In 2005, with his wife pregnant with their first child, Mike Harvey felt the simultaneous tugging of fatherhood and entrepreneurism.

He stepped in that year to buy the assets of Babytime, a 40-year-old baby furniture store in Whitehaven. The business was solely an investment at the time, and Harvey, with a background in retail with Wal-Mart and in sales with the global pharmaceutical company Merck, hired someone to run the store. In January 2011, however, another urge tugging at his heart became too great to ignore and he left the corporate world to devote his days to Babytime and to another, higher calling.

“The reason I left Merck was less about the store and more about the ministry work,” Harvey said. “It’s about both, so I plan on spending 50 percent of my time here and 50 percent of my time doing some different ministry work. My belief is using the business as mission, local and international. We’re heavily involved in the community.”

Babytime, now headquartered on Trinity Road in Cordova, offers furniture for babies and new parents, bedding and children’s clothing. Classes and support groups in parenting and breastfeeding are offered as well … (read more)

Charles Dickens and Ebenezer Scrooge remind us to seize the moment and to treat every day as though it were Christmas.

George Bailey and Clarence the angel remind us that no man is a failure who has friends.

Buddy the Elf reminds us that the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

And Clark Griswold and Cousin Eddie remind us that it’s illegal to empty a chemical toilet into the storm sewer.

My 5-year-old daughter reminded me the other day that there are still no presents wrapped beneath our tree. There are presents, to be sure, just not wrapped as yet. But we’re busy, aren’t we? We parents with our jobs and bills and responsibilities. It’s easy to let the time of year slip away from us, or for its meaning to get lost in a knotted string of numbers and details … (read more)

Jerry Lawler is known for his antics, bravado and showmanship in the wrestling ring, locally for years on Saturday morning and Monday night wrestling, and internationally for World Wrestling Entertainment.

The flashy character, with his king’s crown and single-strap unitard, is a difficult image to reconcile with the Lawler who quietly spends time at a drafting table, working in pen and ink, pencil and oil paints on images of Superman, Batman and Santa Claus. Yet the latter Lawler is the original Lawler, and it’s his artwork that led him to be a star on the wrestling circuit.

“I was 4 or 5 years old when I started drawing, and one of the reasons I feel indebted to Superman is that was one of the first things I remember drawing,” Lawler said. “I would draw Superman and Batman all the time. When I realized that some people actually make a career out of art, I thought at the time that that’s something I’d really like to do.”

A recent showing of his artwork at Yalo Studio in Water Valley, Miss., drew nearly 500 people and sold almost $5,000 worth of art. His work will be shown Jan. 19 at 6 p.m. at The Booksellers of Laurelwood.

Lawler grew up in Ohio, Brownsville, Tenn., and Memphis.

He was born to a father who grew up on a farm, worked on the assembly line in the Ford Motor Co. plant and couldn’t read or write, and a housekeeper mother. Lawler’s parents encouraged him in his artwork as he spent time drawing Superman and other comic book heroes that continue to inspire to this day … (read more)

I recently had the pleasure of sitting in on a lecture given by hometown son Joel Seligstein, Memphis City Schools graduate and current Facebook software engineer. He was in town from California to visit family and to speak to the eighth-grade CLUE class at White Station Middle School about his work.

It was like going back in time for me, sitting in a school auditorium again, a time machine lacking in leg room with the same small seats, the same smell of adolescence and apathy I remember from so long ago. Except this was the future. We were all there to hear about how the machines make Facebook run.

As a testament to Facebook’s popularity, it wasn’t until close to 20 minutes into the talk that Joel even asked the assembled 100-plus students how many use the social network. Naturally, nearly every hand went up, including mine.

But I wonder. Certainly many of those students, if not all, have accounts, and have for years. But how active are they? Two of my four children are online, yet their interaction seems limited to a status update here, a snarky comment there. My theory is that their lack of activity is due to the fact that I and their mother, and our friends, are on it. Many people still tend to think of Facebook as a kid’s toy, some sort of video game, yet I know close to 700 adults who participate.

When we were kids, our parents’ social network consisted of neighbors and work colleagues whom we never saw. We didn’t want any part of their social networking. We preferred them to be as anti-social as possible, to focus all of their attention on us and our need for action figures and the new fad of cable television … (read more)