Rock-Elephant: A Story Of Friendship And Fishing (Outdoor Tennessee) [Paperback]

Sam Venable (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press; 1 edition (March 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572331534
• ISBN-13: 978-1572331532
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,695,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Ways of Life In the South., January 30, 2007

By 

Betty Burks "Betty Burks" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rock-Elephant: A Story Of Friendship And Fishing (Outdoor Tennessee) (Paperback)

In 'Rock Elephant,' Sam the outdoorsman returns to the past. Thirty years earlier, he went bass fishing with Ray for a newspaper story. As he did with many others in the interim -- all "vocational assignments." Since my hometown is extremely backward, Sam (a personable down-to-earth columnist for the local newspaper) was too busy having fun on his job to ask for a re-take until 30 years later. That's called "friendship" in Knoxville. No one gets really close to anothr as were are born with a cautious gene when it comes to relationships. I've "known" another celeb since November, 2001, and yet five years later he kept telling me "you don't know me." He's the one person in this town I was able to call when my oldest grandson died in Florida in a single-car wreck. I shared many photographs with him throughout the lonely years when locals refused to accept me as local, too. (I talk different, but that got me on NPR). I made two long-distance trips to prove I was telling the truth, first to copy an original newspaper-published booklet about an organization he knew nothing about; the other to take pictures on the Peabody campus to prove that something existed. Was he grateful? In no way. No thank you. For most of these five years, and one and a half earlier, I took many pictures of this town morphing from what I loved to what I detest and I gave him a collection of original drawings I photographed, and books of interest in this town's history. Did he use any of them? Not yet.

Sam is different. He puts on a facade of being dumb, but he's one of the smartest professionals I've met here. He spoke at the 2006 graduation at his Alma Mater where his own father had been a professor. I'm not impressed by college professors (I was married to one.) nor do PhDs influence my opinion of knowledge and accountability. My son has a PhD, two daughters-in-law got theres. But they lack personal skills their crazy mom obtained the hard way. I wrote to Sam that I hope he sent the graduates out of this town with a smile. He replied that he didn't hear many snores. He is a treasure, funny to camoflague his intelligence. His aunt Eva was my high school librarian, a genius who showed us budding scholars how she could write her name backwards. We were in awe of Eva Venable.

Life goes on and every fisherman know that you go with the flow. He became my local hero for bringing me back down to earth after that turbulent occurrence when I was knocked for a loop -- could not speak. Did I cry -- no! I went shopping. Who has time for such petty actions. I'm finally having fun being somebody again, not the singer I was in my youth all those years ago when life was good and I was innocent. Now, I'm the same person but innocent no more. Sam is a good person and a good friend to those he chooses. His witticisms may be classified as "nonsense" which he told me he writes, but he has wisdom beyond his years. Eva would be proud.