John Edwards Rice B.D. '43
A man, living alone in a forest, stumbles
across a baby eagle, taking him home, and raising him with the
chickens. Some years later, a hunter comes along and frees the
now-grown eagle. The eagle takes flight and, for the first time
in his life, the eagle is looking up instead of down." This
tale, narrated in a distinctive Southern drawl, is told by John
Edward Rice. Like the eagle in his story, Rice seems to be continuously
gazing upward toward the next prospect in his life.
A self-professed jack-of-all-trades, Rice has had success in "exploiting
any ability and talent the good Lord has seen fit to plant within
me." Now he's using his entertainment talents to perform for
audiences at venues ranging from schools to festivals, spinning
his special yarn of folk tale and folk act.
"I love telling stories, telling tall tales," he says. "It's
pure entertainment that brings laughter to my audience." In
his act, he also performs feats of magic, strums his guitar while
singing folk songs, and relates jokes, anecdotes, and bits of Deep
South lore.
Rice has also written five novels. And, like his oral prose, each
contains a moral lesson, a certain truism, gained during his eighty-four
years. He grew up in the backwoods of central Florida, an atmosphere
of cowboys and cow whips, he says--"snaky whips used to round
up wild Spanish cattle in the woods and drive them down to shipping
ports." These backwoods later became the backdrop of one of
his novels, Green Rusty Oranges, published in 2000. In it, Rice
chronicles the saga of a Cracker family--people as leathery and
rugged as the exterior of a rusty green orange, "but of quality
within."
Family and faith are inextricably bound together in all of his
novels. "I learned the Christian faith from my father, a prominent
minister, who helped build a church in Montgomery, Alabama, and
save several others from foreclosure during the Great Depression," he
says. "Faith has affected me a great deal."
Rice followed in his father's steps. He was a Methodist minister
for twenty-six years, serving in the Florida conference and founding
three churches himself. During World War II and the Korean War,
he was an Army chaplain in hospitals and aboard troopships.
After leaving the Army, Rice returned to the ministry, until a
heart ailment forced him into "early retirement." He
became a teacher at a remedial school in Georgia. "Teaching
at this school for troubled youth, failing youth, youth with various
problems, you get this intense satisfaction from knowing that you
helped these youngsters get their diploma, straighten themselves
out, and do something with their lives," he says.
Then, Rice says, his heart problems "closed in on me again." At
fifty-seven, he "retired" for a second time--and promptly
began a third career as a family entertainer, becoming a staple
at such venues as the Dillard House resort in Dillard, Georgia,
and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. His distinctive
brand of storytelling, inspired by local folk tales and his own
experiences, carried him to various Cracker festivals in Florida
and country celebrations in Georgia.
One passion evolved into another. "I think that writing and
storytelling are naturally related, and I just naturally progressed
toward the four novels that I have written," he says.
Rice's first novel, Invisible Cathedral Walls, is a testament to
his father. "This self-made father of mine, reminiscent of
Lincoln, was of course my idol, next to the masterful Jesus that
he was always making known to me." Green Rusty Oranges came
next, followed by Ransomed Warrior, After the Night, and Angles
and Angels--each dealing with various aspects of the faith that
he became so familiar with as a pastor.
In his storytelling and in his novels, Rice explores facets of
the human condition with a thoughtful spirituality and humanism,
laced with an undertone of bittersweet wit.
"I'm a firm believer in healthy laughter, humor like Groucho
Marx's, which helps a person get through a hard or challenging
moment in his or her life," Rice says. "And that's what
I tried to do as a chaplain, and that's what I do as an entertainer."
www.johnricebooks.com
--Robert Winterode '06
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