Chicken Soup for the Country Soul

by Jack Canfield

  Joe climbed up to the bucking chutes. The season was almost over. Twenty-four times a cowboy had boarded Dodge Dakota, and twenty-four times the bull had won. The pot was big enough to save his house, to pay the bills, even to have a little extra.

  The cowboy pulled himself over the rails and straddled the bull that stomped inside its chute. The rope was wrapped around his hand as tight as a noose. One of his favorite phrases came to mind: “If you ain’t got no choice, be brave.”

  The gate swung open, and the clock started counting the eight most important seconds of Joe Wimberly’s life. The huge black beast bellowed. Nearly a ton of muscle and bone thundered by. Dakota’s head snapped violently. Its eyes flashed fire. Dust rose from its kicking hoofs. And the clock ticked—two seconds . . . three . . . four . . .

  Joe bounced on the bull’s hard back, straining for balance. Then another punishing buck. He dangled at the edge, fighting gravity. Six seconds . . . seven seconds . . .

  Joe crashed to the dirt as the horn sounded. A sudden hush swept over the arena. The fans stared down at the rodeo boss, who was staring at the timekeeper, who was staring at the clock.

  An excited official raised his arms in the air, the sign of a touchdown. Joe had made it by two-hundredths of a second.

  The cowboy dropped to his knees. “Thank you, Jesus!”

  Joe cried.

  Paula fell sobbing into the arms of a spectator. The two girls sprinted down the stairs of the grandstands, while McKennon screamed, “Daddy did it! Daddy did it!”

  From his knees, Joe looked up and met Paula’s eyes as she ran toward him. The roar of the crowd swept down on the arena floor, where the Wimberly family squeezed together in a ten-armed hug, their tears spilling on the dust.

  It was past 2 A.M. when they got home. Joe went to the telephone and dialed the banker. “Who’s this!” came a groggy mumble.

  “Why, this here is Joe Wimberly,” he said, “and I was just calling to say I got a check for you.”

  Dirk Johnson

  Big House

  Do what you love, the money will follow.

  Marsha Sinetar

  My partner, David Neuhauser, and I have been playing together on and off for twenty years. When we decided to make a boom-box recording of our new songs, we were living in a big house in Van Nuys, California, rehearsing with the band. The next day, our keyboard player came over with the tape we recorded and said, “You guys have got to listen to this!”

  It was magic. Dave and I just looked at each other and said, “This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

  For years, I would come to Bakersfield and play with whatever country band Dave had going. We were too country for rock’n’roll in our early days. We were also too bluesy for country or too country for the blues audience. But every time I came and sat in with Dave, the same thing would happen—over and over—the crowd would go nuts and we’d have a ball. We would do these great country songs and put a blues twist to them, just for fun. Many nights, we’d be sitting there after a gig and Dave would say, “We’ve got to go to Nashville.”

  I always had the same reply, “Are you kidding? Those cats in Nashville won’t get it.”

  Dave would also always mention another name along with the conversation of Nashville, and that was Tony Brown, President of MCA records. Dave said, “He ’d get what we do.” And I just thought my partner was nuts all those years.

  The whole Big House story got started at a place called “Trout’s.” This bar is over forty years old and plays live country music seven nights a week. It’s the place where Merle Haggard and Buck Owens got started. The town is actually Oildale, a suburb of Bakersfield. Oildale isn’t where the people who own the oil wells live; it’s where the people who work the wells live. It was a tough crowd, but they knew their country music. A typical comment would be, “You’re aw’right son, but you ain’t no Merle Haggard.”

  Finally, we got an opportunity to play the Blue Bird Cafe in Nashville. We traveled there in a minivan. You can imagine what six big guys and their gear looked like in this small van! We drove on East with our feet in each other’s noses. When we got to the Blue Bird, we didn’t think anyone would show. We were surprised when quite a few did; and we got a standing ovation.

  So we came back to California and told our manager, Robbie Randall, that things went gre at in Nashville. At the time, we were making a tape of the things we did and thought maybe we’d make a record and release it ourselves.

  On our second trip to Nashville, we played the Ace of Clubs. We still didn’t know what would happen or who would show up. A buzz had started in town about the tape we’d made. We were lucky to have volunteer advance men help us out—people like Merlin Littlefield, former Associate Director of ASCAP Publishing. Merlin would drive around Nashville with his top down, tape turned up, and pull people over. So when we got to the Ace of Clubs, everyone in town showed up. There were ten record labels there that night and a packed house. We put on a whale of a show!

  Before we got halfway back to California, we had offers. About the only record company that didn’t show up at the Ace of Clubs in Nashville was MCA Records. As soon as we got back to Bakersfield, Tony Brown of MCA Records called up saying he wanted to see the band. He flew out to Los Angeles to meet with us. He even paid for a private rehearsal room at SIR Studios. Considering we were flat broke when we returned, that was a real blessing.

  So we had this private showcase—on a big stage—in this big room—for an audience of just two people, MCA’s Tony Brown and Larry Willoughby. Not the most comfortable situation for any band! Luckily my car had already been stolen that day, so I wasn’t worried about a little thing like a private audition for two major recording executives.

  We started off with our hit, “Cold Outside.” About three songs into the showcase, the president of MCA Los Angeles, Jay Boberg, came in and Tony Brown stopped us. “Play that song, ‘Cold Outside,’ again. I really dig that song.”

  That broke the ice; we just cut loose and did what we did every night. After we got done, Tony said, “I want to sign you to MCA.” It was pretty overwhelming. He not only signed us, he released the demo tape we had made. We’re the only band that’s ever done that on MCA. He didn’t change a thing! It was a dream come true to coproduce our own record with Peter Bunetta and have Tony give us the freedom to just set up, dial up some great guitar tones, and do it live.

  This has been a fantastic year! We’ve been out touring with everybody—Collin Raye, Patty Loveless, Merle Haggard, Blackhawk, Dwight Yoakam, Travis Tritt, Leroy Parnell and many others—we’ve been treated great. We’re the number-one selling new band in country in 1997, and we’ll be heading back to Europe soon where we’re also doing real well.

  Staying the course and being true to the roots of the music you make is like having a family identity. What we have always wanted to do—and finally are doing—is bringing everyone into the Big House.

  Monty Byrom

  5

  OVERCOMING

  OBSTACLES

  AND

  HARDSHIPS

  If you want the rainbow, you’ve got to put up with a little rain.

  Dolly Parton

  Just Keep Walking

  When I was growing up in Georgia, I loved to sing and play the guitar, even though I had no illusions about being especially skilled at either one. I was pretty gun-shy about performing in public, but I knew I wanted a career in country music. I figured if I couldn’t make it on stage, maybe I could succeed as a songwriter. In 1977, I moved to Nashville to pursue that dream. When the music community didn’t immediately embrace me, as I had hoped they would, I was forced to take a day job as a desk clerk at a motel to support my family. Naturally, that didn’t leave much time for writing songs.

  To make matters worse, within a couple of years, I began to lose my eyesight, due to complications from diabetes. By 1980, the doctors said they could do no more; I was totally blind. After receiving the news that I’d never see again, I w
ent through months and months of depression and soul searching. During that period I spent most of my time just lying in bed day and night. Some days it took a real effort to get up and get dressed before my wife came home from work, but I didn’t want her to know how defeated I felt.

  I had a friend, Judy Mahaffey, another aspiring songwriter, who I would talk to several times a week by telephone. One day she asked me a really strange question, “Is your garbage can full?”

  Startled, I said, “I have no idea. Why?”

  “Go check,” she answered. I went into the kitchen and discovered it was full. When I reported that to Judy, she simply said, “Take it out.”

  “What do you mean take it out? Judy, I’m blind. How am I supposed to get to the Dumpster?”

  “You’ll figure it out,” was all she said.

  That turned into a real adventure. I picked up the trash and carried it about fifty yards across the apartment complex parking lot. I was real tentative and took little tiny baby steps, but I finally got going. I’d take a step, bang into something, get scared, gather my resolve and move on. Finally, I made it to the Dumpster. By the time I got there, I felt like I’d climbed Mount Olympus. That was the moment things started to turn around.

  Within a few weeks after I emptied the trash on my own, I set up a training session with a mobility instructor.

  She taught me to walk using a cane to guide myself. She also introduced me to the bus system.

  Using the bus to return to Music Row, I developed a relationship with Pi-Gem Music, a publishing company who didn’t offer me any money, but did provide me with office space. Every day for the next two years, hot or cold, rain or shine, I made the trek to my office to write songs.

  Unbeknownst to me, a fellow named Chuck Neese, who had an office across the street from Pi-Gem, was watching the whole time. He told me years later that he often wondered who that blind man was. He said that he figured that I must want to be a songwriter real bad and that I was the kind of guy he’d like to work with if he ever got the chance.

  One afternoon, right after Chuck had taken over as head of Alabama’s new publishing company, we ran into each other. His first question was, “Who are you and what do you do?”

  “I’m trying to be a songwriter,” I answered.

  Chuck said he wanted to hear some of my stuff, so the next day I went over to his office. The second song I played was “Nobody But You,” which after being recorded by country superstar Don Williams, turned out to be my first number one record.

  Over the next few years a number of other hits followed by such artists as Alabama, the Forester Sisters and John Schneider. As those records were climbing the charts, however, further complications from the diabetes surfaced. Having lost the use of my eyes, my kidneys were the next organs to be affected. In turn, this impacted my overall health. Along with my health, my songwriting, my marriage, my finances, and my emotional stability all started heading down the tubes. I was as low as I had ever been, feeling lost and uncertain. It wasn’t until the spring of 1989 that I experienced another life-changing event.

  One morning, for reasons I still can’t explain, I didn’t feel like going to the office. I was planning to write at home that day and I decided to go for a walk to clear my head before I got started. I asked my wife to drop me off on Music Row and began hoofing it back home. Within a couple of blocks, I accidentally caught the tip of my aluminum cane under a bus bench and snapped it completely in two.

  I was pretty upset about this turn of events but I realized I could just have a seat on the bench and wait for one of my friends who customarily travel that area on their way to work to rescue me. Before I sat down, I heard a voice inside me clearly direct me to, “Just keep walking.”

  The words repeated themselves the instant I questioned them; so I reluctantly obeyed. At first, it was difficult to trust the process, but after a few blocks, walking without my cane felt perfectly natural—natural, at least until I approached a major intersection.

  When I hesitated, I heard the voice again advising me, “Just keep walking, son, you’re doing fine.” After I made it across six lanes of traffic, I began to feel so comfortable that I even refused a ride from a friend who stopped alongside. She later told me I looked so relaxed that she hadn’t noticed I didn’t have my cane.

  As I moved along, I couldn’t get over how good I felt, serene in the feeling that everything was going to be all right. I felt at peace about that walk and about my life in general. It was really strange knowing I should be scared but I wasn’t. I can’t explain it, but I felt completely taken care of.

  I wish I could tell you that my life worked out perfectly after that; but it hasn’t been quite that simple. My marriage could not be salvaged. A difficult divorce and financial distress followed. My career bottomed out. My health continued to suffer culminating in complete kidney failure and more than a year of difficult dialysis treatments. Through it all, however, I was able in my mind to return to that walk and hear that reassuring voice telling me to “Just keep walking.”

  I walked a long way before the situation turned around, but when it did, it did so in a mighty way. Kidney and pancreas transplants eliminated the need for dialysis and insulin injections and my career rebounded with eight more hits, including six number-one records.

  In 1991, I attended a codependency workshop, On-Sight, in South Dakota. My group counselor, Ted Klontz, was incredibly supportive and has become a friend for life.

  At the end of the treatment program, Ted and my fellow group members outlined how they’d seen me develop and grow. They also made a recommendation that I reconnect with my musical side by performing in public. Remembering my insecurities as a teenager, I totally rejected the idea. When I got back to Nashville, however, I felt myself being led in that direction by the same voice that had kept me moving several years earlier. Little by little, I began playing writer’s nights in small clubs around town, quickly discovering a lot of joy and fulfillment in my music again.

  My roller-coaster ride continued over the next few years with some really terrible things and some really wonderful things. In late September, 1995, my transplanted kidney failed. In October of that same year, I married Janet, my soul mate, my best friend, and the love of my life. In March of 1997, circulation problems caused by the diabetes resulted in a below the knee amputation of my right leg. Four months later, I got another kidney transplant, but in September I was back in the hospital for the amputation of my left leg.

  The trials seemed to go hand in hand with the triumphs but through it all I just kept walking and my dreams kept coming true.

  Working with the Nashville office of the American Diabetes Association, I teamed up with several other writers and performers to produce a pair of concerts that raised over eighty thousand dollars for diabetes education and research. We performed at the Ryman Auditorium, the venerable home of the Grand Ole Opry. For me, it was the culmination of yet another dream. Ted Klontz, my On-Sight counselor, and his wife Margie, flew into town for the first of those occasions. Their presence and that performance reminded me just how much change is possible in one person’s life. In less than five years, I had gone from saying, “I’ll play in public when hell freezes over,” to playing a show at the mother church of country music with Waylon Jennings, Hal Ketchum and Rodney Crowell—all heroes of mine.

  With the loss of both my legs, a transplanted kidney and the use of my eyes, I’ve come to realize something quite remarkable. I’m more than just my body. Through all the trauma, my life has continued undisturbed at a much, much deeper level. Now don’t get the idea any of the physical changes have been easy to accept. They haven’t. I’ve often lashed out, demanding that God put an end to all the catastrophe. I’m finally coming to accept, however, that there are no guarantees for any of us, about anything, but I have choices about whether or not the fear and frustration go as deep as my soul. So far, thank God, my soul is intact and as long as that’s the case, I’ll pay attention when he tel
ls me to “Just keep walking.”

  John Jarrard

  The Gift of Dignity

  There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

  Willa Cather

  My father and mother, Kirby and Estelle Bowman, were cotton mill workers. In Alabama there used to be a great many Avondale textile mills where a lot of the local people worked. Momma and Daddy were full-time farmers as well. But Daddy only grew cotton for a year; you couldn’t eat it or put it in a fruit jar, so he didn’t raise it anymore. There were ten of us children in the family, with two or three years separating us in age. While we always had a lot of food to eat, there were very few frills in our lives. Being a big family with a meager income meant that mother sewed our clothes from Purina feed sacks: the cotton sacks that feed for cows was packaged in. Momma never had a pattern to go by. She’d get her measurements by holding the material up to our bodies, and then she’d sit down at the sewing machine and whip up a dress or shirt.

  Back in those days it was left up to us kids to get a Christmas tree and decorate it. Sometimes we’d cut down a pine tree—there weren’t many cedars in our part of the country—and then we’d color paper strips and glue them together to make chains to put on the tree. We never had any store-bought decorations that I can remember. Once the paper chains were on the tree we’d add red berries, or anything that we could find with some color to it. A couple of folks who were regular visitors to our home happened to be cigar smokers. They smoked cigars that came wrapped in little gold-colored bands. So we used those bands for decorations. We used anything that had some shine.

  The best Christmas I could remember could have been my worst, had I let it. I’ve never told this story before. Even my children will be surprised to read it. Earlier, I mentioned Purina feed sacks. When you say “feed sacks,” most people think of rough, heavy burlap. But these sacks were made from a printed cotton fabric of excellent quality, like the material you’d buy in a store. I think Purina was the first to package feed in this manner. It may have been an ingenious marketing idea: If a farmer bought several sacks of feed packaged in similar fabric, there would be enough material to make a garment of some kind.