The Adventures of a Tennessee Farm Boy: A Journey from the Farm to the Courtroom

By Allen Shoffner

The Adventures of a Tennessee Farm Boy, is a true story about a farm boy growing up on a farm in rural Middle Tennessee and making the journey from the farm to the courtroom, where he was active in trial and appellate practice of law for more than fifty-six years. The author honors people who have been a positive influence in his life and shares with reader true stories about his life on the farm and in the courtroom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468562873

Allen Shoffner

Allen Shoffner is a graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Law, where he was a member of, and authored legal articles for, the Vanderbilt Law Review. He has authored various articles in legal publications and served six years on the Tennessee Law Revision Commission. In 2001 he researched, authored, and published a historical novel, The Authority, about the misuse and abuse of governmental power by the Tennessee Valley Authority. In 2007 he wrote and published In Sickness and In Health, A Love Story, a true story about tests of faith in struggling with the long-term illness of his wife. In 2008 he wrote and published A Bicentennial History of Shofner's Lutheran Church, the historic church on the waters of Thompon Creek in Bedford County, Tennessee. In 2011 he wrote and published Collectanea, a collection of his unpublished writings.

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

1. Beginning the Journey

2. Early Foot Prints

3. Growing Up

4. Farm Work

The Shepherds

The Mules

Work Castrating, Dehorning, and Branding

5. Farm Food

6. The School Boy

7. Boyhood Adventures

The Trapper

The Hunter

The Fisherman

Our Swimming Holes

8. Other Memories From The Farm

The Medicine Woman

Mother’s Egg Basket

Country Entertainment

Social Life in the Country

The Savers

Dark Clouds Cover the Land

9. A Boy Becomes a Man

10. A Farm Boy Goes to College

11. Under The Clock

12. Leaving the Monastery

13. A Country Farm Boy Becomes A Country Lawyer

14. Getting Started

15. Cases From My Legal Archives

16. Picking A Jury

17. A Definition of a Trial Lawyer

18. Pro bono publico

19. Time Out For Family

20. 207 North Spring Street

21. A Country Lawyer versus Colonial Pipeline Company

22. Closing Argument

Dedication

I dedicate this true story, The Adventures of a Tennessee Farm Boy, to those persons who have been a positive influence in my life: To my parents who taught me to know the difference between right and wrong and the value of honest work; To my teachers from grade school through law school who helped me prepare for life; To the attorneys and other professional persons who have shared their knowledge and experience with me; and To Edna, my lifetime partner in marriage, who shared adventures with me for more than fifty-three years until her death.

Allen Shoffner

Introduction

The Adventures of a Tennessee Farm Boy is not intended to be a memoir or an autobiography. I have written this true story of my life to honor people who have been a positive influence in my life. Some of these people are named in the story. There are many other people not named in the story who have been an important part of my professional life: Partners and associates in law practice; legal secretaries and assistants; and hundreds of clients who brought to me thousands of their legal problems. I wish to recognize John Bumpus an attorney who worked with me as a partner and associate for several years. A special recognition with my appreciation is due Vicky Pugh Blackwell, who was hired and came to my law office out of high school and worked for me as a loyal and efficient secretary and legal assistant for many years. I wish to thank the many trial judges before whom I tried cases and who helped educate me, the appellate judges who corrected our errors, the court reporters who recorded them, and the clerks and clerical staffs of the courts in the various venues in which I practiced law who made that practice easier.

1. Beginning the Journey

My adventures started when I was born on June 8, 1926. I did not have the chance to pick my parents. My Father and Mother had picked each other and were married on April 18, 1920. I had no chance to examine their genes and make a scientific selection. I had no chance to know that my Grandfather’s hearing impairment might be passed on to me. But had I been given the chance, I could not have selected better parents than Allen Low Shoffner and Pearl Shoffner. They provided me with a heritage better than royalty or social status and with a legacy better than wealth. They taught me at an early age to know the difference between right and wrong. They taught me the value of hard work. They taught me the value of being faithful to family and friends. They taught me these values by the examples which they set and practiced in their daily lives. And they expected me to learn and practice these values in my life as well.

My parents did not have the chance to pick me either. Had they been given the chance, they might have selected a child who was better looking or had a higher intelligence, but they took me as I came to them, and if I had come to them with big ears, a funny face, warts, blemishes, or even with physical or mental impairments, they would not have returned me for a different specimen. They accepted me without warranties or guarantees. There was no trade in or return.

My sister, Annie Odelle, a healthy child, born four years earlier, came to our parents in the same way. They accepted her in the same way, and they were willing to take their chances with me.

My parents may have had reason to be disappointed with me from time to time, but this was never expressed. In June, 1986, sixty years after I was born, my Mother, affectionately called Ma Pearlie in the family, then 91 years of age, wrote a touching note to me, expressing her love and sorry for being late remembering my birthday. She died on July 12, 1986, less than a month later. I have saved this cherished note in the family archives.

I did not have the opportunity to pick my parents. My parents did not have the opportunity to pick me. And I did not have the opportunity to pick the place where I was born. But had I been given that opportunity to pick the place where I was born, I could not have selected any better place in our universe to begin my adventures than where I was born at Three Forks Bridge in Bedford County, Tennessee, within a stone’s throw of the waters of Duck River and the old iron bridge then crossing the river.

I may not have the opportunity to pick the place where my adventures end. But I could not pick any better place to end my adventures than where I am now writing about my life’s journey eighty-five years later about one mile and one curve in the road from the place where it started.

I came to my parents COD: Delivery by Dr. W. H. Avery, a family physician practicing in Shelbyville who came to my parents’ home to make the delivery, but not necessarily to collect for it. He was one of the last community doctors still making house calls whenever and wherever called and may not have even charged for his services. Dr. Avery did not have to file a claim for insurance. The only paper required was the birth certificate.

The birth certificate issued by the Tennessee Department of Public Health lists my Father, Allen Lowe Shofner, a farmer, age 38; my Mother, Pearl Shofner, a housewife, age 30; and their child, Joe Bob Allen Shofner, born June 8, 1926.

My adventures as a Tennessee farm boy started before I had developed any cerebral capacity for memory except to remember when I needed to nurse. At this point in my adventures, I must depend on what my Mother, as historian, stated in her affidavit submitted to the Department of Public Health in 1977, explaining the different spelling of the names and requesting a correction of the names.

My parents may not have tried to pick the time or place where I was born, but they did have the opportunity to pick my name. They first picked Joe Bob Allen Shofner, combining Joe, my maternal grandfather, with Bob, one of my paternal uncles, and Allen, my father’s and grandfather’s name. Mother said that she was not aware that she supplied Dr. Avery with the long name for entry on my birth certificate. She may not have been fully recovered from the shock of seeing me for the first time. She later decided that such a long handle would be a burden for any child to carry through life and changed my name to Allen Dalton Shoffner. She explained in the affidavit that she and Allen Lowe Shoffner were cousins; that Allen Lowe Shoffner spelled his name with two fs; and that she spelled her name with one f; and the birth certificate was amended to change my name and correct the spelling of the names. I was never told why the name, Dalton was included in my new name. Perhaps, Mother thought that it just sounded good.

My name was changed on the birth certificate and on all other legal documents, but the name, Joe Bob has survived in the family. My sister and her family still call me Joe Bob.

The name, Allen, was included in the name of my paternal grandfather, Allen Franklin Shoffner. I do not