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Terrell to read at book fair
Dating back to his boyhood in Jackson County’s Addie community, longtime regional newspaper columnist Bob Terrell has had a story to tell.
Now, after more than five decades of writing about the exploits of others, Terrell, 76, has turned the spotlight on himself – his next book, the soon-to-be published “Bob,” is an autobiography.
Terrell’s narrative includes stories of many of the characters he’s met along his life’s highway, which stretches from Addie to Sylva to Asheville and beyone. He describes events of national significance – 1953 nuclear weapons’ tests that he covered as a young Army public information officer – as well as Addie anecdotes like the time he woke up scared to death after a Saturday horror movie in Sylva’s Lyric Theater.
Terrell’s book is likely to generate a few laughs – he had me in stitches last week as he recalled a long-ago ride home from football practice. Staying after school for sports meant Terrell missed the school bus, which in turn meant that Terrell either had to walk the five miles home to Addie or hitch a ride. In those days – 1945 or so – Terrell and his teamates would head to the Mead plant (now Jackson Paper) to thumb a ride home.
On this particular day, Terrell’s grandfather, William Estes Bryson, came by in his B-model Ford and stopped to give his grandson a lift.
“My grandfather never looked at the road when he was driving,” Terrell said. “He was always showing me something or telling me who lived where and who had lived there before. When we hit the airport bottom between Beta and Addie, I could see my Uncle Claude coming toward us.
“Now Uncle Claude never drove on the right side of the road,” Terrell said. “He was stubborn as a mule, and since everyone else drove on the right, he drove on the left.
“Both Grandpa and Uncle Claude were going about 20 mph, so I thought I’d just let them hit and it would teach them both a lesson,” Terrell said. “Well, they got closer and closer, and I couldn’t stand it. I hollered, ‘Grandpa, look out!’ and Grandpa looked up and swerved around Uncle Claude.
“Then Grandpa yelled, ‘Confounded fool – he nearly killed us both. He must have been going 80!’” According to Terrell, both his 76-year-old grandfather and his 40- or 50-year-old uncle, who were father and son, told that story the rest of their lives, and neither ever realized that the other was involved.
“They both told about the man that almost ran them out of the road,” Terrell said. “That’s what made me scared to tell either of them.”
Terrell did tell his parents and brother, though, and none of them were at all surprised.
“My mother laughed until she cried,” Terrell said. “Grandpa and Uncle Claude were her father and brother – she knew how they were.”
Growing up in Addie is an experience Terrell still treasures.
“It was the greatest place to grow up that I could ever imagine,” he said. “It had two stores, two grist mills and a combination church and schoolhouse.” During Terrell’s boyhood (1930s and 1940s) the Buff Creek Baptist Church housed the Addie School, a three-room school with seven grades.
“We had great teachers,” Terrell said, recalling that he was one of three who made it through all seven grades. The other two were Alice Hoyle, who married Carlin Cabe. and the late Earl Revis.
Terrell, who has written more than 60 books, started his professional writing career here at The Sylva Herald.
James Gray Sr., father of present Herald Publisher Jim Gray, hired Terrell in 1947 when the future author was 18 years old.
Terrell earned 50 cents a story writing about a Sylva semi-pro baseball team called the Legionaires.
“Sometimes I broke one story up into three or four – I’d earn more that way,” Terrell said.
He also learned to set type while he worked here, and he said that skill proved valuable in his early days with The Asheville Citizen.
“If we were running late, I’d go back and start setting headlines,” Terrell said of those pre-computer days.
While his first newspaper job was with The Herald, Terrell said he knew what he wanted to be long before that.
“I knew what I wanted to be when I was 12 years old.”
Terrell wrote his first book at age 12. He made the pages from a roll of adding-machine paper and fastened its spine with a straight pen. Then he lay down on his Grandpa Bryson’s floor and wrote the book by firelight. He remembers that he wrote on the left pages and drew pictures to illustrate the story on the right.
“It was a cowboy story, I’m sure,” he said, though he no longer has that particular volume.
“From then on, I never thought seriously of doing anything else except write,” he said.
He started working evenings as a sportswriter at The Citizen while he was still in school at Western Carolina University, which was then called Western Carolina Teachers College.
It had that name because the only degree offered at the time was an education degree, Terrell said, adding that he didn’t take the education courses.
“Dean W.B. Harrill came to me and said the college wouldn’t let me graduate unless I signed a paper saying I’d never try to teach.”
That was a pledge Terrell kept until 1982, when WCU asked him to come teach a feature writing class, which was where his path first crossed mine. The only writing class that Bob Terrell has ever taught is the only one I’ve ever taken.
Terrell will tell his own stories this Saturday during the Great Smoky Mountains Book Fair set for Saturday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. in Sylva First Methodist Church’s new Christian Life Center. One of about 50 regional authors who will be on hand to talk to customers and sign books, Terrell will also read from his latest book at 1 p.m.
For more information on the fair, which is a fund-raiser for the new Jackson County Library building fund, see the story on page 4C, call City Lights Bookstore at 586-9499, or visit online at www.citylightsnc.com.
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