Big, beautiful Memphis has vibrant past, bright future

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

Nov. 10, 2011

I am a Memphian. I was born here and raised with the identity crisis and low self-esteem that have mired our city for so long. Adults I looked up to put down the city and seemed to ache to live someplace else, anyplace else. It’s been a difficult mental cycle to break, but I have for my kids and because, despite what Forbes Magazine and some other national publications print, we are a city moving forward with a past vastly more interesting than most cities.

This is the pride I want my children to grow up knowing.

To that end, I’ll be at Burke’s Book Store with my kids this evening for the launch of “Memphians” (Nautilus Publishing), a coffee-table book that highlights the well-known, and lesser-known, great personalities of our city. Along with several other local writers and editors, I am a contributor to the book, and was asked to research and write bios of authors, surgeons, attorneys, peddlers, musicians and entrepreneurs.

Characters all of them … (read more)

For decades, TV meteorologist Dave Brown has served as reassuring presence to community

Feature story for The Commercial Appeal

Nov. 6, 2011

A fact that thousands of schoolchildren in Memphis already know is that Dave Brown, chief meteorologist and weather director for WMC-TV Channel 5, does not like snow. He loves, as he says, “quiet weather, I love sunny days with highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s.”

But there’s a backstory to his disdain for the flurries; it began when he was 16 years old. “I went to work one Sunday afternoon in my mom’s brand new ’63 Plymouth, and five hours later when I’d left work, it had gone from a cloudy day to 14 inches of snow on the ground. The trip, which normally took about 10 to 12 minutes for me to get home, took 41/2 hours. I have not cared for snow since that time. I was a nervous wreck by the time I got home.”

Tim Van Horn was one of those kids of the 1970s watching the news in hopes of school closings, and would later find himself working as an intern under Brown. Van Horn has been an on-air meteorologist with WMC-TV since 1999.

“When you see someone on TV, you think you know them, and watching Dave on television, and then working for him, he’s pretty close to what you see on TV. He’s about as genuine as they come,” Van Horn said. “It was pretty incredible to be able to spend that time with him during the internship.”

Brown grew up in Trenton, Tenn., almost 100 miles northeast of Memphis, with a dream, not of being a weatherman, but of playing rock and roll records on the radio. “I was always fascinated by weather but had no designs to get into meteorology.”

That dream was realized early when, as a 15-year-old high school sophomore, he became a disc jockey in Milan — the closest radio station to Trenton — and then on WIRJ in nearby Humboldt. He attended then-Memphis State University and worked at WHBQ radio with friend Jack Parnell, the top morning jock at the time … (read more)

Watch your language!

Cursing is everywhere in today’s culture, but who wants it coming from a 5-year-old?

Feature story for Memphis Parent magazine

November 2011

“Oh, fudge!”
It’s the expletive that leaves little Ralphie sitting with a bar of soap thrust in his mouth in 1983’s modern movie classic A Christmas Story. The irony in the film, of course, is that Ralphie learned such language from his father whose stream of obscenities is comic fodder for the film, yet handled as a series of nonsensical gibberish when provoked.
Most films, however, do not handle such language this way, and most movies are available to our children at the push of a button these days. There are parents, too, who don’t couch their language in nonsensical gibberish, but in the real, TV-MA rated variety.
For parents like Teresa Leary Jenkins, the mother of 12-year-old James and 4-year-old Phoebe, swearing is not tolerated, either by her children or adults in the family. Having said that, she acknowledges that, despite our best intentions, everyone slips.
“I don’t advocate him [James] cursing and I always say, ‘Intelligent people don’t curse and you need to figure out ways to get your point across,’ but I do know that as adults we lose our temper and, as children, they lose their tempers as well,” says Jenkins. “I think sometimes we hold our children to this really high standard and it’s better to monitor it and not try to control it but try to help them work through it.” … (read more)

Camping trip is fun for great indoorsman

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

Oct. 27, 2011

My 10-year-old son enjoys the occasional slice of toast for breakfast. I recently had to stop him at breakfast when we were down to our last. “Don’t take that bread, Joshua, I need that for lunches,” I said. And then I watched, aghast, as he turned and tossed the slice back into the pantry on top of the bread bag. We had a talk about that.

I tell you this, not to embarrass him. Not only. But I want you to understand that, though he may at times live like an animal, he is not so wild, and I want you to understand my trepidation when it was time for our first Boy Scout camping trip last weekend. He was very excited about the trip in the weeks leading up to it. Joshua, however, is the great indoorsman. He appreciates his sofa and his iPod and his remote control. He’s fond of his bedroom with its four solid walls and soft mattress.

And he comes by it honestly. I haven’t been camping in 15 years.

The first basic need a father wants to provide for his child is shelter and, to this end, I did what our forefathers must have done when they set off for the untamed western territories, I put a notice on Facebook that I needed to borrow a two-man tent.

Tent in hand, I wanted to make sure I could set it up all by myself. Not that Joshua would be unwilling to help but, well, you remember the bread in the pantry?

Having set it up in the backyard the day before our trip, I called him out to see where he’d be spending the following night. His reaction: “Where’s the rest of it?” He got his sarcasm badge … (read more)

Holding Forth

Feature story for Rhodes Magazine

Fall 2011

It sounds like a pitch for a new reality show: a random group of college students occupying one house for a year, getting to know each other and engaging in their community. But this ensemble has much more purpose, separating their situation from similar roommate situations on college campuses across the country.

This is The Ruka, a team of six like-minded seniors living together and participating in programs and lifestyles to better their community, the environment and themselves. Last year, these women became a group with positive intentions that would leave them with the necessary resources to present in last spring’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Symposium, or URCAS.

“The symposium is an opportunity for students to tell the campus community what they’ve been doing, either in or outside the classroom,” says Dr. Ann Viano, the J. Lester Crain Professor of Physics and chair of the URCAS planning committee.

Throughout campus on a crisp, spring day in April, 180 students held forth on disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, fine arts and natural sciences. In addition, some student presentations dealt with working within the community to improve it and gain a better understanding of the human condition. As they have been since 1996, presentations were given both visually and orally … (read more)

Writing mountaineer bio a career pinnacle

Feature profile for The Commercial Appeal

Oct. 16, 2011

To hear Emil Henry tell it, climbing the Matterhorn at 55 years old wasn’t so difficult. There was little training, only to be tested on skills, endurance and altitude sickness; it wasn’t even a life’s dream.

“As tall, high mountains go, it’s probably the easiest of all the high mountains in the Alps now,” Henry said of the summit that has seen 431 deaths, 58 in the 21st century alone.

Researching and writing a biography of Edward Whymper, the first person ever to scale the 14,690-foot mountain, however, became a monumental task of endurance, travel and expense. And a challenge he wouldn’t give up for anything.

“It turned out to be the most enjoyable occupation of my life,” Henry said of the book, “Triumph and Tragedy: The Life of Edward Whymper” ($18.31).

Henry, now 82 with three children and five grandchildren, began life in Memphis, growing up in Chickasaw Gardens before going away to a boarding high school in Pennsylvania and college at Yale. He joined the Navy during the Korean War, spending three years on a destroyer in the Pacific Ocean, and then went to Vanderbilt for law school.

After practicing law in Memphis for five years, he was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission in 1962. When the chairman resigned only eight months later, Henry was appointed, “at the ripe old age of 34,” chairman of the FCC by President John F. Kennedy … (read more)

Teen travels build bonds, make lasting memories

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

Oct. 13, 2011

When I was 13 years old, I took a road trip to Naperville, Ill., with my aunt Carol. She was returning home from a visit and didn’t want to make the drive alone with the Great Dane puppy she’d impulsively adopted while in Memphis. I wasn’t much help on that drive, I’m afraid. I had no license and was put in charge of the puppy and the music. There was one cassette I liked and we listened to one side, and then the other, for more than 500 miles. I fed the dog Doritos.

Carol never complained.

At some point she was pulled over for speeding and had me lie down on the back seat. “Sorry, officer,” she said, “I guess I was paying more attention to my nephew, who’s feeling sick, than the speed limit.” There was no sympathy and she got the ticket anyway, along with a bit of karmic justice when the puppy threw up all over the back of the car 10 minutes later.

As trips go, it wasn’t the farthest I’ve traveled. It wasn’t the most expensive or tropical trip. There is little glamour in Naperville, Ill. But it was an adventure nonetheless, and the bonding experience was immeasurable … (read more)

Park place: Establishing recreation system was linchpin of improving Memphis

Hidden Memphis feature story for The Commercial Appeal

Oct. 9, 2011

The founders had a plan, and it began with the parks.

When Memphis was established in 1819, parks and open spaces were as much a part of the vision as the Mississippi River, commerce and cotton. With a total of 36 acres decreed by the founders (the earliest being Court Square, Market Square, Exchange Square, Auction Square and the promenade along the bluff), Memphis established itself as a city on the cutting edge of culture, recreation and meeting the needs of the community.

Today, with activists and leaders suddenly intent on expanding and utilizing existing green space as an amenity to attract a creative class of people and industry, it’s a resource the city has actually been cultivating and sitting upon since its earliest days.

As early as 1889, Judge L.B. McFarland began looking into the creation of a park system for the city. Nine years later, John C. Olmsted, son of Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., the designer of New York’s Central Park, visited Memphis to investigate the possibility of such a system.

The mood of the nation following the Civil War, Reconstruction and the yellow fever epidemics led to an avid progressive movement of city beautification … (read more)

Low-tech telecom new frontier for digital kids

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

Sept. 29, 2011

For more than a decade, we haven’t had a home telephone. Like so many others, we grew tired of telemarketers, wrong numbers and the double billing on top of our cell phones.

But our kids continue to age and become more social. It had become time for either a home phone or pockets full of cell phones when a giant corporation made us a deal promising free HBO, a land line and terrible service.

How could we say no?

The kids have never known a home phone. It was like a prop from one of those classic films they like, one from the 1980s. They approached the thin, silvery wand the way a pet might advance on a new animal in its territory. They walked around it, sniffed it and pushed at it with their filthy paws.

Once we convinced them that it was OK, that it was like any other piece of technology they know, they relaxed. It was lifted gingerly from its cradle to be further scrutinized and then pointed at the television. It was aimed at the Wii and searched over for an Internet portal. In an effort to dial up YouTube, my son may have dialed Japan … (read more)

Eat, sleep, go to school: forgettable life of a teen

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

Sept. 15, 2011

There is an oddity inside my home. Under my roof lives an alien creature nearly 51/2 feet tall and all arms and legs. And feet. It communicates through a series of grunts and shrugs and text messages. There is a very good chance it is either eating or sleeping right now.

It is the teenager. I don’t claim to have discovered the species. It’s not the first of its kind, I know, but what scares me is that it is not the last, either. Not by a long shot. By my calculations, we will eventually have three living and eating in one house all at the same time.

The horror.

Where can enough food be found? What will conversations sound like with bleary eyes buried in phone texts and only a guttural growl à la Chewbacca given in response to a cheery “good morning!” (at noon!)? Will clothes one size too small be in fashion by then?

My current teenager is forgetful. This is in the case of “Don’t forget to take out the garbage” and not “Don’t forget there’s chocolate cake.” His lapse in memory is a recent development and one that is not at all welcome. Dealing with career and family is difficult enough. It’s frustrating having to deal with myriad wants, needs, complaints and whining, and then come home from work to get it all over again from a house full of kids. Selective amnesia is of no help whatsoever … (read more)