"There is no easy life."

The giant acorns under the chestnut oak trees at Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville, Ala., remind Rachel Williams-Smith of how her family collected them and attempted to make something edible during the year they camped there in a converted school bus. The cliffs behind Monte Sano Lodge are where the family took refuge during the tornado of April 1974. And Williams-Smith smiles when she sees a line of ants marching along.

"The ants were my friends," Williams-Smith said this week, as she gazed at the wooded lot around the Lodge. "I didn't have much else to do - our main curriculum was, as my mother put it, 'Bible and survival.'"

Williams-Smith is chair of the Department of Communication at Andrews University and recently published a book, "Born Yesterday," a telling of the story of her growing up years. 

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