IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE -- UNCERTAIN JOURNEY TO A FILM -- COMMUNIQUE WITH LOYAL SUPPORTERS!

IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE

THE UNCERTAIN JOURNEY OF A BOOK INTO A POSSIBLE FILM

A COMMUNIQUE TO LOYAL SUPPORTERS OF THE BOOK

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© December 2006

I am copying you that have been most supportive of my efforts as a writer. For those that I have failed to include, I apologize because I am deeply appreciative of the efforts of everyone.

This project of a possible film may come to nothing. I am referring to the possible filming of Clinton, Iowa in terms of IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE. I agree with my friend, Patricia Carstensen, "wouldn't it be something?"

Even if someone buys the rights to the book, it can be years or never that it actually becomes a film. If you think your life is plagued with uncertainty, it is nothing compared to the number of projects in Hollywood that are given considerable hype and never materialize into actual films.

A movie must make money, and it is my belief that this book could do just that because we are tired of the soulless scripts that fail to capture ordinary people as they are.

This book is about a blue-collar neighborhood's soul, and by extension the collective soul of the community at a time of the uncertainty of war, World War II.

God bless you one and all for everything.

I wrote the book but you with your purchases -- Billy McKinley and Joan Dunmore purchased so many books I lost count -- and your passionate support made the book resound in the Clinton climate. It failed to garner a national audience but that was a combination of my ineptitude and disinclination to be a marketing persuader.

On the local Clinton front, the organization skills of Ron McGauvran and Linda Casey and Carole Gilbert were simply awesome. They actually organized and hand delivered copies of the book, more than 500 in that initial period, to each individual household. 500 books are a lot.

I've made a practice of sending anything that has a possibility of deserving media attention to Scott Holland of the Clinton Herald. He is some reporter. He wrote a piece on me when I spoke before the Kiwanis Club of Clinton on "Leaderless Leadership," a theme of more than one of my books. He was the first reporter that ever got it right about my behavioral model. He listened, what every good reporter should do, and reported accurately.

I thank the late wonderful Sister Mary Louise that was pushing 100, but was always there for me on each of my visits. What a delight. She was a cousin of the late Sister Mary Cecile, who is prominent in the book.

I send kudos also to the late Robert "Ripper" Collins who was a source of encyclopedic knowledge. He and his brother, Thiel, have been lifelong friends, and always there for me when I needed them.

I developed a special relationship with the late Stanley Reeves. Stanley was my constant companion on those many research trips to Clinton. We often went to lunch together. He would tell me about first seeing me play basketball in a round robin tournament at Washington Junior High when I was eight years old. "I remember this tall blond kid," he said, "and when you called (to ask him about Clinton history) I was wondering if it was the same kid." It was.

Then there was Everett Streit. Long before the book came out, Everett wrote a series of editorials on my exploits as a writer. In one, he gave a preview of the book IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE only then its title was, "While America Slept."

My appreciation is for the Courthouse Tigers still around for their support: David Cavanaugh, Larry Jakubsen, Dick Tharp, Dick Crider, Phil Leahy, and of course, our coach, Gussie Witt, who claims he raised me over at the courthouse.

Dick Crider sent me a tape that was so well conceived in depth and breadth that I feel he missed his calling as a writer.

Dave Cavanaugh got on my case to quit collecting data "and write the damn book!"

My sister, Pat Waddell, was never a Courthouse Tiger, but she was always there for me in my many trips home.

Then, of course, there is my mother, who is central to the book's story, but didn't live long enough to see it in print. I hope she would have liked it, but I must admit I don't know if it would have been written so honestly if she had lived to its publishing.

Then there is Gary Herrity, who showed me a Clinton history slide show with his son, Kevin. It must have lasted at least three hours. It is good to see Gary is being recognized as the Clinton historian that he is.

Michael Kearney put me in touch with the library's (cellar) research section where I lived for many days in front of the microfiche machine. It was funny. When someone came in, I would have to get off the machine, and allow him or her to do their checking. Then I would be back on the machine. This on and off routine would go on for hours.

Then one day it was raining and no one interrupted me from about 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A librarian lady came over to me, and said, "First of all we can't believe it (me being on the machine so long), and second we don't want to believe it, if that makes any sense." I wondered if they thought I was a homeless person.

I want to thank Joy Witt for her hospitality when I visited her in Decatur, Illinois. She is the widow of Bobby Witt, the inspiration for writing the book. Bobby was our leader at the courthouse, and an outstanding athlete in four sports, but yet he shared little of that with his Decatur family. It figures, as he was always modest to a fault.

The Decatur High School gym has been named in his honor. He is also in the Illinois Coaches Hall of Fame. Joy's daughter (she has another daughter and son) joined us for dinner, and I couldn't take my eyes off her, as she was the picture of her father.

I want also to thank Kate and the Guzzardo gang at the Hallmark Card & Gift Shop, Clinton's only bookstore, for their continuing support and risk taking by buying tons of this book. I attempted to get the book in other places in Clinton, including Wal-Mart, but to no avail.

And I want to thank the scores and scores of people that have come to Clinton book signings, standing in line as if I were a celebrity, which I am not. Among them was Sister Mary Helen, whom I write about in the book as one of my favorite nuns. She taught me in the fourth grade. She allowed me (being the talker that I am) to have a forum of five minutes and no more than ten minutes after lunch to discuss the latest Clinton Herald stories on the war. It worked. I was quiet the rest of the time.

As a boy, I always wondered if she had red hair under that habit. More than a half century later, she walks up to me at a Guzzardo book signing, no longer in the headdress of a nun, and says, "Do you know who I am?" Without hesitation, I said, "Sister Helen." One of the surprises was that I still retained a letter she had written my mother on my "spirited behavior" that "could get me in later trouble." I told her I am a pack rat in the closet of my mind as well as the clutter of my house. Try getting your mind around a 3,000 square foot house with more than 4,000 books, as is the case today.

Another nun, I always visit is my sixth grade teacher, Sister Mary Gertrude. Sister was a very young nun when she taught me at St. Patrick's, and she was from St. Patrick's, Missouri. She has been most kind to Beautiful Betty and me with wonderful cards and letters.

There are others that I have since become reacquainted with who best know me as "Rube" Fisher, after the catcher Rube Walker of the St. Louis Cardinals, and Rube Fischer (with a "c") of the New York Giants. Gussie Witt gave me that sobriquet and I have carried it with pride all my life.

Among the others are Alex Graves, a Courthouse Tiger, Billy Christensen, Tom Berdan, Del Ploen, my best friend, along with Billy McKinley, Billy Benson, who gave me a great interview, and also a former Courthouse Tiger. There is Lefty Ward, who like Dick Tharp, was born in the wrong era or would have been a major league pitcher.

The late deputy Ted Stamp, and the late sheriff Ky Petersen were instrumental in the life of the kids of the neighborhood. They have prominent places in the book for creating a place of recreation on the courthouse lawn. They knew nothing about social science, but a lot about energetic and mischievous kids, nipping it in the bud would constructive play.

Then there was the late and inimitable Lyle Sawyer who would run around the courthouse in 100-degree heat thirty years before jogging was an "in" sport.

To capture the soul of a place and space I chose real people in real time and real circumstances, writing my recollections as a novel, rather than as a biography. I have published well over a million words but this book is the soul of my work, and I hope it will survive me.

I'd like to mention others that have been helpful and supportive of this book including Mick and Lorie Cheramy, Gene "Oink" Steesen, Ray Gilbert, who is also in the Illinois Coaches Hall of Fame, the late Donnie Stamp, who sports writers called "the arm." We had a special connection: he pitched and I caught; we both played guard in basketball, me arching the ball to the ceiling with my shots, and his on a line like a bullet; he was quarterback on our high school football team, and I was one of his ends.

And a special thanks to Maureen Witt, the wife of Vernon Witt, who was Bobby's brother. She lives the life that we all dream of living consistent with our beliefs and values. There is a scene in the book when Vernon takes Bobby and me for an ice cream sundae as he is going off to war. It was at Rastrelli's, and now, writing these words again, I can still taste the sundae and feel the pride Bobby and I felt that day.

I share this with you because a writer is connected to many others and without them my kind of writer has nothing to write about. All of my writing, scholarly, or personal, philosophical or psychological is always based on experience supported by my training, and therefore interdependent with both.

More importantly, in this most competitive business of writing today, where marketing persuaders are attempting all kinds of subliminal games to march us to their products, the real connection I have as a writer is soulful meeting on common ground. This makes my writing and the reader extensions of each other, interdependent. In sharing my stories, I hope to lace them with their own.

Always be well and thank you one and all,

Jim

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Forwarded Message:
John,
I enjoyed our exchange.

Thank you for your quick response.

I am glad you are reading some of my stuff.

A breakthrough book, which some are now treating as a classic was "Work Without Managers" (1990). It was first self-published, but then picked up by CRC Press, having me rewrite it as "Six Silent Killers" (1998).

Not being cognizant of the ephemeral nature of media opportunity, I failed to take advantage of having the book reviewed on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and by such national magazines as Industrial Week. IW named it one of the ten best business books of the year, while Business Book Review Journal named it one of the four best.

When "Six Silent Killers" came out The Wall Street Journal gave it a "must read."

I have also been widely published in the AQP Journal, National Productivity Review, the Journal of Organizational Excellence, Leadership Excellence, and even The Reader's Digest to give you an eclectic sense of my publication history.

Leadership Excellence named me one of the ten most influential thought leaders.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE gives you a sense of my thought leadership development. I hope you find the time to read it. I would read the book before I handed it off to Mel Gibson's people.

Going from the reading to the film making often takes many years. It took me thirteen years to write it traveling to Clinton, Iowa a total of twelve times and interviewing hundreds, as well as living in the library with the microfiche machine going through Clinton Heralds.

One reader of the book said that it was a "Portrait of the Leader as a Young Man," a take off on James Joyce's biographical novel.

Amazon.com has the reaction of many readers in its comment review section.

It is obvious we are on the same page. It remains to be seen if we can get off on the same dime. To that possibility I wish us success.

Always be well,
Jim

PS All my books are in print except Confident Selling (Prentice-Hall 1970). It was in print for twenty years and then the copyright went over to me. I am looking to reissue it in an updated form along with Confident Thinking. I have written several manuscripts in recent years looking for publishers among which are:

Near Journey's End: Can the Planet Earth Survive Self-Indulgent Man?;

Nowhere Man in Nowhere Land;

Who Put You In the Cage?

I am now working on my South Africa novel where I was an American corporate executive in the late 1960s to be titled Green Island in a Black Sea. This I offer in way of introduction.
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Forwarded Message:
Dr. Fisher,
Thanks for initiating a phone call.
It was a pleasure.
I am busy reading up on you and what you have done.

Our Jerusalem Project is July 24-August 13 with the tail end being a part of the Leadership Summit that is broadcast on satellite to leaders on the second weekend of August every year.

I will send you some curriculum offerings that we are working on for the 2 ½ weeks and then are developing a website for year round leadership developmet in the context of leadership development and reconciliation practices for the supposed clash of civilizations.

At the right time, a Mel Gibson contact may be in the offing.
So , stay close, my friend
John