A couple of weeks ago, I was out at my mother’s house in Gladeville. She moved into a new home late last year, and we’re still going through boxes of stuff to figure out what’s staying and what’s going. When I left, she handed me a stack of old folders and notebooks from when I was a child…1992 was the earliest book of work…1997 was the latest. I couldn’t wait to flip through them. As you can see from the featured image on this post, I was a big fan of grunge music, cats, and tacos, even when I was just 11 years old. I cringed more than I reflected thoughtfully upon my childhood, but I laughed a lot too. That’s when I got the idea to actually go through these things and share my findings with you guys. Shout out to my mother – I would’ve thrown these things away years ago, but she kept them, and now we all benefit for it. So, let’s dig right in, starting with this tweet I fired off a couple weeks ago:
My mother was cleaning out her garage and found a stack of my journals from 1992-97. I think I’m going to go through them and write about it for @SoBrosNetwork. Here are a few bars for now. pic.twitter.com/s1KTC2NwEY
— Stoney Keeley (@StoneyKeeley) August 21, 2025
My main takeaway from this one, as I tweeted: “I am afraid of mostly nothing” and “when’s art?” are bars idc,” “being eight years old and fucking LOVING the FLEA MARKET,” and “crazy thing is at 39 years old, I’m still a “when’s art?” kid.”
We’re gonna do the rest of these gallery style and then I’ll react to what were my favorite journal entries – the ones when I got older weren’t fun because I could spell and form coherent thoughts, even though admitting to my junior high teachers that Roseanne was my favorite TV show at one point is highly embarrassing (if I could pass on some wisdom to my 11-year-old self, I’d say “you probably didn’t really like the show as much as you just liked that it was something you could watch with your parents and spend time with them. It’s okay to admit that.“). Anyway, these were my favorites:
Wow.
- Shout out Opryland. Pour one out. R.I.P. – I always loved it so much. I remember my grandparents having season passes, going with the family, and how terrifying that place was at Halloween to a young child.
- I’m still the type of person that likes to throw the darts at the wall.
- What child is thinking “I wonder what football is like in 50 years?” I should’ve gone into strategic foresight.
- I forgot how much I loved shooting pool as a kid when we had a pool table.
- Skating still makes me nervous because I can be rather clumsy – while I’ve developed catlike reflexes to recover on my own two feet, adding sets of wheels to each foot complicates matters.
- What do y’all think the teacher thought when I said my dad was my favorite family member because he taught me how to shoot pool?
- The last pumpkin in the pumpkin patch? Chasing cats? This is mortifying.
- Watch out for the buzzerds on the nature trail.
- We need to bring back notebooks like this one.
- America’s Funniest Home Videos never ages. Always put that shit on.
- My favorite game is sports. All of them. Doesn’t matter. Let’s do it. Let’s play.
- I’ve hated going downtown and dealing with all those people ever since I was eight years old.
Man, that’s the good stuff – I hope you all get the chance to do something like this at some point in your lives. I’m thankful my mother keeps stuff like this. It’s crazy how we trick ourselves sometimes – I always considered myself an aimless kid…like I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life until I was almost 30…but then I look back at this kinda stuff and think, “fuck, dude – you were a writer all along.”
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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