FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) – part 30B
Dear Reader Friends:
A very Merry Christmas to all of you and the happiest of New Years. Thanks for traveling along with us.
In 2023, and I look forward to many, many more journeys together in 2024. We appreciate every reader, every one of you!
We are taking a break here for a moment before Chapter/Part 31 of our memoir/novel to give you some added insight into this work and story. We started telling this story right here in the Ellis County Press in February, and we are thirty chapters in, at the moment.
You have noted that it runs here in the “Inspiration” section of the paper, sitting right above our church of Christ in Red Oak ad, the church we attend and with whom we work in our “day” job. There are many, many scripture-based topics to write about, for sure, but, to me, sometimes it is equally effective to “walk the gospel” as well as tell it.
You understand.
This fifty-year memoir shows God’s hand at work every step of the way. I know we have made that point as we have told the story to “Cheyenne.” Truly, “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord.”
By the way, we should note that, because this work is what probably will be categorized a “fictionalized memoir,” we have changed almost all of the names; and, in the final form of the book one day, they likely will be changed again.
The story, however, is only “fiction” in the sense that you do have to create some scenes that probably happened but not necessarily in the same way. Fifty years require a certain degree of refurbishing just as you would do an old car or building.
If you have tried to categorize this tale, you will have found it is many things. For sure, it is a tragedy, in many ways, but it is also a great comedy – you can thank Doocy for that – and, of course, it is a romance. Doocy even tries to dip his big webbed hand into that, too.
Really, the story is life, in much of its purity and simplicity – and complexity. Truth, still, is stranger than fiction.
An interesting point, too, is that we actually wrote this story in 1989 for my Master’s Thesis at the University of Houston in Clear Lake. I have a big red book in my library, and we told this story in what I call “Big Red.” However, my writing career, as it was then, had just begun in many ways. Our newspaper writing would not begin until 1997; and I think newspaper work refined us as a writer and jarred our mind and memory even more than a hundred college essays.
So, while I occasionally pull Big Red out to look over it, I am retelling the story with fresh eyes and memory. The original work had far too much dialect, for one thing. I wrote it as my great American novel, thinking naively that I might one day take a place beside Twain and Hemingway – well, maybe I still think that and I am giving us all a brand-new look at the old story still with that hope in mind – with many added elements and a much more detailed look, especially, at Mama’s steady and somewhat agonizing decline from a brain tumor.
Perhaps you have noted that the plots of the two remarkable ladies of the novel run parallel.
Regarding becoming a Twain or Hemingway, I really do not have a great desire to be put up on a shelf with those great writers. Time and life change you: My greatest desire, I think, is that as many people in the world as possible will read and story, and be touched by it, maybe even changed by it to a degree. That will be enough.
There is another advantage over this new version of the story over Big Red: the telling of the story to my grandson, a technique suggested to me thirty years ago by an agent in Waco who was considering taking on the book. She compared it to Jimmy Stewart’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” where Stewart returns to the funeral of the man he once knew who shot the outlaw Liberty Valance. There he tells his tale, as we are telling our own.
Bear in mind, too, that our newspaper version is still a first draft of sorts; so the publishing in book form will have significant editing. In the end, perhaps it will rival the Harper Lee’s, perhaps not.
One element that I can say with confidence can rival most any work is the one character, that of Doocy. Doocy is a real man, and his effect on the young man in 1973 was profound, as the book shows.
Still, we are probably the worst critic of our own work; but passion can take you and me further than about anything, and these episodes are as intriguing to us today as it was in 1989 when we first put the pen to the page; and, more, its intrigue and power have not been lessened by half a century.
One more thing: the title. Big Red carries the title of “Pup.” Then after that thesis was published, I began using the working title of “Crossing the Georgia Line,” which I like because the story begins and ends with significant life-changing crossings over the Georgia line. But now, with the book having lain silent for a quarter of a century, I’m thinking of the R&B artist’s “Rainy Night in Georgia,” for that is what the story is in its final analysis. But rain is not always bad. A future publisher will have their own ideas.
I say “future publishers,” and that statement should be followed with “Lord willing.” I have self-published before, but that is not what I want for this work. I want other skillful hands – just the right ones – to guide the story to its most polished form.
Since you good readers are the guinea pigs, feel free to send any thoughts, suggestions, or encouragements: coachbowen1984@gmail.com. Especially good would be to hear your questions along the way. You can be Cheyenne and help move the plot along. We’d love that.
As we get into 2024, we’ll plan on pausing occasionally as we have here with more background information, and reflections. I expect it will take the better part of 2024 to take us to the end. So, grab your hot chocolate and prop your feet up, we’ll be here a while, Lord willing!
God bless!
Coach
(December 25, 2023)
Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.
In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.