Marshall Chapman Discusses Willie Nelson

Something good happened at the Southern Festival of Books on October 9, 2010. I got to meet someone whose work I’ve long admired, Marshall Chapman. She, to me, is the epitome of a true Southern belle. Stylish in her own right, she never makes a fashion faux pas in denim and pearls. I don’t want to come off as a gushing fan, but, oh well, what can I say? I am a fan.

During her 3 p.m. session at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, I had the pleasure of being her water girl. She was about three-quarters of the way through her presentation for her new book, They Came to Nashville (Vanderbilt University Press), and her voice was beginning to give a little. “Didn’t anybody think to give us any water up here?” she asked rhetorically. I did a quick bag check, and saw I had an extra bottle so I ran up to the stage and handed it to Jill McCorkle, who had introduced Marshall and was moderating the session. She gave it to Marshall.

Later, when my friend Sue and I were getting our books signed, Marshall asked to whom she should sign my book, which Sue had kindly bought me as a gift. I held up my badge, since I, too, had spoken at an earlier session, and to my surprise she said, “Eileen Sisk. I know that name! You wrote the book on Buck Owens!” I answered in the affirmative and pointed out that the same photographer, Anthony Scarlati, had taken our photographs for our respective book jackets.

To tell you I was thrilled that Marshall Chapman knew who I was would be a gross understatement. I told her I was the one who had taken her the water and she said, “Ah, you know how it is then.” Oh yeah, I know. Nothing like having your mouth get dry or your voice waver and crack when you are supposed to be at your best.

After Sue and I thanked her for her work and signing our books, I wanted to see what Marshall had inscribed in my book. I took it out and this is what it said:

For Eileen –

Thanks for the water!

– Love on!

Marshall Chapman

Here’s a snippet of Marshall in action at her session:

Cinnabooks

When I was a little girl growing up in Las Vegas, my enterprising mother used to get up at 4 a.m. and cook a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, toast, and Sanka for my electrician father. She also would bake a gigantic batch of cinnamon rolls, which she would pack up in a box lined with wax paper, and put in the trunk of her old green Studebaker.

Then she would pile us kids in the backseat and drive downtown to JC Penney, her favorite store. Before we went inside, she would stick a few fresh rolls wrapped in napkins her pocketbook. Then, as soon as the store opened at 9 a.m., we would trail after her like baby ducklings, whereupon we’d go from the first floor to the second floor hitting each department in the store, the divine odor of her warm cinnamon rolls wafting everywhere we went. Inevitably, someone would approach us and say, “What is that wonderful smell?!”

That was all the encouragement my mother needed. She would open her pocketbook and show off her lovely rolls to inquisitive shoppers. “I have a whole trunk full of these outside in my car if you’d like to buy some,” she’d say.

Then she would go outside where the car was parked and sell the entire batch of rolls in about 15 minutes or less, then her purse would be filled with shopping money instead of buns.

The other day I loaded a box of copies of my new book, BUCK OWENS: The Biography, into the back of my car. Now when I am out and someone strikes up a conversation with me, the talk always seems to turn to my book and someone inevitably says, “I need to buy a copy.” That is my opener to say: “I just happen to have some out in my car if you’d like a signed first edition.”

The first time the words came out of my mouth, I realized I am my mother’s daughter.

I Got Groped at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop

Something strange happened to me today at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop on Lower Broadway in Nashville.

I had stopped by to drop off posters at both Nashville locations plugging the book-signing for BUCK OWENS: The Biography that I am doing at the Music Valley Drive location at 9 p.m. Saturday, August 7.

Even though it was hotter than holy hell out, I dressed better than I normally would have in the heat because I wanted to make a good first impression. I had on a pair of white slacks, a Bohemian-style diaphanous green blouse, and black sandals that showed off my OPI Holy Pink Pagoda pedicure.

I handed the poster to Larry Mayhew, who was working the counter there. He looked at it and said, “Oh, I just got this book and started reading it! It’s really good! Are you the author?”

I told him I was and noticed that right above his left shoulder was Buck Owens’s Act Naturally boxed CD set by Rhino Records. There Buck was, big as life, looking down on me and at the poster, with a look of either disappointment or disdain.

Larry extended his hand and shook mine. He said, “I am so happy to meet you! I’ve been wanting to get in touch with you to talk to you about something.”

I asked if he had known Buck, and he said no and proceeded to tell me about his idea. While we were talking, I felt a hand grab my right butt cheek and give it a quick pat. I turned and looked over my right shoulder. No one was there. I looked over my left shoulder. No one was there either.

“Did you see anybody behind me?” I asked Larry.

“No,” he said.

“You’re going to think I’m really strange, but I could’ve sworn somebody grabbed my ass just now and patted it.”

Then Larry told me that another woman who had been in the shop recently also had felt someone grab her butt cheek. “Well, you know this place is haunted,” he said.

Then I recalled hearing something about the shop being one of the stops on the haunted Nashville tours they do here every year around Halloween.

“I wonder if it was Buck?” I said, pointing up to boxed CD set. “That certainly would have been something he would do.”

Larry went on to say there have been many strange happenings in the store.

When I got home, I did an Internet search and discovered that the downtown ET Record Shop was once a hospital during the Civil War and that the basement of the building was used as a morgue. Sometimes, if people are discussing an older artist, the CD player comes on at will playing a song by that singer even though there is no disc by the artist in the machine. At other times, there are hot and cold spots in the building. Here's a photo of the shop at 3 a.m. that my friend Larry Garvin, who worked there until recently, sent me. He said he used to store his intruments in the shop but never experienced any paranormal activity there.

It reminded me of a night in 1991 at Zed in Alexandria, Virginia, when a former linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers approached me and said, “I know you don’t know me or anything, but I’m gonna tell you something most guys wouldn’t say to somebody they didn’t know: You have a nice butt.”

Remembering that, I joked, “Well, whoever it was must’ve liked what they saw.”

My Son, the Screenwriter

Meet my oldest son, Jeff Tetreault, aka Jeffy T, who left Tennessee three years ago with nothing but a suitcase and a heart full of dreams. He just made his first screenplay sale in Hollywood to Morgan Creek and is represented by Energy Entertainment and William Morris Endeavor.

My son always has held tight to his dream and is a risk-taker, something that didn't sit well with the officials and some of his professors at his alma mater, Western Kentucky University, where he graduated in 2006 with a double major in English and Sociology. That school did him no favors and tried its best to tell him he was a no-talent failure. I would not recommend it to anyone who dares to color outside the lines.

A couple of years ago, he won first place honors in the Tennessee Screenwriting Competition and a year earlier won honorable mention in the Slamdance Screenwriting Competition. He's been reading and writing ever since he was about two or three.

Anyway, I'm a proud mom for sure and thrilled he did this all by himself. It's kind of like watching him take those first faltering steps at nine months and that first two-wheel bicycle ride at age three.

Rock on, my son, and WKU, eat this:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/06/wme-closing-on-spec-script-sale-trifecta/#more-49159

The Hypocritic Oath

Yesterday, something happened to a friend that regerminated a seed planted in my brain some time ago. In journalism, we are taught to trust no one. Not even our own mother. The point being, check and doublecheck everything because credibility is crucial when reporting the news.

The same holds true in health care. Trust no one. If a doctor tells you something about your health, you'd better damn well check and doublecheck it yourself because it is YOUR life.

When people become doctors, they take the Hippocratic Oath, promising to uphold high standards of medical care, to be compassionate, and so on. I am here to tell you that is simply not the case in health care today. Many physicians are more concerned about making money and covering their asses than they are about helping people. I won't say every doctor is like that, but the ones who are true healers, who genuinely care about the well-being of their patients, are hard to find.

They are out there, you just have to keep looking. More often than not they will be out of network and you will have to pay out of your own pocket or a higher pecentage co-pay to see such a doctor because of the stigma attached to treating, i.e. attacking, Lyme disease and its associated diseases the way it/they need to be.

Doctors are easily bought and paid for by pharmaceutical companies, insurers, companies that hire them as workers comp physicians, and more. What you have are a class of high-dollar prostitutes who are more concerned about paying off exorbitant school loans or buying a new Mercedes-Benz.

My point is this: If a doctor diagnoses you with one disease and it alarms you, get a second opinion. Don't take one doctor's word for it. Get more tests. Don't just let one X-ray or blood test be the deciding factor. Go to a specialist who knows the disease you have been diagnosed with and see if, in fact, you really have that malady.

By going to the ILADS specialist in California, I discovered that I had had Lyme disease, and quite possibly Bartonella, for ten years. Yes, ten years. See, I got bit by a deer tick in Virginia about six months before I moved to Tennessee. I developed symptoms shortly after moving here and was told by countless doctors countless theories about what was wrong with me. The severe scalp rash I had acquired was brushed off as "folliculitis." The pain in my hands and my forearms and elbows was brushed off as "carpal tunnel syndrome." A workers comp doctor had the audacity to say, "You're a middle-aged woman, get used to it." Other doctors told me I didn't have CT syndrome. Still others said nothing was wrong with me. Still others said I had fibromyalgia. Others suggested I had Lupus. My erythema migrans rash--the classic bull's eye or target rash, was called "poison ivy," and so on.

The fact is, I knew something was wrong years ago. Each day I dragged into work, it was a struggle, but I carried on, because, after all, everything was fine. Nothing was wrong with me. It was all in my head. The negative tests proved it.

Thank God I got bit by six ticks last year and finally got the EM rash from a dog tick. Actually, it was a disseminated EM rash, which meant every organ and tissue of my body had already been infected.

Here you can see a photo of my right leg taken in 2009 with the multiple EM rashes, which were mirror image on the left leg. I also had mirror image EM rashes on either sides of my breasts. A spotted rash on my chest.

A bright red linear rash on my ankle, which turned out to be Bartonella, aka cat scratch fever. I didn't take a photo of it when it was bright read, but you can see the scar it left behind.

After my first 21-day course of doxycycline was completed, the EM rashes returned. Some were even oval.

I even got blisterlike rashes.

At least one internist at St. Thomas Hospital finally called it was it was, Lyme disease, only to back-pedal after an infectious diseases doctor from Vanderbilt told me point-blank, "You can't get Lyme in Middle Tennessee." Another dermatologist at St. Thomas Hospital told me, "We don't even have the tick that carries Lyme disease in Middle Tennessee." So, the internist started calling the rash "erythema multiforme," which is nothing more than an allergic skin reaction.

This year, 2010, I've been bitten by at least five deer ticks. Oh, but I forgot. That alleged dermatologist says we don't have deer ticks in Tennessee!

Thank God for my journalistic training. I trusted none of these poor excuses for doctors. I was forced to go out of network to a Lyme specialist and listed the 57 symptoms I was exhibiting. Thank God, this man knew what to do with me. Thank God he knew that if coinfections were not treated first, the disease would come back. Thank God my sister found that man for me.

My story is not so different from other people who have had Lyme disease and have been misdiagnosed as having MS, rheumatoid arthritis, ALS, Crohn's disease, Parkinson's disease, and more. If left untreated, Lyme will go on to mimic these diseases and more. In fact, I've mentioned this before, one Harvard researcher found that in seven out of ten brains in the Harvard brain bank of deceased Alzheimer's patients that the Lyme bacteria, borrelia burgdorferi, was in those brains. Think of how many Alzheimer's patients actually may have had Lyme disease, which can be treated and eradicated with early and aggressive treatment. But if Lyme is left to its own designs, the consequences can be devastating.

If you are diagnosed with any serious disease, not just Lyme, I urge you all to educate yourselves. Knowledge is power. Don't just take one doctor's word. Seek out a knowledgeable specialist. Research the disease. Get the proper diagnostic tests if there are any available. Don't just take someone's word for it.

Your life depends on it.
 
(Originally posted February 13, 2009, on MySpace).

Even Shitty Days Can Have Happy Endings

I had one of those days yesterday. You know the kind, the ones that start out shitty and end shitty?

Yep. That was my day. When I went into my office, I discovered my dog, Delaney, the one with the fecal fetish, had dirtied the carpet for the first time in his three people years. It might have been easier to clean up had it not been liquid, but I did the best I could.

Then there was the middle of the day, which was just so-so as opposed to being shitty, so we’ll skip that part.

Around 7-ish, I took the dogs to The Barking Lot for their daily constitutional, which is what I do when I am not able to walk them. I take them there so they can run and wrangle with each other and get worn out so they won’t bother me by asking to go out and come back in all evening long.

Upon arrival at the dog park, I stuffed my keys in the right front pocket of my shorts and grabbed the bungee cord that the owner of the blue heeler, which bit my left calf, gave me to secure the gate. Here’s what the bite looked like the day after:

See, my little Hughdini, aka Huey, is an escape artist. He lifts the “S” chain off the back gate with his paw and bolts up the bluff to Pinnacle Hill, which he has done at least four times. So the blue heeler’s owner saw my plight, and feeling apologetic about his nippy dog, gave me the rubber cord so I could one-up Huey. I’ve learned to keep Huey on the leash once we enter until I check all the gates because the little devil has popped through the big gate before when the padlocked chain on it was too loose. If there is a 4- to 6-inch clearance, Huey’s a goner.

So I got the gates secured and let Huey run. Then I went around and cleaned up the dog leavings with plastic bags. I also tossed a couple of tennis balls for Sally and Delaney to retrieve, which, of course Delaney does because he is a retriever and Sally does not because she is only half-retriever. It was during this activity I saw Huey on his hind legs trying to lift the chain and chew the bungee cord. I cut a diagonal swath the length of the former football field to get to him before he succeeded at either. That’s when I realized my keys were not jangling in my pocket. I looked down and they were gone. Oh, great. It was around 8 p.m. and darkness was falling. It didn’t help that I was wearing my Ray-Bans either. So for the next half-hour I searched, trying to find my keys, frantically trying to figure a Plan B because I have no relatives here to help me out of a pinch. Finally, I had no choice. I called my neighborhood pet sitter, who knows where I keep my spare house key, and asked her to go inside and get the box where I keep all my spare keys. Before long, she was there and I was able to get the dogs in the car and put on my regular specs so I could see to drive home.

Next morning, I resumed my search about 10. A former co-worker was there with her young daughter and their dog and offered to help. I, of course, had Huey along and had to secure all the gates before I could look.

I searched and searched to no avail. The parks guy drove up and I asked him where I would go to find something that had been lost. He said City Hall. He, too, offered to help me look, which he did until he got a call to attend to something else. None of us could find the keys anywhere. Then I saw Huey trying to gnaw his way through the nylon leash I had put on the big gate as insurance; he almost succeeded, too. I unhooked the leash, got him a drink from the doggie fountain, locked him in the car, and went back for the bungee cord.

As I was leaving, my friend suggested I put a note on the bulletin board at the local market. Great idea, I thought, so after inquiring at City Hall and leaving my name and number there, I went to the grocery store and left a note saying: “LOST. One set of keys with rectangular garage door opener. If found, please call …” Then I came home.

At 7:10 p.m., I got a call from a woman who said, “Did you lose a set of keys at the dog park?” I replied in the affirmative. She said, “You are not going to believe this, but there is a note at the top of the board that says: ‘FOUND: One set of keys with rectangular garage door opener. If found, please call Bear at …”

“Bear is a dog,” I told her.

See, Bear is a fluffy white male Great Pyrenees, who really likes me and is about twice my size. He also belongs to the owner of the blue heeler. So the woman gave me the number to call, which I did. I punched in the number and asked for Bear, I heard the owner’s voice say, “I’d let you talk to him, but he is asleep and he is a dog.”

“I know,” I said. “Is this M----? This is Eileen.”

“Why, yes it is.”

“How did you find my keys?” I asked.

“I didn’t find them. Bear found them and I noticed he had something in his mouth so I took them from him. I knew they had to belong to somebody.”

I asked where he had found them and he said by the front gate, which meant as soon as I had entered the dog park, they had worked their way out of my pocket when I was wrangling the dingoes. Then I explained how I had heard about the note he posted and he told me he would put the keys in his mailbox. I drove over about 8 p.m. and got them.

From start to finish, it took only about 24 hours to lose and find my keys. Times like these make me thankful to live in a small-enough town where I know many of the people who live here. It’s a great place, populated with helpful, honest folks for the most part (more on that in future blogs).

After I got home, I let the dogs in to eat their supper and hunker down for the night. I sat down at the computer to let my Facebook friends know I had gotten my keys back. Then I heard this slurping sound. I looked to my left only to see Delaney, my dog with the fecal fetish, licking the carpet where roughly 36 hours before he had left his leavings.

It was then that I realized, the shitty day had come full circle.

Beating the High Cost of Vet Care

Molly, my cat, recently was attacked by Huey, one of my dogs. I had gone to Value Vet to try to save on the high cost of veterinary care at the local vet, which charges $80 just to walk in the door. Value Vet charged $29. Then a friend in Lafayette, Tennessee, told me about her vet, who only charges $24 to walk in the door, and he doesn’t even charge for an office visit if you get shots for your pet.

After spending $250-plus at Value Vet, I was told Molly had a broken rib and diaphragmatic hernia and that it would cost anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 for the risky surgery. So I sought a second opinion from Dr. Geoff Evetts in Lafayette, whose fee for the same surgery is between $500 and $700.

Dr. Evetts looked at the Value Vet films and said he thought Molly had neither a broken rib nor a diaphragmatic hernia. He prescribed a two-week course of Clavamox (only $19 as opposed to $28 at Value Vet) and told me to bring her back in two weeks so he could take new X-rays under sedation, which Value Vet did not do.

The new films showed that Molly was perfectly normal inside. I asked about a lump on her back, so Dr. Evetts inserted a hypodermic needle and drew out some pus. He said he wanted to keep her overnight and go in to see what was causing the abscess. As it happened, Molly had suffered a puncture wound inside, but not on the outside. He said that was fairly common because a cat’s skin is pliable. Dr. Evetts kept her overnight and performed the surgery. Here’s Molly going home after her surgery:

I also took both Delaney and Sally in for a full panel of shots and a six-month supply each for Interceptor. Here's Delaney getting his blood drawn for his heart-worm test:

All told, total cost for three animals, a surgery, two rounds of shots (including heart-worm tests) for two dogs, two six-months supply of Interceptor, one three-month supply for Frontline Plus for the cat, a set of X-rays, overnight boarding was roughly $420. Huey still needs to go in for his round of shots and a six-month supply of Interceptor, so add on $108 and there is a grand total of $528. Not bad for preventive maintenance of four animals, I’d say.

I plan to ask Value Vet for a refund based on its misdiagnosis of Molly’s injuries and from now on, it is worth it to me to make the four-hour round-trip drive for peace of mind where my fur family is concerned.

Anyone interested in saving big bucks on pet care, can contact Evetts Animal Clinic at 615-666-7350 (don’t let the phone prefix scare you). The clinic is at 730 Highway 52 Bypass West, Lafayette, TN 37083.