Trouble Don't Last Always
By The Reverend Deacon Shelby M. Friend
Trouble Don't Last Always is a story of an African
American Vietnam veteran, now a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church,
and how through the grace of God and with the support of his family, friends,
and church community, he survived the difficulties and hardships that life gave
him and his family.
The book relates how Friend grew up in an
apartment behind the former Brumley Hotel (where his father was butcher and
chef until he lost his sight to diabetes), and then along Wesley Avenue in
Greeneville. (The Brumley Hotel was the predecessor to the General Morgan
Inn and located at the same site.) Rev. Friend relates how the family
survived a hungry winter in a cabin near Bulls Gap after his father died, a
terrible time that knitted a family bond that is still strong. The book
tells how he joined the U.S. Army to escape poverty, was wounded in Vietnam,
married, divorced, married again, prospered, and became a deacon in the
Catholic Church.
The book, published in September by Authorhouse
of Bloomington, Ind., takes its title from one of many sayings that Friend's
father, the late Jerry Friend, used frequently."Common sense ain't that
common" is another of Jerry Friend's sayings mentioned in the book. In the
introduction, Rev. Friend states, "This is not a book about race, or some
poor black boy who did well. Neither is it a story intending to depict God
as some kind of dealmaker who will give us anything we ask if we are willing
to worship and follow Him. "This is a story of an African-American Vietnam
veteran, now a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, and how
through the grace of God and the support of his family, friends and church
community, he survived the difficulties and hardships that life gave him and
his family."The book deals frankly with growing up poor and black in
Greeneville, but also has much to say that is good about the love and
support that he received from family, friends, and the African-American
community here. There is no bitterness, only life lessons, lovingly passed
along.
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