Between Independence Day and Labor Day, I ate at Niki’s West each Friday. In a pandemic world, it was the smallest future trip that I could take. An argument that has been made for a return to our normal lives is “personal responsibility,” and I largely agree with the notion. I don’t believe that many are capable of living within a “personal responsibility” that accounts for the lives of others. Continue reading
Buddy Anderson still remembers the night his life’s path became clear to him.
It was Jan. 12, 1968, and he was sitting in his father’s old pickup that he had driven to play in a high school basketball game.
“It wasn’t completely overcast, but there were clouds,” he recalls, as if the date nearly 50 years ago were yesterday. “I had been struggling with something in my life. It was a moonlit night, but you could see clouds rolling above. And at that point, I felt God talking to me in my spirit and in my heart. He wanted me to be a Christian coach.” Continue reading
Ells. Scalici. The Fight Song Challenge.
Here’s the deal, y’all. On May 22, the offices at The Literacy Council were badly damaged in a fire. So much so, the non-profit was forced to temporarily relocate. This year, I have served as the Junior Board Chair for The Literacy Council, which has proven to be as unique of a like situation one could find themselves in – what began as a year with a few regular fundraisers with modest aims has turned into a year in which the Junior Board is assisting the Board of Directors in attempts to raise $500,000 by the end of August in order to handle these repairs and make other necessary improvements.
I am absolutely terrified. On Thursday, I am supposed to be given permission to put weight on my left leg for the first time in over 11 weeks, and I am absolutely terrified.
I Broke My Leg on the Way to the Bar
April 15. Tax day. At least, that’s what they tell me. At some point of coherence following detachment from the morphine drip, doctors told me that this recovery will take me up to 12 weeks. “At least I’ll be ready for festival season,” I thought.
Broments, 2013.
It was a year, man. I’m not sure that my annual postcard from the road, my “weather is here, wish you were beautiful” requires a lot of setup this time; I worked hard, I played harder and things are as good as they have ever been. Continue reading
Broments, 2012. (or This Year-End Blog is Mostly Top Tens and Photos)
This annual blog post which began on MySpace, shifted to tumblr and has now found its home at my own site hosted by WordPress has been detailed, hopeful, resilient and depressing over the last three years. But, as I said last year, that was a trilogy. And the trilogy reached its conclusion in 2011. There were Ewoks.
I think this photo of me with John Oates earned me more likes than I have ever squeezed out of a Facebook post. I’m kind of mad about the guy from Painted Blind, a local Nashville band who slipped me their cd, photobombing me.
I thought of a lot of wildly awesome moments from 2011 that I neglected to include amid the epic story of love and theft, career and disaster, trials and travel. I also neglected some records I wish I had included in my list of “Best of.” So this follow up post is 100% awesome, and mostly just photos and lists.
Like the photo above, where Blair sprang 20th row seats to the Braves v. Cubs game in August on me for my birthday. But it wasn’t just any Braves/Cubs game. In this game:
– Dan Uggla broke the Braves hit-streak at 32, by going 3-3 with 2 HR
– Chipper Jones, Jose Constanza and Freddie Freeman all homered
– Bobby Cox had his jersey retired
– Carlos Zambrano was tossed, from the mound, in the 5th for throwing at Chipper
Braves won 10-4. Mike Minor got the win. Continue reading
Each year, I move farther from the events that shaped me. And still, I think I’ve made good on the promises made to myself when I left Rogersville after high school and, completely unaware, never looked back.
“You can throw me in the Colbert County jail house. You can throw me off the Wilson Dam. But there ain’t much difference in the man I wanna be and the man that I really am.” – Never Gonna Change, Drive-By Truckers
When juxtaposed with 2009 and 2010, I suppose 2011 is Return of the Jedi to ’09’s A New Hope and ’10’s Empire Strikes Back – complete with Ewoks. The trilogy of my most recent three years has been an epic journey of how to deal with circumstance and rebirth. Then, perhaps 2011 was its own trilogy, with each third of months representing its own stage of an entire life. This year has been a remarkable dichotomy of blessing and curse, and it’s final days have been an epic reflection of how far we’ve come. Continue reading
Blake Ells 