BEYOND OUR DOMAIN
Give Me a Large Order of Sun, Hold the Surf: A Trip to St. George Island’s Coast Won’t Be ‘Forgotten’
by Puppy Stout Editor’s Note: Puppy Stout is a weekly doggie columnist for Williamson A.M./Tennessean. His mom, Vicki Stout, is also a writer and a photographer and serves as Travel Editor for Southern Exposure Magazine. He shares her passion for travel. This is Puppy’s account of a recent trip to St. George Island, Fla.
By Puppy Stout
Oh, dog. I’ve just been to the beach for the very first time, and I can tell you straight up, I loved it. Mom and I, and my human sister, E, and her dog, Little Bit, spent a week on St. George Island in Florida.
It’s a long ride in the car to St. George – something that suits me to a T. Mom, not so much. She whined most of the way there about how long it was taking. Not Bit or me, though. Any time we tired of looking out the window, we just stretched out in the back seat and napped.
We stayed in a great beach house named Latitude 29. It wasn’t fancy, but oh, was it comfy. And we could see the Gulf of Mexico from our windows, our deck and our screened porch. Oh, dog, I loved that screened porch. It was so cool and breezy. Bit and I ate most of our meals there. Mom said we were dining al fresco.
Sun & Surf
Anyway, let’s get to the exciting part: going to the beach! Mom had shown me photos, but I didn’t “get it” until we hit the sand. That sand was so deep at first that it was a bit tough to walk in, honestly. When we got down to the water’s edge, the sand was easier to walk on, but – embarrassing as it is to admit – I was a bit afraid of the water.
It was loud to me, though Mom said the Gulf is gentle compared to, say, the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans. Well how would I know, since I’ve never been?
And the water kept rushing at me. What’s up with that? There’s a creek in my neighborhood (well, when it rains), and I am all about playing in it. This water is a different deal. It moves all the time. And I’ll tell you right now, you sure don’t want to drink it. Yuck. It tastes awful.
Most of the dogs we met that first day on the beach were in the water playing with their parents. Mom kept trying to get me in the water too.
No go.
Truthfully, the whole week there, I never got in above my ankles.
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BEHIND EVERY GREAT SONG
Mr. Chapman’s Wild Ride: It’s been a long and winding Road for Gary Chapman, but a new hymn project and an NFL social network are giving the acclaimed singer/songwriter new purpose.
by Will Jordan “It’s been a really, really wild ride the past few years,” Gary Chapman says, shaking his head in disbelief. Over the past three years Chapman lost his father to cancer, was sued by business partners, started a new business venture, created a gospel Web site and got married. “It’s as if I get to start all over…like I get another crack at it.”
The Long and Winding Road
Chapman grew up the son of Terry Chapman, an Assemblies of God Pastor in DeLeon, Texas, and through the church, fell right into the world of music at a young age.
“I grew up a preacher’s kid and always had music around me,” he recalls. “I started playing when I was six and never thought about doing anything else…except maybe preaching.”
He learned the guitar first, then bass guitar and pedal steel.
“Whatever got in my way, I figured a way to play it,” he says.
Chapman was in a handful of bands throughout high school and college, and in 1977, he moved to Nashville for his first music job, as a pedal steel player for bluegrass gospel group The Downings.
“It was a bad situation, and I only played with them for a few months,” Chapman says. “I was determined not to go home with my tail between my legs, but my father finally talked me into returning home, after seeing how unhappy I was.”
Chapman returned to Texas and attended Bible college at Southwestern Assemblies of God in Waxahachie, Texas. After college, Chapman got a call from gospel group The Rambos, whose guitar player, Brent Rowan, was quitting the group to become a session player. Chapman was invited to fill his shoes.
“I was with them for a year and a half. Dottie Rambo taught me how to write a song. I had never tried it before, but I was always the kid who could finish dirty rhymes faster than anyone else,” he recalls with a laugh.
One evening Dottie Rambo asked him to perform one of his songs on stage during a Rambos show. He sang a song he had written called “My Father’s Eyes” and received a standing ovation.
“She never asked me to sing again,” he says, laughing. “But she was totally supportive of me being a songwriter; and soon thereafter, I quit the band and started trying my hand at it.”
“’My Father’s Eyes’ was the first song I ever wrote and it introduced me to Amy [Grant], who recorded the song,” he says. Grant and Chapman married not too long after their introduction, and “My Father’s Eyes” became the title track for Grant’s second album. Other hits followed.
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SHELFLIFE
by J.T. Landry
SUMMER READING 2011
Lots of Williamson Countians will be hitting pools near and beaches far for some well-deserved R ’n R this summer, and in the order of packing essentials, a good book comes right after sunscreen. We’re spotlighting two titles – very different from each other – that could be just what you need to while away those hours in the sun.
WHEN WILL MY LIFE NOT SUCK?
When will my life not suck? How many of us – if we are being honest – have asked ourselves that question at some point or another? Ramon Presson M.S. understands. He understands, not because he’s been a clinically certified marriage and family therapist for over twenty years. He understands because he has been there himself. Presson, who is the founder of LifeChange Counseling and the Marriage Center of Franklin and lives in Thompson Station with his wife and two sons, recently spoke with us about his new book.
Let's start with the book's unconventional title. To me it sends a signal that you're not going to dance around any issues. That you are prepared to dig in and get to the heart of a person’s struggle and how to overcome that. It's very forthright and truthful.
Was that your thinking in naming the book? If not, what's the story behind that title?
The title comes from the true story of what a woman blurted out in a Brentwood women’s Bible study when she said: “This study of the Israelites crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land is all really interesting, but I have a question – when will my life not suck?” I think the lady asked a raw, honest question that really cuts to the core of many people’s struggles. The title also reflects the authenticity with which I’ve sought to address our battles with problems and suffering.
You speak of your own experiences with depression in the book. What is it about your own experience that inspired you to help others? Were you a therapist or did you want to be a therapist before you experienced depression?
I’ve been a therapist for 25 years and was always quite content to just understand depression professionally. But several years ago I got acquainted with severe depression up close and personal. I receive a lot of referrals to counsel people battling the monster, not so much because of the degrees I have on the wall, but because people have heard I understand it and lived to tell about it. Honestly, it was humiliating to be a therapist so completely immobilized by depression and anxiety that I couldn’t work. But I underestimated people’s grace and support. I’ve sought to recycle the pain and redeem the nightmare of it by helping others through it. I’ve been fully recovered for years, but I haven’t forgotten what I came from. I’ll never forget.
THE BANKER’S GREED
You may know T. Randy Stevens as the Chairman of the Board and CEO of First Farmers & Merchants Bank, where he has worked for over 38 years. But what you may not know is that Mr. Stevens is a budding author. “The Banker’s Greed,” which Stevens co-wrote with award-winning author p.m. Terrell, is a page-turner ready-made to send hours in the sun flying by. But before you hit the beach with this thriller, Stevens was gracious enough to give us some insight into his newfound career. Check out our conversation below.
Where did the idea for the story come from?
“The Banker’s Greed” is about a family’s anguish over the kidnapping of a young woman – apparently orchestrated by her banker father. I’ve always thought that would be a difficult predicament, especially given the world in which we’re living, when common sense and decency many times seem to have given over to greed. I wanted to explore the emotions that accompany both betrayal and greed that could drive someone to kidnap another person.
The idea for the book actually began in my early days at First Farmers & Merchants Bank, when the FBI lead a seminar for our employees – as they do at any bank who seeks it – about how we could protect ourselves and our families from being a target of an extortionist or kidnapper. It made a huge impact on me, and after all these years, it (became) the focal point of the suspense/thriller.
How did you get connected with author p.m. Terrell?
p.m. has published twelve books, in genres ranging from suspense/thrillers, to historical, to how-to books. Her 11th book, River Passage, won a 2010 Best Fiction and Drama Award. Having read all of her suspense/thrillers, I knew a good bit about her when I finally met her three years ago when she was in Columbia on a book tour. She actually has family in this area and was aware of First Farmers. At that time, while working on her 10th book, Exit 22, she asked me to serve as a technical advisor about bank fraud, and we enjoyed the collaboration. I knew then that if I ever teamed up with an author on a book, it would be her.
How does your writing partnership work?
The physical distance between us has not been a challenge, even though she’s in North Carolina and I’m here in Middle Tennessee. I usually would write early in the morning and then email the work to her. She would spend the day adding in her “magic,” working and re-working my copy, and would send it back to me. For several days, we’d work through changes – emailing back and forth. Of course, even after the book was basically done, we went back through and re-worked parts of the manuscript a number of times. It was an incredibly meticulous process, but very satisfying in that, now, we have a book that holds together so well and is truly an intriguing read.
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