BY GREG PETERS

I like writing. It scratches a few itches for me. Each story starts with a blank canvas and it's like solving a puzzle. I'm also a pleaser. It makes me happy when people are happy. One of my bosses 25 years ago described, in detail, why trying to please people was negative personality trait. I like entertaining people, whether it be for laughter or inspiration. My favorite part of writing for the Pierce County Journal, however, is meeting new people and listening to their stories. I am fascinated with the journeys of others.
I hit the jackpot this past week.
Meet Jack Henderson.
This column technically should not be in the sports page, but it qualifies on at least three points. Jack ran cross country and track at Western Illinois in the early 1970's.
"I ran 1,000 miles every summer before cross country and 1,000 miles every winter before track season," said Jack, a Chicago-native. "That was my thing."
He coached high school cross country and track to the tune of 14 state titles in Tennessee from 1997 to 2019 before retiring from teaching and coaching at Harpeth Hall School, an independent private school in Nashville.
"I sent out 300 letters applying for a teaching job but the school couldn't have riding stables," said Jack, "I wasn't willing to go that far from my blue-collar roots."
Jack is a Cubs fan and his wife of 34 years, Kathleen, is a St. Louis Cardinal fan. There can be friction at times at the Henderson's, as they purchased the MLB package to watch games.
"I married well," Jack said. "She's a big sports fan. I was always looking for a career and she just thought of them as a job. She's as laid back as I am driven."
Opposites attract in the Henderson household but it would take a little time. Jack was, as he described himself, a late bloomer.
Jack Henderson is a perfect example why it's deficient to judge a book by its cover. And speaking of books, we'll discuss the books he's written and his book release party in just a bit.
Jack Henderson is now 71 and living in River Falls on the same street as his son and daughter in-law, Ben and Amber Morgan, both doctors in town at Fairview Medical Clinic. Jack's daughter is an engineer with NASA in Huntsville, Ala.
Jack was a folk singer for 10 years after college all through the 1970's.
"I thought my best songs were the serious ones, but no one was listening," Jack said. "So I played the funny ones first and then I had them, but you're never just a folk singer. I had a lot of odd jobs."
Jack Henderson has delivered mail (it appealed to his sense of organization), painted houses (with his uncle Buddy in California), made donuts during the middle of the night as a donut shop manager (he hired musicians and poets to keep him company and drove that business into the ground in six months) and drove a charter salmon boat on Lake Michigan one time.
"A friend paid me $20 to drive this boat," Jack said. "These six suburbanites had never been on a boat and were drinking beer at 6 a.m. These guys were getting green and looking for reassurance. They asked me, 'How long you been doing this?"
Jack replied, "What time is it?"
It was his first trip on a boat as well.
Then, one morning at 4 a.m. driving home from his second guitar gig of the long day in Toledo, Ohio, Jack figured that was as far as his music career was going to take him.
Jack's own ship set sail on a different course. He finished his master's degree in history from Southern Illinois University and then moved to the University of Florida in Gainesville where he received his PhD.
"My brother followed me down there and he was selling snow cones across the street during the Steve Spurrier-era," Jack said. "We both liked reading Carl Hiaasen and we were having a beer at the end of the day and my brother said, 'You should write a book. You could write one of these books easily."
Jack did listen to his brother and started on a crime and suspense fiction book about the same time he landed his first "career job" in his early 40s as a teacher and coach at Harpeth Hall School.
Actresses Reese Witherspoon and Willa Fitzgerald graduated from Harpeth, so did the Olympic swimming sisters Gretchen and Alex Walsh and numerous future track and cross-country collegiate runners under Jack's tutelage.
Jack continued to write his book during spring breaks and summers. He continued it for close to thirty years.
The Hendersons were retired and Kathleen "accidentally" elbowed Jack in bed and said, "Oh, did I wake you? Zillow has a condo for sale right down the road from Ben and Amber."
Two days later they bought the place in River Falls.
"I keep making all these plans about what I want to do and the ones you don't plan work out the best," Jack said. "We love this town. The music scene is lively and I started playing again."
Jack also finally finished his book, "The Forest Primeval." Without relinquishing spoilers, it's about a Native American girl who is the last surviving member of her tribe in northern Wisconsin trying to escape a crooked attorney and the mafia in 1969. The story is infused with humor, a palpable assumption spending an hour with Jack.
"The main character's mom is drunk when she's giving birth to 'Will,'" Jack said. "She's trying to name her 'Milwaukee,' but she's drunk and it keeps coming out 'Will-maukee,' so she's 'Will.'"
There will be a book release celebration for "The Forest Primeval" on Aug. 2 from 3-5 p.m. at the storm shelter at Hoffman Park. Refreshments will be served and it is open to the public. Jack will be playing a few songs of his own.
Jack doesn't run 1,000 miles on asphalt anymore. Now he's motoring through pages and screens. He's working on a sequel to "The Forest Primeval" and a third book, a crime/suspense fiction story about a professional golfer and gambling.
"I thought my golf game was going to improve when I retired, but that never happened," Jack said. "I stumbled into everything backwards and ended up exactly where I belong."
Sometimes the plans you don't plan work out the best.