James Hood

The Old Man Who Danced Naked Around the Flag Pole James Hood

In the year 2,034 James Scott was facing a birthday that would place him in a beyond-forty world with a family lost to divorce and a career that no longer held any meaning. So, he took off for his ancestral home, hoping to find rest and at least a temporary escape from his future. For two days he drove to Kentucky, to be in the bluegrass in the spring. There, without intending to, he became the May houseguest of an old, distant cousin, a retired university history professor, unaware that the eighty-six year old had made him his one last pupil in his last capstone seminar. Spring's waning into summer brought an end to James's sabbatical as the old man wound down his final course, bringing to a close his tales of his own life and of his friends and family when he was his younger cousin's age. This is James's story of homecoming and renewal, of how, in listening to the old man tell of days gone by, time for a moment turned back on itself and he found himself drawing identity and strength from a place and time and people he had never known. He found hope again and maybe even moments of joy. With the oncoming of summer the younger man was back on the road again facing his future head on. James Scott is the penname of the author who lives in the American South.