For a free copy of Fenton Forest
Southern Adventist University is offering a free copy of the “Parables of Fenton Forest” in PDF format. To download a copy, go to http://issuu.com/saumarketing/docs/fenton_forest
One day the gigantic bear nicknamed Gruff discovered two intruders in his favorite berry patch - a squirrel and a skunk - then caught a deer and fox stealing honey from his favorite tree.
In most forests, the big bear would rip the squirrel, skunk and fox with his huge razor sharp teeth and claws and chase the deer so he could kill and eat it - maybe dragging it through honey first.
But Gruff and his animal friends live in the gentle-yet-often-socially treacherous world of Fenton Forest, an imaginary landscape bounded by Crashing Creek and Ivy Lane. Southern Adventist University President Gordon Bietz created a series of Fenton Forest stories while he was still a church pastor. In 1987, they were collected into a collection titled "Parables of Fenton Forest."
"He wrote those stories for adults to keep them from getting bored with the sermon," says retired Seventh Day Adventist pastor Ralph Neal, a Forest fan. "But children loved them, too. I heard Gordon tell some of the stories when he was pastor at the Collegedale Church."
Some of the adventures of Sweetpea Skunk, Scamper Squirrel, Freddy Fox, Lightfoot Deer and other Fenton Forest residents ran in The Chattanooga Times religion section before the newspaper merged with the Free Press in 1999. Recently, Southern Adventist published another version of "Parables of Fenton Forest" with most of the stories written since the first version came out.
The book, with lovely color drawings by 2012 graduate Rebecca Johnson. was intended to be a marketing material for the university, according to Bietz, but interest went beyond that.
"Now the university is offering the public a chance to download free PDFs of the entire collection of Fenton Forest tales," university Communications Director Lucas Patterson says.
Like all fables, each tale has a moral or proverbial advice. However, despite Bietz's job at Southern Adventist, his background as a pastor and his newspaper columns, "Parables" is not overtly religious, although its morals could be seen that way. In most stories, though, the moral is more wide-ranging and societal.
In "Gruff's Bad Day," the bear is furious after a salmon he was saving in a pond vanishes and his favorite honey tree and berry patch are ransacked. The animals remind him he doesn't own all the bounty offered in the forest, but that just makes him angrier - until he discovers the food they "stole" are the refreshments at his birthday party. Each story has a paragraph summarizing the moral of the tale for those who can't see past the cuddly critters.
Gruff the bear's bad-turned-good day was meant to illustrate the importance of sharing earth's resources and learning that is healthier and happier for everyone to be part of a community rather than isolated, Bietz says.
"My kids were around nine years old when I first started writing those stories 18 years ago," he says. "They would tell me if they thought a story wasn't any good. Sometimes they would suggest plot changes - make this happen or have the bear do this."
His children had their own favorite Fenton Forest denizen, Randy Raccoon, "perhaps because he was always getting into trouble and out of scrapes," Bietz says, laughing.
The tales in the new book tackle fresh topics. In one, the forest creatures invest in what sounds like a mysterious startup, but mistrust rips through the community when they fear the animals fear they have fallen victims to fraud. The ending is bittersweet, rather than happy.
Bietz says he was moved by world economic crises - the subprime mortgage collapse and the dotcom bubble bursting - to write that one.
And fans will be happy to know more tales are coming. Bietz is retiring this year from the university and says he has 60 untold Fenton Forest stories waiting for his attention in his computer at home.
"I plan to collect them in a book and publish the new adventures of the forest creatures," he says.
Contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com or 423- 757-6391.