Vendor Spotlight

Bronson H. paints a bright future

BY MAY HARTNESS

Bronson H. moved to Nashville from Ashland City, Tenn., in 2014 and has been selling The Contributor for four years on Mallory Lane and South Spring Street. He also paints houses in Linden, Tenn., and enjoys reading John Grisham and James Patterson novels. In the past four years, he’s had some memorable interactions, especially during the holiday season.

“I was working here in Franklin one day and a lady stopped and parked her car and walked over to where I was working. We talked for a little while and she asked me if I needed anything. I said no ma’am. Then she asked me what size shoe, pants, and shirts I wore; this was a couple weeks before Christmas.” he said. “And I had forgotten about it. I hate asking people for stuff, but I told her my sizes. When she pulled up two days before Christmas and gave me a couple outfits she had bought me, some boots for winter, and a card with $100 in it, it broke my heart. Oh man, that was awesome. She was a blessing really.”

Bronson sells the paper five days a week and spends his weekends working his other job: painting houses. Over the past five years he has painted seven homes and has formed several meaningful friendships in the process.

“When I started at The Contributor, the guy who owns the house I’m painting was one of my customers,” he says. “He’d buy my paper and then one thing led to another and I started mowing his yard. Now, when I work for him I have my own room at his house and his family feels like family to me. I look up to him. He’s

been a big influence on my life and tries to steer me in the right direction. I enjoy that.”

Bronson says even when he experiences challenges in his life, he finds hope in his customers and strives to maintain a positive outlook.

“I like to look at all the positive things in life,” he says. “I think, ‘I can walk, I can get out and work.’ I just try to look at things in a positive form.”

And although he likes to keep a positive outlook, when I spoke to Bronson on Nov. 3 he expressed the ways that voting can be especially difficult and frustrating for those experiencing homelessness.

“There are absolutely challenges. It’s kind of hard to get out and vote when you don’t have a place to live and you don’t have nowhere to go,” he said. “It’s so hard. When I was homeless, the last thing I cared about was voting. I hate to see people out there on the streets because I’ve been there and it’s awful.”

Bronson describes himself as uninterested in politics, but he did describe what he thinks are crucial qualities in a leader.

“I just always thought honesty and loyalty are the two characteristics I think a leader should have, he says. “How can you be a leader and not be honest?”

Bronson hopes for the best when it comes to America’s political future, and is excited for his own future — as long as it includes the friends he’s made in Nashville, the work that he loves, and late nights spent reading John Grisham.