Lawrence Gulley releases new book, "Sweet Liberty: If God Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us"

Many of you in the reading audience will remember reading in this space last week about the Oct. 16, 1973 incident in which two police officers and a police dispatcher reported seeing a UFO over Evergreen. This incident was major news at the time and was reported by news outlets across the country. In fact, Evergreen residents in California said they saw it on the news way out on the West Coast.

Not long after last week’s newspaper hit the streets, I received a call at the office from a woman who was living in Montgomery in October 1973. She said that her parents lived in an old house in Evergreen at the time, and they were in bed at the time of the UFO sighting, which happened around midnight. Her parents said that they were awoken by the sound of an old hallway phone, which wasn’t ringing. Instead, it was making a weird, pulsing noise.

The couple got up to check on the phone, but it quit making the weird noise about the time that they got to it. They had no idea that police officers across town were witnessing a UFO behind city hall. Only after they saw the news reports about the incident did it occur to them that the phone incident occurred at the same time the officers were seeing the UFO.

The woman who told me this story last Thursday asked me not to use her name, but when she read the UFO story in the paper, she felt compelled to share the unusual phone story with the paper. I’m glad she did, and it makes me wonder if anyone else out there in the reading audience remembers anything unusual about that night. If so, please call me and let me know, so we can complete the picture of events that night.

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Noted author Lawrence Gulley of Excel, over in Monroe County, visited Evergreen on Friday morning to announce the publication of his new book, “Sweet Liberty: If God Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us.” Released on Sept. 30 by Icebox Publishing, this 202-page book is about the American Revolutionary War. I believe that Lawrence said that this is his seventh book and if “Sweet Liberty” is as good as his previous books, readers have a lot to look forward to. If you’re interested in buying a copy, Lawrence encourages you to search for it on Amazon.

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Next week’s edition of The Courant will be dated for Oct. 29, and it will be the last paper before Halloween. With that said, in next week’s paper I’ll be running our annual list of spookiest places in Conecuh County. The more that I explore Conecuh County, the more I realize that there’s a lot that I haven’t seen out there. No doubt there are also a lot of “spooky” places in the county that I’m unaware of.

If you know of a good spooky location and the spooky story behind it, let me hear from you. I’d like the opportunity to add it to the list and maybe check it out in person at some point.

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The fourth week of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em contest wrapped up on Saturday night, and the aftermath of this weekend’s slate of games caused another shake up in our local standings.

After the final seconds ticked off the clock in the last game on Saturday, we found that we had a four-way tie for first place in the local standings. Those tied for first place included Austin Weaver, John Johnston, Justin Mixon and Casey Grant. Robert Bozeman was in sole possession of fifth place.

We had a three-way tie for sixth place between myself, Arthur Ingram III and Steve Stacey. Jesse Jordan and Vanessa Sales were tied for ninth place while Tristan McPhaul, Brett Loftin, Clint Hyde, Mark Cotten and Josh Dutton were all tied for 11^th place.

If you’re competing in this contest and didn’t do so hot over the weekend, don’t sweat it. We’ve got seven more weeks to go and a lot can (and will) change over the course of the next two months. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

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The fourth weekend of the SEC football season also closed out on Saturday, and fans were treated to some upsets and a few surprises. For example, No. 2-ranked Alabama beat No. 3 Georgia by a whopping 17 points. Unranked Kentucky beat No. 14 Tennessee by 27 points, and unranked South Carolina upset No. 13 Auburn.

This week, we’ve only got three SEC games lined up for this Saturday: Alabama at Tennessee, Auburn at Ole Miss and South Carolina at LSU. For what it’s worth, here are my predictions for that slate of games.

I like Alabama over Tennessee, Auburn over Ole Miss and LSU over South Carolina. (Last week: 2-3. So far this season: 17-9)

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Also of note over the weekend, former Hillcrest High School football standout Cam Riley, who is now a freshman at Auburn, made his first official start at linebacker for the Tigers. Auburn opened its game against South Carolina with a three-linebacker look, and Cam was one of the three linebackers on the field for Auburn. Cam’s got a long college career ahead of him, and I’ve got a feeling that in four or five more years, I’ll be sitting here at The Courant typing about his first NFL start. Between now and then, we’ve got a lot of good football left in front of us as Cam continues to represent Conecuh County in fine fashion.

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The Atlanta Braves went down in flames in Sunday night’s National League Championship Series, falling by one run to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Atlanta had a good season and got off to a great start in the NLCS, but they just couldn’t hold on against the Dodgers.

Los Angeles will face the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series, which was scheduled to begin on Tuesday. The World Series is a best-of-seven series, and if it goes to seven games, Game Seven will be played on Wed., Oct. 28. All of those games will be broadcast by FOX.