Mood:
coolTopic: "First Sentence" (8)
Dr. Ferrol Sams, MD, of Fayetteville, Georgia, passed away yesterday. He was 90 years of age. Dr. Sams had two careers, the first of which, the medical, commenced with his admission to Mercer University at the age of 16. His second career festered embryonic after one of his professors urged him to seek a career as a writer. His first book was published in 1982, and is entitled "Run With the Horsemen." Dr. Sams continued his family practice until 2006, concurrent with career number two.
There are a few books whose opening sentence captures the appropriate location in the frontal lobe, and remains there for a lifetime. "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Moby Dick" come immediately to mind among the handful which are known to all, seemingly. Ferrol Sams added "In the beginning there was the land."
In the final pages of the first book in what became a trilogy, Frodo backed off his assertion that he had been reading one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. He added Sams however, to his identification of the ablest of the able, the Southern author. Ferrol Sams was as passionate as he was honest. He must have been one hell of a doctor.
Some years ago Frodo came to the acquaintance of an extremely intelligent and worldly young woman whose hometown was Fayetteville. During the conversation, Frodo raised his admiration of Ferrol Sams as an author to the subjects of discussion. He was greeted by a blank stare. Only when the "Sams Center" was referenced did she ever question who or how the name for said facility come to be. Frodo offers to others that becoming familiar with Ferrol Sams writing is a sound investment in personal wealth.
