Andrew Jackson fought a duel in rural Logan County, Kentucky. Jesse James robbed a bank there, and frontier lawyers began political careers. But a resentful Al Smith knew none of this when he got off the bus at Russellville, rented a room at a shabby hotel and asked for the nearest bootlegger. After losing two newspaper jobs in New Orleans, he was the new tramp editor of Russellville's little country weekly. He was thirty-one, and his life was in shambles. Fifty sober years later, his stories tell what happened after he was cured of his negative obsessions and discovered Kentucky was a land of the second chance. From county courthouse to the White House, read all about it.
Al Smith began his career in New Orleans in the late 1940s. Struggles with alcoholism got him fired from two New Orleans dailies. He moved to Kentucky, got sober, and built a truly remarkable career in journalism. Smith covered Kentucky politics for the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal and hosted "Comment On Kentucky"? for 33 years.