Memp'is

The developments surrounding my retirement from the Air Force came unexpectedly and I had no leads on any kind of job. The company Sue worked for had just opened an office in Memphis, or Memp'is as some of the locals called it, and offered her a promotion if she transferred. We talked it over and agreed that it would be better for everyone if we moved there, so in January, 1990, Sue moved while I stayed in the South Carolina to sell the house.


At the time, I was happy with the move. We would be back in Tennessee, albeit on the western end, but either way, Christopher, and later Sarah, would be born in my home state. So, after selling the house I moved into an apartment to finish out my time. Meanwhile, when Michael got out of school that spring, he joined Sue and when I got ready to retire in November, we made arrangements for Douglas to stay with friends so he could complete his senior year.

I retired on November 15th, and moved to Memphis to be a stay at home Dad until I found a job. Looking back, that was one of the happiest times in my life. Christopher and I spent every day together and I bonded with him deeper than I did with any of the other kids. We were a team. Whether it was for his doctor appointments, grocery shopping, picking up Michael from school, job interviews, getting our new house set up, or whatever, we were together.

I tried getting a weather related job but couldn’t, so in February I was offered a job at the same place Sue worked and I took it. I started out processing the paperwork for items imported into the country by Fedex. That lasted 6 months or so when I moved into a new section they were starting up to develop reports and forms for use by my company, Fedex and U.S. Customs. A couple of years later, I moved into the computer/network support department where I eventually became supervisor.

So, family-wise and job-wise, everything was great. Sarah came along in 1992 and the 5 of us were happy. Over time though, Memphis started wearing on me. It was a very racial city, with both the blacks and whites trying to one-up each other. Everything, it seemed, revolved around skin color; even the politics. The city council wasn’t so much Republicans versus Democrats, or conservatives versus liberals, it was blacks versus whites. If one side was for it, the other side was against it, while neither side seemed to care one way or the other what was best for the city as a whole.

There were a few things to do, but not really that much. Minor league baseball and college sports, or college basketball anyway; football wasn’t that big of a deal. Then which college do you root for? Memphis State, which later became the University of Memphis, Ole Miss, or Mississippi State, or Arkansas, or Arkansas State or even LSU? I didn’t leave out the University of Tennessee or Vanderbilt. They were the “other schools” in the other part of the state. I saw a lot of local sports reports in Memphis that didn’t bother to give scores for these "other schools".

There was the annual festival called Memphis in May. Lots of stuff going on there, but for the first several years you could go to the BBQ contest but not get any of the BBQ, which made absolutely no sense to me. You basically just walked around and watched people cook BBQ. The music festival was usually good, I will give them that much.

Oh, I forgot Beale Street, which could be fun, and people partied there a lot, but all I ever really needed to know about Beale Street was when I saw the police substation right in the middle of the small 3 block area. Well, to be fair to Beale Street, the whole downtown area was like that -- very foreboding.

Then there is the economy. It’s as if Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi never got together and figured out what they were going to do with this city that is actually a part of all 3 states. The economic structure in each state is different and Memphis can only grow north and east. That being said, there has been a marked growth in northern Mississippi over the past 10 years, but barely any in Arkansas. That’s a little sad too because at one time Memphis was the equal to Miami, Atlanta, Birmingham and New Orleans, but now those cities have all passed it up and Nashville, Little Rock and Montgomery aren’t that far behind.

Okay, I realize that most of what I just said was personal opinion and that there are a lot of people who live in Memphis who love it there. I’m glad, because someone has to live there, it’s just not me. When it came time to leave, I was more than ready.

I will say this much though. I met a lot of good people there. The ones I worked with became almost like a family to me. Sometimes I wish they had moved to Indiana with me.