‘The Cool Pad’ by Shane Brown

Judge John McClarty, Shane Brown and Lafayette County Sheriff Buddy East

Shane is the son of the late author, Larry Brown. He is picking up his father’s craft and has memories to share with us all.

The sound of a typewriter clicking is very soothing to me. I remember that sound and see smoke and a dim light over Dad’s head vividly! The camera shot in The Rough South where he was typing and smoke was floating in the air was on cue! Dad could never settle with where he thought he should write. I grew up watching him go from different rooms in the house. He was always changing locations. I remember him writing on our kitchen bar. How he blocked out the noises of supper being cooked, the television playing and kids running wildly through the house still amazes me. He switched to the dining room and also to his bedroom. He finally got it right and moved out across the carport into one of the storage rooms. It became the coolest room in our house. He even named it “The Cool Pad!”

The Cool Pad was and still is, well, cool! The memories from my youth and what The Cool Pad looks like now are different. My youth tells me to tell you that it’s a long narrow room with only a single window. The size of it is probably around 6 feet wide by 20 feet long. A wooden screened door that Dad made hangs in front of the entrance to The Cool Pad. After opening the screen door, there is a main door that has a faded blue color, and written across it is “THE COOL.” He never finished writing “PAD” on it. Every time I see that I wonder why he didn’t finish. Surrounding “THE COOL” are backstage passes that were stuck on him at concerts. Tim McGraw, Robert Earl Keen and Cary Hudson are just a few of the stickers I can think of right now.

When you walk into the room there is a brown cushioned chair in the right corner for company, kids or Mom to sit in. I used to sit in that chair often and just listen to the sounds of music and him typing on a typewriter. The mix of both sounds was cool to me. He would take smoke breaks and talk to me and then get back to writing. My favorite times weren’t when he was writing but, instead, when he was playing his guitar. He loved to sit and play the guitar for anyone wanting to listen. He bought me my first guitar when I was 12, and I didn’t pick one up until I was 22 – 10 years late and very regretful! I did finally get to have 3 years of playing with him before he passed…

The Cool Pad, courtesy of Shane Brown

Dad loved for us to come to The Cool Pad, and we would sneak out there even if Mom told us to leave him alone. We could tell if he was busy, and we would disappointingly leave him alone. There are over a hundred pictures taped to the walls. Pictures of him and Mom; LeAnne (my baby sister) in her beauty pageant dress; a beaver Billy Ray killed and Dad showing the beaver’s teeth as Dad smiled so happily; me buried in the sand on the beach with my high school sweetheart; one of his idols, Harry Crews; Dad and his good friend, Richard Howorth, pulled over on a country road in Lafayette County being photographed by another dear friend, Tom Rankin; my brother, Jonny Miles, and his wife after their engagement; and many other wonderful things.

Dad started with his desk in the middle of the room, but it ended up in the very back – where it is today. On the way to his desk is a bookshelf he made. It was just a single board he painted white, and it was held up by a few metal brackets. It was covered with books he had read or was going to read. There are also manuscripts and galley proofs from people wanting his opinion at one time. There is an electric guitar that hangs on the wall and a New York City fire fighter’s helmet that was given to him. A neon green poster hangs on another wall that has “BBL Crew” and an arrow on it that was used for directing traffic in the filming of Big Bad Love. I believe he told me he “borrowed” it one day after leaving the film site.

His desk held everything else important to his writing. A typewriter, a radio receiver, a CD player, two speakers, three CD towers that held 295 CD’s, a stamp holder and an ashtray! The wall above his desk is covered with a picture I took in Luckenbach, Texas at Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic. The picture shows the great Robert Earl Keen and Willie jamming out to an afternoon crowd. Above that picture are three posters. Two of them are paintings his good friend Glenn Ray Tutor painted – one of a country store lined with drink machines out front and one of a church somewhere in rural Mississippi! The other is of when his book, Big Bad Love, was turned into a movie by Arliss Howard.

The Cool Pad was energetic, fun, comfortable and, most definitely, entertaining! I miss it even though it’s right across the carport. I walk in there now, and it’s not the same. The chair that I (we) sat in is gone, and there are things (leaf blower, a banjo, extension cord, etc.) piled in there that needed a place to lay. I have told Mom that I will come home and fix it back up, but I never can find the time! I will though… I go in there when I visit home and just sit and listen to music. I walk around and look at every picture, even though I have seen them all over a hundred times. They mean a lot to me. I sit at his desk, in his chair and smoke a cigarette. I put my cigarette butts out in his ashtray, right beside his cigarette butts that have never been tossed in the trash can right below his desk. I don’t want to throw them away! I don’t have enough gut in me to say goodbye to a cigarette butt. I guess my brother and sister don’t either, or Mom, because they visit The Cool Pad too.

Shane Brown is a HottyToddy.com contributor and the son of noted author Larry Brown. Shane is an Oxford native with Yocona and Tula roots. Shane is a graduate of Mississippi State University and works as a salesman for Best Chance. He has two children — Maddux, age 9, and Rilee, age 7 — and makes his home at “A Place Called Tula.” He can be reached at msushanebrown@icloud.com.