Sweet Taste of Summer

"In the South we go back to our home in dreams and memories, hoping it remains what it was on a lazy, still summer's day twenty years ago."

There's nothing better than summer is the South. I love everything about it. I love the feeling of the steam building throughout the morning. I love magnolias and weeping willow trees. I love the crickets chirping around 7 o'clock in the evening after a scorching day. I love finding a good shade to sit under in the middle of the afternoon. Nomatter how old I get, I will always catch the first glow-bug that I see every summer. I love coming in the house for a cold glass of sweet tea, dripping in sweat after working in the yard. I love grass-stains and dancin' around barefooted to keep from being severely burned by the hot asphalt. Country music has more soul in the summer. I love wearing searsucker shorts and grandpa' beach/fish shirts. If I had my way, I'd start every one of my mornings with my pops on the glaring water chasin' fins and smelling like fish. If I had it my way, I'd finish every one of my days on the backporch grillin' cheeseburgers with Amanda and telling her all about my day fishing over a frosty bottle of Abita brew. I love driving my truck around town, windows down late at night. Truth be told, Amanda might even tell you that I get a little more redneck in the summer - and I'm alright with that.

I was thinking about all of this earlier this week while I was getting ready for an event that one of our radio stations was working. The event: Harnett Regional Agriculture Fair. I don't know if it was the smell of fried turkey legs or whether it was the sound of a pig race taking place in the background (Little Anne beat BBQueen if you were wondering), but while I was waiting for our station van to arrive all I could think about is how much I loved summer in the South. Sure, summer is great everywhere. But summer doesn't seem to have a soul everywhere else if you ask me.

All that goes to say, I couldn't be happier that it is May. That means we have four months of good-living directly ahead of us. I love summer so much, I didn't even wait for summer to officially begin to start the good times. Every summer, me and my buddies get together for a big cookout in April and this year was no different. A few weekends ago we hosted the Dixie Boil and filled the backyard with music, food and close friends. The Masters was going on in the background, the sun was shining and it was even the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Everything was right. I swung by Earps' Seafood Market and loaded my truck up with tons of seafood. We had a cajun boil (15 pounds of shrimp, potatoes, corn on the cob, creole sausage, garlic, hot sauce and Zatarains) and we steamed a bushel of oysters (around 125 oysters). Just to top it off, we also threw 15 marinated mahi-mahi steaks on the grill.


Not too long after the Dixie Boil, I snagged enough Jimmy Buffett tickets for a group of us to bring in the summer Margaritaville-style. Jimmy is one of my favorites. You see, let's be honest: Jimmy isn't a great singer, he doesn't dance around the stage, he doesn't have insane stage sets or even wild pyrotechnics. In fact all his has is a guitar, a few part-time hula dancers/full-time backup singers, and a huge screen behind him displaying a tropical slideshow. The reason I love Jimmy and the reason why I've seen him perform a handful of times is because of the atmosphere. You'd be hard pressed to find a more friendly crowd. Everybody sings along and sways together like hundreds of thousands of palm trees. Sure, maybe the margaritas have something to do with it. But what is a margarita without Jimmy Buffett playing in the background? Just frozen juice.


The summer is young and we have a lot of things left to do on our checklist. We have a trip to Alaska to see my brother, Sarah & the kids - I can't wait. I hope to fill a few of my Saturday mornings with a little golf with the fellas. There will be many days on the lake - tubing, wakeboarding, esc. We have kayak day-trips. We have a Cross (Amanda's side) family trip to Hilton Head in July - I've even been watching Swamp People on Discovery Channel to prone my gator catchin' skills (Hilton Head is crawling with gators). I'm not going to lie, we also finagled our way into a few friendships with people who have beach house connections (Just kidding, guys. We genuinely like ya'll for all the right reasons). We can't wait for everything ahead of us this summer. HAPPY SUMMERTIME, EVERYBODY!

Cats are evil

I have been a dog person my entire life. Growing up my family always had labrador retreivers. They were truly a boy's best friend.

Then I married a cat person.

Our first year of marriage we had the dog vs cat argument. During our second year of marriage we compromised. What does compromise in marriage look like? Well, we got two kitten, named them after a New Orleans Saints player & coach and called a truce.

Don't get me wrong, I love our two cats. I have taught one of them (Payton) how to fetch and she has been trained to be my dog. The other one (Bell aka "Belly") is overweight, is great to snuggle with and is lazier than roadkill. I love my two cats - I do not like any other cats.

Belly in full-character (above)

But all cats are evil. All cats spit on their hands and rub it all over their bodies. I don't trust any thing that sleeps during the day and stays up all night - ie: bats, cockroaches and crackheads. Once again, I love my cats but I do not trust them. Actually Belly sleeps throughout the day and night - I trust her. Payton is the culprit.

Why? Because Payton knows my schedule and she abuses it. Say I set my alarm for 6:30am - Payton will attack me around 6:15am. It's clockwork. She pounces in fragile places, she burrows between my head and my pillow. She will do anything to wake me up. And when Payton finally does wake me up, all I do is go straight to the shower and she just watches me - creeper style.

Don't believe me? That's fine. I woke up the other morning while Amanda was out of town and I set up a sting operation. I turned on the morning news and went back to sleep.

I present Exhibit A, your honor...

My (Andrew's) Legacy

A couple weeks ago, my pops let me borrow the family's heritage book tracking the lineage on my father's side all the way back until the 1720's. A family member spent nearly 10 years studying hundreds of documents, books, articles and government records from 1984-1994. These type things always grab my interest and my nose has been stuck in the book ever since I brought it home (the book is just over 600 pages).

My pops (above) and Uncle Mike playing with a rabbit trap

Let me tell you, my father's side of the family has some interesting family secrets. It was so interesting I had to share some of the highlights:

-My great (x8) grandfather, John McElveen, was Scottish-Irish and came to the New World around 1720. That's all we know.

-My great (x6) grandfather, William, owned a slave-trading company and over 500 acres outside Charlestown, SC. He was recruited at age 18 to fight in the Revolutionary War because he "was raised in South Carolina backcountry." Enlisted in Charlestown at the beginning of the war. He fought a few years under General Francis Marion (better known as "the Swamp Fox") then served for the Militia of SC. Once he was out, he bought a plantation in Pudding Swamp, SC. Basically, watch the movie "The Patriot" and imagine Heath Ledger playing the role of ol' Gramps Willy.

-My great (x4) grandfather, Andrew, fought in the Civil War (aka The Invasion of the South, The War of Northern Aggression). It is believed he very likely fought during the Battle of Fort Sumter. After slavery was abolished, the family gave their 33 slaves (1 of them being a white man) a small farm near the family plantation. Apparently a few of the slave-families decided to continue working on the plantation. Records indicated that many of the slaves knew how to read. Eventually Andrew moved to Louisiana after re-marrying "a negro woman named Hannah." It is noted that Andrew had a drinking problem and left the Presbyterian church (I'm sure he found a welcoming home for him and his bottle in Louisiana).

Great (x3) granddad Joseph.

The details listed in the family's book are blunt - sometimes honorable and sometimes embarassing. All this got me thinking about what is going to be said about my life and I'm really worried about how my story will read in the family heritage book.

As of right now, it would look like this:

"Andrew, third son of William Earl, was born in 1982. When a young boy, Andrew had a speech problem and a large head. Struggled to behave in school. Stumbled through his college education and upon a degree. Married Amanda Cross of Winston-Salem and fathered two cats."

I need to do something about this. Let's say I live until I'm 98 - that gives me 70 years to write a better paragraph about my life. I need to own a dog. I need to kill a bear, a large shark and/or a wild jungle cat. I need to grow a good mustache for a picture that will be passed down generations (just like ol' Granddad Joseph in the picture above). I need to grow into my large head. 2011 is the year I am going to begin the journey of becoming the man my great, great, great grandchildren need me to be.

You say 2010, I say Lady Gaga

It's hard to believe that 2010 is long gone. It feels like just yesterday we were in New Orleans for the playoffs in January or enjoying a snow (ice) day in early February. Such is life.

I heard a guy on TV (confession: it was "Jack" from Will & Grace - please, no jokes. Amanda sometimes falls asleep with the TV on) say that we only remember a few things from each period of our life. So that got me thinking that I should make a list of things that I will forever associate with the year 2010. For instance if you say "1990", I say "Milli Vanilli." So here goes...

If you say 2010, I say... New Orleans Saints Super Bowl XLIV champs.

I don't know how many of you actually watched the game or if you just attended a Super Bowl party, ate off a cheeseball and mingled with other people that didn't care about the result of the game. But that wasn't us. I was glued to the TV. We met up some friends at a local bar & grill, and as my luck would have it, my truck was broken into (window busted out, GPS stolen) during the 1st quarter of the game. When I found out about it I called the cops and told them to come around halftime.

My mother could tell you where she was on her elementary school playground when she heard President Kennedy was assassinated. I will tell my children where I was when Tracy Porter intercepted Peyton Manning's pass to Reggie Wayne and ran it back for a touchdown - securing the game for the Saints. I will also tell them how I was smiling all the whole way home (window busted out) on a cold February night.

If you say 2010, I say... family time!

If you know me, you know I love my two older brothers (and their families). One of my brothers is up in Alaska and the other one is down in Georgia. It's a rare occasion that we're all able to get together. The last time all of our families were together was in 2007 and the last time I saw my oldest brother Ash was the day of Amanda & my wedding in 2008. So with that said, having both of my brothers (and their families) around for a week was the highlight of my year.

If you say 2010, I say... fantasy football championship

NERD ALERT: this year I finally came out victorious in fantasy football. Adam (my middle brother) and I have a league with a bunch of my high school buddies. This is the third year it's been going on and after two years being won by Adam, I finally came out on top this year... beating Adam in the championship game. I promise there are other people in the league. It's not just the two of us having a Brown Brothers nerdfest. Even though it looks like that is what the league has become.

If you say 2010, I say... Andrew vs. Our Neighborhood HOA

This year I've discovered the many joys of living in a great neighborhood. We love our neighborhood, almost everybody we've met has been wonderful and the neighborhood has some of the best ammenity perks in the area. However, 2010 will always be the year we really learned what it was to be apart of a neighborhood HOA and to try to get along with everyone living around us (that sounds evil - I am aware).

Back in the apartment days, I had a guy that cooked cabbage (what seemed to be) 3 days a week and wrank Indian dishes the other days. While I'm sure he was a good cook, his meals smelled horrible and the aroma rose through the floor into my apartment. I also had a neighbor in my old apartment that use to bark at his dog when his dog barked. Some people spank their dog; this guy just tried to get in a barking match with his dog. I'm not sure who won those duels but they always seemed to go into overtime and late into the night. The point being is that back in the apartment days, it wasn't a big deal if you had a crazy neighbor because you knew that everybody around was a short term problem. Give it a couple months and they most likely would be gone.

But when you buy a house, you are locked into a 30 year fixed commitment to the crazy lady down the road that covers her yard in garden gnomes, concrete statues, buddhas, Santas, Easter bunnies, snow globes, Halloween goblins, esc, esc, esc. I'm all for a little festive home decor. Heck, I love the Easter bunny, Santa and all things Halloween. But there is a time for each... not all.

Don't get me wrong, Amanda and I love most of our neighbors. But somebody needs to tell me why our HOA prohibits parking on the left side of the road but the crazy lady down the road is allowed to recreate Adventure Landing Putt-Putt in her yard. Between you and me, there might be a few gnome kidnappings in 2011.

If you say 2010, I say... the year I met Saints' owner Tom Benson

My good buddy Chip hooked me, Amanda and a couple of my high school buddies (Clay & John) up with a few Saints sideline tickets for a game at Carolina. Not only did I have a moment with Reggie Bush but I also was able to talk with the Saints' owner Tom Benson. He was extremely nice and I made it out of the situation without a restraining order.

If you say 2010, I say... good year on the Deep Blue

My goal this year was to catch a nice size billfish (sailfish more specifically), but it didn't happen. My pops and I had a few good trips to the coast but when all was said and done, the year was full of mahi-mahi, tuna and one big shark. So a citation sailfish has become my Moby Dick and we'll have to see if 2011 will be my year. The highlight of my year (in regards to the fishing world goes) was when my parents and I attended the Big Rock Blue Marlin tournament weigh-in and witnessed the landing of a North Carolina blue marlin record. It was a once-in-a-lifetime fish that I'm so thrilled I was able to see.

If you say 2010, I say... job/career change!

For a while now, Amanda and I have really been feeling like I needed to move on from my position at APS and find a position elsewhere. I enjoyed my four years with APS but it became clear over the last year or so that it wasn't the place where I saw myself long term. So I put together my resume, pulled out my ol' power tie and went on a few interviews.

Truth be told, I killed the first interview. And no, not "killed" as in "dominated." "Killed" as in "Thank you for coming, we'll call you if we ever want to scrap everything good we have going with our company." It was what my father would call a "learning experience." The second interview, I found a new power tie - a silk blue and white striped tie. I got an offer but it just didn't seem like a good fit or the step that we wanted to take.

Then I mixed things up and went with my new power tie - I went with the light blue (to show a flash of masculinity) and light green striped tie. The interview process went great. I felt comfortable, not just in my light blue/light green striped tie, but also with the company and the managers involved. So after some real thought and after a couple sleepless nights, Amanda and I took a step of faith and accepted the Account Executive offer from Clear Channel.

I have loved my time with Clear Channel so far and it's been great being able to face new challenges and meet so many wonderful, new people. And at the end of the day, they have a wonderful break room. So yeah, there's always that.