My personal path

Loving, sensitive, trusting, and curious when I entered life in 1943, at around five years of age, in reaction to the disparaging remarks and denigrating actions by the mostly well-meaning adults [...]

There’s something happening here But what it is ain’t exactly clear There’s a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware I think it’s time we stop Children, [...]

For the past few weeks I’ve had John McCutcheon’s rendition of the song The Great Storm Is Over playing in my mind. Hallelujah! the great storm is over Lift up your wings and fly Yes, Hurricane [...]

Happy 25th anniversary, my darling Shonnie. We’ve created a wonderful life together filled with love, intentionality and adventure, and I look forward to the next 25  (when I’ll only [...]

When my family moved from Texas to California in 1952, I was surprised to find that the third-grade lessons in Pomona were at about the same level as the second grade in Mount Pleasant. So my [...]

One evening a week or so ago, Shonnie, Gracelyn and I watched “Dead Poets Society” together. At the film’s conclusion, I began to ponder the course of my formal education—from the first grade [...]

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and [...]

One morning a few weeks ago, I was browsing the daily online headlines when I came across an article describing the lengthy prison sentences, ranging from 10 to 22 years, given four Proud Boys. [...]

An Octogenarian Looks Back on His Path to Good Health If you’d known me when I was in my 20s and 30s, a hyper-masculine, self-indulgent, beer-swilling rebel (without much of a cause), you might [...]

How many of y’all remember that Sixties adage, “Don’t trust anybody over thirty.”? Well, now that I’m half a century past that imaginary line of demarcation, I can look back and see that the [...]

My time as a University of Tennessee football player The University of Tennessee is currently one of the top five football teams in the nation, a far cry from my experience as a Vol football [...]

My longtime friend Stewart Horn was born on July 3, 1942, and he lived a long and full life. He died on September 23, 2022. I first met Stewart when, at the age of 12, I joined Boy Scout Troop [...]

Was I cranky? No doubt.? Judgmental? Absolutely. Disheartened? Unquestionably. And I’d been unconsciously operating out of this frame of mind for months. Yeah, yeah, I know, given the pandemic, [...]

Saturday morning, alone in the mist and drizzle. Stillness envelops me. No sound but my footsteps, the drip of the moisture from the trees, the occasional songs of the birds.

As I’ve worked on my memoir, what’s become a massive act of self-interrogation, I’ve realized that my disconcerting experiences during the first grade that I've described above profoundly [...]

One balmy June night in 1960, a small group of boys, mostly rising juniors and seniors at Tullahoma (TN) High, were gathered at the Dairy Bar, a little family-run drive-in restaurant typical of [...]

Today on my 78th birthday, I’m remembering that saying from the Sixties: Don’t trust anybody over 80. Oh, it was 30, not 80? Hmm, maybe my memory’s not what it once was.

Even though both my Mom and Dad’s Texas forebears were staunch Southern Baptists, I don’t recall going to Sunday school or church during my early childhood, and I was never baptized (which [...]

“Don’t trust anybody over thirty!” My rallying cry during the Sixties, when I was twenty-something, seemingly bulletproof and forever young, living as though those days would never end.

In the Sixties, autumn in Tullahoma (TN) revolved around the high school football team—the Tullahoma High School Wildcats.

Realizing that Shonnie’s graduate studies at Western Carolina University were about to resume and Gracelyn would soon begin online classes at Evergreen Community Charter School, we began planning [...]

I am sad to write that my friend Robert Todd passed away at 2:25 A.M. on June 27 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.

This autobiography was a September 1960 assignment written for Mrs. Clara Garrison's 5th Period English class, Tullahoma High School, Tullahoma, Tennessee.

As I was writing this for my seventy-seventh birthday, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail flashed into my consciousness: A couple of grubby-looking [...]

You may have seen that meme that was going around social media a week or two ago: “Dear 2020, none of this sh*t was on my vision board.” Well, life so far in 2020 has presented a number of [...]

Most of my teachers have faded into a nameless, faceless blur. However, there was one savior in the midst of my 12-year confinement. Ms. Mitchell came to Bel-Aire Elementary (Tullahoma, [...]

"Finding My Way Back Home" recounts my journey from toxic masculinity to a more mindful manhood, a voyage that includes participating in a transformational workshop, peeling back the encrusted [...]

Fifty-six years ago, New Year’s Eve 1963, I was slogging through six or eight inches of wet snow toward an evening at my favorite watering hole, the Roman Room. A junior at the University of [...]

Seventy-eight years ago today, Sunday, December 7, 1941, my dad, Mack Mulkey, a recent college drop-out working at the local Dr Pepper plant, drove a borrowed pickup truck the fifteen miles down [...]

"A Tale of Two Daughters" is the story of how, and why, I slipped the surly bonds of toxic masculinity and transformed from emotionally-stunted misogynist to awakened advocate of equality, from [...]

In Knoxville in 1983, I screwed up my courage and began therapy with a local psychologist, John Hoover, a tall, brawny man with an engaging and amiable manner. I immediately had the sense that I [...]

Thank you for the huge role you've played in our lives, Howard. Thank you for keeping the main thing the main thing. Thank you for being you.

Early in 1999, Shonnie, in her professional capacity, was setting up at a health fair at the Asheville Civic Center. While we rather liked being committed to one another but not married, we'd [...]

Shonnie and I were married at Bend of Ivy Lodge outside Asheville 20 years ago tomorrow, May 30. In honor of that occasion, over the next few days I’ll be posting a few episodes from my [...]

It was a warm June evening in 1961, the night of my graduation from Tullahoma High School. I’d just returned to Tennessee from playing in a high school all-American football game in Fort [...]

January 1, a new year, some might say a clean slate. During my wild impetuous youth, the first day of the year typically meant horrendous hangovers and, at some point, the hair of the dog. In [...]

In 1943, I entered life a unique, loving, vulnerable, entirely authentic little being. Before long, however, in reaction to the insensitive, thoughtless, or ignorant words and actions of the [...]

My friend and former brother-in-law Harry Nelson has died.

Yes, I'm excited today because my personal essay "With over 40 years between the birth of my two daughters, I am two different fathers" is featured at the Washington Post On Parenting section.

"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

Seventy-fucking-five. Three-quarters of a century. Thirty percent of the time the U.S. has existed. In my twenties, seemingly bulletproof and brimming with bravado and condescension, I’d [...]

Well, they didn’t pry it out of my cold, dead hands. But my only remaining firearm has just left the premises.

Wow, 2017 is about to come to an end, and in some respects, none too soon. But despite the extraordinary political challenges we’ve confronted in our nation this year, 2017 has been a fulfilling [...]

Shonnie and I were recently interviewed for the BedLoveBeyond podcast, this episode about couples with significant age differences (Ours, by the way, is 28 years.).

When the Avett Brothers began to sing “No Hard Feelings,” Shonnie walked over, embraced me, and without exchanging a word, we began to slow dance to the music.

Today I write this letter to you so that you might better understand the tumultuous transformation that’s currently underway in our nation.

I believe we, the citizens of this nation, have been asleep for the past several decades. We began to pay more attention to our TV shows, our favorite celebrities, our sports teams, our fancy [...]

Nothing to live up to, Nothing to live down. No one to castigate, No one to crown . . .

I am a recovering racist. I grew up white in the South of the 50s and 60s. Most of the schools I attended were segregated. And I have rarely had more than superficial contact with men and women [...]

The first presidential inauguration I attended was Richard Nixon’s in 1969. Well, I guess I should say that I was actually there for the counter-inauguration . . .

Well, another year has passed, and what a year it’s been. It will be intriguing to see what 2017 will bring. In the meantime, Shonnie, Gracelyn and I want to share what we’ve been up to in 2016. [...]

I wrote this on December 31, 2010 and am reposting it in honor my daughter Gracelyn’s 6th birthday today. * * * “What is your purpose in life?” the guardian of the gate at the men’s retreat [...]

Hi, I'm Bruce, and I'm a recovering racist.

In 1958, during my sophomore year at Tullahoma (TN) High School, all the boys in every class were ordered to the gymnasium bleachers with the male teachers for a sex education talk by a local [...]

Well, they didn’t pry it out of my cold, dead hands. But my only remaining firearm has just left the premises. Having grown up and lived in the South I’ve owned shotguns, .22 rifles, and an [...]

My great-grandmother, Mae McCarthy (better known as Ma), who enjoyed dipping snuff and preferred another layer of body powder to regular bathing, had a Victorian attitude when it came to [...]

My personal remembrance of my cherished friend Sharon Parish, who passed away ten years ago. I wrote this for her daughter Lily Parish’s “Whispers,” a collection of stories [...]

While living by myself in a little cottage on Mount Bonnell outside Austin in the early nineties, I was without a significant other for the first extended period in my life. Fortunately (though I [...]

To be able to run through the forest, strong, quick strides, uphill, downhill, breathing in my surroundings, fully present, conscious of my connection with the web of life. No concern for money, [...]

“Don’t trust anyone over thirty,” I arrogantly proclaimed during the Sixties, when I was twenty-something and imagined I was bulletproof and would remain forever young. [...]

The other day, I apologized to my wife Shonnie three or four times for various instances of inconsiderate behavior, including speaking disrespectfully to her. I’d certainly recognized and [...]

The Journey by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice – – – though the whole house began [...]

I dreamt about a hellish place Of smoke and dust and fire And volunteers responded to A call that came from higher. Feeding workers hearty meals Washing dust and grime Cheering cops day in day [...]

I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats. —Eckhart Tolle In 1999, a few months after Shonnie and I were married, I got a mid-day call from her at her office at the Mission Hospital [...]

“What is your purpose in life?” the guardian of the gate at the men’s retreat demanded. “To work toward a more compassionate, just and sustainable world,” I immediately replied. “You may enter!” [...]

Dear family and friends, We hope this post finds you doing well on the first day of the new year. Life in 2014 has been joyous, fun-filled and fulfilling for us, though not without with the ups [...]

Once again I’m struck by how the universe responds when I clearly ask for what I want and take action toward that end. On November 19, I posted a personal essay on my blog about my first [...]

My true calling: I’ve known it since grade school when I was fascinated by words and phrases that would roll effortlessly off my tongue. And it’s that thing that I spent the first 40 years of my [...]

Mount Pleasant, Texas, September 6, 1949: At the time of my matriculation into the first grade at East Ward Elementary (a squat rectangular building that could easily have passed for a penal [...]

Our four-year-old daughter Gracelyn is quite the rhymester, frequently making up poems and songs for her own entertainment and, so it would seem, for ours too. So, at Lake Eden Arts Festival [...]

Well, I made history today, personal history anyway. The mountain trails we run on are filled with twists and turns with roots and rocks scattered liberally along the way. Typically I’ll [...]

In honor of our 15 years of married life together, an encore post of the story of how Shonnie and I met and fell in love. I first laid eyes on Shonnie Lavender in 1995 when we both joined the [...]

Here is a list of the 20 books that have had the greatest influence on me.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice— though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your [...]

Around the first of the year I asked my 88-year-old mother Sue a daunting question: “Are you ready to go?” This once powerful, dynamic, high-energy woman had fallen several times over the past [...]

My mother Callie Sue Tilghman Mulkey passed away yesterday at the age of 88. Below is a poem that I shared last night at an impromptu gathering of our clan. Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep by [...]

I was a scrawny little kid who was frequently ill. One of my elementary school teachers even referred to me as “sickly.” I played football with reckless abandon from junior high through college, [...]

Today, on my 70th birthday, I’m recalling the catchphrase we freely cast about during the turbulent years of the late 1960s: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” I was in my 20s then, unyielding, [...]

“Be careful, Brucie, you might get hurt.” A frequent refrain from my great-grandmother and great-aunt while I was growing up in the late ’40s. Well meaning though they may have been, each hovered [...]

I first laid eyes on Shonnie Lavender in 1995 when we both joined the Austin Fit Green Training Group for the Austin Motorola Marathon. It was August, and as usual, hot as Hades in the capitol [...]

Chocolate came bounding into the world in Arlington, Texas in 1988, and from early on, it was obvious that this kitty had a mind of her own, a common trait of all felines, but especially [...]

'Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.' –Barack Obama

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong. ~Charles Wadsworth If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your [...]

Home is not where you have to go but where you want to go; nor is it a place where you are sullenly admitted, but rather where you are welcomed—by the people, the walls, the tiles on the floor, [...]

Saturday morning, alone in the mist and drizzle. Stillness envelops me. No sound but my footsteps, the drip of the moisture from the trees, the occasional songs of the birds. How blessed I am to [...]