Nancy Taylor: Greene Publishing, Inc.
This past Friday (Jan. 27th), this writer had the opportunity to meet one of the many fascinating couples who have made Madison their home.
Shelly Decker is a retired law enforcement officer, having spent 27 years "wearing a badge and toting a pistol on his hip." His wife, Esther Decker, is a retired prison guard.
Shelly and Esther Decker visit Greene Publishing, Inc. to chat and share one of their books.
At the beginning of his career in law enforcement, Decker was a carrier in a three-man police department; but before he retired, he served as a state patrol officer for the Florida Highway Patrol, a pilot for the largest sheriffs department in Wyoming, and then back to Florida to design a training program for a 100-person police department where he eventually became police chief. Somewhere along the line he also lived in Montana). His last position before retirement was as an inspector for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and a certified expert witness in alcohol breath testing in many courts within the state.
After his retirement from the state, he worked for NASCAR for several years. When he moved to North Florida, he managed his own airport.
Decker and his wife, moved to Madison from the Daytona area in 1998. They love their home which sits on the banks of the Withlacoochee River. There they have constructed a shooting range and founded The Renegades Hunt Club. This is a shooting organization that is certified by The Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) and the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Both of the Deckers are pilots and shooters (he hunted "back in the day"), and he enjoys cooking, but his favorite pastime is writing.
His wife says, "The stories just pour out of him faster than he can put them on paper." Part of the reason for this (he says) is he does all of his typing with just his two index fingers. Decker says writing gives him the opportunity to relive his youth.
Decker was born during The Big War (World War II) to an "emigrant from Kentucky" and a fourth-generation Florida girl. Decker says he grew up listening to his grandmother tell tales of her Florida Indian blood and the days of the Reconstruction.
When Decker was in the eleventh grade, he was given a creative writing assignment; it was to be a poem or a short story. Upon his submission and grading of the paper, the teacher's comment was he would not attempt to grade the grammar, but he (Decker) had a "latent talent" and gave him a "B" on the assignment. Decker says he kept that paper for "a long time."
After high school, Decker was educated at David Lipscomb College and Cumberland University in middle Tennessee. He majored in Public Speaking with a minor in Bible.
Decker has taken his passion for writing (and that teacher's encouragement that he had a "latent talent") and turned out several novels and a few short stories. His pen name is T.H. Bear which dates back to his days as a patrol officer. He has written historical novels, cowboy action adventure tales, and murder mystery thrillers. He says his writing heroes are Louis L'Amour and Zane Gray, but he was a fan of Hemingway when he was in college. His favorite genre is the western.
Decker's aim is to make his stories as accurate to the time period in which they are set as possible. Once, he even wrote a second edition of one of his novels, in order to make it more accurate, when he learned some additional information about the time and place in which the story was set.
This commitment to accuracy can even be seen when he is promoting the books. "We (he and his wife) dress in period costume according to the setting of the story," Decker stated.
He began his first novel in 1972, and it is still a work in progress. It is entitled Man of the Tide, and it begins with a shipwrecked sailor in 1678 and goes on to cover the next 300 years. Whenever he does finish it, Decker says it will have to be published in a set of volumes. Decker says he is about three-quarters of the way through the story.
Most of his early stories were westerns set in the nineteenth century. Decker says westerns are his favorite where love stories are the undertone. "Life is about love, sex, violence, appreciations and disappointments.
A book by Pat Garrett (who killed Billy the Kid) written with time period jargon and expressions greatly influenced his style.
Decker and his wife say he is constantly working on new stories, and ideas "erupt (in him) as volcanoes spewing forth ideas and stories that can't be ignored." He is currently working on a series about a Vietnam vet.
He is also writing a story where his two granddaughters are the main characters.
To say this writer enjoyed her time with Mr. and Mrs. Decker is an understatement. I am looking forward to curling up in a comfy chair with my copy of one of his books.