The Last Tour

This is a true story of retired music manager Ron Eckerman's last few years of life. Ron was haunted for several years by a recurring nightmare about the date of his death. After his wife left him on their anniversary, he felt that his life was over and he would die alone. He then found true love and happiness through a strange twist of fate with Carolyn, 18 years his junior. He put the fears of his dream behind him and began his new life with his new love. Only a year and a half later, he was suddenly diagnosed with AML, acute myeloid leukemia, a fast growing bone marrow cancer. He was given a poor prognosis and a short life expectancy, and was faced with the possibility of his nightmare becoming a reality.

Written by his wife and caregiver, this is a heartfelt testament of love and sacrifice, and what two people endure when they know they have limited time left together.

Ron Eckerman's career included touring with and managing popular music acts of the 70's including Fleetwood Mac, Humble Pie, Loggins and Messina, Foreigner, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and many others. He was Lynyrd Skynyrd's tour manager during 1976-77 and was a survivor of their plane crash in 1977. He was the author of Turn it Up! Love, Life, and Death, Southern Style, released in 2011 and re-released in his memory in 2014, in which he chronicled his time with the band and described the guilt that he felt for many years because of the deaths of four friends in the crash.

During the most important "tour" of his life - his one year battle with leukemia - he was very close to death several times and bounced back miraculously. The odds were stacked up against him, but he continued to be optimistic and refused to give up hope. Ron and Carolyn learned to find joy in the simple things in life and made the best of being confined to a hospital room for almost a full year. This isn't just a cancer story with a sad ending. It's a story of dreams, destiny, living every second to the fullest, and never giving up hope.