The White Buck of the Smokies — David Feist

I will never forget the range of emotions Joe and I went through Joe's senior year of high school. For nine months the two of us hardly did anything at all with the Explorer Post that Dad led. What's more, Joe even risked his career path, in a way. Instead of visiting schools of higher learning that autumn, Joe put all his energies toward doing something for “River Hayes,” an eight year old friend of ours who had been diagnosed with leukemia. River's case was very “touch and go”, and personally I have never been through so many highs and lows- myself- in so short a time. But with River's case worsening it was then or never -to try to make River's one dream come true. Our story begins after school at the barber shop in our lovely one-horse town of Townsend, Tennessee.