Category: Opinion

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

An Ode to Ice Cream Sandwiches

Your personal ice cream sandwich can help you cope. (Photo: Anjelagr | Dreamstime.com)

With a fork and a knife, Hunny Blunt cuts into the summertime dish with glee. “There’s nothing better,” she declares, “than a rich and flavorful ice cream sandwich from the Lamplighter Lounge.” It’s the Monday night drag show, a new staple of the Midtown scene. Hunny, the grand duchess of the ball, carefully consumes her post-dance treat and seems positively glowing in her cocktail dress and oversized ’do. “I think I’m just about ready to face the world again,” she quips, strutting back to the stage for round two of a performance.

For many folks, these drag nights are their own “Neapolitan ice cream sandwich,” a way to unwind from the traumas of a rough workweek. There are many more nights like these at Lamplighter too: karaoke on Thursdays and comedy on Wednesdays, sometimes a burlesque show during a Thursday karaoke. On weekends, there’s always a band playing: Rosey if you feel swamp-witch rage; Data Drums for those into the introspective and atmospheric. You name it, they’ll drop it on your plate on any given day.

Personally, though, I’m having trouble trying to think up my own “ice cream sandwich.” There are so many things that I feel help me stave off those moments of depression, to pluck out those seeds of doubt. But nothing is really sticking. So I reached out to some locals and friends to ask what they would call their own “ice cream sandwich.”

A dear friend of mine who works for MIFA, Sumi Montgomery, said hers would be “either hiking in nature, or getting a new tattoo. I’m even planning my next tattoo for after the holidays.” Unlike her, I have only gotten one tattoo: a literary symbol on my ankle. It made me pass out (who knew the ankle was the worst spot to get a first tattoo?), but I did feel a rush of adrenaline and dopamine after. “That’s the thing though,” she clarifies. “After all that pain, you’re left with something beautiful. I see them as marks of transition.”

I can agree with her first option. She and I have hiked along the Wolf River Greenway and around her area of Harbor Town before, and afterwards I felt not only reinvigorated, but also relaxed. Nature can be a great way to reconnect and recenter ourselves. But, still, I felt like I needed something more. Maybe there is something I’m missing that could be my “ice cream sandwich.” So I reached out to local socialite and librarian Ralley Taura. 

She told me that when she feels like the world is crashing down on her, she cleans her house. “Organizing a spot in my house that has stressed me out relaxes me,” she elaborates. “And I listen to an audiobook while I clean. There’s nothing like compete inundation with something like that to make every worry melt away.” I sometimes find myself feeling much better after a good house cleaning. But still, it doesn’t quite fit me, I feel. So I continue searching.

A colleague of mine, Erica Qualy, runs a local vintage shop, Tako’s Treasures. She has been doing so for almost a decade, crafting an ecologically and environmentally friendly brand. Her “ice cream sandwich” is, in fact, “thrifting. It has always been a form of therapy for me. I’m a big believer in gratitude and turning that into an activity.” 

But sometimes that’s not enough. So she gave me another, more philosophical answer as well: “I remind myself to trust the universe. Looking back on the times where I felt my life was falling apart, it turns out things were actually falling into place.” What wise words to remember.

Finally, I reached out to local political figure Noah Nordstrom for his take on what he hopes folks can cling onto in this rising political tide. His response? “I lean into my family and community when it feels like everything is coming down. Hosting events or fundraisers brings me a sense of peace and stability.” 

And I couldn’t agree more. Community events are the lifeblood of a society. Noah himself proves to be a passionate community leader, especially after giving his all in the recent Representative election. He continues that good fight, as you can see in the infamous Memphis-Shelby County Schools board video. Passion like his is what I hope to channel these next few years.

Everyone needs a way to unwind, especially during the coming four years. It is now more important than ever to seek out our community and immerse ourselves in culture. Go to shows and support your local musicians and artists.

There is nothing better than these little moments, in spite of what may happen. I hope to find my own ice cream sandwich soon to combat the dread. My fork and knife stand at the ready. 

William Smythe is a local writer and poet. He writes for Focus Mid-South, an LGBT+ magazine.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Dazed and Confused 

This month made the Flyer editor try meditation. (Photo: Pop Nukoonrat | Dreamstime.com)

January has been a rough year, huh? United States citizens, torn apart like never before, have been inundated with a ridiculous array of presidential orders and policy changes dumped on us in an absolute whirlwind of nonsense in a matter of days. An emboldened and strange billionaire troll — who’s pulling political strings even beyond our scope of understanding — is not-so-subtly showing his true colors in front of the entire world. And, still, half of the folks we share this country with can’t agree that he and the guy who promised to “Make America Great Again” have more than a couple screws loose — and do not have our best interests in mind. 

Lucky for you, I know that you’ve heard enough about this. You’ve processed or are still processing — maybe dissociating? Heh. Whatever the case may be, I’d bet we’re all more than a little dazed and confused in the dust of what’s happened since Inauguration Day — and under the looming worry of what’s to come.

So one thing I’ve done in recent weeks is meditate. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being an excellent meditator and 1 being the worst, I’m at zero. Maybe even -2. I am absolutely no good at quieting my anxious mind. But meditation is called “a practice,” so I’m practicing. I have some random app on my phone that had been sending me notification nudges to meditate every day for months. I, of course, ignored those notifications because who has time for that? Honestly, I ignore most of the notifications I receive. They never stop coming, and I can’t keep up. Those reminders to drink water or weigh myself today or log a journal entry— well, they’ll have to wait. At least until after I respond to a few dozen emails and contact the post office about why my package hasn’t been scanned in three weeks and call my insurance about charging me for medication that was previously covered. There’s always a big, long to-do list, right? But, if I understand all this correctly, that’s why meditation — if you can get there — is important. 

There are all sorts of videos on YouTube you can access, playlists on Spotify, and probably a million other free meditation resources online. I’ve started with short, 5- or 10- minute guided meditations. It’s often frustrating because I can’t for the life of me see the meadow or the stream or the sunny sky they’re guiding me to see with my mind’s eye. There’s no staircase and no open window. And I spend an awful lot of time telling myself that I need to stop thinking. Thinking about thinking is not meditating. The point is not to think, right? Or to get past the thinking you and directly to the heart of consciousness? I really don’t know because I’ve never done it. But some people swear it does wonders for their love and appreciation of life, letting go of worry, increasing creativity, and on and on. Dive within, yes?

I guess for now, it’s good to at least put 10 minutes aside to lie with eyes closed even if I’m thinking about not thinking. I can certainly think of worse things to do and worse things to think about. And hey, meditation might be woo-woo to you. You don’t have to do it! I’m willing to try just about anything that’ll help me find some peace and purpose. Both are incredibly important, especially now when things feel so out of control. Take a 10 from the chatter and fear.

Amid the dust and the rubble, we may not be able to see the stream or the meadow or the shining sun, but they’re there, somewhere … in the stillness, beyond the dark. No matter what, don’t stop looking. 

Categories
At Large Opinion

Keepers of the Flame

Photo: Evgeniya Leonova | Dreamstime.com

The presidential inauguration in the Capitol rotunda on Monday marked the return to power of the most controversial and scandal-plagued president in American history. It felt a little like when the second plane hit the tower on 9/11 — the moment when we knew it wasn’t an accident.

Monday was also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and here in Memphis — the city where Dr. King was assassinated in 1968 — the celebration of his life takes on a special significance. The NBA’s annual MLK Day celebration featured the Memphis Grizzlies hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the National Civil Rights Museum held a day of events called “Community Over Chaos,” which seemed a most fitting theme.

But before it fades into history, buried by the noisy deluge of Trump drama, I want to take note of former President Biden’s farewell address of last week. As might be expected, he cited the achievements of his administration — the record job-creation numbers, the long-desired ceasefire in the Middle East, the strengthening of NATO, and the ongoing resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine — but his real purpose in his speech seemed to be to deliver a warning, to address, as he said, “some things that give me great concern.”

Citing President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation, in which he warned the country about the dangers posed by the “military industrial complex,” Biden decried the rise of a new threat, one he called the “tech industrial complex.”

“Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power,” Biden warned. “The free press is crumbling. Errors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.” No errors detected.

The tech industrial complex was on full display in the Rotunda on Monday, including Sundar Pichai (Google), Tim Cook (Apple), Jeff Bezos (Amazon, The Washington Post), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Threads), and Elon Musk (X, Tesla, Starlink, xAI).

Never have so few had so much unbridled power to influence public opinion and so much money to invest in doing so. And it doesn’t help that they’re supplicating themselves (and giving millions of dollars) to the new president to curry his favor. It’s called obeying in advance, and it’s worrisome stuff. Journalism is in danger of being put out of business by “content providers” that have no ethical qualms about ignoring the truth in favor of whatever makes a profit — or makes the president happy.

CNN, ABC, and even MSNBC have also made at least token moves to ameliorate relations with the new administration. CNN buried Trump critic Jim Acosta in a late-night slot. ABC settled a libel lawsuit with Trump that it easily would have won in court. Facebook eliminated fact-checkers. Companies are getting rid of diversity hiring programs. Macho (“masculine energy”) is all the rage among the tech bros. Women’s healthcare rights continue to be eroded in red states.

Biden called it “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people,” and cited the consequences “if their abuse of power is left unchecked.” What Biden was describing is an oligarchy. Merriam-Webster (remember dictionaries?) defines it as “a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.”

Can there be any doubt that an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power, and influence is moving into power in the United States, one that threatens our democracy and our basic rights and freedoms?

Democracy depends upon the will of the people, and if the people are misinformed, disinformed, or uninformed, they can be manipulated. As we well know, public opinion — and elections — can turn on well-funded, broadly circulated lies and propaganda.

Our social media platforms are already permeated by disinformation, mostly via bots that skillfully imitate real people and overwhelm legitimate content by their sheer numbers. Artificial intelligence is now upping that deception to previously unknown heights. Biden called AI “the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.”

The former president concluded by saying to his fellow Americans, “It’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keepers of the flame.” That doesn’t feel like malarkey, folks. 

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Trump 2.0: Time Travel, Tech Bros, and Tyranny

Donald Trump (Photo: Palinchak | Dreamstime.com)

As I write these words, on January 16, 2025, Mr. Donald Trump is still President-elect, though he’s certainly acting as though he’s already been inaugurated. Thanks to the peculiar time traveling magic of print periodicals, President Trump will have been in office for at least three days before you read these words, such as they are. (Look, I’m not any more excited to write about the guy than you are to read about him, but news is news.)

Despite a compelling farewell address (more on that below) from the 46th president of the United States, the absurdity machine is already winding up here in the final days of President Joe Biden’s term in office, as a casual glance at recent headlines attests. 

“Trump Taps Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight as Hollywood ‘Ambassadors’,” from The New York Times. Makes sense. At 69, 78, and 86, respectively, those venerable gentlemen surely have their collective finger on the pulse of the generation. When I think about connecting with Gen Z, my mind immediately goes to the co-star of 1972’s Deliverance and prominent right-wing nutjob Jon Voight. With Los Angeles devastated by historic and tragic winter Palisades fires, Trump’s move shows he still has all his old tricks, ready to go. It’s performative, backwards, and it toes the line between casual cruelty and cluelessness. We are off to a great start indeed. 

Worse than Trump’s sycophantic set of Hollywood “Ambassadors” are the rich and empathy-deficient tech titans lining up to pull the president’s strings. In his farewell address, Biden warned of this oligarchy of the super-rich and the influence they wield, particularly through technology, and I agree with almost everything he said — save one minor detail. Biden warned that this tyranny of tech bros is on its way; I say it’s already here. I worry our nation will be as successful ousting the tech-industrial complex as we have with the military-industrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address in 1961. 

Trump is notoriously susceptible to flattery. His own former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, already admitted as much in an interview in 2024, not that we needed an expert on security to attest to that fact. With Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announcing that Facebook and Instagram are letting their fact-checkers go, it will be that much easier to suck up to the new president. He really did have the biggest inauguration crowd of all time — and no one is allowed to prove otherwise! 

Jokes aside, if abandoning fact-checking wasn’t Zuckerberg’s way of saying, “standing by, dear leader,” I’m not nearly as well-versed in the speech patterns of near-human replicants. All those hours watching Blade Runner on repeat and Star Trek: Next Generation on reruns really were wasted, I guess. 

Social media — and the tech industry in general — are criminally under-regulated. Well, that is to say, their actions aren’t technically crimes, because there aren’t really any regulations. But it should be a crime. Unfortunately, a loosening of tech’s stranglehold on U.S. policy seems increasingly unlikely. Between Trump’s burgeoning friendship with the AI Axis of Evil — the aforementioned Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, the grifter who bought Twitter, renamed it X, and is now poised to poison Memphis’ water — and an aging and out-of-touch legislative branch who don’t see the harm in a little social media, it seems to me that the tech-industrial complex keeping Biden up at night have already set up shop. 

Though I’m sending this missive from a presidency in the past, I sincerely doubt that all hope is lost already, on Thursday, January 23, 2024. You can fire the fact-checkers, but you can’t burn all the facts everywhere. That doesn’t mean that the coalition of the mean and greedy little minds won’t try. It just means to remember that everyone (including yours truly!) has bias, that book burning is never the last move in someone’s playbook, and that libraries are a truly radical and wonderful place. 

Anyway, at least I’m sure I’ll get a good laugh out of the “article” my uncle shares on Facebook as proof that the Mississippi is supposed to be on fire, actually, and annual ice storms can’t be climate change, because it’s global warming, not global icing, dummy. 

Jesse Davis is a former Flyer staffer; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, were minding their own business in Memphis on January 6, 2021. Were yours?

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Of Fathers and Faulkner

Faulkner and friends (2010) (Photo: Sharon Murtaugh)

For two decades, I have begun the calendar year by reading a William Faulkner novel. My father died in September 2005, and he loved Faulkner. Reading stories by the Nobel Prize-winning author is a method for having a conversation with Dad, even if it’s internal, entirely private. Flem Snopes, after all, demands discussion. Furthermore, the American South’s greatest scribe helps me connect more deeply to the place where I live and the people who occupy the Mid-South, both present and past.

My January visit with Faulkner — and Dad — has me considering 2025 on a larger scale, one with current events in the mix, and beyond the Mid-South. We will inaugurate a new (though quite familiar) president on Martin Luther King Day. And it’s hard to imagine a greater contrast between two American men: the 47th president and the slain civil rights leader for whom the holiday is named. Faulkner would find such a character contrast fodder for a good tale: a latter-day Snopes taking the highest office in the land while the racial and ethical fabric of a country stretches to a ripping point. What is morality when there is profit to be made?

Reading Faulkner is hard. His plotlines are seldom linear. Characters are introduced with flashbacks and sudden trauma. I’m not sure stream of consciousness was even a thing before The Sound and the Fury. And William Faulkner does not do happy endings. The lone thread you’ll find connecting his entire canon: loss. The loss of a loved one. The loss of property or fortune. And, most poignantly, the loss of time. The fact is, we lose as we live, each passing day adding a new layer to the past we must both process and manage in tackling our next venture.

Whichever “side of the aisle” you prefer, the coming months and years will be abrasive for American life. A person driven by the attention he gains is in a position to shake the federal government in ways it’s not been shaken before. Millions adore him for this. Millions fear him for this. We may be one country, these United States, but we are living with a fissure deeper and darker than any Faulkner may have placed in Yoknapatawpha County.

And this is where we each have a role to play, each of us a character Faulkner may have dreamed up for a 21st-century version of The Hamlet, but with an entire nation as backdrop. (Shakespeare called us “players.” Imagine what the Bard would have to say about the current stage.) What kind of impact will you make on the town square? In the workplace? At the dinner table? How will you touch lives for the better? And, Faulkner would want to know, will impacting lives bring pleasure or pain? Life’s simpler for the likes of Flem, every relationship a net profit or loss. Don’t be Flem Snopes.

I visit Oxford, Mississippi, periodically. I find the grounds of Rowan Oak — Faulkner’s home — especially tranquil. I like to imagine the thinking and conversations that occurred on this lone patch of American real estate. I assure you, it wasn’t always linear, and there was plenty of loss. These days, you can even sit on a bench next to Faulkner (a bronze version) in Oxford’s town square. I’ve done so with my daughters. I’ve even worn my dad’s hat. Again, the conversations are internal, but very real. My next visit to Rowan Oak — sometime in 2025 — will include some thinking about how and why? They are challenging questions these days.

Faulkner was a young man during the Great War and an acclaimed author when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. He knew hard times. They steered his writing and shaped his memorable characters. Were he to appear in 2025 America, I’m not convinced Faulkner would be any more afraid now than he was in the times that challenged his own life. This is humanity. It’s who we are. And yes, Snopes now and then.

William Faulkner accepted his Nobel Prize on December 10, 1950, and delivered a speech my father cherished, one I carry inside my own heart. “I believe that man will not merely endure: He will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”

These are times to endure. May the wind be at your back. 

Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis Magazine. He writes the columns “From My Seat” and “Tiger Blue” for the Flyer.

Categories
At Large Opinion

L.A. Hot Takes

Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to ashes. (Photo: MMPhoto21 | stock.adobe.com )

And the lights of L.A. County
They look like diamonds in the sky … 
— Lyle Lovett

As I write this, devastating wind-fed fires have killed at least 25 people and swept through 40,000 acres in the greater Los Angeles area. If you’re looking for a size comparison, that’s equal to a fourth of the acreage of the city of Memphis burned to the ground — an area equal to Downtown, Uptown, and everything inside the beltway. Thousands of people have lost their homes. Hundreds of schools, churches, businesses, studios, and iconic architectural structures are gone. Entire neighborhoods are reduced to ashes.

Los Angeles County officials characterized the fires as a “perfect storm” event in which hurricane-force gusts of up to 100 miles per hour prevented them from deploying aircraft that could have dropped water and fire retardant on the drought-ravaged neighborhoods when the fires first broke out. The combination of the winds, unseasonably dry conditions, and multiple fires breaking out one after another led to the widespread destruction.

But as L.A. firefighters battled the flames, disinformation was spreading like, well, wildfire: One theory pushed by right-wing media was that the blazes were raging because fire-fighting personnel were led by a lesbian fire chief and the department utilized DEI hiring criteria. X account Libs of TikTok, known for spreading anti-LBGTQ rhetoric posted: “DEI will get people k*lled. DEI MUST DIE.” Donald Trump Jr. said that donations the Los Angeles Fire Department sent to Ukraine in 2022 were somehow related to its response to the current fires.

Not to be outdone, the president-elect himself posted a deluge of misinformation on Truth Social, including this: “Governor Gavin Newscum [sic] refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snowmelt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.” 

And what’s a good tragedy without a trash take from Alex Jones, who posted that President Biden had grounded firefighters and that the fires were being spread as part of a “globalist plot to wage economic warfare”? First Buddy Elon Musk responded to Jones’ tweet in a now-deleted post with one word: “True.” 

None of it was true. The level of diversity in L.A. Fire Department personnel is typical of most urban fire departments in the U.S. The Southern California reservoirs were full, above historic levels. Water intended for the city was not diverted to save a fish called the smelt. Some hydrants went dry because they were intended for use against urban fires — houses, buildings in a self-contained area for a limited time — not wild-blown wildfires spreading over many acres for many days. 

Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said, “We are fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is an unprecedented kind of event.” Quiñones added that experts have seen wildland fires move into urban areas only in the last 10 to 15 years and that they’re still figuring out how to address it.

“The way that firefighting has traditionally been, there are wildland firefighters and agencies, and then there are urban firefighters and agencies,” she said. “Are we having wildland firefighters fighting fires in urban areas or the reverse? Sometimes the approaches are really different.”

All this brings to mind an interview with Denzel Washington I saw last week. When asked about today’s media, he said: “If you don’t read the newspapers, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you’re misinformed.” 

He went on: “What is the long-term effect of too much information? One thing is the need to be first. … We live in a society where it’s just, get it out there, be first! It doesn’t matter if it’s true, who it hurts, who it destroys, just be first. So what a responsibility [the media] have — to tell the truth!” 

To which, I would add: What a responsibility you and I have — to seek out the truth, and to learn not to blindly swallow the first piece of information offered, no matter who offers it, no matter how it tickles your confirmation biases. A hot take is seldom the best take. 

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Memphis Is My Boyfriend: Yes Day

On Yes Day, anything goes, from eating out to shopping. Try picking physical, creative, and social hobbies instead of making resolutions. (Photos: Patricia Lockhart)

I have four tweens/teens: a 16-year-old boy, twin 13-year-old boys, and an 11-year-old girl. Teens can ask for some of the most random things. Another laptop, shopping sprees, beauty products, and a whole host of material things. And throughout the year, I find myself saying, “No,” “What do you think your allowance is for?”, “Absolutely not!”, and “That seems like something you need to ask your uncles to buy you” to several of their requests. Honestly, I feel like if I give them a decent allowance and provide all of their needs, they can at least spend their own money on any gadget, game, or beauty product they want. My purse is shallow and the strings are tight.

Except for one day a year. The last day of the year to be exact. New Year’s Eve.

On New Year’s Eve, my husband and I give the kids a “Yes Day.” It’s simple: Whatever the kids ask for, we simply say, “Yes.” We only ask questions for clarification, and we don’t deflect or say no.

Here’s a list of things and experiences our tweens/teens asked for:

“Can we eat breakfast at IHOP?”

“Can we go to Jumping World?”

“Can we eat pizza for lunch?”

“Can we get a hotel?”

“Can we go to the Amuse Adventure Museum?”

“Can we shop at Best Buy?”

“Can we go to Target?”

“Can we go to Hobby Lobby?”

And of course we said “Yes” to every single request!

The kids had a blast! We ate breakfast and picked up a few crafting materials from Hobby Lobby. Then we did a little window shopping at Best Buy and Target. Next, we went to Jumping World. By the time we checked into the hotel, I was already exhausted. We ate an early dinner at Rock’n Dough Pizza and had the most amazing server. Next, we went to the Amuse Adventure Museum and had a blast. Fun fun fun! Lastly, we did a grocery store run for snacks before heading back to the hotel. I passed out. The kids and Hubby played video games. I woke up and played games as well, then I went back to sleep. Finally, the New Year came and concluded our Yes Day.

If you’re wondering about the financial cost of a Yes Day, I’ll be very transparent with you. Our Yes Day cost $537 for this family of six. The most expensive tickets were the Amuse Adventure Museum and Rock’n Dough Pizza, both over $100. If you would like to do a Yes Day for your kids but you’re concerned with getting a lot of materialistic requests, then set some parameters. Explain to your teens that their request must create an experience and be centered around engaging with the family.

While Yes Day is very fun, we did make time for something very serious. Now, we don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Tweens and teenagers are still developing a sense of self. New Year’s resolutions can unintentionally bring about stress from trying to be this perfect image of themselves that they’ve placed in their mind. And as an ever-evolving teenager, perfection is impossible.

So instead of focusing on achievements, we focus on exploration. Everyone chooses three hobbies they want to nurture for 2025. While the hobbies can be brand-new or something you’re still learning, there is a short guide. You must have a physical hobby, something that gets you moving. You must also have a creative hobby, to explore new ways to express yourself. Lastly, you must have a social hobby, something that brings you together with other people. Here are our 2025 hobbies (physical, creative, social):

Anthony/Dad: running, learning to play the piano, and running with a club

Patricia/Mom: yoga, sewing, painting, and learning Spanish

Aiden (16): jogging, playing the piano and reading sheet music, and hosting events at home

Elliott (13): stretching, creating new video games, and TBD*

Elijah (13): biking, creating a YouTube channel, and creating a video gaming club

Eve (11): ballet and dance, and sewing with a club

*It’s okay that he doesn’t know how he wants to engage with others. He has a low social battery threshold. 

For the rest of the year, I will scour the Memphis Flyer for events and activities that pour into my kids’ hobbies. If you hear of any, please feel free to share it with me via Instagram @memphisismyboyfriend. 

Patricia Lockhart is a native Memphian who loves to read, write, cook, and eat. By day, she’s an assistant principal and writer, but by night … she’s asleep. 

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah … (Photo: Tlakebluemoon | Dreamstime.com)

You’ll notice a couple of places in this issue where I’ve been named responsible for the “New Year, New You” cover story. That dang editor is at it again! The truth is, the Flyer has done some form of this theme for as long as I can remember for its first issue at the turn of a new year. It had its place on the publication calendar long before I took the helm, so, objectively, for this edition at least, we’re still the same ol’ Flyer despite annually rallying for a “new you.” (Former editor and longtime “New Year, New You” “responsible party” Bruce VanWyngarden finally let the intrusive thoughts win this round; see “New Year, New Ewe.”) 

Anyhow, we like you exactly as you are! And you get bonus cool points just for being here. But if you’re thinking of reinventing yourself, exploring new activities, or (not-so) simply putting the phone down for a change, our writers have some thoughts for you. 

If, like me, resolutions aren’t your thing, maybe you’ll take a lesson in something I’ve learned from my dad: zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Let me explain. My 60-something-year-old father is the primary caretaker for my paraplegic brother, a commitment he fulfills with love and grace. He’s the family’s black sheep — outspoken, a country boy through and through, perhaps a bit wild — if you believe the stories (hint* they’re true). By most accounts, his life hasn’t been easy. Through the back-to-back deaths of my grandparents, my brother’s health challenges, nearly two years of sibling squabbles over estate matters, (minor outbursts aside) my dad remains as calm and cool as can be. “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” he says as he tells me my brother threw a fit to be discharged from the hospital. “It’s another wonderful day!” he responds when I call stressed out over … any of the many things that stress me out. “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” he replies when I swear everything is falling apart (it’s not). 

Before I go any further, I’m aware of controversy over the 1946 Disney film from which the line “zip-a-dee-doo-dah” was pulled. What I’m writing here has nothing to do with that. Please don’t hang me out to dry! Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, for my dad anyway, is a way of life, a motto by which to live. It’s closely akin to “hakuna matata” — which, thanks to The Lion King, we all know means “no worries.” Maybe I should have used that as the title of this piece instead. No one has anything bad to say about The Lion King. (Who am I kidding? You name it, someone’s got a gripe.) Oh well. The idea is to stop taking things so seriously. This has been a longtime battle for my overthinking, overanalyzing brain: Everything is serious! Something could go wrong at any time, and what do we do then? Let’s ponder every possible, surely horrible outcome! 

So that is what we won’t do this year, okay? We won’t be guided by fear. We won’t expect the worst. We won’t agonize over things that haven’t happened yet. Instead, we will let go of what we can’t control, or the need for control. We’ll smile through the hard stuff. When life starts life-ing a little too hard, we will say to ourselves, quietly (or loudly to really drive it home), “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!” And you’ll know when it’s time. A flat tire? Zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Water heater went out? Zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Editor asks you to write another “New Year, New You” blurb? Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Much like “hakuna matata,” it’s a “problem-free philosophy.” 

We’ll still run into problems, of course. But maybe we’ll look at them as opportunities. Maybe we’ll start with small steps to address the ones we want to fix. But we certainly won’t worry. There’s just no sense in that. We’re going to go with the flow. We’re going to let that sh*t go. My dad says so, and that’s that.

Categories
At Large Opinion

New Year, New Ewe

Don’t ew my ewe. (Photo: Timothy Large | Dreamstime.com)

So, the editor said at our last staff meeting that we all needed to come up with something to write about for our annual “New Year, New You” issue. Basically, it’s anything to do with reinventing yourself without actually saying “New Year’s resolution.” Most of the time, it comes down to writing about self-improvement projects, like taking up hot yoga, quitting drinking, getting a Peloton, or buying those puffy new running shoes that somehow make jogging in Overton Park at the crack of dawn appealing. The advertising folks will be selling to local businesses who specialize in such services, so it all tracks. 

I have threatened for years to write about adopting a sheep for this issue, because, well, not using the headline “New Year, New Ewe” just seems like a wasted opportunity. And since 2025 is looming like the open cellar door to the end-times, I figured it was now or never. 

I did a bit of research and read that a ewe is a female sheep, which I already knew. And I quickly learned that my word processing program unhelpfully corrects “a ewe” to “an ewe.” It’s ewes-less to try to reprogram it, I discover, so I move on. After all, I’ve still got to figure out how to get a new ewe in the new year.

Here are some other sheep terms I became familiar with: A male sheep used for breeding is a ram or a buck. A male that has been castrated and that will be used for meat is a wether. And, of course, the little cute ones are called lambs. Whether a lamb grows up to be a wether, a ram, or a ewe (or a chop) is all in the roll of the sheep dice. But for purposes of this story (and maintaining a commitment to the pun), I’m only thinking of ewe, dear. 

A mature ewe weighs 200 to 225 pounds, which seems like a big-ass sheep. So once I get my new ewe (on Amazon?) I’m going to need to figure out a way to keep it fed. It should be able to graze off my yard for much of the year, I’d think, but I don’t have a big lawn, so I might have to supplement it with a couple of hay bales or something. Plus, I could probably walk it around the neighborhood and let it graze in my neighbors’ lawns as we stroll along. I don’t think they’ll mind. In fact, I suspect that my ewe and I would soon become a legend on nextdoor.com — not to mention, the talk of the Memphis Reddit community. Once my sheepish girl has gotten her fill of yummy Midtown zoysia, we’ll just make a ewe-turn and head back home. And, of course, I’ll carry a sheepy-bag for the ewe-doo, just in case. I know the rules. I’m not a savage.

And here are some of the lifestyle improvements attendant with getting a New Ewe in the New Year: Exercise — walking around the neighborhood every day, hefting the occasional bale of hay, not to mention carrying the 12-pound bags of ewe-doo home from your daily walk. You’ll be fit and buff in no time. Free Wool — You just shear your ewe once a year and voila, a big bag of premium wool, ready to be spun into yarn and turned into a sweater by your dear old Aunt Nedra. 

And I’m sure that there are other benefits of ewe-ownership besides exercise and free wool but they’re not coming to me right now. Let me think … Nope. In fact, it’s beginning to become obvious that I’ve written this entire column just to justify using a stupid pun that I’ve resisted using every Flyer New Year’s issue for years. And that’s not fair to you, the reader, or to Ewe, my sheep, who’s been caught up in this awkward transition to urban living through no fault of her own. 

I had another option, too, which makes this all the more tragic. If I had gone with the alternative plan, it would have been easier for all of us. Get a shrub. Plant it. Keep your head down and hope for the best. New Year, New Yew. 

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Remember Love

My mother died from cancer in the spring of 2023 at the age of 86. I was her only child, 55 and heartbroken. While she lived many years with chronic arthritis pain, my mother Earline Duncan was joyful, energetic, and always eager to share with others. I called her “Mama.” But she was more than that to me. Earline Duncan was my good friend.

December 25th will be my second Christmas without Mama. To avoid debilitating woe, I look grief in the face. Nobody will escape. Life is death, and loss is love’s inheritance. I hug my anguish tightly and let tears wash over me like a flood. When I cannot cry another drop, I am refreshed. Then I rise from the couch and clean my house. 

Mama’s death wounded my soul. I own a scab that Mercurochrome cannot heal. However, in the time since her death, besides crying, cleaning house, and writing for the Memphis Flyer, I have discovered another way to recalibrate. I call on Mama’s circle of octogenarian friends, who traveled this life with her from childhood to womanhood, and finally to the elevation of elder. I ask her lifelong friends to share their personal memories of Mama.  

Earline Duncan with Snowden School students in the early ’70s (Photo: Courtesy Alice Faye Duncan)

Just like Earline Duncan, Dorothy Rozier, Claudette Lacey, Hollye Shotwell, and Verna Vaughn survived the humiliation of second-class citizenship in Jim Crow Memphis during the 1940s. They grew up and went to church in North Memphis’ Greenlaw Community. They graduated from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and they each served Memphis students as “Negro” schoolteachers until the vernacular changed to “Black” during the 1960s.

Once while I was collecting memories, Dorothy Rozier, who is 86, recalled my mother’s unmitigated boldness. When they were girls in middle school, Mama rode her bicycle to Dorothy’s house. At the time, Dorothy’s granddaddy sat on the porch in need of a shave because he was unable to do it himself. When little Earline arrived, she hopped off her bike and volunteered for the task. As a kid, my mother was given a straightedge razor. And according to Dorothy, “Earline shaved my grandaddy like she was a bona fide barber.”  

Claudette Lacey and Hollye Shotwell are daughters of the late Lucille Martin Hinton. The sisters were frequent visitors in my mother’s childhood home on N. Third Street. Hollye is 84. Claudette is 88. As classmates, Claudette and Mama went to school together from first grade at Grant Elementary until they graduated from Manassas High in 1954. When I ask about Mama’s personality as a teenager, Hollye says, “Earline liked to read books and she loved to talk.” 

When we speak on the phone, Claudette tells me, “Alice Faye! You sound just like Earline.” It pleases me very much that some audible part of my mother resides with me. 

As for Verna Vaughn’s friendship with Mama, their herstory intersected through girlhood, fellowship at St. James AME Church, and their employment in the Memphis schools. Mama was eight years older than Verna, who recently turned 80. As children, Verna and her sister Carol deemed Mama to be an “authority figure.” Verna says, “Earline was the big girl who walked the little children to Sunday School. She would fuss and make us behave in church.”

When segregation was abolished in the Memphis schools, Mama and Verna joined a cohort of Black teachers who integrated the faculty at Snowden School. Verna was the librarian and Mama taught 6th grade. As her coworker, Verna discovered that my mother’s intolerance for foolishness was unchanged. She tells me often, “I would walk to her classroom to chitchat and socialize. But Earline would stop me at the door and say, ‘No-no, Verna!’” 

Do you miss somebody this holiday season? An old adage says that we live forever if people continue to speak our names. Therefore, gather with others and call to mind your special person. Giggle, gush, and luxuriate in the glow of who they were. Raise your voice and speak many names. Remember love. Happy holidays! 

Earline Duncan served as a Memphis teacher for 39 years. To hear her speak about the integration experiment in local schools, visit Rhodes College at vimeo.com/279358197. Alice Faye Duncan is a Memphis educator who writes for children. Learn about her books at alicefayeduncan.com.