast Guard.
They do have the thunder road thing happen. They are
(05:26):
in a Tarzan movie down in Silver Spring, Florida. They
endure the worst hurricane in Florida ever, nineteen thirty five hurricane.
And so there are a lot of things that happen.
Folks that read this, they just they have a lot
of laughs along the way, and there's also a few tears,
especially at the end. So I hope that folks are
really going to like this family legend. I'm starting a
(05:48):
new genre. It's called family legend genre. So we'll see
what happened.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Do you think in contemporary times that marriages like your dad,
Homer Senior and your mom Elsie would last today.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Probably not. And this is one of the reasons why
I think all Mary couple should read this book. This
book will tell you how it was that my parents,
Homer and Elsie Hickhams, stayed together for over sixty years,
even though they never agreed on anything. So I'd like
(06:23):
to say the story of how they carried Albert home
is the It is more than this fanciful tale of
adventure put all together. When I put it all together,
and these are from the stories they told me. It's
their testimony to what's Heaven's greatest and perhaps the only
true gift, that strange and marvelous emotion we inadequately call love.
(06:44):
I'm just reading from the back cover here, so yes,
it's a love story. It's an adventure story, it's an
animal story. It's a fun story. But also it has
a lot of meaning to it too.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Do you think that readers will like Albert? And if yes,
what makes that alligator so likable?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Everybody's going to love Albert. It's really funny that we
have now fifteen international publishers of Albert. That's more than
Rocket boys after twenty years and some of the comments where, well,
when I started this, I didn't think, you know, why
would I want to read about this reptile. Well, in fact,
everybody falls in love with Albert. He's a cute little alligator.
(07:24):
He's got a big grin on his face all the time.
He says hey, yeah, yeah all the time when he's
excited and happy, and no, no, no when he's not.
And he hangs his head out of the car as
they make this thousand mile journey. And he has, for
no apparent the reason a rooster that likes Albert, and
Albert likes him, and so the rooster has joined him
(07:44):
in the backseat. The rooster keeps it appearing and disappearing.
We don't really know why the rooster is on this
journey or what it's about. That's going to be something
that the book clubs are going to argue about, is
why is the rooster on this journey? And who is he?
I have my belief, but some people say is an angel?
Some people say, hope, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Your interaction with other authors reminds me of Midnight in Paris.
Why did you happen to choose John steinback and Ernest Hemingway.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, Steinbeck is my favorite author other than I don't
know my faff but just kidding. But I will say
that you've got to realize that this story, though it's
a somewhat true story, actually is based on the stories
that my parents told me, and they told me that
they met Steinbeck, and they met him anyway, So I've
(08:40):
just flashed out their story. And you to remember they're
traveling in the midst of a depression, the Great Depression,
in nineteen thirty five, and Steinbeck is out on the road.
If though you'll look up his history, you'll find he
indeed was out on the road in the South at
that time. So it's very possible that my parents did
indeed meet him as they said that they did. Also Hemingway,
(09:04):
I have a picture of my mother in Hemingway's garden
in nineteen thirty five, and they said that they had
met him down there. So it's a somewhat true story.
That's why it's a novel. It's going to be in
the fiction shell, not the nonfiction shells. But in fact,
this is a family legend based upon the stories that
(09:27):
I was told, and then I just enlarged upon it,
and I'd like to say it's all true except the
parts that are not, and they're true too, because family
legends have a purpose. There's always something behind these the
grand and sometimes fantastic tales that are told by folks
(09:48):
within the family that have great meaning. And it's one
of the I really encourage all families do not lose
their family legends, to tell them over and over again
so the people actually know who they are and what
your family's really like.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Homer, I think that you are onto something huge for
the publishing industry when it comes to family legends.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah. I really do recope that I'm starting a new
genre here with family legends. You know, I teach in
a training class through my church, the Methodist Church here
in Huntsville, and I have so many people come to
me that have these memoirs that they want to write,
stories that they want to write about their family, but
(10:32):
they get so hung up on the truth, the absolute truth,
and it's like, no, never let the truth get in
a way of a good story. And family legends allows
you to tell a story about real people that maybe
seem a little bit fantastic the way that they were
told to you, and that it's okay to enlarge on
the truth as long as the kernel of truth is
(10:53):
in there, and it makes for an interesting story. And
now Albert Albert was actually carried home, and my mom
really did have this alligator given to her by Buddy Ebsen,
So all of that is true. But then I get
to spin. I get to spin a great tale and
and make it a little bit fly and a lot
(11:14):
funny in the process they're telling it. So yeah, let's
have a family legend genre. The memoir genre has kind
of waned over the years, so it's time for a
new one.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And just a few more questions for our special guest,
Homer Hiccum about your mom? Why was she so lovable?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Well, I don't know if she was lovable. I think
she was a pretty difficult woman actually, And some of
the reviewers that have read this book said, you know,
I didn't like Elsie when I started reading about it,
because she is obviously not in love with Homer, and
Homer is so much in love with her. But as
we see, as we go along, both of these characters,
my parents, they develop, and we see why Homer loves
(11:57):
Elsie so much. She can independent woman, she's a press woman.
No matter what is offered to her, she says, Oh,
I always wanted to do that. Whether it's being a nurse,
or a writer, or a boarding house manager, or playing
Jane in a Tarzan movie. She says, I always wanted
to do that. And so Homer comes to admire her
for who she is, and gradually Homer's client strength makes
(12:22):
her realize what kind of man that she has, and
all that is really shown and comes to the forward
from the great nineteen thirty five hurricane that hit the
Florida Keys when they were there, and so we all built,
we build up to that climactic moment of the great
hurricane and then all that came after that.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Homer, we are so thankful to have you on this
success made to Last show. There is a beautiful tone
of encouragement with all of your words, and it's truly
a gift to us. I'll let you have the final word.
Why should families continue to tell a family legends to
their future generations?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh, it's just so important. We don't do it enough anymore.
We don't sit around the kitchen table and tell stories
about our families. And that's a real shame because people
who don't know where they came from or who their
families are. They lose their moorings, they lose their underpinnings,
and so the young people really want to know who
(13:24):
their parents were, how they met, any adventures they had
when their kids, even though they claim they don't, they
really desperately want to know that and their grandparents to
So it's really incumbent on the adults in the family
to spin these yarns, tell these stories so that kids
know who they are and carrying albertame, I think especially
for people who are in love or perhaps already married.
(13:49):
Believe me, the great gifts from one to the other,
because carrying Albert home will tell the story of how
love endures no matter what travails come into the lives
of the people who love each other. So ultimately it
is a story of love and adventure, but hostly love.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Well. Thanks again, Homer, it was great to have you
on our success made the last. Please join us again
for another show that was author Homer Hickham. We appreciate
him being on today's program and look forward to talking
to him in the near future. I'm Rick Tocchini. As
we always say here, keep talking, but listen more intently.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
This is Marcus Aurelius reappearing to proclaim that truly significant
conversations with big hearted people is a rare piece of literature.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
This book reminds me of one of my more stirring quotes,
waste no more time arguing what a good man should
be be one. If you're stepping into your next life
chapter of your career and questioning what lies beyond success,
this book is for you. Dive into forty soul stirring
(15:20):
stories from luminaries like doctor Jane Goodall, ed Asner, and
Emily Chang, stories that urge you to pursue purpose, serve others,
and build a legacy that outlasts you. Authored by Rick Tolkini,
Truly Significant will challenge your view of success and ignite
(15:43):
a life of impact. Order now at TinyURL dot com,
backslash truly Significant and begin living intentionally. Maybe your epitaph
will read she gave outrageously extended grace unceasingly and lived
(16:04):
to help others so that death found her empty. Visit
truly significant dot com and celebrate the most truly significant
people in your life with the truly Significant community. How
bold of you to make your next chapter matter and
be truly significant
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