Son’s road test sends dad down memory lane

‘Because I Said So’ column for The Commercial Appeal

July 31, 2014

Son’s road test sends dad down memory lane

The moment my first child was born, I stood for a moment in disbelief. “I’m a father,” I said over and over in my head. There were other thoughts going through my mind as well; it was a virtual white-noise machine of worry and elation and wonder in there.

Walking the hallways of Baptist Hospital-East, I nodded at other new fathers in recognition and wide-eyed amazement at what we’d just witnessed and at what we’d suddenly become.

There have been other milestones over the years, of course, now having four children in the stable. There were first days of school, where the parents looked more frightened than the kids. There was the first time riding a two-wheel bike when pride swelled us up to near bursting. There was the first trip to the emergency room and the fear that we’d somehow damaged our child.

Last week was another milestone as I took my son to get his driver’s license. It was, like that first day of kindergarten, a moment when I wanted to take his hand and usher him through each step. But I was only there to sign any necessary paperwork. He filled out forms, answered the examiner’s questions and, finally, took the keys from me and went out to the car, alone.

I waited in the lobby. I could see him there, behind the wheel, awaiting the examiner to join him. I looked away, unable, or unwilling, to watch him back out of that tight spot and begin the road test. When I looked again, the car was gone. Somewhere, out on Summer Avenue, he was driving — nervous, anxious, excited — as the stranger beside him checked off boxes and made notations on her clipboard. Such anxiety and expectation is a rite of passage in itself.

Meanwhile, I stood in disbelief as I had that day in the maternity ward where it had all begun. The other parents and I raised our eyebrows in acknowledgment that we, too, were experiencing a sort of rite.

“I’m a father,” I thought again. In the time he was out on the road, my mind flew back to the beginning and his birth, that first trip down the block on his bicycle, that visit to the emergency room and his first days of school. I saw him again as a baby, a toddler, a little boy running with his siblings and frightened at night of the dark. That government building on Summer — that cramped, nondescript bunker — is not much of a place for an emotional slideshow, yet I’m sure it’s had its share.

It wasn’t too long before Calvin and his examiner returned. His poker face is such that I couldn’t read him at all, had no idea how it had gone and, once again, I wanted to take his hand and ask if he was OK. But this was his moment and embarrassment need not be a box checked off the road test.

It wasn’t until the examiner told him to step in front of the blue cloth to have his picture taken that he exhaled and the color returned to his face.

I’m wondering when I’ll be able to exhale. It’s been 16 years of worry and elation and wonder, and every day I’m amazed at what these kids are capable of and where, on the road of parenthood, they’ll drive me next.

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City of Memphis, I feel your budget pain

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

July 17, 2014

Genevieve’s invoice

City of Memphis, I feel your budget pain

Kids really do say the darndest things, don’t they?

In the 1950s and ‘60s, entertainer Art Linkletter built an empire off the silly things issued forth from the mouths of babes.

I’ve been saying it in my own way right here in this column for six years. My oldest son, as a toddler, once referred to the plumber my wife had called to the house for a middle-of-the-day emergency as “different daddy.”

Such a delightful scamp.

Linkletter had other grand ideas beyond asking earnest questions of unassuming children. In 1960, he, along with business partner Clyde Vandenburg, proposed a redevelopment of the Mid-South Fairgrounds to include such amenities as a new arena and a 700-foot-long lagoon to stretch along East Parkway. Of that plan, the Mid-South Coliseum was the only feature to see the light of day.

Recently, the city floated a plan for a Tourism Development Zone in and around the Fairgrounds in an effort to pay for redevelopment of the property. The city is also grappling with ways to pay for the pensions and benefits of firefighters and policemen.

I don’t claim to have all — or any — of the answers to such issues. Nor do I have any plans as outlandish as a Memphis blues lagoon. I have my own issues at home with budgeting the cost of four children who continually redevelop the landscape of my days and bank account.

Among these kids is an 8-year-old daughter who doesn’t yet have a job or a pension. Occasionally, though, she’ll complete a chore around the house and, once finished, will then tell me how much I owe her. And with Genevieve, there are no negotiations.

She recently presented me with an invoice — an actual paper bill — for having rolled the garbage can to the curb for pickup. According to her cryptic handwriting, she’s owed fees in the amount of $10 for the weight of the can and $5 for the “stink.” Despite already being charged for the odor, she tacked on $20 because she had to hold her breath. There is a $100 balance that has been carried forward; from what, I have no idea.

In all, I owe this child who lives in my house and eats my food $135, essentially for walking 20 yards down the driveway.

I think she may be on to something.

Fiscal matters matter, even to children. They won’t stay kids forever, and the things they say and do won’t be all that cute, or profitable, for too long. They need to be taught early about budgets and bank accounts and the dangers of overextending oneself. One day, Genevieve will need to manage her own pension and may even, heaven help us, administer that of an entire city’s worth of employees.

When that day comes, she’ll need to know how to spend wisely and when to save. These darned kids will have to understand when it’s imprudent to purchase a new television or car, and that it’s good business to honor all promises of payment. And they’ll want to know when to prioritize the cost of a plumber over a new lagoon.

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Bleak House: What’s going on with the Mid-South Coliseum

High Ground News

July 9, 2014

Elvis sang there. The Beatles played there. Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler pile-drove comedian Andy Kaufman there in 1983 in an infamous match that landed the two on national television with “Late Night with David Letterman.”

For several generations of Memphians, the Mid-South Coliseum was the center of the entertainment universe. Despite this status as a pop culture altar, its future is bleak. The Coliseum most certainly faces destruction, either quickly, by wrecking ball, or slowly, by neglect.

The Coliseum sits among the Mid-South Fairgrounds, a 168-acre former horseracing track, Montgomery Park, that was purchased by the city in 1897. The area was considered for wholesale revision in 1960 as the Linkletter-Vandenburg Plan, created by entertainer Art Linkletter and business partner Clyde Vandenburg, recommended vast changes to the property. Among such visions as a 700-foot-long lagoon was the plan for a multi-use arena–the Coliseum–the only portion of the plan to see the light of day.

Built in 1964, it was closed for good in 2006 after being determined too cost prohibitive to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Since then, it has sat empty, neglected, a tomb to the memories and milestones of thousands–first concerts, Monday Night Wrestling, graduations, monster truck shows.

Another plan, one with a bit more traction than Linkletter-Vandenburg, is currently being touted. A Tourism Development Zone (TDZ) is proposed by the City of Memphis and destined for a vote in Nashville later this month. The 3-mile-wide zone would encompass the nearby Cooper-Young business district, burgeoning Overton Square and the Fairgrounds, and use excess sales tax from those areas to repay bonds used to fund the $233 million project. A far-reaching plan for the Fairgrounds calls for a complex of athletic fields, retail space, a hotel and residential units.

If the TDZ is accepted, the Coliseum most surely will be demolished. Regardless, though, the city disconnected utilities to the building three years ago, leaving it at the mercy of Memphis’ wide seasonal swings in temperature and humidity.

The entire area of the Fairgrounds falls under the jurisdiction of the City’s Division of Parks and Neighborhoods, operated by a management company, Global Spectrum . . . (read more)

Beach vacation is time for family, renewal

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

July 3, 2014

Blue Mountain Beach

Beach vacation is time for family, renewal

As mandated by my membership in Club Memphis, I loaded up the van and drove to the panhandle of Florida for a week this summer. It’s an annual drive that can take anywhere from eight to 11 hours. This year, it was unbearably the latter.

I don’t mind most of the drive too much. For me, the vacation begins in that van. Where the kids used to complain and whine, they now sit still, (mostly) silent and mesmerized by the glow of the screen on their hand-held devices.

With the kids strapped in and unable to move about the cabin, and with my only responsibility, great as it is, to deliver them all safely to the beaches of South Walton County, it frees my mind to wander.

For 11 hours I was able to dwell within my own thoughts. Well, 10 hours. That last hour was spent thinking, “Why is this taking so long?”

As with the start of any road trip, my first thoughts turn to this: these kids are whiling away the hours watching movies on handheld devices. Do they even realize their good fortune to watch “Frozen” again and again as Alabama whisks past? Do they know that I spent hours on the road as a kid — these very same roads — wishing for just such a device?

My sisters and I dreamed of a day in the future — far in the future, the 21st century — when we might be able to watch our favorite television programs as the distance dwindled. Instead, we read books and doodled, stared out the windows and napped. And we argued, which is the one holdover of childhood from the last century to this.

But the focus of our week this summer wasn’t all electronic devices and self-absorption. Once we hit the emerald green waters and sugar white sand of Blue Mountain Beach, we gave ourselves over to relaxation and socialization. Attention turned to family as my sister, her husband and their kids arrived to join us.

A friend once said, “Man should put his feet in the sea at least once a day.” There is something healing about the water, isn’t there? It’s therapeutic, renewing.

We bobbed in those waters as a family out beyond the second sandbar, the current carrying us lazily to the east and the sun dazzling our eyes. The kids asked questions and we answered honestly and openly as our feet grazed the sandy floor below. We spoke of hopes and dreams in a way that we just aren’t able during our day-to-day lives with their schedules and demands.

This is what vacation is all about. This suspension of reality, the suspension of gravity and the time to just float in each other’s company. Those moments are worth the hectic days throughout the rest of the year. Those saltwater conversations are worth every minute of the very long drive.

I’m already looking forward to putting my feet in the sea again. I’m ready for next year and the renewal that can only be had from a long drive, quality family time, Disney films on the go, and the water.

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