LOCAL AF started with a pretty simple idea: home is worth carrying with you.

I grew up with Southern roots, and a lot of what I know about a place has never had much to do with a line on a map. It’s the people. The stories. The little things you know because you were there.

It’s knowing the cut-through.

It’s knowing the pond.

It’s knowing the curve you probably shouldn’t take too fast — and every now and then, taking it a little too fast anyway.

I’ve hunted a few does and shot a few bucks. I’ve fished for bass and caught plenty of bream. I caught my first crappie and, naturally, called it a crappie before I knew any better. I caught my first redfish and released a couple more. I still haven’t got a turkey. That one’s on the list.

None of those things make LOCAL AF by themselves. But together, they’re pieces of a life. They’re mornings, people, places and stories that stick with you.

So are the lightnin’ bugs. The tomato sandwiches. Shrimp and grits. Snipe hunting. The sayings you grew up hearing and didn’t realize were unusual until somebody from somewhere else looked at you funny.

That’s the stuff we're made of.

But LOCAL AF is about more than the things we do. It’s about the people who make those things matter.

I love my Ma, my Dad and my siblings — all of whom helped me grow in more ways than they probably know. They’re part of the reason certain places feel different to me. Part of why a road, a house, a lake, a town or even an old story can carry more weight than it probably should.

And then there’s my woman. Yes, she approves of me calling her that! That's a whole other story coming from a fun day in Walmart.

My days are fuller with her beside me. Life has taken us through plenty of good ones and a few hard ones, too. I’ve even had a surprise, late evening, hand-shaken martini while shoreside fishing the Matanzas on one of my tougher days, simply because she wanted to make life a little better. Somehow, those moments become part of your definition of home too. Sometimes home is a place. Sometimes it’s simply the person sitting next to you.

That’s really what LOCAL AF is built around.

Not the idea that where we’re from is better than everywhere else.

Just that it’s ours.

Your local might be a little Southern town where everybody knows everybody. It might be a city neighborhood with a coffee shop, a corner store and streets you could drive blindfolded. It might be a farm, a lake, a coastline, a downtown block, a football Saturday, a boat ramp or the backyard everybody somehow ends up in.

Local looks different depending on who you ask.

That’s the point.

LOCAL AF is about the places that raise us, the people who shape us, the traditions we keep, the things we call by the wrong name on purpose, and all those tiny bits of regional lore that somehow become part of who we are.

We make apparel, art and goods inspired by those things.

Some of it is serious. Some of it is an inside joke. Some of it probably only makes sense if you’re from around here.

But all of it comes from the same place.

Reverence for where we came from.

Gratitude for the people that are OUR people.

And the belief that wherever local is for you, it ought to mean something.

This is my LOCAL AF.

And I’m glad you’re here to make it yours.

Stay safe. Be a good human. Stay local.

- Tyler