From The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gillman, 1966 I can still see the dog-eared paperback clear as day on the guest bedroom nightstand in my childhood home in Memphis: a mystery novel by Dorothy Gillman titled The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, my great-grandmother Gracie’s reading selection on that visit. On the book jacket a woman … Continue reading A Family Memory: Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax and Surprise Connections
Memphis
Travel Story: Road Trip to Tennessee the WPA Way
Looky what came in last week’s mail. The only thing better would have been stumbling across this in a Vermont antique store or at a local tag sale. Well, that, and maybe a first edition, instead of this third edition. I did locate a first edition in excellent shape in another online vendor’s inventory, evidently … Continue reading Travel Story: Road Trip to Tennessee the WPA Way
A Memory: Living Like the One Percent
The main condition for the design, we said to the contractor standing in our Knoxville back yard 15 years ago, is for the pool to look like it’s been here since the house was built, in 1926. Yes, he said, he thought he could do that. No vast expanse of boring white concrete pool deck, … Continue reading A Memory: Living Like the One Percent
Story of Renewal: Wiping the Slate Clean
That ingenious little device, the Etch A Sketch, saved me on more than one occasion during childhood: trapped in the back seat of my parents’ sedan, weary of reading or coloring, riding shotgun with a bothersome younger brother all the way from Memphis across the states of Arkansas and then Texas, I could occupy myself … Continue reading Story of Renewal: Wiping the Slate Clean
Family Story: Baked Beans on the Ceiling
“Are those…baked beans…on my kitchen ceiling, Grandmother?” It was my mom’s perturbed voice. You could also tell when she was perturbed by how she called somebody. Granny Grace—my great grandmother—was always just Granny, or maybe occasionally Gracie, but ‘Grandmother’ was the moniker mom used when Gracie did something vexing. Come to think of it, Gracie … Continue reading Family Story: Baked Beans on the Ceiling
Music Story: Remembering Aretha
This morning I listened to a rare interview with Aretha Franklin, talking about what it was like growing up the daughter of a celebrated pastor who was close friends with Martin Luther King, Jr., and who routinely hosted Nat King Cole and others of his ilk in the Franklin home. The interview included an excerpt … Continue reading Music Story: Remembering Aretha
The Stories Our Scars Tell
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, goes the saying. When my kiddo was only a peanut he took a bad spill in the foyer of our Knoxville home and landed face first on an unforgiving surface. His cheek met the pointy corner of a single step leading from the foyer into the kitchen of … Continue reading The Stories Our Scars Tell
Writing Story: A School Is a Place to Learn
The Episcopal School of Knoxville will turn 20 this coming fall, inconceivably. My 20-something kid was a kindergartner in its inaugural year, 1998. This matters to me mainly because it’s a school my ex and I founded, together with a few other families, the culmination of a mammoth effort that was about five or so … Continue reading Writing Story: A School Is a Place to Learn
Mom Is Human: a Memphis Memory
/ˌSHto͝orm o͝on(d) ˈdraNG/ noun – turbulent emotion or stress. In the eastern suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee, you can tell a tornado’s coming—or at the very least a horrific storm—long before the civil defense sirens sound. The wind picks up red soil from rice farmers’ fields over in West Memphis, Arkansas, near the western shores of … Continue reading Mom Is Human: a Memphis Memory
The Boldness of Eccentricity: A Remembrance
The woman standing at the front of the classroom never suffers fools gladly. Instead she writes theorems on the green chalkboard rapidly, with her back turned to a roomful of privileged ninth grade girls at this pressure cooker prep school in Memphis, girls poised for success in one venue or another. She is lean, a … Continue reading The Boldness of Eccentricity: A Remembrance
Sycamore Stories 