From the June 2018 400: The Life

In January Troy Brumbalow took office as Cumming’s first new mayor since the 1970s. While many may know him in his official capacity, they might not know the mayor’s more eccentric tastes, from his prized possessions to favorite food to his happy place. The Life 400 was able to catch up with Brumbalow to find out.

What is your prized possession? 

Brumbalow said one of his prized possessions is a 1962 Dodge Town Wagon, even if it had trouble with dying over the years. 

“We go through this, thinking it was fuel filters and all it was, it was all clogged up. We do all that, it cranks and runs, I go about five miles, boom, same thing.

“So, finally we decided to drop the gas tank, there was a grease rag that had made it to the gas tank. So, whenever you pushed the gas, it’d suck the grease rag up to the pickup [and] cut the fuel-level off. Took the grease rag out, and it purred like a kitten.”

What is your happy place?

“It’s two places,” Brumbalow said. “We really enjoy having cookouts at the house and having friends over and playing cornhole.

“We’ll play cornhole at the house one night a week, and have some sports on the TV outside and just have a good time.

“Then I really enjoy playing golf. That’s my real good stress reliever is going out with some buddies and just turn the phone off and you’ve got four hours of peace and quiet and nature.”

What has been a turning point in your life? 

“I’m still doing the same thing — building houses — that I started doing when I was a 21-year-old on Old Atlanta Road building custom houses. I guess the biggest turning point was a couple years ago I fell and hit my head and woke up and said, ‘Well, I’ll run for mayor,’” he said with a laugh. “The biggest life change is deciding to do that.

“Other than kids, that’s probably been it.”

Favorite TV show?

“Friends or the Big Bang Theory,” he said. “It’s probably a tie between the two.”

Favorite movies?

“I’ve got a bunch of them: any ‘Star Wars’ movie or ‘Tin Cup,’ I’ve probably seen that movie a thousand times … I’ve literally got thousands of DVDs. I’ve seen a lot of movies so many times I can quote them.”

Favorite food?

“Food’s got to be pizza. Any kind of pizza. I don’t think I’ve ever had bad pizza. But probably pizza and Mexican. But then I love cooking a steak on the grill. It’s hard to beat steak and asparagus and some potatoes.

“My favorite [pizza] is pepperoni, sausage and pepperoncini peppers, unless I’m in Chicago and you can get true Chicago deep-dish pizza, then it doesn’t matter.”

Favorite team?

“Pittsburgh Steelers. Nothing else matters. Growing up, we were playing pee-wee football and baseball, we were black and gold like the Steelers. Well, this was the late 70s, early 80s. The Steelers were winning Super Bowls. The Pirates were winning World Series. Our uniforms were exact down to just our school logo on one side of the helmet.”

Favorite Steelers players?

“All time, it’s got to be Terry Bradshaw, the blonde bomber.”

Vacation spot?

“I’m not a big beach person, my wife is. I don’t really have a favorite spot. 

“Probably the best trip I’ve ever been on [was when] her and I went to Boston and went from there to Bar Harbor, Maine and just kind of saw everything in between.”