“When I played soccer, I always enjoyed winning a game 5-4 versus winning a game 1-0. It was typically much more exciting.”-abk

I love to eat good food, and I love to play sports. The more I play, the more I need to eat. The more I eat, the more I need to play. Otherwise, it doesn’t work.

—

My mom knows better than most what it takes to be good and stay good at something. For the better part of fifty years now, she has been a professional pianist. She and my dad came to visit last week, and over lunch one day, I asked her about her practice habits. At seventy some odd years old, this is what she said. Every day. For an hour or two.

—

After playing eighteen holes with my dad on Thursday, my mom joined me for nine holes on a beautiful Friday afternoon. (My mom loves to watch me play. Always has. Always will.) I introduced her to two of my friends, and off we went.

I hadn’t warmed up due to time constraints, and when that happens, my first tee ball could literally go anywhere. On this occasion, it went straight down the middle en route to an easy opening par. After a great up and down par on 2, I smoked my drive on the Par 5 3rd hole, which forced me to make a decision. 230 yards into the wind over water, should I be smart or should I put on a show for my mom? I pulled my 3 wood, choked down, and smashed it, but pulled it slightly left into a tree branch, the ball eventually landing the water. That led to a tap in bogey, but the energy was building. On 4, I hit wedge to two feet, leading to an easy birdie. On 5, I had a great birdie look, but watched the ball slide just past the left edge for another tap in par.

Even through five. The vibe was good.

I tugged my tee ball just slightly on the swampy 6th hole. It was playable, but I’ve seen alligators down where my ball was, so I decided to take a drop. Fast forward about five minutes, and I had to make a five footer to save double bogey, which I did. I smoked my drive on the Par 5 7th, leaving a 6 iron into the green. I hit it a little wonky, and I left myself an awkward 20 yard flop shot from thick rough. No worries. I struck it perfectly, it bounced once, hit the stick, and went in for eagle. We all screamed.

Even through seven. The vibe was back.

On 8, I always hit the ball left, which makes for a difficult par. I made a lazy bogey, annoyed at myself for letting the gas off. On 9, I pulled it left also, leaving 154 yards from a fairway bunker with a lip and some limbs serving as minor distractions. I turned to my mom and told her I was making birdie, and then I took my pitching wedge and stuffed it to about 8 feet. As we approached the green, I told her again that I was making birdie, then calmly rolled it in for a rollicking even par 36.

My mom hasn’t watched me play much golf, and the couple of times she has, my 9 hole score would have been anywhere from the low 40s on a good day to the mid 50s. So an even par 36?

That’s what you get when you practice for a few hours every day for two and a half years, I said.

I know, she quipped. It’s no different than playing the piano.

—

As if the afternoon wasn’t exciting enough, we returned home to the smells of a roast that had been cooking in the crockpot for hours. My parents had brought THEIR crockpot and THEIR ingredients from North Carolina. THEY were cooking.

So after a day of playing, it was a night of eating. Two birdies, an eagle, and mom’s home cooking.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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“Identity is a funny thing. Just when you think you’ve defined yourself or that life has defined you, there’s always another chapter, another challenge. It’s all about getting outside of your comfort zone. Until you do, you’ll never know what you’re capable of.”- Spencer Strasmore, Ballers

I remember when I told my parents I was going to be a father for the first time over seven years ago. They were ecstatic, but later mentioned to me that they had been unsure if kids were ever going to be in my future due to my ever-growing, free-flowing, limit-pushing lifestyle (accurate assessment). That very specific topic has been at the center of the abk journey: how to prioritize the vitally important aspects of family and children, yet still tend passionately to the endless amount of adventurous or exotic things I want to do with my life.

—

If you had told me five years ago that, at the age of almost 40 now, I would be an assistant golf professional in coastal Mississippi who just welcomed a daughter into this wild and wacky world, I would have slapped you. No chance. No way. No how.

But I’ve learned, so if you tell me now that in five more years time, I am going to do something or be something equally as ridiculous, I might actually believe you. After almost five years on the journey, I now know how this works. Focus each day on actively living, and living will actually happen. No limits.

—

I knew early on in my life that my world was going to have to be huge and ever-changing, but I didn’t fully understand how to accomplish this until I decided to take myself on a little journey, a journey to uncover all I was capable of.

For a period, I was a fervent traveler, exploring anywhere and everywhere. The fields of Iowa to the back streets of Mexico City. Plain Jane and a little danger.

For a period, I did some logistically improbable and downright unnecessary things. My favorite is the day I went to two Italian Serie A soccer games in different northern Italian cities in the same day. My home base was Venice. I hit the lunchtime kickoff in Milan. I hit the 8pm kickoff in Bologna. I had hotel rooms all over Italy. It was unnecessary. It was logistically improbable. It was a day I will never forget.

For a period, I went running like Forrest Gump, pushing every limit that I could. Funny thing is, I hate running. Charlotte, Nashville, Salt Lake City, New York City. In Utah, I ran a blazing-ass fast half marathon down the mountain in the early morning, wanted to die, got sick, rallied, then enjoyed a professional soccer game that my buddy was playing in that evening. All in a 12 hour span. Unbelievable day.

For a period, I got to be daddy daycare for my young son. Man, was that beautiful. For almost a year, I think. Maybe more. That rolled into being my son’s soccer coach for two years, which, unfortunately, I have to take a break from this year.

For a period, I was a banker. For a period, I didn’t do any traditional work. For a period, I worked some. Now, I work all the bloody time.

For a period, during a global pandemic, I lived in about 750 square feet, which I loved. Previous to that, I lived in an urban jungle, which I loved. Now, I live outside in nature, which I love most. Instead of going to the movies, Christy and I sometimes ride with the dolphins.

For the (current) period, I’ve grinded at golf essentially every day for two and a half years. It has turned into a job, a new career, a lifestyle, an opportunity to teach, an opportunity to be outside, an opportunity to be with my son, an opportunity that can take me anywhere I want to go.

For this entire period, I’ve written over 200 journal entries on my website that have been read over 25,000 times. Mind blown.

—

I’ve now entered a very distinct new period, one with no wandering allowed for the next year or so. But with a beautiful new daughter in my life and my PGA Player Ability Test, the next baby step towards becoming a golf professional, on the horizon, I need to tend to my business. I’ll miss the traveling, but I’m hoping some family and friends have the abk bug and meander down here.

First up, a tee time with my dad this Friday. It’s supposed to be gorgeous.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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Friday, September 17, 2021, 12:16pm CST, Pascagoula, Mississippi

Charli Win

And just like that, life changed for the better.

Roughly an hour earlier, Christy knew it was go time, and she switched into beast mode. I kept asking her, Should we get the nurses?, but she just powered through the discomfort, squeezing my hand. At this point, through tears in my eyes, my admiration for moms went sky high. When the nurses finally came in, it wasn’t five seconds until they said, We need to get the doctor. From there it went quickly, only ten to twelve minutes until Charli Win was born. When she arrived, through tears in my eyes, I felt myself soften. I lost a little edge, in a good way. In real time, I felt it go away, replaced with love.

—

Saturday, September 18, 2021, 6:30pm CST, State College, Pennsylvania

Penn State Win(s)

As we bebopped around the hospital room on Saturday morning, I received a text from a fellow Big 10 fan asking if I was at GameDay in State College, PA right now. I laughed out loud, and then let him know that Christy had just delivered a baby. He quipped back, Well you better not be at GameDay then!

We spent the better part of Saturday convincing the nurses and doctors that, assuming mom and baby were all good, we didn’t need to stay in the medical cave for another 24 hours. As the caregivers did their jobs almost too well, explaining breastfeeding to Christy in painstaking detail, I wanted to tell them that Christy wrote the damn breastfeeding brochure with our first child.

Home at 3:30pm and greeted by all of the other pieces of my heart, we settled in, kickoff for Penn State-Auburn a mere hours away. It was a great game and a great win for the boys, but one that will forever be completely overshadowed by smells, purrs, facial expressions, and all of the love in the room.

—

Sunday, September 19, 2021, 12pm CST, Charlotte, North Carolina

Panthers Win

I told the fellas at the golf course that they better be glad I wasn’t working on Sunday because I would be chirping like a bird, the sole Panthers fan surrounded by a Saints army. After the Saints’ Week 1 dismantling of Green Bay, their fans thought Jameis Winston was the second coming of Christ. Turns out, against the Panthers, he was actually the second coming of Jameis Winston.

Carolina completely dominated. Charlotte looked beautiful. I allowed my brain to wander briefly, a past life and a new life intertwined beautifully for the first time.

—

As a new week starts, the moon glistening over The Gulf, it’s only a couple more days before it happens again. Thursday Night Football. Panthers at Texans. Charli Win on my lap. There’s magic in the air.

Have a great week.-Benj

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“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” – Dolly Parton

Complete strangers before October 2015, Birmingham Ben, Iowa Jay, and Wyoming Chad started becoming good friends of mine over an exquisite day of golf at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, MN. (You may have heard of Hazeltine. It hosted the Ryder Cup shortly after our visit.)

Though geographically separated by thousands of miles, we decided we should stay in touch. Not some high school yearbook fake stay in touch, an actual I think we should be active friends.

In July 2017, the four of us embarked on a golf week in Wyoming and Montana, the Wild West taking center stage and igniting my newfound love with that part of the country.

In August 2018, missing one member of the crew, we converged on my old stomping grounds in Charlotte, NC, a side trip down the road to golf mecca Pinehurst also on the agenda.

In September 2019, Birmingham and Auburn, AL (and 18 hours in New Orleans) took the reigns, hosting the four of us for what turned out to be a wonderful surprise, our expectations surpassed at seemingly every turn.

We were on a roll. Let’s do this every year. Shouldn’t be any issue. But then the wind changed direction, and 2020 hit.

—

2020 was full of twists and turns, and unfortunately, our annual golf trip got sidelined. Could we make it to Iowa? Could I host down on the Gulf Coast? Or should we just punt and resume in 2021? The latter won out, and visions of Iowa 2021 centered around Saturday’s Iowa-Iowa State football game danced around in our minds. This is going to be epic, maybe better than Alabama.

Then I started a new career and Baby Girl decided that September 2021 sounded ideal for an arrival, so the wind changed direction again.

—

Birmingham Ben actually made the trip to Iowa this past week, visiting with Jay and having a brilliant time, I’m sure. As we all texted back and forth, it became apparent that even though our full group trip took 2020 and 2021 off, a smattering of memorable side trips (one I had totally forgotten) continued popping up to keep the friendships rocking and rolling.

Ben and I in Destin, FL May 2017 and at East Lake Golf Club March 2019.

Jay and I in Iowa/Minnesota/South Dakota June 2019.

Jay and I in Kansas City November 2020.

Ben and I in Pinehurst February 2021.

Chad and I in New Orleans April 2021.

Ben and Chad in Wyoming/Montana May 2021.

Ben and Jay in Iowa last week.

The trips with all four of us are still the best, never a dull moment to be had. (We are each genuinely fascinated with where and how the other three live.) But until the wind blows us all back together, maybe in 2022, we will just keep adjusting the sails. The unique friendships we made that gorgeous autumn day at Hazeltine are too valuable to let slip away.

—

Speaking of adjusting the sails, Baby Girl is coming in less than 72 hours. So when we talk next time, whenever that may be, overlook the misspellings.

There’s going to be less sleep, but more love.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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“Most days are abk now. That’s the whole point. One life. No days wasted. No days exactly the same. Be exactly who you want to be. But some days are more abk than others.”-anything but khakis®️

For the abk lifestyle to fully blossom, two things have to occur. First, every day must be tended to fully, intentionally, and passionately. Second, no sleepwalking is allowed. No arbitrary daily routine can exist just because of comfort or habit.

—

Over the past almost 4.5 years, I’m 99.9% sure no two days have looked remotely similar, unless that was my intent. No morning coffee just because. No tacos just because it’s Tuesday. No I’m going to be creative at 8am every Thursday, because living cannot be planned. What do I want out of each day? Hell, I couldn’t have a routine in my life now if I tried. Some days I go to work at 6am. Some days 10am. Some days not at all. Some days I play golf at 2pm. Some days 6pm. Occasionally not at all. Some days I teach. Some days I don’t. Some days I teach adults. Some days I teach kids. Some days I want tacos. Some days pizza. Some days a salad. Some days I sleep on the couch. Some days in the bed. Some days I write. Some days I take pictures.

The variety is my routine. The variety is my consistency. With my bigger picture in mind, I tend to that specific day’s wants and needs, wants and needs that absolutely vary from day to day. Why we confine ourselves to a predetermined regimen versus daily conscious living baffles me. I mean, what if I’m feeling Asian food on Taco Tuesday?

—

The first thing I told my sister at the airport after she and her family arrived last week was this: down here, rules are merely suggestions. There are no arbitrary, rigid rules down here. That’s the whole point. We work when we need to work. We play when we need to play. We eat when we are hungry. We sleep when we are tired.

We need to be cognizant of the impending birth of a child and mom’s needs, but otherwise we can do whatever y’all want. Want to go to the beach? Let’s walk to the beach. Want to jet ski? Let’s ride. Want to play golf? Let’s play. Want to just chill, watch the kids play, and have pizza delivered? Beautiful. (Half jokingly)- Want to bet on the Notre Dame-Florida State game? Actually, yes. Let’s do something different!

Alright Suz, here’s how betting works. This means that. That means this. Bet with your head. Bet with your heart. I don’t care. Just don’t bet too much that if you lose it will ruin your night…says the guy who got slightly agitated when Notre Dame decided to take their foot of the gas.

$38.10, she won. I know who’s buying the pizza next time.

—

Life is full of questions, questions I’ve been exploring for the past 4.5 years. Life is full of exceptions, as I wrote about last week. And life is full of contradictions, example 1A being my disdain for routine in life while simultaneously embarking on a golf journey where having a methodical regimen is the way to get really good.

On the one hand, I love variety, creativity, artistry, freedom and the spice of life. On the other hand, I now work, teach, and play something that requires a rigid routine.

On the one hand, I can’t explain it. It’s just another question. On the other hand, I guess I just discovered a difference between anything but khakis®️ and abk Golf 💡.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…”- popular Christmas song

If you’ve followed along for any period of time now, you know that I find many traditions to be tired. Played out. Not relevant anymore. When someone says to me because it has always been done that way, it takes everything in my being not to scream.

However, exceptions exist everywhere, and college football season and all of its magical pageantry, beautiful autumn scenery, and yes, even its long-standing traditions, get my heart racing.

—

Along my travels, I’ve been on a Super Duper Top Secret Mission that, honestly, I didn’t even mean to be on: visit all of the SEC college campuses and stadiums and take in each one’s unique experience and culture. To date, I’ve done 12 of the 14 schools. Some were as a teenager. Some were very recent. Some were brief. Some lasted a few days. All of them offered something.

The two towns I have yet to visit are College Station, TX and Fayetteville, AR. I’ve been near both of them along my travels, but for whatever reason I did not take the plunge.

My trips to Athens, GA, Gainesville, FL, and Columbia, SC were essentially non-events as I recall. I remember the hedges in Athens, the blonde hair in Gainesville, and that Columbia is the hottest place on Planet Earth.

The remaining nine, however, all have a place in the scrapbook, memories emblazoned in my brain for a lifetime.

—

I took a brief tour recently in Tuscaloosa, AL, but with school not yet in session, I had to rely on the history oozing out of the campus to paint the picture for me.

It was a fun time to be in Starkville, MS two months ago, with Mississippi State’s baseball team winning the College World Series. The town was buzzing, though half of its residents were in Omaha with the team. I highly recommend the gulf shrimp tacos from Two Brothers Smoked Meats and the grilled cheese and baked beans from The Little Dooey. If you golf, 25 minutes away are Mossy Oak and Old Waverly, a sublime pairing basically right across the street from each other.

I bebopped around Knoxville, TN a couple of years ago, a town completely covered in orange. As the sun set, I found a spot perched high above the Tennessee River and Neyland Stadium and snapped a couple of pics, imagining the throngs tailgating in their boats on game day.

I drank my first frosty barrel-aged bourbon beer (delicious) in Lexington, KY a few years ago, sharing some laughs with my friend Gazza, who was randomly in town, at a local hotel bar adjacent to Rupp Arena.

I sat through a vicious storm in Columbia, MO, my first real experience with a Midwestern pop-up tornado. Real talk, I pulled over at a gas station, uncertain of what to do and scared to freaking death.

I ate some incredible red beans and rice in Baton Rouge while visiting the campus. I had no idea a live, full-grown tiger prowled outside of the stadium, so that was interesting. But the most intriguing thing to me about Baton Rouge is how you can look inside Tiger Stadium from the bridge high above the Mississippi River as you leave or enter town. Every time I cross it, I peer in, fascinated.

I loved the hot chicken at Hattie B’s in Nashville, TN, which is hilarious because I was there to run a July 4th 10k. I made a side trip to the super cool store Imogene + Willie, a place that provides excellent clothing, but even better life quotes.

My day in Auburn was every man’s fantasy. Golf at 7am. Birdiefest with your buddies. Shower. Change. Tailgate. Eat. Drink. SEC football clash. War Eagle.

And last but certainly not least, The Grove in Oxford, the swankiest, most dressed up tailgate experience in America. I’ve done it twice, I believe, preceded both times by steaks at nearby Como Steakhouse the night before. I’m not sure anyone actually cares about the game, but the fashion, the pomp, the circumstance…

—

Since we are sharing secrets today, I’ll tell you one more: even though I live in SEC country now, I’m indifferent towards any specific team down here. I’ve had fun everywhere. I’m a Penn State football fan, and I love watching the Big Ten. The northern cities and the fall leaves make me feel in love.

Want to know something even crazier? When I get home from the golf course on Saturday (or Thursday) night, I love watching the Mountain West and the PAC 10. I could give two shits about the actual games, but when the camera pans out on the Colorado State at Utah game, I look out at nature and remember my abk journey, my being right there.

And I smile and think to myself, ‘Tis the season.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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“I suppose the best brand is just being yourself.”-Higgins, from Ted Lasso

Although I am headed to New Orleans tomorrow, for the past few months and for the foreseeable near future, my world has been and will be a tiny little, beautiful, maybe five mile triangle in coastal Mississippi. Gulf of Mexico to Golf Course, rinse and repeat. It’s a little confining if you compare it to the massive exploits of my last four plus years, but I’ve also learned a few tricks along the journey.

First off, nature is not confining, and that’s where I operate most of the time. Nature is limitless.

More importantly, prioritizing self-expression: expressing myself all of the time, how I want, without pretending, is the ultimate freedom. I’ve learned to do that in a lot of ways (writing being one), but 1A is still through individual fashion and style.

—

Every morning, I ruffle through a handful of exotic belts, handmade bracelets, limited edition hats, and who knows what to start my relationship with the day. I don’t drink coffee, so I prefer to design something beautiful instead.

It used to be suit, shoes, shirt, and tie, but now it’s belt, hat, shirt, and bracelets. Same premise. Same pizzazz. Same quality. Just different.

I loved my navy suits, my cognac shoes, my buttery soft shirts, my Hermès ties. It was my way of speaking to the world every day. I now love my snakeskin belts, my camo rope hats, my transfusion shirts, and my arsenal of bead bracelets. It is still my way of speaking to the world every day.

Most every piece I have or had tells some kind of story. If I wore a certain double breasted pinstripe suit in the past, it must have been Closing Day, and that’s a different kind of mindset type of day. If I wear a certain pair of white pants now, it must be White Pants Day (tomorrow), and that’s a different kind of mindset type of day.

Mixing and matching it all, for me, is just like singing, painting, or dancing for someone else. It’s art. It’s how I talk to the world. It’s taking the rules and recommendations that someone else arbitrarily invented and blowing them up. Brown shoes with a red and white belt? Sounds perfect. As an article in Esquire recently said, What if, instead of nodding to the past, you want to charge headlong into a future of your own design?

—

As abk has developed and I have become more adept at articulating my experiences, it has become clear to me that the brand has never been about luxury items or expensive things. I don’t need to be the first to get something or have the latest iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, I have some cool things, but it’s usually not about the thing. It’s about using that thing to talk with the world. My new house tells a story. My new belt tells a story. My new beads tell a story. My tattoos tell a lot of stories.

abk, in its early years, was my attempt to discover 100% me. Now, it’s about me being 100% me 100% of the time. It’s the ultimate freedom: saying everything I want to say without uttering a single word.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”-Kurt Vonnegut

It’s been nearly two months since I played in my first real golf tournament, the Mississippi State Amateur. I started big, because that’s what I do.

If you don’t follow along regularly, let me catch you up.

—

Almost two and a half years ago, I made a major life change, to put it mildly. One aspect of that change was that I wanted to get really good at golf, to put it simply. At the time, I was a roughly 14 handicap with an average score of 93, give or take. I am athletic as hell, I had fallen in love with the game late, but I had a lot of fundamental flaws. Fast forward to almost two months ago, and I had gotten pretty damn decent, hovering somewhere in the low single digit handicaps with an average score of 76/77.

But I had zero experience playing in real tournament golf, which is a totally different beast, I learned. There’s golf that means nothing, and then there’s golf that means everything. Forget skill, practice, and determination. It is hard to anticipate how you are going to feel when you have never done something before, and I had no idea what to do when I got an incredible jolt of adrenaline on the first tee, day one. Hell, I had no idea what to do when my arms went limp on the first tee, day two.

After a rough scoring tournament full of welcome to moments, most people had kind words to say to me, but one person took a jab. A basically you’re not as good as you think you are kind of thing. I just smiled, said it was a great learning experience, and got back to it. Like immediately. There was lots of work to be done.

—

After a wild 3 under par 69 on Saturday night, I have now shot every score between 67 and 101 (except for 68) along my two year plus golf journey. How’s that for steady progress?

After that wake up call two months ago, I have been doing my best work and playing my best golf ever. Just for statistical purposes, I’m carrying a 0.6 handicap, and my scoring average of my last twenty rounds is 74.5, lowest ever. I’ve still got lots of work to do on my driver, but everything else is cooking. The mental game feels more focused, the confidence is higher, AND I’ve got a real tournament, with all of its wild emotions, under my belt.

—

I’m almost halfway through a five year process full of grinding, building, and investing. Interestingly, I’m learning that this five year process is just the beginning, just the foundation. How dare I be so impatient.

I have to experience what things feel like to take next steps. Wasn’t prepared here. Need to do better there. Pretty good here. Wasn’t comfortable there.

—

The hard-ass David Goggins hit me with a great quote this week: Life requires an abundant amount of action. Not talk. Not excuses. Action. Damn straight. The peanut gallery’s words are essentially useless. Get in the game. Play your first tournament. If you shit the bed, learn from it. Grind. Then line up a full slate of tournaments, and go do it again.

And remember, two and a half years. This is just the beginning.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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Last week, we talked food. Damn good food. In the same piece, I mentioned that this week we would talk about SEC schools, football, etc. For two reasons, I am going to postpone that piece a week or two. First, we are not quite to college football season yet, but almost. Second, last week was a milestone week for me at the golf course.

—

Golf is ridiculously similar to life.

At the core of abk is this: I have one life. It’s my life. I must find what I love, how I want to live, and what works for me. I must express myself as such and freely. I must own my life story.

At the core of abk Golf is this: It’s my golf game. I must know my strengths and limitations. I must decide what I want to give to the game and, in turn, what I want to get out of it. I must own my golf game.

—

I had to put myself in check a few times over the past few years. Benj, you are not here to tell anyone how to live their life or tell them what their goals are. You are here to listen, observe, encourage, and assist as you can. They will give you clues. They will talk it out. Just pay attention. Limit your advice. Tell a story.

That final thought has been a major transformation in my writing. No need to tell anyone what to do. Just tell stories about your journey.

—

After 2 and 1/3 years of grinding through my own golf game and learning a zillion things, I gave my first formal golf lesson last Friday. And then another on Saturday. And another Monday. And two more on the books for tonight. A 20 year old. A 40 year old. A 16 year old. Two little kids. I figured we would eventually get here.

I used to be quiet with my life stories, preferring to mind my own business. But then I realized that sharing how I view and experience the world could, at a maximum, change someone else’s life for the better or, at a minimum, help them just a little. Hence, the writing, the Instagram and so on.

I also figured that for the forty year old, as an example, a golf lesson would be as much about life as it would be about golf.

abk=abk Golf.

—

Here is how the lesson went:

How long have you been a PGA Professional?

I am not a PGA Professional.

Uhhh…well, did you play college golf?

I played college soccer.

Uhhh…well, how long have you been teaching?

Would you like to hear the five minute story? I won’t charge you to listen.

Sure.

(I tell story.)

Holy crap, that’s crazy.

(I give the lesson. After the lesson, I go and drop him off at his car.)

Dude, thanks for today. I have been mulling over making a life change. You know, doing something I really want to do with my life. I have obviously heard about people doing it, but I had never met anyone who actually did it.

—

Funny…absolutely no mention of getting better at golf.

—

Have a great week.-Benj

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“It’s amazing you are not 300 pounds.”- my friend Junior, to me

My pal Junior arrived in town last Thursday. Friendly and respectful when we first met years ago, we have become damn good friends over the past five years. He is on his journey, and I am on mine, journeys of self-improvement and self-mastery. We talk regularly, discussing our progress, fears, and offering each other support. I remember one of our first conversations years ago, as we both began taking the baby steps required to break out of our shells and drive a lifelong, intentional journey. How do we start? First step?

Just try a new food.

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Upon his arrival in New Orleans, we drove straight to Domilise’s, maybe the best po’ boy place on the planet. Unfortunately, we were met with a sign on the door that said: “Closed Today. No Workers.” Fortunately, it’s New Orleans, so we drove three blocks to Guy’s, maybe a top fiver on Planet Earth.

I think the only thing they got wrong was Junior’s name, the nice lady referring to him as Julian for the rest of the day. They definitely did not get “The Bomb” wrong, a footlong plus sandwich stuffed with shrimp, catfish, cheddar, creole mustard, and pickles, the flavors melding together perfectly.

‘Twas the bomb. Dot com.

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Lost in all of this overly serious self-journey talk, Christy has become an unbelievably creative chef, tossing in flavors here and there that reinforce Junior’s curiosity about how I am not 300 pounds. On the menu were fajita bowls, a tag-teamed shrimp and crab boil, fresh fish tacos they caught themselves the day before, and this chow chow relish over a pork shoulder recipe that I found in some bullshit flimsy flyer that landed in my mailbox.

Flavorful. Spicy. Colorful. All abk words that bleed over into so many other aspects of living.

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It is no coincidence that in a recent ESPN article, LSU just down the road in Baton Rouge was named the unequivocal best place to tailgate in America. One contributor chose to mildly dissent, offering The Grove just up the road at Ole Miss as a valid challenger.

I’ve personally been to twelve of the fourteen SEC campuses (coming next week), and if the food/drink/vibe/football quality is the general measurement, it’s not even close. Gumbo, jambalaya, alligator… stuff that I never would have even sampled years ago.

But now…

For me and my current way of living, it all started with trying a new food, both literally and figuratively. I still don’t know any better way to figure out what you truly love in life.

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Christy and Banks took Uncle Junior back to the airport on Tuesday, a wonderful five day feast finally coming to an end. Well, for me, at least. Those sneaky jokers grubbed at Domilise’s.

Apparently, some workers willing to pile high the shrimp, roast beef, and gravy had indeed been found.

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Have a great week.-Benj

Join the abk community!

Follow along on Instagram @anythingbutkhakis, @abkgolf, and now @anythingbutkhakisphotography.

If you enjoy these and would like to get the weekly piece via email, please follow on the website http://www.anythingbutkhakis.com.