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there was a lot of hype which was brought about by the “Serendipity Dawgs,” that won seven games. Many fans drove the 1,487 miles from Athens to El Paso. (1,416 miles from Atlanta).

Throughout South Georgia, Fred Barber’s legend is intact—from Friday night lights to pharmacist to outdoorsman. When he showed up in Blackshear in 1972 in a pickup truck, naturally, with his two bird dogs, Tom Cotton and Lard beside him, naturally, and hung out his shingle, he noticed that to enter Pearce County you had to cross a creek or river. He almost broke out into song, “Home Sweet Home.”

The good life, with a little enterprise and energy, is often at our fingertips. Fred Barber worked seven days a week, most of his life. He would open his pharmacy before and after church in order for the sanctuary folk’s convenience.

His days off were spent in the woods, fields and streams, but he also took in duck hunting trips to Arkansas and hunted dove in South America. Indeerseason, he could bring down a 12-point buck and field dress it in a matter of minutes.

Not sure who Ed Dodd had in mind when he created the comic strip character Mark Trail many years ago, but there is no question— if he had come along a few years earlier, Fred would have been perfect for the part. I enjoyed watching Fred Barber run the football, and I have enjoyed a few quail hunting trips with him over the years.

He was the consummate fullback in the old full house backfield formation, and he was the consummate outdoorsman.