Andrew Spradling's Blog

A Look Back at the Good

This Thanksgiving weekend has been a wonderful family celebration with Myssy’s mom Nancy making it home from Arizona – though it was the first that son Evan, now in Texas, has missed. It made me realize, in addition to feasts, fires, and the Charleston Christmas trees, I must count my past blessings and thank all my wonderfully generous friends and family members who supported my Great Cycle Challenge ride this September.

I reached my 500-mile goal (505.7) after an auspicious Week 2 (five stiches across my pinky, assorted bumps and bruises), and fell just shy of my $2,500 fundraising goal ($2,320). Though Scott Vincent and I, representing our brainchild Dragons Slaying Cancer, did surpass our $3,500 team goal with $3,870. Thank you Scott, for your efforts! Overall and most importantly, $7,672,474 was raised nationwide for kids’ cancer research! In six years during the GCC months I’ve now ridden 3,768 miles, and thanks to so many of you, I’ve raised $18,466.63.

Here’s the 2024 donor breakdown: My SAHS Class of ’82 mates: Kelly Johnson Tinsley, Cindy Shope Strock, Erica (& John) Boggess, Stephanie (Robin) Shoemaker, Carla Slack Vanwyck, Alan Kee, and Diana Lilly Kitts.

Super-supportive fellow Red Dragons (in no specific order): Jane Weiford Sneed, Dana & Lisa Miller, Steve McGrath, Karen Fulmer Cebuhar, Linda Hammar Costilow, Pam (Price) Billups, Tom Neal, Becky Goodwin, Jimmy Gilmore, John Wiles, and Derek Watson. Jimmy, John, John B., and Derek all graduated in ’79 with my sister, Kelly, for whom I ride.

From the ’Bend: Barbara & Rodney Holley, Tara & Craig Lane, and Art Postlethwait.

From in-town St. Albans: JC Spears, Heather & Lee McCoy.

Beloved spouses of two of the buddies for whom I ride: Carrie (Cherry) Knapp & Hollis Claypool.

My always-supportive family members: Danny Allen, Cheryl Barnes McLane, Sandy (Fulks) Baker, Kelly Tinsley, Marc Rucker, Lisa & Bruce Lawson, the folks, Ruthie & Alan Spradling, and my sweet Mylissa Spradling.

I have to also thank the triple threat, Larry Ellis, (my riding, writing, and guitar playing bud) for keeping me focused on road training, and Rich Harper, owner of John’s Cyclery, for not only keeping me outfitted but for donating to me the bike I ride. I realize I’m not an aggressive solicitor of funds, but I know each year when the donations come, that I am truly BLESSED!! I hope that contributing gives you the same feeling it does me, because it is about saving kids’ lives.

Thanks for reading! A.S.  

A Needed Push

Today was one of those in which I was praying for an energy injection – wasn’t really feeling it after going to bed last night with great intentions: start early, maybe get in 30 or 35 miles before the heat set in. It’s the end of Week 3, and together, so far, the Great Cycle Challenge community – raising money to eradicate kids’ cancer – has pedaled 1,409,611 miles and raised $6,810,130. Me? 352.9 miles, 147.1 to go, 1,854 dollars, hoping for $2,500 – and special thanks to Cheryl Barnes McLane for her Sunday morning donation.

I know and pray for some children who have had to fight their entire lives to still be here. Overall, I’ve heard and read about more kids than I know, that spend every day battling. But I have known, loved, laughed with, and cared about many who have already passed from cancer. Children of God, I like to think. It is on days like today, when I’m blessed with the freedom and health to leave our home pedaling a bicycle, that I keep them in mind.

That Jody Jividen and Marina might be gearing up to watch his team, the Detroit Lions, and how the Lions’ assent and predicted success would have him on Cloud 9, or how he may have been thinking of a great lede for tomorrow’s column while on a run. Or that Mike Cherry might be hitting tennis balls with his wife, Carrie, and daughter, Julia, before writing his story about WVU’s last minute victory yesterday.

Loren and Hollis may have awakened hours ago in Paris, their home away from home, and taken to the street to a café for beverages, their ears still ringing from a concert the night before. For Judy Koontz Belcher, never enough hours in the day for all she demanded of herself, her jewelry, her writing, just as Kelli Hill Kukura might be thinking of everyone but herself – her kids, John, her friends and neighbors – as she went about her business on this day.

And, my sister Kelly, present every day in my mind, on every ride, I wonder if she might have made Sunday morning calls to her kids, Chloe or Logan, or momma Ruthie or me, before heading to a football game, or relaxing with friends and Chip. Or perhaps they’d be traveling, looking for early fall foliage. She’d encourage me to tough it out, push, get it going, not be lazy – to wave, not shrug my chin. I have to say, the last five miles – out of 27 – seemed easier than the first five today.

Maybe those I ride for were with me, giving me a lift over the knolls and the hills, and into the final flatlands of my neighborhood.

If you care to donate to this important cause, please click on this link:

Great Cycle Challenge USA – Riders – Andy Spradling

Thanks again to Cheryl, and to all my other donors thus far. Thanks for reading and God Bless!

Funny How Falling Feels Like Flying…

The hospital report read “fell off his bike,” as though I’d fallen off my favorite bar stool at a local watering hole.

I wish.

Granted, I was riding my wife, Myssy’s, Trek mountain bike, mostly on the trails of Sea Pines, on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. So it’s not like I was going 40 mph down the Pyrenees Mountains during the Tour de France, which can claim lives. But I was cutting through this gated community – much like Detective Harper Stowe’s villain in Diagram of Death (a shameless plug – LOL) – turning from Tupelo to Lawton, cockily gaining speed and forgetting the rain, just before I would jump on the glorious-at-low-tide South Beach for the final, victorious, inspirational phase of my ride (my Paris), when both tires simultaneously lost their connection with the wet pavement.

As Jeff Bridges sang, “Funny how falling feels like flying… for a little while.” I can assure you any time that happens, with inertia and weight, there’s going to be pain. Sadly, I’m becoming an expert.

Two years ago, on the Sunday morning of Labor Day Weekend, also as part of the Great Cycle Challenge, a month-long ride to raise money for kids’ cancer research, in which I proudly participate, the same occurrence with my road bike took me down. The Department of Highways had recently cleaned the ditches on my route, leaving behind a nearly-invisible film of dirt and mud on the secondary roads. A light rain that morning made the combination lethal. The first body parts to hit the pavement were my left shoulder, rib cage, and hip.

It happened so fast I literally was one instant negotiating the turn back into my neighborhood, the next, staring at the sky, writhing in pain, and cursing profusely. I cracked a few ribs on that one. How do I know? I remember well sneezing twice over the next week. Enough said. After a day off, my next four or five rides were limited to Riverbend, so I wouldn’t have to get my heart and lungs working at full capacity climbing the hills of our beautiful state of West Virginia.

This time my brain knew I was going down. I remember feeling mad at myself for being careless… and beginning to yell FU%*# on impact. Again turning left, my grip deathlike on the round, straight handlebar and brake, it was my left pinky that had me most concerned as I assessed myself, after I gingerly rolled over from face down on the pavement (which took a half minute to figure out). The knee, elbow, and heal of the hand were all scraped moderately, but the little ol’ pinky seemed mangled to the point where I wasn’t sure if I wasn’t seeing bone through the underside cut (the doctor later showed me my intact tendon through the slash before he sewed it up). It looked like a near pinky-decapitation as it pointed unnaturally left and out unto the great beyond.

Remounting the bike was extremely difficult, in both cases, but getting my digits moving in the right direction is always important to me. (Once I did call for a ride, mainly because my handlebars were so bent the gears wouldn’t shift, and also because I had a baseball-sized contusion on the knee). I was offered a lift on this occasion by a gentleman but I didn’t want to subject his van to my blood, wet, and filth.

Realizing the finger would need professional attention, I skipped the beach and took the shortest route home. After all, that’s my guitar chording hand, and my what-I-like-to-call “pinky leads” are becoming more proficient of late.

So away we went to clean and quiet HH Hospital, where we encountered a giggling PA – a Dan Tyminski look-alike (Man of Constant Sorrow singer) – telling me motorized (bike or boat) is the only way to go, and an equally pleasant Doctor who well knew, as a former Kansas resident, the Huggy Bear-Bill Self hoops rivalry/friendship.

Properly numbed and said-appendage only dislocated, a quick pull and five stitches sealed the deal and had us on our way. I know many will say, and have said, when is enough enough? Why? And What For? I’ve dealt with pain, broken bones, and injuries my entire life. Yes, the hurt and the recovery are a little tougher at 60. But cancer is a beast, and if I can help some brilliant people chip away at it, until a cure is found, especially for the children, I’ll continue to do the best I can.

Thanks to the Red Dragons Class of ’82 “S” section, classmates Cindy Shope Strock and Carla Slack VanWyck, along with our Vice-Principal Becky Goodwin, and my sweet Mylissa, for getting the donation ball rolling. Tomorrow is Match Day if you’re considering a donation, just click the below link. Much thanks to you all and God Bless!

https://greatcyclechallenge.com/riders/AndySpradling

Inspired by, and Dedicated to Dolly Withrow

Having located my copy of More Than Penny Candy I realized that, perhaps the greatest blessing bestowed on me by Dolly Withrow is that when I read her colorful essays, more than feeling I’m in the room with her, hearing the crackling of a fire, seeing her as a young girl in an oversized rocker, I can still read the words of her choosing AND HEAR HER VOICE – the perfectly planned pauses, the inflections, her little laugh.

My introduction to her is clear, the rest of my life at the time a bit hazy. After the personal devastation of relinquishing my basketball scholarship at the University of Charleston, my academic performance in my first few semesters at West Virginia State, sandwiched by summers working in Murrell’s Inlet, S.C., and circling the country in my good friend Jody Jividen’s Toyota Corolla, was underwhelming at best.

The class was British Literature. The year, circa 1984-85. The professor, one Dolly Withrow. Project approved by her with a wistful glance and her hopeful smile, I set out to find a poem in our textbook I could most easily put to music, to sing to the class. Honestly, the idea was the clincher. The three-chord arrangement was simple. Other than a few spots to paraphrase, condense, or modernize – no disrespect to poet laureate William Wordsworth – it was a cinch. A good grade in the bag. IF, I managed to show. I did, and it went well. What I learned was, validation and appreciation from Professor Withrow was a valuable commodity.

My first stay at State was short – and I’ll whitewash the negatives like Tom Sawyer’s fence – but after a 7-year hiatus in the restaurant business I returned, and I rediscovered Dolly Withrow, who had found her niche as the “Grammar Professor.” She had not forgotten me, or my performance of “The Solitary Reaper.” She asked me to “play the poem” for another class, and I complied. Anything to help my grade. I believe I even played it in another class for Dr. Arnold Hartstein, per her urging.

Precision in the grammar arts was not my bag, so I struggled a bit, which she and I discussed openly. I may have even taken her class twice as I piled up hours like bricks, trying to earn my Spanish requirements. She was always encouraging, and she could always see beyond. Maybe, I’d like to think, pleasant always recognizes pleasant.

Flash forward a decade. I ran into Dolly at a book signing for More Than Penny Candy . I was now, and had been, a sportswriter for the Charleston Daily Mail, for which she too would later write as a guest columnist.

She signed her book to me: For Andy, my friend and fellow writer – Love Dolly Withrow. In 2016, I published the first of my three novels (thus far), The Long Shadow of Hope . In the Acknowledgements I thanked her: Professor Dolly Withrow for advice and a humorous voice.

It had always remained in the back of my mind to record “The Solitary Reaper” with proper accompaniment, and send her a copy. One of her cousins, Lance Carney, is a friend, a former basketball mate, and, more akin to her than me and my writing style, a fellow humorist – as a novelist of his Daniel O’Dwyer, Oak Island series. Through Lance I could have tracked her down. But, ever the procrastinator, it hurts me to say I failed in that goal. Dolly passed away on June 22nd, at the age of 92.

Here, after some 40 years, dedicated to the memory of Dolly Mae Withrow, with the help of Larry Ellis on lead guitar, Nate Schoettker on fiddle – as the trio Good Country Folk (streaming an EP album Five Corners), my daughter Claire on the camera, and recorded in Angela’s On The River, a.k.a., the Historic Chilton House, in St. Albans, West Virginia, is my adaptation of William Wordsworth’s “The Solitary Reaper.”

Thanks for reading and listening! God Bless!

P.S.

All of Dolly’s, Lance’s, and my books are available on Amazon.com

Tim McGraw: There’s a Stranger in this House

A couple weeks ago I attended my first Tim McGraw concert. I’ve always been a fan of his music. My wife and I danced to “It’s Your Love,” his duet with his wife Faith Hill, at our wedding in the Spring of ’97. While not one to keep completely current with the music scene, I do feel I’ve been aware of many of his hits, most recent for me (over the last several years), “Humble and Kind” and “Meanwhile, Back at Momma’s.” Those three songs, if you know them, tell you a little about the kind of music I enjoy. They’re not hard rock.

I had some takeaways from the concert, held at the Charleston (WV) Civic Center. There were moments I wasn’t surprised to see and understood were done to perpetuate his legend and entice the ladies. One of the most prominent? To whet our appetites just before he came on stage, silhouettes on the big screen of McGraw changing poises (I hope still shots) wearing his cowboy hat, skin-tight jeans, and (we saw later) plunging V-neck purple T-shirt to accentuate his finely cut physique – laughable (to a perhaps envious me). “He’s so hot,” was a reoccurring fan quote.

Others? He strapped on the guitar a few times, but didn’t really play it, nor did he much highlight or even introduce his band – quite un-team-like considering he once fought his label to have his band play on his records rather than studio help. The show’s sound was terrible. As much a fault of the venue, sure, except I believe if it were turned down to where it didn’t beat bodies it would sound a little better. When McGraw listened to the crowd singing a chorus, it put him on an island – the end of a long runway – doing nothing.

There was also a visual montage of his “Yellowstone” spinoff “1883” with booming orchestration, which I enjoyed, having watched the series. I wouldn’t have minded inclusion of all his movies, truly impressive if not prolific, but – and leading to my next point – why not share some insights? One little joke about working long hours with Sam Elliott on the great plains would have gone miles in my book.

Lastly, after 30 years of buying cds, I came away from the show feeling I didn’t know Tim McGraw any better than I did going in. He qualified it – “I’m used to my wife and daughters doing all the talking” – thus he gave himself a pass on any personal banter to his adoring fans. He doesn’t write the songs he sings. So I suppose setting up tunes with a little pre-story would be inauthentic. Still. Carly Pearce, his opening act, was the exact opposite. So personable, even inspirational. She shared. The simple story of writing “Every Little Thing.” Touching. Adding to the “lack of personability” thread, McGraw’s set list for the show was on the internet, much of the crowd seemed to know the lineup – no need to beg for an encore – and when the final chords of “Live Like You Were Dying” were played – without setup or mention of McGraw’s father, Tug, who died around the time of the blockbuster hit’s release – many fans hit the exits quickly, just as McGraw worked his way to the back of the stage.

Now don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing my daughters smiling and laughing arm-in-arm singing all his songs’ lyrics aloud. I was glad I experienced the “Standing Room Only” Tour. But his departure was as abrupt as an “Elvis has left the building” declaration, and his national treasure status a little tarnished.      

A New Chapter, and a Happy Coincidence

Tagging along with my wife on a less-than-24-hour, overnight, business trip this week to historic Lewisburg, in eastern West Virginia, proved both fun and fruitful. Lewisburg has long been known for its artistic renaissance. Downtown Washington Street, perpendicular to the main traffic flow, is the hub of incredible eateries, baked treats, coffee, breweries, art, and music. The famous General Lewis Inn hovers just above. Walking along the sidewalk gives you the vibe you feel when you’re in say, Asheville, North Carolina, or on Olde Main Street in our own Saint Albans, WV.

I waited outside A New Chapter Bookstore, its return clock and store hours both declaring an 11 a.m. opening. I was armed with my three novels for potential consignment, with additional copies in the truck. I had a pleasant conversation with a local lady, a transplant from North Carolina, as we passed the time enjoying the March sunshine. I assumed a minor calamity of sorts could be the delay. Sure enough when the young co-owner, Shaye, arrived a few minutes later, her beautiful 4-year-old Golden Retriever, Harper, in tow after a “rabbit chase” on her outlying farmland, the mystery was solved. The proclaimed “Employee of the Month” needed a break after her hunt. The coincidence that Harper and my third novel’s heroine share the same name is a positive omen to me.

I’m happy to say that Diagram of Death: A Detective Harper Stowe Mystery; The Lost Lantern; and The Long Shadow of Hope have a new home. The trio is displayed and for sale at A New Chapter Bookstore, 922 Washington St., Lewisburg, WV. Finding readership is a chip-away proposition for Indy writers, but each time I receive positive feedback from an entertained reader it gives me motivation, as I now plug away at the daunting task of a fourth offering.

If you’re looking for a great beach read, The Lost Lantern and Diagram of Death take place in Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head, respectively, and are available at:

Amazon.com: Andrew Spradling: books, biography, latest update

Thanks for reading! A.S.   

Circled Wagons

Wonder What Gramps Would Say

Posting about the evolution of one of my songs. I shared the lyrics in 2016 on this blog. Getting focused on a studio version took another six years. It’s streaming on all outlets, along with four other “Experimental Projects” under the band name Good Country Folk, album title “Five Corners.” The YouTube link is posted above. No video yet, but I’d be honored if you listened and subscribed to us on YouTube. My talented bandmates are: (second picture) Larry Ellis, on lead guitar, and Nate Schoettker on fiddle. Thanks for reading, and hopefully listening. A.S. “Gramps” Roy Hall, holding on his lap my sister Kelly, Brownie, my cousin Sheila, and me, circa 1966.

Sad News from Steel Town

As a young boy, you like what you see. What you saw on television was the hot ticket. At eight-years-old in ’72 it was the Miami Dolphins: Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris, Bob Griese, Paul Warfield. A few years later, the Pittsburgh Steelers would reign superior: Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Rocky Bleier, the Steel Curtain on defense, and of course, Franco Harris. Graceful, yet strong. Deceptively fast. Cool under pressure, willing to let the hole develop before him. Clutch in a crunch. A winner and a class act.

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Six years ago, an unexpected gift – a signed football – inspired me to attempt to paint him. His death this week was a reminder not only of the post below, but also of the memory of the great ones we idolize in our youth, especially those who in no way tarnish the legend their skill and determination created. Franco Harris remained and will thus always be, on high ground.

Unexpected Gift

Making the Case for a Loosely-Planned Novel

At a talk I gave at our hometown St. Albans Writes series recently, I was reminded of a writing fact that turned out to be a gold mine in terms of benefits to my second novel, The Lost Lantern, changing it into a two-generational saga rather than what it was originally: a plea for racial harmony.

The Scenario: John Gates, running from his recent past, returns to rejoin his three friends just south of Myrtle Beach, as the trio had begun their post-graduate careers there after all four had worked Murrells Inlet through the summers of their college years. William McMillian, Gates’ black friend and colleague from those days, dreamed of opening his own restaurant and had a plan ready to set into action. Little does he know his boss and two brothers have plotted against him to steal his life savings and thwart his plan.

In my original plan, William was to have grown up in an unexplained, fatherless home. Raised by his mother, William had begun working at an early age and had an incredible work ethic. But then I began to expand on the father, Rafe McMillian. I hadn’t even considered a disappearance or murder taking place in the mid-1960s, twenty years before the novel’s time period.

But Rafe’s story grew as the unplanned ideas came. He could repair anything. He made part of his living driving through neighborhoods looking for discarded items he could fix and sell. That’s how he gets on the radar of Jimbo Rivers, father of the above three brothers. Rafe, who does well fishing and harvesting oysters, buys an old jon boat off Jimbo Rivers, in part by doing a limb-clearing job for him. On a later trash day, Rafe comes upon a yard sale a widow is having. She’s selling her husband’s tools, which Jimbo Rivers knew about, had his eyes on, and was waiting to pounce upon. On that day he was tied up at his wife’s restaurant repairing damages from a small fire. Rafe purchasing the tools becomes a large fire for Jimbo. Adding gin made it rage out of control.

Rafe and his wife, Martha, have two young boys at home, the youngest, William, is infatuated with his father’s lucky silver dollar, Lady Liberty, which Rafe always carries. On the day Rafe brings the tools home, William holds the coin as the three pray because of their family’s good fortune. As the boys run off to play, William slips the coin in his pocket and forgets it. Rafe later leaves to do his night fishing, which he does by lantern light.

Rafe never returns. William believes his father’s fate, whatever it was, came because he held the coin. Twenty-odd years later, William plans his restaurant to honor his father… The Lost Lantern.

Logically and chronologically, Rafe and Jimbo’s story becomes a 12-page prologue. The tool story reoccurs throughout the novel. Once, in a flashback, because Jimbo makes contact with Martha to try to buy the tools, and he terrorizes her over them, nearly beating her to death on the day she lies to him and tells him they’d been sold.

The family’s preacher knew the story as well as he helped her hide them in the church. The preacher theorized that Rafe may have been killed over the tools, though he did nothing, fearing for his own safety in 1960s South Carolina.

There are numerous subplots in 506-page novel. Some I had in mind, others that came to me like this one. If I had my chapters rigidly planned, I don’t think I would have come up with this one chamber of the heart of this novel… The Lost Lantern.   

The End of a Tough Ride

Over the weekend, I attended gatherings that brought home the importance of the Great Cycle Challenge, which this fall has so far raised over $10.7 million for kids’ cancer research.

The friends and classmates of our youth go out into the world, meet new people, make new friends and acquaintances, hear new stories, and are touched by new realities. You realize even more that cancer touches us all, and the statistics that are shared, the stats that break your heart when you hear them, such as 38 children a week die of cancer, is real. It’s a big ol’ world, but there is no immunity from cancer if your number is called.

Simple questions and subsequent conversations from some of those who supported me hit home. The cause is real, the need is great. When I’m getting my miles, I often think of those on my list I ride for: my sister Kelly Spradling Simmons, my colleagues and close friends Jody Jividen and Mike Cherry. More recent, my guitar mentor and friend Loren Claypool, my classmate and friend Kelli Hill Kukura, and finally, fellow author and friend, fellow Sheriff’s Camp counselor (along with Kelly and Loren) Judy Koontz Belcher. Afflicted children, no. But all taken too early.

I have to thank those who supported me, some new but most repeating their gracious giving and all greatly appreciated: two anonymous donors; Jane Weiford Sneed; Tammy Lacy; Sue and Walt Hall; Beth Hinckley-Robles; Barry and Beth Thaxton; Cindy Shope-Strock; Alan Kees; Carla Slack VanWyck; Karen Fulmer Cebular; Kim and Jason Rogers; Kerri and David Call; Emma and Matt Hindman; Tom Neal; Tom Sauvageot; Robin and David Young; Art Postlethwait; Barbara and Rodney Holley; Bud Newbrough; Barbara Farry; Hollis Claypool; Ann King; Becky and Jim Goodwin; April and Jay Kemplin; Heather McCoy; Janie Kerrigan; Brad Parish; Steve Vorholt; John Carroll; Carrie McCormick; Kristen Bowles; Pam Billups; Aaron Johnson; Lisa Parsons Lawson; Cheryl McLane; Dana Hitz; Danielle Sterzenback; Danny Allen; and the folks, Ruth and Alan Spradling.This year my old friend and basketball buddy Scott Vincent reached out to me to start a multi-state team as he lives in Tarpon Springs, Fla. His sister and neighbor, Sharlene Muscati also joined, and the three of us together raised $5,406.29, which was second in the USA in the category of schools, and 138th overall in teams. Thanks to our contributing community, on “match day” our team, Dragons Slaying Cancer, had $1,007.94 matched. We also surpassed our riding goal, logging 1,032.3 miles. I certainly felt mortal at the start of my ride. My 500-mile goal was the lowest in four years of riding the GCC because I’m now a proud employee of the Coal River Group, so I knew there were days I wouldn’t ride. Thanks to Larry Ellis for again pushing me into some outings. Add in a Labor Day weekend Covid derailment, followed by a crash thanks to muddy roads, I was limping out of the gate with cracked ribs and a shoulder issue that is ongoing.  I am thankful to say I made my goal after a few borrowed October days, and the giving was beyond gracious $3,104.64, taking me to the  No. 1 fundraiser in West Virginia for now – the books stay open another month. I’m so humbled and appreciative that so many support this cause! Thank you sincerely and God Bless You! https://greatcyclechallenge.com/Riders/AndySpradling