Every time I visit my website I think to myself that I should really put a new post up but normally I can't really think of anything exciting to write about. So, I've decided to keep it short and just let you know that I do still use this site and hope it's a decent tool to use for contacting me.

Well I haven't been terribly active with my website lately but I've been keeping very busy in the real world. Work has slowed just a bit but I've still keep enough work to stay busy. I had planned to take some personal time over the last few weeks anyway so things worked out perfectly. 

In Septemeber I got together with a couple of my good friends and we made a 16 hour road trip to upstate New York for an "All Tomorrow's Parties" show! Three days of music with the most eclectic mix of old and new bands that I've ever seen. It really was a blast and the trip was very pleasant. Thanks for driving the whole way Rocco!!

My favorite shows I saw while I was there were; The Meat Puppets, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dinasaur Jr., Bob Mould, Polvo, and my rock and roll idols..... Built to Spill!

The week after we got home from that trip I went to see The Black Keys play the Ryman. That was another awesome show! I was really happy to finally see them and they really rocked the Ryman!

Most recently I took a trip to California to visit friends and celebrate the arrival of Fall. I met up with my friend Jeremy in Sacramento and we went back to his house in Davis. I had a great time tasting the wines he's been crafting. I can honestly say that his wines are comparable to the quality i'd associate with a 35-50 dollar bottle of vino.

From Davis I took a side trip to visit my friend Kathryn in Santa Cruz. The train took me to San Jose then I rode a bus into Santa Cruz. I went to the beach for a few hours that day and at night Kathryn and I shot pool at a few different bars in town. The next day was filled with more public transportation finally landing me in San Francisco about dusk. I met back up with Jeremy and we ate at a place called L'osteria. Man-o-Man!! The best Itallian food I've ever eaten! Seriously! They only had 10 tables and the line for a table is the sidewalk outside of the place. We travelled back to Davis the next day then spent the last day in Sonoma County tasting more wines. I was worn out by the time I finally got back home but it was very satisfying!   

So, I'm back home now. The leaves are falling and I'm booking a few more hardwood jobs before the holidays get here. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Fall. Thanks for dropping by! 

Well I got to use my metal detecting skills in a whole new way this weekend. Dr Tom Nolan of MTSU organized a relic hunt on property that will soon be developed along Medical Center Parkway in Murfreesboro. He invited the metal detecting club from Nashville to come down and dig relics in that area which is to be developed. I was invited to join in. I'm very familiar with the fields where we hunted because I hunted them about a year and a half ago during some construction. All the relics are being tagged with GPS information, then bagged for identification. MTSU students will get to do this work then the relics will be handed over to the park service to be added to their permanent collection. It was a great time even though the sun was baking us and the ground was hard as a rock. It's kind of hard to turn over the relics once you dig them up but it did give me a sense of satisfaction to see it going to such a good cause. I took a few pictures on my phone just to share the experience.

Here's the starting line on Saturday morning. Everyone's anxious!

As we found items we would put a flag down so the students could come over and label the items and bag them and then take GPS coodinates.

Some of the students doing their work!

The best find by far was a complete brass spur with the buckle. One of the Nashville guys named Kelly found it. What a great treasure for the park service!!

What a beauty!

Here's a nice .69 caliber round ball still clinging to the clump of dirt it came out with.

And a few three ringers still in the holes!

This was the last one I found on Sunday. What a great time!

Overall I found about eight bullets and seven cannon ball fragments. 

Here's a link to an article in the Murfreesboro Post.

http://murfreesboropost.com/news.php?viewStory=12077

I managed to acquire another great old postcard last week. This one's a really nice one. It's a rare old view of the Elk's Club. It seems to have been printed with a tag that was changed at the last minute. Under the lines the building is called Mooney's School and then above that in the same font it's properly named as Elk's Club. The Mooney's school building was located on Main Street. Anyway, it's a great early view of the townhouse. It was built in 1908 and this postcard was mailed in 1911. The church roof that is visible in the back was the Cumberland Presbyterian Church which burned in 1915. The Elk's Club building was later occupied by Woodfin & Moore's Funeral Home. They were in the building from 1913 to 1949. Since that time the building has housed a beauty school, and insurance company, a popular night club, and currently, The Front Porch Cafe. It's a great old view of a building that's still around. Hope you enjoy the picture as much as I do. 

A lot of you out there know I’m a hobby geek. I enjoy doing things that most folks think are just plain weird. Well, metal detecting is probably the weirdest of them all. With that said, I love it. All the Civil War stuff I’ve dug up is currently on display at the Rutherford County Archives. When you see it all together it is kind of impressive.

Well today my detecting buddy Mark and myself went out to a new spot. We just got permission to hunt there last week. We managed to find a few bullets each and the sun came out and started baking us. We figured we’d better get out before we got totally sunburned (I already burned my neck last week). Just as we started to walk towards my truck I got a very weak signal. I bent down and flipped up the dirt with my little digging tool and out popped a little piece of silver. I rubbed the dirt off and to my surprise it was a half dime. I knew immediately it was old enough to have been dropped by a soldier but I was even more surprised to see that it was an 1837 half dime. Pretty cool! In the condition it’s in I’m sure it’s not worth much money but that’s not why I do this. I just love knowing that I picked something up from the ground that was dropped there 145 years ago. NEATO!

                              


Well things have been running behind as far as the restaurant goes for the last three or four months. Work slowed to a trickle because I couldn't build anything new until all my architectural drawing were approved. I also needed these drawings for the banks to make their assessments about the improved value of the building. Well I got the first draft of the drawings on January 31st. I got them to the banks quickly because at this point I had basically used all my liquid capitol and I was really in need of a cash injection. It would soon be time to submit everything to the codes department and kick this project into gear. Well, a week went by with no reply from the bank. Then I called and they told me they would follow up by the end of the week. They were still "running all my numbers". I finally got tired of waiting and called a couple of other lenders. Well here it comes...... Bottom line is.... Nobody's willing to loan me money toward the project suddenly. The banks that were all behind this thing eight months ago have totally changed their minds. The problem is that within the last eight months I have been working on this building and my hardwood business has slowed quite a bit. I totally restructured everything before the end of the year. Jeff bought half my tools and started working as a sub-contractor and my income last year was close to half of the prior year. I also went through a divorce. That makes my household income even less. Then you factor in that I've spent many, many thousands and thousands of dollars on this place since I closed on it. I guess it makes sense that the banks don't want to play with me any more. I was pissed at first but I'm a pretty logical person when it comes to business. I figure if five banks say the same thing to me there's got to be some obvious equation that proves their theory. I've turned down a few private investors who were interested in investing. I'm just not the kind of person that wants a partner involved in my business. The profit margins in the restaurant business are too slim to try to pay out to multiple people. So, I've come to the conclusion that the smart business choice for me is to just sell the building and cash out my efforts in this project. Historically, I feel like I've done a great service to the building. I've stripped it all down to the original walls, ceilings, and floors and patched and painted. I still intend to refinish the old pine floors before we have the sale. At least the old place actually looks it's age now. I'm hopeful that whoever buys the building also buys the old staircase and doorways that I planned to install there. They would be perfect in that setting. We'll see soon enough.
Ok, I know I've put a lot of personal information into this blog. I do feel a bit weird about posting it but I feel it's the best way to inform so many you that I don't see often. I really appreciate all the support I've had during this process. Everyone I know was so excited about this concept. I still hope that someone buys this building and does something comparable in that space. It's quite possibly the last building that's big enough to open a restaurant on the square.
Well anyway, my purpose is to just let everyone know. It doesn't feel good but it feels smart. Business is business and I know I'm doing what I need to do. There's always next time.
The auction will be March 27th. The circa 1848 architectural elements will be sold separately. Cross your fingers that some huge pockets come to shop on that day!

I recenty found a few old signs in my building on the square. Since they were relevant to the history of the building and they were in such great condition, I decided to display them in the window. That's were this poster above caught the eye of a man who knew the history behind it. I got a phone call about a week ago from a man named Jeff Jordan. He bagan asking me questions about my building and I really didn't know where he was going with the conversation at first. Then he asked me what I knew about the posters I had displayed in my windows. I knew that one of the old posters was printed by Richard Shacklet based on seeing his name on one of the smaller prints. I told him that I had no idea about the value days poster. Well, he started telling me about his father Ed Jordan who was an employee at Goldsteins. Ed was the man who created the Greater Value Days posters. He was a screen printer and in charge of artistic needs for Goldtseins. Jeff went on to tell me that the Greater Value Days were always in late Septemeber during the 1950's. All the merchants on the square who participated in these sales would display these signs in their windows. Home Furniture was obviously one of the merchants involved. Jeff was even able to tell me a bit about the process in which these posters were made. They were produced in Goldsteins building on Sundays so that the drying posters could be spead out inside the store for drying. The next morning they would be collected and stacked after they had dried all night. The sketch of the courthouse was drawn at the Jordan's household as Jeff recalled. It makes me very happy to know all this history about this poster. It will certainly be framed and displayed in the restaurant for future generation to learn it's story. I also have another one saved back to gift to Jeff Jordan when he gets back in touch with me.

Happy New Year Murfreesboro! 

Something's been bugging me for a while....
You probably already know that I put together a local history book that was published in 2006. The book contains lots of old postcard views from Murfreesboro's past paired with short descriptions and relevant data about each view. From the time Arcadia agreed to publish with me, I had six months to complete the project. So, the research was intense. I found varied accounts of historical events and sometimes even found things published that were not true. As hard as I tried to get every detail correct in my book, I've found slight error in a couple of things that I had published too. Below will be the list of corrections. Accessible here to you so you might have the chance to take note or even correct it in your copy of the book. I've marked my copy with red ink and made the corrections at the bottom of the page. Whatever your method, I'm sure it will work fine. It's in all of our best interests that history be recorded as accurately as possible. If you notice anything that you think might be incorrect in my book I welcome you to contact me through email. You'll have to dig hard. These two things are all I've found so far. Thanks for being interested in local history!
 I plan to also keep this list current in my "Murfreesboro History" section of this website.

  

#1 Page 86 top view, The Nashville and Chattanooga railroad did later connect to Missouri but it never connected to North Carolina.

#2 Page 29 bottom view, The old Goldstein's building is now owned by Rutherford County, not the City of Murfreesboro.

My good buddy C.B. Arnette had a book signing today at Mid South Bank located in the old Methodist Church downtown. In just the past year he's written this autobiography. When he finished his last book I sort of thought it might be his last but obviously he wasn't finished. He began selling his last book in February of 2007. It's kind of amazing that he's released another in less than a year. His family is very proud of his accomplishment. I'm sure most families would love to have their father or grandfathers words written in a book for the next generations to read. C.B. has lived such a interesting life in Murfreesboro that his accounts of days gone by are actually important historical tid-bits. I had the pleasure of creating the dust jacket for this new book. C.B. still hadn't seen it as of a couple of weeks ago. His daughters approved of it so he wanted it to be a surprise for himself. I haven't had a chance to read any of the book yet but I'm sure I'll dig in this weekend. I'm so proud to call him one of my friends. His words are very important to me. It's not often you get to learn things from someone with such varied successes in life, not to mention the 89 years worth of reflection he has to look back on. I hope any of you who are interested in the history of downtown Murfreesboro or the legendary C.B. Arnette, seek this book out and buy a copy. It'll set you back $40.00 but as with all of C.B.'s books, the profits all go to a charitable cause. This book will benefit the old Ransom School house. The old building where C.B. once attended school is almost falling apart but there have been plans in the works for a few years to fix the old school up and make it an adult education site. The old school sits on Academy Street. I'm sure this latest book will go into more detail about the School and the Ransom family.

Happy Holidays

I had a meeting with my architect Monday and I finally saw my first sketch of the inside of my building. We went over a lot of concepts and he's made some design changes that I just love. The kitchen space hasn't changed much from my original plan but what he's doing with the dining room and bar spaces is quite a bit different from what I had originally planned. I guess that's the bonus of working with someone who has design skills versus working with someone who just makes architectural drawings. I was really pleased that he made sketches before he made the plans. I would think a person would draw the two dimensional stuff first before trying to visualize the end product. There are a number of things that make me so happy I've ended up working with this firm. I do wish we were finished already but good things are worth the wait. The wall that is pictured here is the downstairs left hand wall. As you walk in the hostess station is immediately on the left the the staircase turns out into the floor. The wall that sticks out will be bricked and a single booth will set beside it. As the stairwell rises high enough for head clearance the bar starts and goes down to where the kitchen doors start. I've seen the concept for the opposite wall but I'll show more when I get the drawings. Till then, here's a peek!