Blog Post One
A stock image of a very close memory at my grandparents farm.
As an only child born in August of 1989 in a small town in north Mississippi, the kind where your parents grow up together and marry and stay there along with most everyone else they knew, I’ve always been fascinated with what else is out there.
This opening gives off a Faulkner-esque vibe to it and I’m sorry to sully the authors’ good name.
Hello, I’m Matthew Murphree . I am a pharmacist by trade and I live here in Oxford Mississippi about 45 minutes from where I grew up.
My grandparents owned several hundred acres and had hundreds of cows and my earliest memories are riding with my dad feeding cows and petting them and helping out around the farm. I’ve always been fascinated by this nostalgia and farm-life. It taught me the value of hard work and providing for your family and to appreciate what all you’ve been given and for what you work hard for. This idea I still carry with me even now.
My parents were very much a “ work hard play hard” type of family. We traveled quite a bit growing up and going to really cool places like New York City several times ( one of those pictures I attached is the lovely Katie Couric taking her picture with us back in 1998 or 1999). We were also there on top of the World Trade Center just 2 weeks before the tragedy of 9/11. I think about that so often. At how it was a seminal moment in my generation, before and after that event where everything seemed to change.
Each year in August to celebrate my birthday, I pick somewhere different I have never been to go to. In years past, I have been to Boston/Los Angeles/Key West and Iceland. I was a history minor in undergrad and am an avid reader of all things history related.
There is something powerful in the feeling of standing in the middle of Times Square where it feels like you’re in the center of the world. A similar feeling walking down the Sunset Strip in Hollywood imaging all the rock bands that played the clubs starting out that are household names now. Hiking in Iceland around waterfalls and glaciers or walking the same cobblestone streets in Boston that Ben Franklin and our founding fathers walked gives such a glimpse into history, it’s like you can feel their ghosts
I was the 2nd youngest in my class in high school and graduated with my BS in Biology at 21. I finished my PharmD when I was 25 and began my career as a pharmacist. Like anything, there were good days and bad days but I got to connect and form relationships with so many patients who trusted me and sought my advice. This helped me learn to listen and respond with empathy .
“ A man has got to have a code”- The Wire
The Wire is one of my favorite tv shows of all time but the quote above really resonates with me. Your reputation and how you conduct yourself and how you treat people and your moral code is invaluable to me. Doing the right thing is a core tenant of how I was raised. Trustworthiness is a trait that is lacking these days.
I’m a wallflower at first until I become comfortable and then I’m often the life of the party. I always say it’s like getting in the swimming pool where you slowly get in and acclimate and then its fine.
Some of my hobbies 1)Traveling 2) College Football 3) Poker 4) Reading 5) Watching Movies or tv
I’ve always loved sports growing up playing competitive baseball, even being on a nationally ranked team in high school. My entire life I’ve always been an Ole Miss fan in any sport and living here for the last 10 years I’ve had season tickets to most of the major sports and seen highs and lows and big wins and crushing losses in person. Fandom has a price and not just monetary.
I’ve been playing poker since I was around 15 or so. Instead of getting into mischief growing up, my friends would play cards by another friends pool and order pizza and have a great time in the summers. As I’ve gotten older the stakes have gotten much higher and so has the skill involved needed to play. There are life lessons to take from playing cards though even though they sound cliché, they’re true.
You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle- it’s ok to be cautious sometime and avoid the risk.
Like life, sometimes in poker despite your planning and plan, things go badly. It’s how we respond that matters.
Trust your gut. In poker, sometimes you just KNOW you’re beat. You can feel it. Your instinct will rarely guide you wrong.
My mom had me invlved with summer reading classes at the library growing up which instilled in me a love for it. Pharmacy School left no time for leisure reading so I fell out of it for a long time, however during Covid I decided to pick it back up with nothing else to do but work and come home.
I read about 55 books last year, most were history related or biographies. To cleanse the palate, I may pick up a beach read/rom-com book if I just finished a tough read.
Reading helps me learn so much which in turn helps me do well at Bar trivia nights. I enjoy playing by myself on Tuesdays for a real challenge ( I do win occasionally) and with a motley crew of nerds like myself on Wednesdays for more of a social aspect . I believe you should never stop learning or reading. there is always something you don’t know or a topic you could freshen up with and that’s how I pick out books to read.
Thank you for reading this… it’s actually been cathartic to write some of my feelings and thoughts out.
One last thing…. there’s a new hand about to be dealt…play or fold… it’s your choice… good luck.
Matt
