I met Mark “Tiger” Edmonds about two years ago at the Waffle House on State Road 52, just west of Interstate 75.

At the time, Edmonds was still teaching English at Saint Leo University and his third book, “Hard Scrabble,” an inspiring non-fiction work about his long friendship with Nancy Pacey, who died of cancer in 2002, had been published by Livingston Press at The University of West Alabama.

After a long talk, we spoke on the Waffle House sidewalk while he smoked two Winstons. Digesting a lunch of eggs with grits, sausage, bacon and coffee, he pointed to fenced-off land surrounding the restaurant where in bygone days he had spent long hours hunting quail.

Like many of his beloved hunting grounds in Pasco County, the tract was no longer accessible. In the fourth installment of Pithy Pasco Reflections, Edmonds, who also pens and reads one-page riffs of scathing social commentary he calls “The Curmudgeon Chronicles” for an Orlando radio station, laments that loss, among other things.

For information about Edmonds and his work, visit http://www.drmarktigeredmonds.com.