Jack Waggon advises a young woman who’s moving away with her boyfriend against her family’s wishes.
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Month: July 2011
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Why Not Get Married?
Dear Jack,
My long time, long-time unemployed boyfriend has finally found a job – in Minneapolis. It’s a great job that actually pays him more than he used to make at his old job. He moved up there a couple of weeks ago and has found an apartment. I’ve notified our landlord that I’ll be moving out and have started packing.
I’m what you might call a country girl. I grew up in a little town up around Dyersburg, moved to Memphis after I graduated to go to college here, and have lived here ever since. Some of my family lives in Memphis, but most of them, including my parents, still live back home, where I grew up. We’re very close.
I’m also very close to my boyfriend. We’ve been living together since college. I hate to even call him my boyfriend because that sounds so junior high, but if I call him my partner people think the wrong thing. This job is a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. In my line of work, I can find a job almost anywhere, so this move is no real hardship for me, other than the pain of moving. To be honest, it is a little intimidating, but we’ll be making enough so that we can fly home two or three times a year.
Here’s my problem. My family is utterly opposed to it. My mom, especially, is about ready to lock me up. She thinks I’m making a huge mistake. She says this is where my home is, this is where my family is, and I’d be a fool to leave my family and run off to Minneapolis. It’s not my boyfriend. We’ve been together so long, he’s practically one of the family. I think my mom is just afraid of letting go, but she’s being completely unreasonable. How can I get her to understand? I’m leaving. I’ve already quit my job.
Bon Voyage
Dear Bonnie,
I may be completely off here, but all things being equal, I’d say the problem is your boyfriend. Allow me to say what I think your mother would say if she weren’t too polite to say it.
“It’s not that he’s your boyfriend, it’s that he’s not your husband. You’re moving halfway across the country to be with somebody who can’t even put a ring on your finger. He may be practically one of the family, but until he’s family in the eyes of the law and the Lord, he’s not family, especially if he’s going to take you away from us. He’s been on probation this whole time, with the hope that he’ll make an honest woman of you one day. Now that you’re following him off into the blue, he’s on the shit list. If he had any consideration for you at all, he’d at least have the decency to set a wedding date.”
Do I agree with this sentiment? Not entirely, though I might if you were my daughter.
Is there any way you can change her? Not a chance, not with words, anyway. All you can do is live your life the way you think is best and not screw it up. Don’t put yourself in a situation in which they have to pay for your sorry ass to come home and move into the spare bedroom. Success and the passage of time will lead to true acceptance.
However, I do have one more thing to say, and not in your mother’s voice. If you might as well be married, you might as well get married.
Got a problem? Let Jack Waggon set you straight: jack.wagg@gmail.com
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Don Trip is a Force
Memphis Rapper Don Trip is a formidable addition to the local music scene, says Chris Herrington.
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Eleemosynary, My Dear
Chris Davis reviews Eleemosynary, playing at TheatreWorks thru July 31st.
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Bob Dylan: The Memphis Blues Again
The legendary Bob Dylan played Mud Island Saturday night, with Leon Russell. Did you go? How was it?
There’s a new Change.org petition urging the Memphis Grizzlies to film a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign.
“It Gets Better,” launched by Seattle newsweekly editor Dan Savage, features YouTube videos of celebrities reassuring LGBT youth that life improves over time. The campaign began in response to the rash of gay teen suicides last year.
Plenty of well-known celebs, such as Ke$ha, Tim Gunn, Colin Farrell, and Sarah Silverman, have lent their images to the campaign. Even President Barack Obama has an “It Gets Better” video. And recently, several professional sports teams, like the San Francisco Giants and the Boston Red Sox, have made films.
Local LGBT activist Michael Hildebrand started the Change.org petition asking the Grizzlies to star in their own “It Gets Better” video. Click here to sign.
To get an idea of what a Grizzlies video might look like, check out this one with the Chicago Cubs.
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BIll Ellis at Otherlands
Former Commercial Appeal music writer Bill Ellis performs at Otherlands Friday night.
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Is the Memphis City Council Anti-Education?
John Branston looks at the historical relationship between the city council and the Memphis school board and says this council is better than most in its support of education.
In a conference call/press conference Friday with members of the Tennessee media, Governor Bill Haslam and Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman announced that the state has applied for a waiver from the NCLB standards for the coming year.
Amplifying on the decision, Huffman advanced the view that the federal program, created under former President George W. Bush, had “outlived its usefulness” and had not been subjected to a re-authorization vote since its creation in 2001.
Huffman was frank to add that, under newly toughened NCLB standards, a majority of Tennessee schools, some 800 of the 1750 or so in the state, have failed to meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) guidelines.
An announcement of the waiver request posted on the Education Department’s website simultaneous with the conference call said this:
The law’s outdated regulations mean that virtually all schools in Tennessee (and the vast majority of schools nationwide) will soon not make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) and will be considered failing under No Child Left Behind.
The law’s definition of adequate yearly progress no longer captures a nuanced view of which schools are in need of additional support and interventions from the state.
Huffman also asserted these points in the conference call and reiterated there the state’s intentions, if the waiver request is approved, to employ the standards of Tennessee’s federally supported Race to the Top program “as the central reform model in the state.”
Asked if more Memphis schools, in addition to the four failing ones that were recently designated, would be absorbed by the state’s Achievement School District and co-managed by the state, Huffman confirmed that the list of Memphis Schools in that category was due to expand.
Huffman declined to comment on the ongoing funding dispute between Memphis City Schools and the City of Memphis other than to comment that it had no effect on determining which schools would be ASD-bound.
Haslam said he believed that Tennessee’s request for a waiver from No Child Left Behind oversight was the first by a state but suggested that similar requests would be forthcoming from other states.
The governor said he felt optimistic that the state’s request would be approved by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Some people think the current Memphis City Council is anti-Memphis City Schools, maybe even the most anti-MCS ever. I disagree. Here are six reasons why.
Disclaimer: There is a human tendency to say someone is “best” “worst” “smart” or “idiotic” depending on whether they agree with you. This is especially true of the City Council. But whether the council is MCS-friendly or MCS-unfriendly is subject to fairly objective measurements.