For Mary Mitchell, Orange Mound has always been source of pride and energy

Hidden Memphis series feature for The Commercial Appeal

Feb. 6, 2011

“Orange Mound, Tennessee, of which Memphis is a suburb,” is how Mary Mitchell and other proud residents of the South Memphis neighborhood refer to their location on the map.

While pride in Memphis is at an all-time high, becoming at long last fashionable and shouted from the virtual mountaintop of social media networks, there has been a more grass-roots effort sprouting in the concrete cracks of South Memphis and spread along vines of memory, lore and nonprofit organizations.

Like so many urban communities around the country, though, large portions of Orange Mound have fallen into disrepair. So what makes this portion of our city so emblematic?

History.

Orange Mound sits on the site of what was originally the John Deaderick Plantation. In 1890, only 25 years after the end of the Civil War, land was purchased by Elzey Eugene Meacham to be divided and developed for sale specifically to African-Americans. It was the first such development in the United States … (read more)

The Wolf is at the door, garbage bag in hand

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

Feb. 3, 2011

“Pulp Fiction” came out in the fall of 1994 and Kristy and I went to see it at a theater in those carefree days before we had children. I don’t remember the specifics, but I’m sure there was dinner before (or maybe even after, it would have been so late!) and reckless spending on Junior Mints.

We had been married only a few months by then and had no reason to consider a sitter or whether the cost and time of dinner out would be economical. More than likely, there was no mention of outgrown school uniforms, science projects or upcoming birthday parties all evening.

In the movie, Harvey Keitel plays Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe, a man with the skill of cleaning up messy problems that no one else can handle.

Keitel is the cleaner and I am now The Wolf in our house … (read more)

20

Cover story for The Memphis Flyer

Individual profiles of 20 twenty-somethings under 30 years old

Jan. 20, 2011

The under-30s — born in the glare and glitter of the 1980s, the decade of big hair and big shoulders, that musically metallic wasteland between the death of disco and the birth of grunge. Their newly opened eyes witnessed the fall of communism, the safe return of some spacecraft and the loss of another, and violence against a president, a pope, and a Beatle.

MTV was born, as was Nintendo, the AIDS pandemic, and Marty McFly. And the Yugo was introduced to America. The ill-advised reformulation of Coca-Cola took place square in the middle of their first decade.

Natalie Portman is 29 years old, LeBron James is 27, Thriller turns 29 this year, Madonna’s career is 28, Love in the Time of Cholerais 26, and the Memphis Flyer is 21.

The following Memphians are all in their 20s, all embarking on adventures in business, nonprofit groups, the arts, ecology, society — life. They are positive, community-minded, smart, ambitious. They are seldom singular, choosing instead to come together as collaborators, as collectives of artists and professionals to make Memphis a better place, to make themselves better people.

Born in the shadow of the Me Decade, these young men and women espouse anything but selfishness. They’re coming of age in a time when “hope” and “change” are common buzzwords. Their first choice for media may be social, and they are as likely to be aware of someone in Chicago’s favorite television show as they are of the person sitting next to them in a café. They are embracing the possibility that they’ll feel the flutter of a butterfly’s wings half a world away and that the ensuing wind may carry promise and responsibilites.

Our under-30s are intensely creative and highly engaged. And they soon will be a force to contend with. Keep your eyes on them, Memphis. It shouldn’t be difficult to do … (read more)

There’s no escaping TV, not even at the museum

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

Jan. 20, 2011

“Turn off the TV, kids. We’re going to get some culture whether you like it or not,” I barked last Saturday.

They begrudgingly did so, and on the first temperate day in weeks, with the sun in a bright blue sky and the last remnants of snowmen melting just off the ninth tee of the Overton Park golf course, we visited the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

We took this field trip because the children need the balance of technology and pixels with paint and bronze. And because it was free. In honor of the inauguration of Gov. Bill Haslam, many museums in the state offered free admission last Saturday.

So we turned off our computers, set aside the Wii remotes and even said goodbye to the television for an afternoon. What we found, when we walked through the museum’s glass front doors, right there in the rotunda, was a sort of monument to my children.

“Vide-O-belisk,” the 30-foot-high commission by late South Korean artist Nam June Paik, took their collective breath away. The sculpture is a tower of 25 or so vintage television sets, all working and all flashing random images and colors in a loop. I’m sure the old sets and the images themselves represent something, but the only question my kids had was, “Where is the remote?”

And where were the remotes? I imagined a second sculpture with 25 remotes, batteries dead or missing on all. Or that number of sofas scattered around the museum, each with a remote underneath or lost in the depths of cushions … (read more)

Benfield pulls from naval experience

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

Jan. 20, 2011

Mark Benfield says his training with the Judge Advocate General corps while in the U.S. Navy helped ready him for a civilian career as a plaintiff’s lawyer in medical malpractice, catastrophic injury and nursing home neglect cases with Apperson Crump PLC. Founded in 1865, it is the oldest continuously operating law firm in Memphis.

“What I do now is so much different than the cases I tried in the Navy. However, I think just the basic principles of how to get ready for trial, how to set your case up, the things that you need to do and how long it actually takes to get prepared for trial … all of those things kind of cross over,” he said. “I think the most important thing that crossed over, and that you get a taste of immediately in the Navy and that doesn’t go away, is the amount of pressure involved in a trial.”

He’s learned to handle the pressure and to excel in the types of trial that can be intense and are intensely personal and important for those involved. Throughout his career, he’s had no better teacher and colleague than that of Gary Smith with Apperson Crump, the firm Benfield joined in October … (read more)

Thornton finds balance between practice, pro bono work

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

Jan. 13, 2011

Laurie Thornton says it was her own experience with paralyzing fear and a sense of helplessness that led her into the pro bono work she does with her law firm, Glankler Brown PLLC, and with Memphis Area Legal Services.

“My personal journey is the reason for supporting the pro bono program and I can relate to what some of these people are going through,” she said. “I know I can’t handle everything they need, but I can listen and give advice and do what I can; and I can even ask the other partners and associates to assist if their problem flows into a different area. Everyone’s been very helpful and willing to help.”

Thornton’s work with MALS has been in the areas of real estate transactions, estate issues and collection matters … (read more)

Watch repair lends helping hands to ex-grad student

Small business profile for The Commercial Appeal

Jan. 7, 2011

Horology. It’s a silly word, to be sure, and Colin Britton knows words. The 31-year-old opened Britton’s Antique and Modern Watch Repair Service in November, but before that he was an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Memphis.

“Grad school kind of went awry for me and I was out,” Britton said. “I’d done all my coursework, but completely lost faith in my thesis and I panicked.”

With student loans coming due, he knew he needed to get back in school as a full-time student to defer them and figured that as long as he was going to school, it might as well be to learn a trade.

“I’ve been collecting watches since I was a kid, I thought they were neat, but I never thought much about it, it was just a hobby and something I like to do,” Britton said. “I knew it would give me the ability to be my own boss, which would hopefully give me some time to continue being creative in some small way.”

He Googled various trades and Gem City College’s School of Horology in Quincy, Ill., came up. It was the closest to Memphis, so he enrolled. The course in horology — the art of designing and making clocks — is self-paced, taking some eight months and others three or four years. Britton finished in 15 months … (read more)

Peace of home rent by voice-cracking howl of teenhood

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

Jan. 6, 2011

A new year and a new decade is always a time for beginnings, renewal and rejuvenation. In the air is the scent of hope and peace, a bit of the positive to help sweep any disorder and unpleasantness of the previous years under the rug.

In this first week of the new year, however, there is the scent of something else. Evil has entered our household. Yesterday, in fact, it walked up and let itself right in the front door. It took a seat on the sofa as though it were expected; then it kicked its big shoes off and put its smelly socks up on my good afghan.

Yesterday, my son turned 13. The day dawned with fear (and not a little angst, I’m sure). So I embark on life with a teenager … (read more)

Portrait of a heroine: Rose Bowl float honors organ donors’ generosity

Feature story for The Commercial Appeal

Dec. 30, 2010

Thomas “Tad” Daniel said his wife, Jill, used to talk a lot about organ donation. In fact, the ICU nurse for Baptist Memorial Hospital was adamant that, should anything happen to her, her organs and tissue should be donated in order to help others live.

“Usually it was on Friday nights when we’d get our night alone together, and if the weather was right, we’d sit on the back porch and listen to our music, and she brought it up several times,” Tad Daniel said. “It wasn’t even a decision for me; she made me promise her that I’d make sure her organs were donated.”

Those wishes were carried out in September 2009 when 50-year-old Jill Daniel suffered several irreversible cerebral hemorrhages, leaving behind her husband and three children. In the end, the men and women with whom she worked so closely were charged with her care.

“It hits close to home, and it was very touching and very touchy, because it let us know that life is very precious and you never know when the Lord is going to call you,” said Kim Gilley, an organ recovery coordinator for Mid-South Transplant Foundation, who worked with Jill over the years … (read more)

Johnson looks to new year for Young Lawyers Division

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

Dec. 30, 2010

At 35, Shon Johnson slips in just under the wire of age acceptance into the Young Lawyers Division of the Memphis Bar Association. Yet he’s done more than slip in, he’s been elected president of the organization for 2011.

The Young Lawyers Division – whose cutoff is 36 – has the functions of bringing together the group and working to make the profession better by creating a congeniality among its members, providing a social outlet and improving the community through fundraising and volunteering. The division already plans to host the high school mock trial event in 2011 and host a golf tournament to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Downtown.

“There are plenty of lawyers that come into the market every year and the law is an area where you learn on the job, so to speak,” Johnson said. “So this provides a place where young lawyers can get advice from other lawyers who have been practicing from one to six to 10 years to help them learn about the profession and what’s expected.” … (read more)