Author: Bruce VanWyngarden

Categories
At Large Opinion

The True-Life Adventures of Retiree Man

Into the woods. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

People keep asking me how this whole “retirement” thing is going, so I’m going to give y’all a brief summary.

First, I haven’t been in the actual Flyer office for more than five minutes at a time since March 2020, so the transition to pseudo-retirement was made a bit easier. The Flyer Slack channel — which is basically a group text that never ends — was the office. I still monitor Slack, but not as relentlessly.

I’m writing a couple hours a day and also putting together a collection of my stuff for publication at some point. I’ve been taking French classes on Duolingo for about a year, but I’ve ramped that up lately. I do laundry. I water the garden. I mow the yard. I’m living on the edge, basically.

The main change in my life is that I’m now a dog. I’m the alpha of my pack, and why not? I mean, the other two are co-dependent slugs who lack all ambition. They spend the day lying at my feet, waiting for me to move, which, to be honest, is a big responsibility. I get up and walk toward the kitchen and they follow, tails wagging, wide-eyed: “OMG, is he going to eat something??”

Or, if I should casually walk toward the back door, they’re up in a flash, dancing around like idiots. If they had pants, they’d be peeing in them: “Is he gonna grab the leashes? Huh? Huh? HE IS! HE’S GOT THE LEASHES! OH MY GOD, THIS IS AMAZING! WE’RE GOING FOR A WALK!! OH, HAPPY DAY!! HOLY CRAP!!!”

Oh to be a dog and to be able to get that ecstatic over something that happens Every. Damn. Day. It’s a gift, I swear. Lucky dogs.

Sometimes we go to Tobey Dog Park, which has a self-appointed park monitor: “Olive just pooped down in the corner, just past the third tree!” she’ll say, helpfully. Yeah, I saw that, thanks, Pat. She means well, but I’m the alpha here.

Most of the time, I drive them to Overton Bark, where they can hang with other hounds for a bit before we venture off onto one of the countless trails and paths of the Old Forest. I’m still finding new ones. Our walks are quiet, shady, soul-cleansing — and even informational. If I hear an unusual bird sound, I record it on my BirdNET app. When I learn that it’s a great crested flycatcher, I dutifully pass along this knowledge to my pack. I like to keep them updated. I also check plants, so I can let them know that those blue blossoms we’re walking past are American bellflowers.

After 45 minutes of hiking and learning, my girls are panting — bushed and ready for some air-conditioning. Who’s a good alpha? Who’s a good alpha? Me. That’s who.

Back home, as the dogs return to their spots under the table, I check Duolingo. I’ve gone from spending 30 minutes a day when I was working full-time to as much as a couple of hours a day now. Yes, it’s because I want to get better at French, but I must admit it’s also because Duolingo (le batard!) has figured out a way to make language learning a competitive sport. There are “standings” — a league where you get points for how many lessons you take each day and how many points you get on your tests. I like to win, mes amis, and Duolingo knows this — and knows how to suck me back in.

During my walk in the park, for example, I could have gotten an alert (I did) that “Amelie” has moved into first place in our league. You can be sure, now that I’m home, I’m going to be taking an unstoppable hour-long dive into passe imparfait. “Amelie” won’t know what hit her. She may be good at French, but she’s no alpha. She is powerless against Retiree Man.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Pandemic of Ignorance

Tucker Carlson (Photo: Gage Skidmore)

More than 10,000 nearly identical bills have been introduced by Republicans in legislatures around the country to stop what they say is a rampant movement to install Sharia law in our courts, governments, and schools. Muslims, the GOP alleges, are planning to start teaching Sharia law to our children. Local chapters of the Washington, D.C.-based ACT for America, which describes itself as the “NRA of national security,” are encouraging their supporters to show up at school board meetings and legislative hearings and to flood lawmakers’ inboxes and phone lines in support of anti-Sharia law bills. Right-wing media hosts are stirring up their viewers and listeners with a constant drumbeat against the impending peril of Sharia law. …

Wait a minute. … Oooh, shoot. This is embarrassing. Folks, I accidently used some of my notes from 2012 to start this column. Damn. I hate to retype all that. Here’s an idea: Wherever you see “Sharia law” in that first paragraph, substitute “critical race theory.” 

So here we are, once again dealing with a well-organized campaign over a non-issue meant to divert the mouth-breathing GOP base — and the national media — from any substantive debate on real issues. File this with: Liberals will take your guns, gay marriage will destroy society, transgender folks will take over women’s sports and pee in the wrong bathroom, climate change is bogus, and COVID vaccines are a government plot akin to the Holocaust. 

We are in the middle of a full-blown pandemic of ignorance, and it’s an aggressive strain — easily spread by social media campaigns, cynical politicians, and television hosts who prey on human gullibility, naivete, and plain old stupidity. This pandemic is being spread intentionally. You don’t have to be within six feet of another person to get it. A mask won’t save you. The viral ignorance is everywhere, but it’s particularly rampant in red states and among Republicans and other consumers of right-wing media. 

This pandemic is anti-science. It is anti-common-sense. And it is killing people. It is one thing to deny that raging forest fires, record floods, unprecedented droughts, record-setting heat waves and deep freezes, melting ice caps, and rising sea levels are just “weather.” Yes, that’s ignorance, and yes, it is literally killing people, but it is not as clearly ignorant as refusing to take a vaccine that could save your life. That is next-level stupid. And it appears to have infected around 30 percent of the country’s adults. 

Those resisting the vaccine give a number of reasons: Vaccines may have bad side effects. (COVID definitely has bad side effects.) I have powerful T-cells and natural immunity. (No, you don’t.) I don’t trust the government. (But you trust conspiracy websites and Tucker Carlson?) It’s my body and my choice! (You know who doesn’t have a choice? Millions of unvaccinated school children headed back to class in August. Maybe think about them.)

The evidence could not possibly be clearer that the vaccines stop COVID. In one study released just last week, 99.2 percent of those who’d died from the Delta variant were unvaccinated. 

In Arkansas, the Delta variant is spreading rapidly. Just north of there, Missouri has become the poster child for the pandemic of ignorance, a blotch of deep purple on The New York Times’ daily map showing COVID hot spots and high-risk areas. Springfield hospitals have sent out a request for ventilators. Most counties in Southern Missouri have vaccination rates in the 25 percent range. It’s going to get worse there before it gets better, since many are still resisting getting the shot (unlike the Fox News hosts ranting against the vaccine — most of whom got the jab months ago). 

Meanwhile, here in Shelby County, our vaccination rate hovers at around 35 percent. Local officials are urging those who are still unvaccinated to get it done soon. I hope people listen. I mean, if we can stop Sharia law, surely we can stop the pandemic of ignorance.  

Categories
At Large Opinion

Red Summer in Elaine, Arkansas

Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden

Join me today for a trip to Elaine, Arkansas. It’s a long drive, and I could use some company.

As Highway 61 winds its way down the bluffs to the big-sky alluvial plain of the Mississippi Delta, towering clumps of clouds drift on the western horizon, distant rainstorms visible in the morning light. We’ll probably get wet later.

In Tunica County, signs for casinos appear. Some are thriving, others are ghostly shells, losers on the gaming wheel of fortune that began spinning 30 years ago. The outlet mall south of town, once a thriving retail mecca, now features several empty storefronts, the formerly heady thrill of wandering through J.Crew, Victoria’s Secret, and Nautica having been replaced by porch-box fairies in FedEx trucks.

We turn onto Highway 49, a slim two-lane running string-straight to the Helena Bridge, a narrow and rusty looking structure with kudzu and trumpet vines adorning the side rails. It does not inspire confidence. Once across, we take the Great River Road 20 miles south to Elaine, where in 1919, the greatest race massacre in U.S. history occurred. But you knew that. Didn’t you?

Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden

Late winter through early autumn of 1919 has become known as “Red Summer,” a time when white supremacist terrorism and racial riots took place in more than three dozen cities across the U.S. — and in one small town, Elaine, Arkansas — where we are now parked in front of a vacant building with a sign that says “Birdhouse Capital of the World.” There are no people in sight. In 1919, thanks to Jim Crow election laws, Black Americans couldn’t vote, hold office, or serve on juries. At the same time, thousands of African-American soldiers were returning from World War I and were beginning to feel resentment at the racism they came home to. The nascent NAACP had begun to speak out for racial justice.

The reaction to Black activism was swift and brutal. The KKK and other groups began ginning up violence and hate against the “negroes” for “spreading socialism.” Jingoistic newspapers around the country fed the fire with articles about “armed negroes in revolt.” Racial violence soon broke out in Chicago, Omaha, Tulsa, Washington, D.C., and more than 30 other cities. Black communities were destroyed. Hundreds were killed. Lynchings were common.

In Phillips County, Arkansas, 100 residents of Elaine held a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America in a church north of town on September 30, 1919. Three white men monitored the gathering. Shots were fired and returned. A white security officer was killed; a deputy sheriff wounded. The word went out in Helena that there was an “armed negro revolt” underway.

Over the next couple of days, as many as 1,000 vigilantes, soldiers, and police swarmed into Elaine and committed horrific acts of violence. From an eyewitness account:

“Soldiers in Elaine committed one murder after another with all the calm deliberation in the world, either too heartless to realize the enormity of their crimes, or too drunk on moonshine to give a continental darn. … several hundred of them began to hunt negroes and shotting [sic] them as they came to them.”

Accounts of how many Black men, women, and children were killed range from 150 to 800. No one knows for sure, but there is little doubt that it was the worst race massacre in U.S. history. The ensuing kangaroo court trial and imprisonment of 12 Black “rioters” changed U.S. civil rights history and is worth your time to learn about, because like most Americans, you’ve probably never heard about any of it.

Thanks to the folks at the Elaine Legacy Center, that’s changing. They are organized and pushing forward with presentations, lectures, and other programs to restore life to the area and tell its story. On September 30th, there will be a service to honor the victims of the massacre. I’m going to write more about Elaine and the Legacy Center later this summer. I hope you’ll join me for a return trip.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Jobs Not Wanted: Searching for Fulfilling Work

(Photo by Bruce VanWyngarden)

I had a nice conversation with Parnicka Motton last week. You never heard of her? She is the first and only female to hold the position of mechanic with the city of Memphis. And after a recent promotion, she’s now the only female service advisor with the city, managing vehicle maintenance for two police precincts.

Parnicka (par-neek-a), 44, was raised in North Memphis and taught how to work on cars by her grandfather. She was an only child and says she found refuge in books and cars.

At 20, she became a deputy jailer at 201 Poplar but, after seven years, decided the work wasn’t for her and found a job at Wackenhut, where she worked in security for several years. That work didn’t inspire her either. Then she got a break: A manager at Jiffy Lube took a chance on her, and she found herself working on cars, at long last. She moved up to assistant manager but, after six years, again wanted more. “There was no place left to grow there,” she says.

Then she saw an ad for an automotive tech with the city. “I was a 42-year-old Black woman applying for a job that had never been held by a woman,” she says. “I got the job in October 2019. I’ve been promoted twice this year, and I’ve never looked back. This is my passion, and hard work has paid off for me.”

Parnicka Motton (Photo by Bruce VanWyngarden)

It’s a great story. I’m telling it because I think Parnicka Motton’s determination to find fulfilling work can be instructive when we look at the current employment situation. Much has been written about how employers, particularly in the service industry — hotels, restaurants, delivery, etc. — are now unable to fill positions for room service, janitors, servers, dish-washers, and other lower-salaried jobs.

In Tennessee, and in 26 other states, GOP legislatures decided the reason employers can’t find workers is that people are staying home and living off the fat $300-a-week unemployment check that comes from the federal government. Combined with $250 a week in other benefits, an unemployed person can make a magnificent $26,000 a year. No wonder these folks aren’t rushing back to clean hotel rooms or wash dishes, the pols said. We need to cut benefits immediately. So they did.

It’s not working, at least, not so far. In Missouri, where benefits were cut on June 12th, there has been no uptick in job applications. In fact, a June 27th New York Times article reported that in states that have abandoned the federal benefits, responses on job postings were actually below the national average.

So what’s going on? For one thing, I think there are a lot of Parnicka Mottons out there, people driven to find a fulfilling career. And many of them discovered something about themselves while staying home during the pandemic. Namely, they don’t want to spend their lives doing crap work for crap pay at a crappy workplace.

Most of us have moved through lots of shit jobs. Before getting my first journalism gig at 30, I worked as a janitor, night watchman, hay-hauler, shingle-carrier, brick plant worker, seasonal harvest worker, house painter, and school bus driver, to name but a few. I was single, playing in bands, and not particularly career-driven, but I learned a lot about what kinds of jobs I didn’t want to spend my life doing.

I think a lot of people during the pandemic, maybe for the first time in their lives, got the space to think about their jobs, about how they’d been spending 40 hours of their lives each week. And I think many of those folks decided they wanted more control of how they spent their waking hours on this Earth.

If you’re going to try to make it on $12 an hour, why not try doing something on your own? Side hustles became gigs. Food trucks blossomed. Small businesses emerged. People decided they didn’t want a boss. They discovered that controlling your hours cuts down on childcare, commuting, and other expenses.

The pandemic opened a lot of people’s eyes to new possibilities. And chasing possibilities is what life should be all about. Just ask Parnicka Motton.

Categories
Food & Drink News News Blog

Memphis Ranked 5th-Best BBQ City by Lawn Mowing Company

Payne's BBQ. (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)


When it’s a slow news day, survey rankings like this one sometimes get a little attention — and a little attention is about what this survey deserves. LawnStarter, a landscaping and pest-control company has a hard-working PR department that is constantly creating clickbait surveys and rankings, i.e. 2021’s Best Cities for Your Summer Vaxcation; 2021’s Best Cities for Single Dads; 2021’s Best Cities to Get (and Stay) Married; 2021’s Best Cities for LGBTQ Singles; 2021’s Horniest Cities in America; 2021’s Best Biking Cities in America, etc. You get the idea.

This week, they did 2021’s Best BBQ Cities in America, and, well, as you may have guessed from the headline above, they did Memphis wrong, ranking the Bluff City fifth-best in the country, just behind that legendary barbecue mecca, Cincinnati.

C’mon Lawnstarter. You don’t see us out here ranking lawn mowers and weed eaters. We know what we’re good at and we know what we know better than any other place in America — and that’s barbecue (and yes, real barbecue cities spell it out). And what is this absurd ranking of Memphis as number 40 in “quality”? FORTIETH? Get outta heah with this mess.

According to LawnStarter, the real hub of great “BBQ” is “the Midwest.” Puh-leeze. Here’s how the grassy know-it-alls address the criminal assault on America’s true greatest barbecue city: “Kansas City: The BBQ Capital of America. Sorry, Memphis. Kansas City tops our list of the Best BBQ Cities. With far more winners in the World Series of Barbecue contests and the second-highest number of national excellence awards, the Heart of America is a powerhouse for quality brisket and burnt ends.” 

Read it all here, if you’re having a slow day and need an irritant.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Mommy, Am I a Racist?

“Mommy, am I a racist?”

The sad tale of a child coming home from school and asking that question was put forth in the Tennessee General Assembly as one of the reasons the state needed to pass a bill forbidding the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in the state’s schools. Teachers are indoctrinating our children with trauma-inducing leftist bilge, said the legislators. So they passed a law banning the teaching of CRT and anything else that implies that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

Pshew! That was close. Can’t have
our students learning anything about race or privilege.

This concern about CRT isn’t limited to Tennessee. Fourteen other states have passed similar laws. It’s the topic du jour in the right-wing media ecosphere. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Mary Kay) and other GOP camera-sniffers bloviate about it whenever someone puts a microphone in front of them. Their message is always the same: The crazy, leftist, socialist liberals want teachers to tell your kids they’re racists!

Actually, critical race theory is a decades-old, elective, college-level area of study, often taught in law schools, where it’s used to examine how race has historically shaped our current legal system. CRT studies racism as a social construct — as opposed to something tied solely to an individual — and the effects it has upon society.

Those who are demanding that it shouldn’t be taught in our public schools might as well be demanding that teachers quit telling kids the Earth is flat. Little Braxton and Brittney are not being taught that they are racists by their teachers in public schools. The right-wing anger machine is trying to ban something that isn’t even happening. Which, of course, is the whole point. Faux outrage is a feature, not a bug.

Critical race theory is just the latest in a long line of false fear-mongering tactics, what passes for Republican policies these days. Put it up there with “caravans are coming,” “they’re gonna take your guns,” “Obama is a Kenyan,” “Fauci caused COVID,” and, of course, “the election was stolen.” It’s a distraction, something to keep folks riled up against each other.

So what are children actually learning about race these days? If my long-ago junior high education is any indication (hopefully, it is not), they might learn that the Civil War wasn’t just about slavery, that it was also fought for economic reasons (as if the entire economy of the South wasn’t based on slavery). They’ll probably learn there were some great generals: Grant, Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee (and his noble surrender at Appomattox). They’ll learn about the glorious and bloody battles. They might learn about Harriet Tubman.

They probably won’t learn about what it felt like to be sold as livestock at a slave market or about the dozens of “race riots” around the country in the decades after the war — in Tulsa, Memphis, Chicago, Atlanta, Eufaula, Wilmington, and elsewhere — “riots” being a more comfortable word for lynchings, murders, and the wholesale destruction of Black communities. They might learn about segregation and the Civil Rights movement, but they probably won’t read firsthand accounts of what it felt like to be denied voting rights or refused service at restaurants, stores, and lunch counters. They might learn about fire hoses, dogs, burned buses, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but they won’t learn what it was like to have experienced the countless put-downs, slurs, insults, and indignities large and small suffered by Black Americans throughout our history.

Maybe these things aren’t taught because our educators don’t want children to be uncomfortable. More likely they aren’t taught because the entire structure of the American education system was historically created by white people. It’s almost as though we needed a critical theory about our racial history, something that could help all of us understand the fallout from hundreds of years of slavery and oppression of Black Americans, something that could help parents have a calm, informed discussion with their child when she comes home and asks, “Mommy, am I a racist?”

Categories
News News Blog

19 Tennessee School Systems Join Suit Against Vape Manufacturer

(Photo by Nery Zarate, Unsplash).

Knox County Schools, with 58,000-plus students and 88 schools, became the latest and biggest school system in Tennessee to join a lawsuit against JUUL labs, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaping products. The districts are seeking to recover the costs of current and future prevention programs, counseling, and treatment for addicted students.

The lawsuit asserts that the company fraudulently and intentionally marketed to children through social media, online advertising, and children’s television networks. Attorneys contend JUUL marketed candy- and fruit-flavored vapes, or pods, to appeal to young people, and vaping products were sold online, making it easier to avoid legal age requirements.

“Tennessee students were misled when JUUL said vaping was not harmful, because we now know vaping products actually can have 10 times the nicotine of a cigarette,” said attorney Chris McCarty of Lewis Thomason law firm, which is the Tennessee counsel on the lawsuit. “School systems suffer costs of prevention programs and counseling when students become addicted to e-cigarettes.”

William Shinoff, an attorney with the Frantz Law Group in California and counsel on the national lawsuit against JUUL, said the potential benefits for school districts participating in the lawsuit include:

  • Compensation so that districts are not forced to draw from general funds for prevention and treatment programs.
  • Funding for education programs to warn about the harmful health effects of vaping.
  • Additional staffing to prevent vaping on school grounds.
  • Counselors to handle social and emotional issues that result from nicotine addiction.
  • Placement of vaping detectors in bathrooms.

Funding from school districts is not required to join the lawsuit, and attorneys are working on a contingency basis. The lawsuit also seeks intervention to ban the sale of the flavor pods and stop the intentional marketing of the product to children.

Shinoff cited a U.S. Surgeon General advisory on e-cigarette use among youth: “JUUL e-cigarettes have a high level of nicotine, and nicotine use during adolescence can harm the developing brain and impact learning, memory and attention. To protect our children and students, this is an issue that needs to be stopped in its tracks, and school boards are on the front lines of the battle.”

Tennessee school systems that have joined the lawsuit so far include Bledsoe County, Bristol City, Cannon County, Chester County, Claiborne County, Cumberland County, Elizabethton City, Etowah City, Greeneville City, Greene County, Humphreys County, Knox County, Lincoln County, Millington Municipal, Oneida Special School District, Putnam County, Roane County, Sullivan County, and Warren County.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Warning Shot

Photo: Tennessee Department of Transportation

Some of you may remember that back in 2015 the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) announced plans to shut down the I-55 bridge over the Mississippi in Memphis for nine months. TDOT said it needed to do so in order to install a “roundabout” interchange on the Memphis end of the bridge. The entire project was to begin in early 2017 and last through November 2019, effectively screwing up traffic across the bridge and through South Memphis for two years.

It didn’t happen. And that’s mainly because some people with common sense (including this newspaper’s staff) raised hell against it, pointing out that shutting down the “old bridge” was a nightmare scenario, one that would funnel 100,000 vehicles a day (double its then-current traffic count) across the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and expose the entire Central U.S. to a potential shutdown of commerce should something happen to the one remaining bridge.

Over in West Memphis, state Senator Keith Ingram’s hair was on fire. He rightly pointed out that the shutdown would “devastate local economies throughout Eastern Arkansas and would cripple emergency services in the event of an accident or natural disaster.”

The late Phil Trenary, president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber, cited a post-9/11 study that showed that closing both of the city’s bridges would have a negative economic impact of about $11 billion to $15 billion per year, adding that the impact on business would be “significant to not only the local economy but to the national economy.”

The Flyer’s Toby Sells wrote a comprehensive cover story on the subject. We editorialized against the shutdown vociferously and often. Eventually, thanks to building public, political, and business opposition, the TDOT plan was mothballed, hopefully forever. The area’s leaders came to recognize that Memphis would be in big trouble if we ever got down to one bridge.

Oops.

As we all know, thanks to the discovery of a fissure in a structural beam on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, the feared “down-to-one-bridge” scenario has happened. And as was predicted in 2015, traffic is backed up on I-40, through the city, and on the south I-240 loop, as 80,000 vehicles a day are funneled across a narrow highway bridge built 70 years ago to handle one-fourth that amount of traffic.

Imagine if the break on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge had been discovered in, say, June 2017, during TDOT’s proposed shutdown. Or worse, imagine if something should go awry on the I-55 bridge now. Can you say Helena, Arkansas? Or Dyersburg, Tennessee? Those are the nearest two Mississippi River crossings. Local — and national — commerce would suffer a horrific hit.

But thankfully the TDOT bridge-closure didn’t happen in 2017. People raised hell. The bureaucrats were stopped. Now, with any luck, the “new bridge” gets fixed in the next couple months, and we get back to normal. But we need a new normal. There’s a lesson to be learned here, and the time to act on it is now.

We have two bridges, both over a half-century old, both facing deterioration and maintenance issues. It’s obvious that Memphis needs a third bridge across the Mississippi. And it isn’t just about Memphis. It’s about the entire interstate commerce system through the middle of America, North and South, relying on a rickety, aging infrastructure that was built for the 1960s and 1970s. A new bridge addresses current and future issues. It could integrate with the I-69 corridor and maybe even incorporate space for future high-speed rail. Why not think big?

It’s not like we’d be asking for the moon. St. Louis has six major bridges across the Mississippi. Davenport, Iowa, has three. Hell, Dubuque, Iowa, has two bridges. We’re tied with Dubuque, people. It’s in our interest and in the country’s interest to plan for the future, not to wait until the two extant bridges fall completely apart. Officeholders and business leaders from Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi need to get together and form a commission to explore the best way to get this moving.

Patching a crack with overlaid slabs of steel is a temporary solution, a band-aid that doesn’t address the overarching issues of a deteriorating infrastructure. Moving toward getting a new bridge should become a priority now — not when we’re forced to deal with another bridge shutdown. We’ve been shown a glimpse of the future. It’s time to face it, realistically.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

New Giraffe Born at Memphis Zoo

Memphis Zoo welcomes new giraffe Milele. (photo courtesy Memphis Zoo)

The Memphis Zoo issued an announcement Thursday that a new baby giraffe had been born on Monday, June 7th. The newcomer was birthed by a giraffe named Wendy, who had been showing signs “for the past couple months that she was ready to give birth,” according to the news release. The baby giraffe is named Milele, which means “forever” in Swahili, “because we have waited forever for her arrival,” said the announcement.

After an initial exam, the zoo’s veterinary staff proclaimed Milele to be healthy and ready to meet the rest of her herd, including her father, Niklas, half-brother, Ja Raffe, and half-sister, Ali. She will be on display in the African Veldt exhibit.

The Memphis Zoo has seen approximately 50 giraffe births in its history, with 11 coming in the last decade. Since the reticulated giraffe is listed as endangered, the conservation and education of this species is vitally important for their continued protection, the zoo said in its announcement.

Categories
At Large Opinion

But I Digress …

The Saugatuck River (Photo: Andrew VanWyngarden)

So remind me again … what day is it? I know it was two or three Wednesdays ago that I announced my retirement as Flyer editor, handed off the reins to the very capable Jesse Davis, loaded up the Subaru, and set off on a road trip to the East. 

For the next couple of weeks, I didn’t pay much attention to dates or destinations. I knew I needed to get to Western Pennsylvania for a few days of fishing, and afterward I knew I wanted to drive over to Connecticut to visit my son. Beyond that, it was just me and podcasts and Sirius radio and all the music I could possibly listen to through my phone over the car speakers. (I also learned to hate the opening bars to “A&E” by Goldfrapp, which came on when I started the car because it’s the first song on my alphabetical song list.) 

I headed north into Kentucky on I-65 and then east on the little-traveled Bluegrass Parkway. After that, things got a little muddled. I had a slightly meandering route planned with the help of Siri, but I lost her somewhere in the middle of the state and missed a turn. It was a good miss. I found myself on a beautiful winding route, passing through the hamlets of Stab, Dwarf, Paintsville, and Louisa. I always try to imagine the name of the local high school mascots for these kinds of places. The Stab Wounds? The Dwarf Stars? The Louisa May Alcotts? But I digress. Which is the whole point of this trip, to be honest. Eventually I came onto a scenic blacktop that paralleled the rambling Big Sandy River along the state’s eastern border, and once again “I knew where I was.” 

Here’s the thing about traveling without a rigid schedule: You’re never lost. You’re not going to be late to anything. You just keep driving in the general correct direction and you’ll come out all right, which in this case was onto the Hal Greer Boulevard Corridor in Huntington, West by God Virginia, which is almost heaven, except for the refineries. (And I bet I’m one of the few people who knows who Hal Greer was.)

I spent the night in Flatwoods, north of Charleston — which isn’t at all flat and has a Days Inn atop a mountain with the greatest view $89 can buy. The check-in clerk was wearing a faith-based mask over her chin, but since I’m vaxxed and waxed, I didn’t really care. 

The next day I got to Beaver Creek in Western Pennsylvania, a little stream that’s kept stocked with big fish, a hidden paradise I’ve been going to every May since the mid-1990s, meeting the same three guys, (sans one, who eased into the mystic 10 years ago). We missed our rendezvous in 2020, of course, so the reunion was extra sweet this year. We didn’t skip a beat, falling back into the same routines, the same dinners, the same jokes, the same memories and stories. The fishing was stellar: Seeing a large trout emerge from a deep hole to inhale your wispy dry fly never loses its magic. After a few minutes of runs and jumps (by the fish, most of the time), you remove the tiny barbless hook and the big brown goes back to its home under the rock, a little wiser, perhaps, a little more wary. 

Part of the allure of this place is that it’s so deep in the mountains that you can only get internet if you walk 100 yards up the nearest hill, which we did with a cup a coffee in the morning to check messages and emails. News, politics, sports, Twitter, Facebook, etc. got put on the back burner for four days. Very cleansing.

Then it was over to Connecticut to visit my son, who also lives in a house in the woods, surrounded by deer and a resident flock of ravens. We hiked and went thrifting and ate lobster, and I even got to fish the Saugatuck River, which was on my bucket list. There were other adventures and excursions but space is tight, so I’ll save those tales for another time. I’m happy to be back.