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BE PART OF THE LEGACY

TAMPA BAY • FEBRUARY 23-24 2026

This FINAL encore experience will be unlike any other. Because like everything we do, it's been "reimagined" from beginning to end. It's not a virtual or hybrid event. It's not a conference. It's not a seminar, a workshop, a meeting, or a symposium. And it's not your typical run-of-the-mill everyday event crammed with stages, keynote speeches, team-building exercises, PowerPoint presentations, and all the other conventional humdrum. Because it's up close & personal by design. Where conversation trumps presentation. And where authentic connection runs deep.

Memories

About Life, Love, And Living

Some believe that we choose our memories and select the ones that make us feel good maybe to bring back feelings of love and comfort.  I confess to having many memories that fit into that mode.  A spring walk with my dogs in tow or the smell of pancakes and bacon on a cold morning are among my favorites.  It is natural to want to feel good and yet are those memories the ones that made me who I am?

I wonder if the hard times helped me find my place in life.  I remember the year that the crops failed and we lost everything.  We loaded up a big truck with everything we had and boarded up the doors and windows.  Without looking back, we drove away after years of living on the farm.  In the end, the hardest thing we did became a blessing when Daddy got a good job in town and we lived two blocks from the beach.

I felt like we had dropped down a bottomless hole like the ones you find deep in the forest.  To make it worse my first day at my new school was very brutal.  It seemed that city kids did not care much for farm kids.  It was an awakening, yet I made my way around it. I made new friends and learned to stand my ground with the ones that refused to see me as an acceptable friend.

The hard times seemed to make me kinder and slowly the good memories came.  Daddy called it a patch of rough road and told me to walk slower and keep going forward.  He always seemed to know what to say and one day while riding my bike down to the saltmarshes I realized that I did feel good and I was happy and the rough patch had passed.

I have so many memories and they are all important with many lessons learned attached to them.

I find now that in many ways I have had a long life and my memories have gone full circle bringing back to me the cherished ones. I stroll often down the dirt roads, walking my dogs and spending most of my time with family.  I still like to sit quietly in my garden remembering a life filled with the good memories.  I know my life had many hard times, yet these memories I would prefer to forget and I would be happy for them to live in the shadows on the edge of my thoughts.

Perhaps I do choose certain memories and I guess that is okay.  If I had my life to live over, I truly would not do anything different.  So, come walk with me a while down an old country road and I will share a story with you about some good times, the best of times, and maybe you will have one or two to share with me.

Larry Tyler
Larry Tyler
Awaken the possibilities … then unleash them. After 55 years of successful retail management, I have returned to my passion of writing. I write Poetry, Storytelling, and Short Stories. As a child, I grew up on front porch storytelling. I would sit and listen to my Dad and his brothers tell these great stories that were captivating, and I always wanted to hear more. I wanted to experience the things they talked about. I started writing at a young age and reading everything I could get my hands on. At twelve years old I started a storytelling group and several of my friends became writers or poets. At 16 I hopped box cars and worked the tobacco fields, orange groves, picked cotton, and spent many nights around a campfire listing to life stories. Someone once asked me why I wrote. It consumes an amazing amount of time and I assure you it is not going to make me rich. I write so that my children can touch and feel my words telling of the ones that came before us and the stories they told me. These are the chronicles of our family and even though they come from my childhood memories and are deeply rooted in a child’s remembrance at least they may feel what it was like in the time before them and cherish the things the elders left behind. I am a Columnist & Featured Contributor, BIZCATALYST360 and I have The Writers Café, a group on LinkedIn that features Poets, Writers, Artists, Photographers, and Musicians . On Facebook I have two groups and one page; Dirt Road Storytelling, From Abandoned To Rescue Dogs And Cats, and About Life, Love And Living. As writers, it is true that we honestly do not know what we hold within us until we unleash it. When our words inspire others only then will inspiration return to the writer. I will spend my twilight years in search of the next story, the next poem, and the next image. I will take the time to enjoy my Wife, our Dogs, and Cats, and our amazing new home and I will always find the time to walk down a dirt road I truly hope is that I never have to read another book on Leadership, be on a conference call or see another plan o gram as these were the tool for what I did in life and not about who I am.

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2 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Blessings Larry, I believe memories good or bad make a difference in our life and who we become as a result over time. I enjoyed your article and reading the last paragraph to come walk along on this old country road, I very few good memories, especially as a child, and many, many bad memories. But as you stated in your piece, despite all the bad and painful memories, I wouldn’t change a thing because I can see how being who I am today is a blessing to many. Thank you for your continue writing submissions.

  2. Yes, Larry, we all like to feel good and those happy memories can often lift our spirits when things look bleak. But, the memories that are less happy define us and who we are. The lessons we learned, the stiffening of our spririt and resolve. We may not like to dwell on them, but we should never forget them. Thanks for the article.

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