a normal child’s foot. Two tiny flags of skin that flapped and waved next to the normal-sized pinky toe affixed to the boy’s right foot. As the story was goes, the doctor offered to snip off the excess flesh after cutting the umbilical cord, but Seven’s mother nearly stood up in the delivery room and voiced her formal grievance against any defacing of her perfect child. Gilbert Andrews Jr. was always known as Seven. A nod to the seven appendages that adorned his right foot.
The Colonel and Gran were the only parents that Seven had ever known. Jennifer Denise Andrews, Seven’s mother, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor shortly after Seven’s birth. His father had been killed in a traffic accident two months prior to his birth. Gilbert “Seven” Andrews Jr. was remanded to the custody of his maternal grandparents, Jessup and Patricia Ann Flowers. Patty wept as she walked up the aged, wooden steps to the two-story traditional farmhouse just outside the city limits of Thomasville, Georgia. In her arms was the swaddled crying boy that was now all that remained of her only daughter. The Colonel was overseas when his daughter was born. It was easy being the father who buzzed in and out of her life. Bring some gifts home, tell some stories, share some ice cream, and he was out the door to fight another war in a faraway land. That was easy, but now he was home full-time with a crying baby boy. The thought of raising a child scared him more than any rifle, missile, or explosive launched in his direction.
Seven Andrews grew up in the home of a legend. The Colonel was everything to him. The old black-and-white photos of his time in the service coupled with the larger-than-life stories hypnotized Seven and built the image of his grandfather into an unequaled giant. Seven closed his eyes every night dreaming of one day flying a mighty war bird like the Colonel. Swooping in a dangerous canopy and flawlessly and gently sitting the mighty machine down like an eagle coming to rest. Sitting in the cockpit adjusting the power to the blades as the foot soldiers bolted out of the large side door and scurried off to meet the enemy. The stories of the Colonel’s time in the Vietnam conflict were better than any sports