Arnold Heflin

All I ever wanted to do when I growing up in Birmingham, Alabama was play ball and please my mama. I wrote her a poem when I was seven: "We got you something sweet to lay at your pretty feet on this Sunday in May we love you everyday."

I graduated from Auburn University in 1961 with a BA degree in Journalism/English. I had three offers from large southern newspapers and the highest monthly salary was two-hundred dollars a month. That was the end of my journalism career.

Thirty-years later, I met a ninety-three-year old blind woman in a nursing home. She lost her sight at four-months old. I began to see her weekly. The first sentence of my story is: "I saw my friend, Hettie Keller, every Saturday for four-years, but she never saw me."

A week before she died she said, "Arnold, I don't have long now."

I was stunned. I said, "I sure am going to miss you. Do me a favor? When you get to heaven help me get there too."

She wiggled her right forefinger. She always made that gesture because she wanted me to lean down and hear her words of wisdom. I lowered my head and she said, "Who do you think I am, Houdini?" Then she said, "Please do me a favor. Write a story about us and tell people about the maxims I gave you."

Three years earlier she told me, "Being blind has some distinct advantages."

"Like what?" I said.

"I've never had the distractions that people with sight have had and I have spent all of my life with my own thoughts. I've distilled the best I've leaned about what brings you peace and happiness to thirty words. I'm going to give you ten maxims of three words each and if you practice them I promise you a life of peace and happiness." She was right.

Please read some of my reviews to see how the story changes lives for the better. A final note. My friend, Hettie, received a special award from Harvard in 1927. She played eight musical instruments, taught Braille, had five guide dogs over a period of fifty years, and was married to a blind man for thirty-seven years.

Here is a front page article of the Bartow Neighbor Newspaper of Cartersville, GA :

Arnold Heflin book signing at Spring Place Pottery

by Monica Burge November 27, 2012 03:29 PM | 297 views | 0 | 15 | |

The public will have the chance to meet local author Arnold Heflin Saturday.

Although Arnold Heflin and Hettie Keller came from starkly different backgrounds, the bond that blossomed between the pair bore the hallmark of true friendship.

Heflin, who had a successful career in commercial real estate in metro Atlanta, met Keller in 1993 while volunteering at an area nursing home.

The 93-year-old Keller was born in a Georgia cotton field in 1899 and in spite of her handicap had led a full life from which she gleaned pearls of wisdom.

Over the course of four years, up until Keller's death, Heflin said he learned valuable lessons from his friend that changed his life for the better. Heflin said from day one, Keller set out to teach him. "She said, 'Over the course of our relationship I will give you 10 maxims of three words each and if you practice them I promise you a life of peace and happiness,'" Heflin said. "These maxims are life-changing."

Heflin said after Keller gave him the maxims she told him to compile them in a book and share them with others.

Heflin wrote the book, "Mockingbird's SONG: Hettie Keller's 10 Maxims for Peace and Happiness" and is proud to share his friend and her wisdom with others.

"This book was a challenge from Hettie and a deathbed promise that I made to her that I would write a story about us," Heflin said.

The public will get the opportunity to meet Heflin and get copies of his book during "An Afternoon with Arnold" at Spring Place Pottery in downtown Cartersville at 15 E. Main St., Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m.

Heflin's book also is available through www.MockingbirdsSong.com and Amazon.com.

Sponsored by Spring Place and the Northwest Georgia Women's Expo, the book signing also will provide refreshments.