One day late in the summer of 2015 my phone rang.
I didn’t recognize the number, so I let the caller go to voicemail.
When I played the voicemail back, I heard someone begin to sing, “Buh-buh-Benny and the Jets …“
The voice went on to say:
“What’s goin’ on, Benny boy? Are you out hikin’ with the bears? Or maybe teachin’ some good ol’ boys down at the jail? Or are you out helpin’ some homeless guy in an alley somewhere? Hey! I wish we were both together right now playin’ golf again. It’s Sully. Give me a call back, my man. I love ya.”
It was a voice I had not heard in nearly forty years. But I immediately recognized its owner as none other than Bristol’s own Frank Talmadge “Sully” Buchanan.
Talmadge, Tal … or Sully, as many close friends called him … came from one of Bristol’s most highly respected families. His father, Frank Talmadge Buchanan Senior, was a locally renowned and much-loved Bristol surgeon.
Sully’s brother George was a classmate of mine, a fellow member of our 1976 Bristol THS graduating class. Both George and Sully were wickedly witty … and a heckuva lot of fun just to be around … a tribute to their mother every bit as much as to their more famous father.
(Even though George … or Dutchy, as we called him … and I were the same age and true friends, it was his older brother Sully to whom I developed a stronger bond. We can struggle to pinpoint precisely “why” we become special friends with someone - and when we try to put it into words we virtually always come up short in our description, so I will not attempt to do so here).
Sully went on from THS to attend the University of Virginia and graduated with a degree in psychology. He later told me, “I knew I was crazy. So I knew I could understand crazy people.”
Makes sense to me.
But instead of shrinking heads, Sully headed to sunny Florida instead. There he eventually spent forty years as a PGA golf professional.
Upon his retirement as a golf pro, Sully decided to go into the business of selling used golf balls. With his many Florida golf connections, he had a large ready-made market. All he needed was people to retrieve the balls from the sometimes Gator-infested thick foilage of Florida golf courses.
“Benny boy,” he told me, “I’m gonna hire me a whole slew of Mexicans.” ("Mexican" is a name by which Sully referred - and certainly not derisively in any way - to any person of brown skin.)
Within a matter of just a few weeks, Sully called and told me, "I wish I could hire a million Mexicans. They’re not afraid of gators. They all work hard. They're all honest. And I love 'em all like brothers."
Back when we were students together at Bristol Tennessee High School, Sully had sported long whitish-blonde frizzy hair (and I do mean LONG hair). People often commented how much he looked a lot like a '70s rock star.
Yep, Sully looked a lot like a ‘70s rock star … and he was every bit as "cool", too.
I should not fail to mention here how much Sully adored his "little girl” … his daughter. I rarely talked with him that he didn't tell me something “great and wonderful” that she had done. (What people talk about most tells you who they are. Pretty much.) To Sully, it seemed that everything his little girl did was great and wonderful.
Sully also dearly loved his little brother, George “Dutchie” Buchanan. I don't think either one of the Buchanan boys could tell a lie. They were both as forthright and honest as any two people I ever knew … and like their good parents before them, they both did a lot of good in this world.
(By the way, often “just out of the blue” I would receive super cool text messages from Sully. One read, “Benny boy, why don’t you just go jump in a lake … I’m talkin’ South Holston Lake … after your next climb up Holston Mountain?” Another read: “Benny, what size hat you wear?”)
Even after being gone for nearly half a century, Sully still loved Bristol every bit as much as when he grew up here in these hills. Below is a pic of us together at a friend’s birthday party, taken during a visit back here after his retirement.
As you can see, Father Time eventually took Sully’s long blonde locks and replaced them with a shiny dome … much the same as Father Time has done with me. Though here I am covering my head with the new hat Sully had just given me.
Sully would sometimes "just out of the blue" send me money in the mail. The last mail I received from him included a note which read, "I'll always love Bristol, Benny. Spend these three Ben Franklins on the poor or somethin' like that in Bristol. Hell, you'll know what to do with it."
Not long after receiving those words, I got word from his brother that Sully had died, the victim of a sudden fatal infection that set up during routine back surgery.
What a true follow-your-own-drummer … what a fun and free spirit …
was Talmadge “Sully” Buchanan. He was what I would call a “real life rock star”, in all the ways that count most.
Sully may have spent forty years in Florida, but on one of his last visits back home to Bristol he told me, “Benny boy, I was always proud to tell people where I came from. I always told them how cool it was to be from Bristol.”
You were pretty dang cool yourself, Sully ... way more cool in real life than any '70s rock star.