Gone Fishin!

  At the urging of my friend Tony who informed me that it had been some time since I had penned some thoughts here, I thought I'd jot down a few musings at his request. I suppose the biggest impact point of the last 12 months was a devastating injury that I suffered last June.   I had been to visit my father at the NC coast for Father's Day and had an amazing time with my wife, my brother and his wife along with my dad and his. But I also got to ride my bike on some flat roads, and I was feeling particularly strong. I had been training all spring to get myself ready for a cycling fundraiser I started in 2020 to benefit the nonprofit where I serve (www.phhusa.org).   We made our way home and the next day I went to work basking in the glow and looking forward to the rest of the summer. On my way home from work on what would be a fateful day, I stopped at a local convenience store to grab a Gatorade. While there I noticed a young lad, covered in dirty clothes, obviou...

 I was asked by another Veteran to write down a story from my term in service for a book she is writing. There are many, this is one. Leaving to go back was the worst. It was the fastest two weeks I had ever experienced in my life. Two amazing weeks, sharing cups of coffee each morning with my wife, laughing with my precocious daughter, deer hunting with my son, and Thanksgiving with all our extended family and it simply came to an end. What was waiting on the other side was not something I prepared for or even considered.   My time on R and R came to an end. I had been in Iraq for 6 months and was staring down another 6. The days flew by and they dragged by, time was somehow bent. But there it was, another airplane waiting to take me away from my family, again. It's something we get used to in an Army at war, the continual separation and reunion. It can get pretty exhausting. But there it was, the plane. I boarded and set my mind on what was next, back to the desert and takin...

 This is an email I sent to our employees today.  On this day 19 years ago I was installing a sliding glass door for a lady in Troutman with my buddy Nathan. It was a normal day, crisp clear skies, fall had arrived a bit early that year. I was just trying to earn a living and take care of my wife and my 6 and 3 year old kids. Then, at 08:49 everything changed. I saw it happen live on TV as peered through the new door I was installing. I was just a normal man and 35 years old.  Because of that, at 37 years old I found myself at the Chaplain Officer Basic Leadership Course and it wouldn't be long after that I'd find myself far from home in the middle of a war.  I've buried many friends killed in combat who joined after that fateful day In fact, I am serving here at Purple Heart Homes because of that day, for had that day not happened, I would have gone on putting in sliding glass doors for nice people and caring for my growing family....

My home was filled with music and people growing up. Mom loved music and can play an assortment of instruments but her favorites are the lap dulcimer and the hammered dulcimer. I'm not certain of when she took up these pieces, but her talent and ear for music made the learning curve much shorter than most. Mom also loves people and there was always someone over at our house playing music and enjoying fellowship. Mom was always having dulcimer parties and with some of her friends played weddings, church events and parties for folks. My favorite was down at my aunt Becky's house just a 1/4 mile from our home. Becky would take the whole month of May to celebrate her birthday and it would culminate with a big party called "The Strawberry Jam". I'm sure there were strawberries there but I was never real sure the origin of the name. Everyone would gather in my aunt's carport, musicians would arrive with instrument cases and chairs. There was lots of conve...

I was 28 years old and I was blind. I had been this way since birth. I didn't know I was blind. But I knew something was wrong. Blindness leads to fumbling in the dark and bumping into things. You don't know when you are in danger, close to a cliff or near a something that can hurt you. You do a lot of wandering when you are blind. In my blindness I was unable to help my own state, incapable of changing anything. I tried, believe me I tried. Over and over again I set out to see, but blind people cannot see. Blindness is simply the inability to perceive light. Light is everywhere, but if you cannot perceive it, you can't see the world or yourself for what it really is. Then it happened. I'm not sure why it happened. I'm not sure why in respect to the timing that my healing took place. All I do know is that its much like the song, I was blind and then I saw and now I continue to see. It wasn't because I was special or talented. It wasn't ...

I looked down the hallway at Walter Reed Hospital and saw a Veteran in his late 30s being pushed in a wheel chair. At first, it was just a normal sight at Walter Reed to see someone missing legs, but then I noticed a familiar crooked grin and a familiar hat atop his head. The hat read, Purple Heart Homes and the smile meant that it was my friend Dale Beatty. He didn't recognize me in my Army uniform and clean shaven. I looked down at him as we both waited for an elevator and I said sarcastically, "Hey son, what do you know about Purple Heart Homes?" He looked up at me and said, "I'm the co-founder and we do critical home repair for disabled Veterans!" The excitement in his voice was contagious. I smiled back and said, "I know you Dale" Then the reunion began as we rode up in the elevator and for the next 2 hours we continued in conversation, Dale, his wife Belinda and me....just reconnecting. As I was leaving that day, Dale gave me a coin ...

Most days I ride my bicycle with a group of friends and there's chatter and joking and all around good fellowship. But some days, I enjoy a solitary ride on roads I seldom ride. This Memorial Day weekend I've been with my family in Boone celebrating my mom's 80th birthday. There's been a lot of laughter, food and this spring for some reason, copious amounts of rain. Its been a green, muddy spring in Western NC. So when the forecast in Watauga County says sun, I try to take advantage of that. Yesterday that was the case and I headed up the mountain near our family home here in Boone. Riding solo, there is a lot of time to think and I had a lot of names running through my head. Names like Alan, Ben, Steven, Mike, Ben, Marty, Joseph, Aaron, Dusty, LaDavid, Bryan, Jeremiah and Dale. Lots more are there taking up space in my head. As I rode and looked at the scenery around me I thought of those names, the circumstances of the loss, the funerals and the families w...

I've been asked by several folks to post the sermon I gave for my friend Dale Beatty at his funeral. It was an honor to speak on his behalf and to speak words of hope from a living Savior. Please understand that words delivered in 15 minutes are inadequate to sum up a life well lived. I walked through the hallways of Walter Reed almost exactly a year ago o in my Army uniform on a mission to see my one of my soldiers who was being treated for terminal cancer. On my way to his room I saw a nurse pushing a wheel chair with a young man missing two legs and oddly enough on that day wearing a Purple Heart Homes hat. I looked down at him and said “Hey son what do you know about Purple Heart Homes?”. And with that crooked grin Dale Beatty looked up at me and shared with me the 30 second elevator story of Purple Heart Homes. I said I know who you are Dale and he again smiled and “Hey Brad, how are you, so good to see you” I spent a little time with Dale and Belinda...

If you read this blog you might recall from my last post a cycling accident that put my friend Pressly and I in the hospital for some injuries. We are both on the mend now, although my finger will probably never work like it used to and Pressly's shoulder looks like as he calls it "Quasimodo" we are getting better. Scars are little reminders of life's journey I suppose and at my age I have a few of them. My recovery however this week was spurred on by a remarkable and unsuspected show of great love and friendship. I took my broken bike to First Flight Bikes this week where our buddy Wes Davidson is the local genius. Please check them out for your next bike, upgrade or repair at firstflightbikes.com The forks were sheared off, my front wheel is toast and some other minor injuries. Not a total loss, but bikes can be a little pricey to repair. Wes diagnosed the damage and informed me of the price which came as no surprise. As you might imagine, a 45 minute ...

On Friday as I normally do 4 to 5 times a week I gathered with 8 or 9 good friends to ride bikes through our county to get some exercise and experience some fellowship. Somewhere along the way I got tangled up with my long time riding buddy Pressly and we went down. I don't remember any of the events that happened leading up to our wreck or the 12 hours after that. My friend Owen says I have now time traveled, perhaps so. What I do know is that I woke up in a level 1 trauma center at Baptist Hospital holding my wife's hand. I had no idea where I was, or how I had gotten there. As the events of the day were told to me a great wave of fear swept over me. It was a completely new experience for me. The detachment with reality was very unnerving. What I did find out is that I had gone over the handlebars on my bike and my face took the brunt of the fall. My friend Pressly had a separated shoulder and was transported to another hospital more locally. I had lost a lot of blood and the...

You may have seen the Direct TV commercials with the family known as the "settlers". They are a hyperbolic 19th century family stuck in a cul-de-sac neighborhood of the 21st century. With Amish overtones, the term settlers refers to their commitment to stay mired in the backward world of cable television in lieu of the progressive and better world of satellite TV. The commercials are hilarious and creative for sure. And I like them a lot. But lately I've been reading about people ditching their smartphones and going back to rotary landlines. I have friends that text me when they date their wives saying "I'm going dark", referring to their shutting down the smartphone. It seems as if there's a rumbling of rebellion to the incredible technological advances we have seen and embraced over the last decade. Maybe its all the talk of AI and robots taking over the world, just read the Drudge report for a few days, you'll see it. I grew up with litt...

Joshua 14:10   So now ,  look ,  the  Lord   has preserved   my life, just   as he promised , these   past forty-five   years   since   the  Lord   spoke   these   words   to   Moses ,  during which   Israel  traveled   through the wilderness .  Now   look ,  I am   today   eighty-five   years   old .   11   Today   I am still   as strong   as   when   Moses   sent   me out .  I can   fight   and go   about   my daily activities with the same energy   I had then.  Half a century ago my mom Sarah struggled through a really long labor in a hospital in West Allis, Wisconsin and my walk on this earth began. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) I must say it out loud, I am 50. There, that wasn't so bad. Its an odd thing to say. Its days like today where men sometimes reflect over thei...