The 100 Guy

Amidst pandemic, economic collapse, racial disparity and political warfare, do you wonder how America would be faring if we instead followed what God asked us to do?

Most major religions share the tradition of making a pilgrimage, a journey to increase knowledge of self, nature and/or God.

Two years ago, I spotted Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne exiting our plane at DCA.

When Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites from slavery, 10 plagues changed his mind.

What will families remember from this pandemic pause? Tension? Peacefulness? Will a predicted baby boom be confined, as young parents jest, to firstborn? 

When people gather to watch a beautiful sunrise or sunset, they often grow silent, watching the miracle respectfully as another day is dedicated.

Americans have been divided for much of our history. (See the election of 1800.) Today, with social media and tribal cable channels, it might appear a bit more acute.

Six years ago last month, the first issue of The 100 landed in readers’ inboxes, delivering concise insights into business, history, travel – even public policy.

A few weeks ago, I helped with my granddaughter’s nighttime routine. It always starts the same way: she selects four books from her impressive library, hops in my lap and follows my narration.

To get there, drive west from Atlanta or south from Memphis through the flat, rich alluvial plain in Mississippi. Start your immersion at Tunica’s Gateway to the Blues Visitor Center, built in a circa-1895 train depot.

My introduction to chitlins was at the The Big Dinner sponsored by Washington County Sheriff Harvey Tackett. A friend later drove me miles up river to the ’Coon Hunters Ball, featuring turtle soup, squirrel stew, venison and oh-so-tender broiled rattlesnake.

“Twenty years ago, there were only five cars on this street — and they belonged to store owners,” said Bubba O’Keefe, on the somewhat busier streets of Clarksdale, Mississippi, he helped animate.

I hopped off the Southern Crescent from UVA, hurried to my Great Aunt Bolling Spalding’s funeral and fell in with other embarrassed latecomers walking behind her casket at the cathedral door. A distinguished, somehow familiar gentleman nodded. At the cemetery, my father introduced: “Meet your cousin, Walker Percy.”

My seventh grade English teacher’s homework assignment was one sentence by William Faulkner. Simple, right? It carried on for five pages – and the rest of my life. I lose myself in its tumescent portrayal of the taming of the Mississippi Delta. Start here, with “Big Woods,” an assemblage of Faulkner’s hunting stories.

Thanks to B.B. King’s relentless touring schedule – appearing in 342 shows in 1956 – he was known worldwide as “The King of the Blues.” He reworked a 1951 blues song, “The Thrill is Gone,” lifting it to a Grammy award in 1970.

The first blues song I heard growing up on Atlanta college radio was “Cross Road Blues,” 1936, by genre progenitor Robert Johnson.

Opened in 1945 when there were not many other African-American-owned businesses in Indianola, Club Ebony has succeeded through three owners and decades of legendary music.

Before 1895, Dockery Plantation was, like much of the Delta at the time, a swampy tangle of gum and cypress trees, panthers, wolves and mosquitoes.

When the Grammy board searched for the most appropriate location to build its first museum outside L.A., they could have chosen many places. Their verdict: Mississippi Delta.

Listen carefully in the juke joints, restaurants or the impressive interactive museums in Tunica, Cleveland, Clarksdale and Indianola, and you’re bound to hear fans talking about their love of the blues – many with international accents.

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail stops in 15 states, few as chilling as Mississippi.

In my first newspaper reporting job, each morning I’d stop by the office of Greenville, Mississippi Police Chief Robert Skinner, who’d read me details of felony crimes I’d dutifully publish in that afternoon’s Delta Democrat-Times.

As a child, I thought the Confederate flag was cool. I didn’t know it meant anything. On my first day at boarding school at 13, I showed my Georgia pride, hanging it on my wall until an African-American classmate tore it down, calling me a cracker. Then I knew.

Working as newspaper reporters in 1978 in Greenville, Mississippi, David Saltz and I jumped on a last-minute media invite to…

Leveraging off The 100 Companies’ success in 20 geographical markets from Denali to Dubai and our launch of The Travel 100, our publishing network expanded last month into a second industry vertical: The Association 100.

I hadn’t seen a $2 bill for years when I noticed schoolmate Rip Black tipping with them. Having loved them since attending its 1976 re-introduction, I adopted Rip’s paean to Mr. Jefferson, tipping with them since. I gave one to an Uber driver recently – he stared at it, announcing, “This one’s going in the wallet!”

For three years, I’ve written the same words on Airbnb’s reservation field that says “tell your host why you’re in town.”

In my 20s, when I was put in charge of a 25-person marketing team spread over two floors at The Charlotte Observer, I observed our biggest weakness was communications. Ironic, since we were in that business.

Charlotte toddler Annie was watching “Sesame Street” late December when her mom, Amanda, thought she heard Grover say the “F” word. Annie’s dad (my son Thomas) replayed the segment, agreed it was debatable, posted it to Reddit, launching a top listing, 124,000 views, 3,400 comments and an international sensation.

As we brace ourselves for 2019, it’s time to make and potentially break our resolutions.