Remembering Sandy "The Flower Man" Bell
It seems everyone has a Sandy story. This one is mine.
I moved to Chattanooga 26 years ago. My early relationship with the city was…tumultuous. Born in a much smaller town, coming of age in a much larger one, Chattanooga existed in some weird in-between space I couldn’t quite seem to find my place in.
After many years of hard living and poor decisions, it occurred to me that if I wanted to survive, I needed to be elsewhere, so I left. Of course, this is Chattanooga, and you never really leave, do you? That’s what I had been told early on, anyway.
I wasn’t gone all that long really, a year or two maybe, but it seemed much longer at the time. Regardless, I couldn’t escape the fact that for better or for worse, Chattanooga was “home” now, so I came back.
On that first night back in town, my dear friend Julie K. (who went on to become the drummer and second-longest member of the Molly Maguires) invited me out for a drink. As we sat there in the downtown bar I found myself wondering if I had made the right decision, if anything was going to be any better than it had been, when in walked Sandy, the Flower Man.
I recognized that broad grin instantly and suddenly felt like, yeah, I was where I belonged after all. I went to greet him and said, “I don’t expect you to remember me at all, but I sure know you. I’ve been gone for a while and I want you to know how good it does my heart to see you again!”
He looked away for a moment, turned back to me and said, “Marc! You look like you lost some weight, lookin’ good!”
I didn’t know he’d ever known my name in the first place.
I certainly wouldn’t have believed that he would remember it out of the thousands of people he encountered night after night, but I will tell you that had the President of the United States walked in and said, “Hey, there’s that Marc fellow,” I could not have felt more pride and gratitude than I did in the moment when I thought, “Sandy knows me!”
I gave him a hug, bought some flowers, and got on with what has been the best and brightest chapter of my life ever since. I love my town, and he was such an integral part of it that even though he’s gone now, I, and ten thousand like me, are never going to let that part of Chattanooga go away.
It’s a sad time, but even as I think on him now, I can’t help but smile and I mean to honor him the best way I know how, by smiling more, and by telling folks who need to hear it, “It’s a beautiful day!” — MTM