This week we got very good news from the CT-scans – no growth in the tumors and no spread of the cancer. Combined with the good downturn in the CA-19/9 numbers and our desire to squeeze every bit of happiness out of life, Dr. Robin agreed to give us the week off chemo. We were hosting an Ethnogs reunion/festschrift preview on Saturday night and I needed to be my “full Dr. Bud self” for it. Or at least as “full Dr. Bud self” as I can be these days.

Between that good news from Dr. Robin and the festivities on Saturday night, I had one other task to complete. I promised to write the Foreword to Robin Boylorn’s first book,Sweetwater, which is her autoethnographic account of African-American women in a rural southern community. This project is close to my heart, as I “discovered” Robin back when she was an undergrad at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I also directed her master’s thesis (the beginnings of this book) and served as the outside member of her dissertation committee at The University of South Florida (where she honed the theory and polished the narrative). Robin is now an assistant professor of communication at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, an award-winning writer and poet, and now a soon-to-be author of this fine book.

Writing a good foreword – by which I mean one that actually gets read – is never easy. In this case it was a little harder given that chemo brain sometimes makes focusing on a task somewhat difficult. Or I forget what I’ve just read or what I’ve written. Sigh. But I was determined to get this one right, so for three days I labored to write a mere 3000 words. But in the end I think I got it right. I only know that Robin and her editor, Mary Weems, seem pleased with it.

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