Knoxify

So today is the big day, that’s right I’m 30. This is a big day for me as it is the dead­line of sev­eral life goals. A lit­tle his­tory, I grew up in Knoxville, went to Ole Miss, and moved to Den­ver, CO for 3 years, before com­ing back to my home­town to start my busi­ness with my father. I stum­bled upon a few Knoxville bless­ings in my 30 years, below are 100 bless­ings of a 30 year old Knoxville Native, in no order. I could list more, but tried to keep it fun, not too sappy, and true to what we dis­cuss on Knoxify.

1. God’s breath blow­ing on me as I stand alone atop Mt. Leconte and yes I have seen every­thing from there…one of the few not socked in days of the year.
2. My wife, every ounce of her. We were High School sweet­hearts, man she has put up with me for a long time..love you honey!
3. The birth of my daugh­ter at Parkwest
4. My parent’s hard work to raise me in Knoxville, teach me how to set goals, and sup­port me at every turn. True par­ent­ing, that’s a real bless­ing, thank you.
5. Real­iz­ing I am “actu­ally” Jeans Clarke’s brother and being so proud of that
6. Tail­gat­ing with my aunt, uncles and cousins, so many places, so much fun
7. My wife’s extended fam­ily, man is it extended.
8. Fort Sanders, I still own that b-ball court, just part of the knee brace crew
9. Coach Mike Edwards and some life­long friends
10. Run­ning cross coun­try races at Lakeshore, the same track that is now paved, but it always smelled bad.
11. Turkey Creek, where we used to take my jeep 4-wheeling. Now its “Turkey Creek”
12. Fly-fishing the Clinch, the tight, cold Smoky Moun­tain streams, Hiwassee River, the Hol­ston river, and of course that secret pond with the best fish­ing in Knoxville, you know I can’t tell all of Knoxville where the honey hole is..Coughlin and Burger
13. Moun­tain bik­ing Haw Ridge, Con­cord park, and yes Icy King
14. Road bik­ing all the way out to Calhoun’s on the River in Lenoir (Lenwa, its FRENCH, just wear a hel­met and watch out for fly­ing screwdrivers).
15. Cal­ibur Car Wash, what a blessing
16. Trips to Pilot AND Weigels
17. Red Food, then Bi-Lo, now Food City, but we all know Fresh Mar­ket and But­ler Bai­ley is where its at
18. Try­ing to sneak into the Tap Room when I was 16
19. Aubrey’s, then Sunspot, then Bar­leys, then Bistro By the Tracks (Where I took my wife to prom, moved and was bought by Randy. Any­thing he does turns to gold in my book…and bonus is he gives back to community
20. I was the first and last high school stu­dent hired by Pres­tige Clean­ers, Eddie Man­nis is still my boy though!
21. I learned to wake­board on a skurfer behind an alu­minum bass boat called the Bass Attacker at 6 AM in the morn­ing before sum­mer work at Amer­i­can Boat Cen­ter and the Wakeshop Glass baby!
22. Throw­ing Fris­bee to my dog at Anchor Park
23. I remem­ber how dead down­town used to be, no one went down­town. But now com­mu­nity exists, it took 30 years, but wow, great job downtown!
24. Con­certs, my show was Wide­spread Panic, but I have seen tons of con­certs – the strip dur­ing my col­lege years, later blue cats, bar­leys, AC Enter­tain­ment has brought Sexy back, there is always a good show – Garth Brooks in Thomp­son Boil­ing that’s a funny mem­ory, what’s his name now..?
25. The UCLA game when the temp was 110 degrees, I think Smokey passed away that day…I think
26. Watch­ing UT run through the T, even liv­ing in Oxford, MS and in Den­ver I still got chills when the Orange took the field. No more expla­na­tion, one of the biggest thrills
27. Shoot­ing Hoops with Alan Houston
28. Best foot­ball lines — Give him 6 and Peyton’s Staying!
29. Catch­ing the last out in the farm league all star game at Far­ragut Base­ball fields
30. Watch­ing Bruce Pearl, maybe he will rap this year
31. All the friends and all the par­ties, too many too men­tion and too many we for­got espe­cially Rob’s Christ­mas party
32. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck came to Far­ragut to study stu­dent high school life before launch­ing one of my favorite movies “Good­will Hunting”
33. The Knoxville K-Jays, that’s history
34. Buy­ing Duck Heads at Goody’s, can’t believe I admit­ted that
35. Both­er­ing Scalpers, I almost died once
36. The house they tore down and built a park­ing lot on off the strip…Jones, Rob, Bai­ley, O’connor, that house got what was coming
37. Cades Cove is great, but point­ing at wildlife for 5 min­utes and watch­ing the tourist behind you from Ohio get out of their car and stop traf­fic for another 20 min­utes that’s price­less. Next time Bear suit.
38. Out­let shop­ping in Pigeon Forge and peo­ple watch­ing, did you know sweat pants seem to be a require­ment for shop­ping in Pigeon Forge?
39. Teen Wolf car surf­ing with Pay­lor, Hicks, and Schimmel’s
40. Kingston Pike, Northshore Drive, Pellissippi….that’ll never hap­pen, but it did
41. Big Eds – I eat a large spe­cial by myself, seriously
42. Run­ning Con­cord Hills, Fox Den, The Boule­vard, For­est Brook, Green­ways, Northshore…now that’s dangerous
43. Not Dol­ly­wood, but Magic World
44. Teach­ing Eric Bell to run cross coun­try, he will find that funny
45. Young Life, Andrew Huck lives hard!
46. Pick­ing my boxer, Cooper up in Lenoir City one Christ­mas with my wife
47. The Worlds Fair, yeah I remem­ber it
48. Ok, the Sun­sphere, the Knoxville sta­ple, right
49. Sam and Andy’s Vol Burger and Fries
50. The Bearden/Farragut Bas­ket­ball game bench/stand clear­ing brawl!
51. Char­ter Peti­tion, I voted “YES” on 3 and 4, you should too!
52. Watch­ing county gov­ern­ment work till 1 AM in the morn­ing sev­eral times
53. The beauty of the recon­structed Ten­nessee The­atre, I have been going there since Kirk Trevor
54. The Bijou, acoustics
55. Dog­wood Arts Fes­ti­val, this year will be the best one in 10 years. This is a month long fes­ti­val, and with Lisa Dun­can lead­ing the way, I bet it makes a huge come­back. Don’t miss it!
56. A few Knoxvil­lian over-achievers who have been a big part of my life Jean­nie Dulaney, Lau­rens Tul­lock, John Wor­den, Laura Heinz, Alan Lowe and Brad Maynard
57. Being a part of a men’s move­ment in Knoxville sweep­ing the coun­try “The Fight for Manhood”
58. The employ­ees at John Bai­ley Com­pany and work­ing for a fam­ily business
59. The Amer­i­can Museum of Sci­ence and Energy
60. The Museum of Appalachia
61. The Church of Ascension
62. Teachers…Mrs. Black, Ms. Ward, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Curry, Mrs. Dri­ver, and of course Stansberry!
63. Watch­ing Broad­way and Central/Old North and Fourth and Gill blow up
64. Alpine Bagel Com­pany, not here any­more but that was a bagel shop!
65. Mr. Gat­tis buffet
66. Video Movies to go, best ever, no longer there, that’s old
67. Oppor­tu­nity to speak and help the Cham­ber of Commerce
68. Launch­ing a non-profit (YPK – Young Pro­fes­sion­als of Knoxville) with a great group of young peo­ple – We did it! One of the hard­est things I have ever done…ever launched a non-profit, few peo­ple believe in you.
69. Cof­fee on the porch — Knoxville fall 55 degree morning
70. Real fire­wood pop­ping on a snowy Knoxville night, what hap­pened to those?
71. Sled­ding, the flex­i­ble flyer sledding…think it was the years of 1982, 83, 84, 85, 86…haven’t seen a street that cov­ered in ice/snow around here in a long time.
72. Tub­ing, the sinks, jump­ing off the cliffs on Fort Loudon Lake the flats, Booms­day by river, the lit­tle river
73. Mul­lets at Booms­day! Best in the country!
74. Frat par­ties at the Sigma Chi and Pike house, do they still have those..?
75. My first pair of Jor­dans from Ath­letic House, no longer there.
76. Watch­ing Michael Jor­dan and the elite 8 in Thomp­son Boling
77. Run­ning 2 Knoxville Half Marathon, The Turkey Trots, The Jin­gle Bell Runs
78. The old News Sen­tinel build­ing down­town, that seems old.
79. Harolds Deli – Reuben, gone.
80. The Piers…what hap­pens at the Piers…
81. Bonner’s Par­ties, wow seri­ously that really hap­pened. Crazyness!
82. Fris­bee Golf
83. Carl Cowan high dive, now there’s not even a pool
84. Tod­dys in college
85. Roost­ers, OCI, Dog­house – no longer
86. Keep it real!
87. Nama, Greg White expe­ri­ence brought sushi to Knoxville
88. Hear­ing peo­ple order FIL-LET MIG..NON, CHIMICHAAAANGA
89. Moon­shine, white light­ing no hangover!!!
90. Lis­ten­ing to Rocky Top at every wed­ding or con­cert I have ever been too in ktown!
91. I have made many friend­ships with sev­eral young peo­ple who are no longer with us, I miss them. Char­lie and Keith, love you guys!
92. Swim­ming 3 miles in Fort Sanders pool, flip turns and no breaks
93. Sports Unlimited…hah that’s old school
94. The dol­lar movie, when it was a bar­gain, not cheap
95. The Joe, been kicked out of that place more times than I can count.
96. Chet Ring­gold, The Ktown Daddy show on cable and prank call­ing them
97. West Town Mall – Gap, Aber­crom­bie and Fitch is com­ing to town?
98. Ten­nessee Twang, down yon­der, ya’ll, you’ens
99. Fat Tire com­ing to town, Pump­kin Spice Beer at Sunspot
100. Casey Peters, a ran­dom stranger who is now a close friend. We launched YPK and then the sec­ond project Knox­ify on Dec 29, 2007. What’s our next project, maybe next year we can release a new site, take global, not hyper-local, no blog this time, maybe we will bring some friends along, maybe…just maybe its com­ing soon! More info, com­ing later.

Pho­tog­ra­phy by dun­can