Two little new books came in the mail. I'll have to take up the one by Stacy Helton of Ringgold later. At the moment, I'm too charmed and beguiled by the one written by my old friend and colleague Furman Bisher (known to me for years as Freeman Fisher) to do anything else except to read and reread, and pat it, and think what a fine fellow the author is.
My children tell me that I'm highly prejudiced about this little book, called "Thankful" (Longstreet Press, $9.95), because I'd read anything written by Furman Bisher, even his sports column. They are right, in a way.
Furman was the first sportswriter I could really read with pleasure, because there used to be a kind of sports lingo that I didn't understand. You can certainly understand Furman, because he writes with a fine regard for precise English and style. I read his column, although I'm totally ignorant of most of the games people play, and I haven't known a baseball player since a retired Cracker named Country Valentine turned county policeman and patrolled my road.
This "Thankful" book you'll love, for yourself and to give away. In his introduction, Furman recalls the Thanksgiving Day column he wrote about things he was not thankful for. I happen to remember that one and the commotion it set off. The backlash, Furman confesses, "was severe . . . and I never did it again."
But because he has sometimes been tempted, he begins his "Thankful" book by admitting to a few "unthankfuls" -- the Atlanta Falcons, for a start.
He continues: "It's hard to hit my tee shot into the lake and be thankful. It's hard to be thankful when your wife is 45 minutes late. It's hard to be thankful when the bug inspector says you've got termites. It's hard to hook a two-pound bass and see him slip off your line and be thankful."
The book is divided into 10 chapters, beginning with "Home and Hearth" and ending with ---naturally ---"The Sporting Side." He covers "Life on the Road," on which he spends a lot of time, "Food and Drink," "Antiquity," "Parental Joys and Hazards," "O, Say Can You See . . .," "Sights, Sounds and Smells" and one called "Sort of Personal."
He is thankful for "The Star-Spangled Banner," all kinds of ice cream and the "partner in my life," his beautiful and nice wife, Linda. (I'm thankful for her, too. It's very satisfying to have people you like marry people you like.)
Some of Mr. Bisher's thankfuls will echo your own. Some are sharp and funny. For instance, he is thankful "for the coach who concedes that he only is No. 2 ---to God." He is thankful "for the gifted athlete who realizes that what he has is only borrowed, and some day he'll have to give it all back." He likes that part of a speech that goes, "And in conclusion . . . ." He likes prayers that leave a space for his insertions, and he likes the sound "of a congregation singing as I near the church on Sunday morning, even though it means I'm a little late."
He is thankful for the young people who say "sir" and "ma'am," "the first clap of thunder after we've had a long dry spell," "for the pure, forgiving sound of a church bell on Sunday morning."
He is thankful for the sight of an academy cadet, "shoulders back, chin up, giving grace to the uniform." A lot of his thankfuls pertain to golf, and he ends by being thankful for St. Andrews (which I think is a golf course in Scotland), adding, "but if it were over here, some Americans would say, 'I've played golf in better cow pastures.' "
The big thankful for most of us readers is for Furman Bisher himself.
RELATED
Celestine Sibley, a reporter and beloved columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, co-authored a book with sports writer and columnist Furman Bisher, "Atlanta's Half-Century," published in 1997. The book, edited by Tom Bennett included selected columns by Bisher and Sibley.
Sibley noted that she called Bisher “Freeman Fisher,” a long-running inside joke for her friend and colleague. His name for her, in turn, was “Ernestine Selby.”
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