A syllabus for summer vacations to remember

This "Because I Said So" column first ran in The Commercial Appeal on May 26, 2011.

A syllabus for summer vacations to remember 

Another school year has come to an end. If yours was anything like ours, the year was one of ups and downs, overall good grades, some conduct issues, large and involved projects and plenty of homework.  

School days are, by necessity, rigid in their schedules and run smoothly because of their rules.

Summer days are not.

So, to my kids, and to yours if you wish, I give you your summer syllabus.

First, take your school pants, the ones with the knees that are frayed and worn thin, and rip the legs off there at those knees. This is your summer uniform.

Next, go outside and stay there until called in. And then complain that the day is over. Catch fireflies. Explore the woods. Build a fort. Tear it down and build another. Spend an entire day reading comic books. Have your fill of snow cones. Learn the names of the birds in your backyard. Drink from a hose. Track down kids in your neighborhood and get to know them. Read "Tarzan, the Ape Man" beneath your largest tree. Spread wildflower seeds around your neighborhood. Build a sand castle. Laugh at the tide the next day when that castle is gone. Build a kite. Fly a kite. Use chalk to make a sidewalk mural an entire block long. Go barefoot. Everywhere. Learn new songs and sing them. Draw a picture of your house every day and color it a different color each time. Camp in your backyard. Write a story. Write a poem. Plant a garden. Wash your neighbor's car. Go whole days without putting a shirt on. Play in the rain. Shoot 20 baskets in a row. Eat new foods on a blanket on the lawn. Drink lots of lemonade. Make your own popsicles. Eat a popsicle for breakfast. Read your parents' old encyclopedias; they were the first Google. Conduct a census of the squirrels. Climb trees. Oil a baseball mitt. Dig a hole. Read the funny papers. Watch a Marx Brothers film. Forget where you put your video game. Roast marshmallows. Count the stars. Lie in the grass and listen to the cicadas; you'll be adults the next time they sound like that. Make mud pies. Operate a lemonade stand. Nap in a hammock. Run through a sprinkler. Visit the zoo. Stay up all night and watch the sunrise. Tell ghost stories. Build a birdhouse. Ride your bike farther than you ever have before. Swing on a rope. Find some shade.

I understand the concern for lazy children and the fear that the Chinese or Canadians or whatever group is currently overtaking us in math and science scores will be studying these next two months. But maybe we as parents can go this summer without thinking of us vs. them. Maybe we can look at these long summer days through the eyes of our children and remember just how quickly it all slips away.

Kids, soak up these days, and be sure that at the end of the season, when you're back in your desks and your teacher asks, "What did you do for summer vacation?" you can answer honestly, "Everything."

Because I Said So: Teach kids to enjoy city with family

The kids' spring break was a couple of weeks ago and I had big plans. I was going to get on a plane by myself and fly to Antigua where I would charter a sailboat and wend my way down through the Caribbean. Those plans didn't pan out - didn't even make it out of my head - so I opted for a "staycation" instead. I loathe that word, but there it is. I hate it almost as much as the word "blog," yet stay we did. And we cationed, I suppose. And now, I blog.

G & S dig Isaac Hayes' ride

My plan was to see the city, to introduce the kids to where they live, from what they are molded and what it is they should cherish. I wanted to see Sun Studio and the National Civil Rights Museum, the Memphis Botanic Gardens and the Mississippi River itself. I wanted to stroll around the grounds of the Dixon Gallery & Gardens and maybe watch the ducks march at the Peabody Hotel. I wanted soul food from the Four-Way Restaurant.

Fate, however, conspired against us. There was some sickness and days of rain and cold. And, all of these things are quite expensive to do, so we had to be choosey. We visited the Stax Museum of American Soul and had lunch at Dino's Grill, now celebrating their 40th year in business (congratulations!). There was a chalk festival at the Brooks Museum of Art, and some time at the Memphis Zoo.

It was a nice week without much structure as is our wont. And there was plenty to learn, and to relearn, about the city and all it has to offer, from music to food to friends and family. Everyone everywhere, given the chance, should get on a plane sometime and head to the islands and, if you can't do that, then get out in your city and explore. You never know what you might learn.

Last week's Because I Said So column:

Teach kids to enjoy city with family

The week before last, for about half a week, it was springtime in Memphis. Remember that? Temperatures in the 70s, sunshine, the
saucer magnolia in my front yard even dared to show its colors. Luckily for my kids, that was during their spring break, and we took full advantage of it.

The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art held a chalk art festival with folks creating their own works of art on the plaza in front of the museum. Kids got into the act as well and turned the concrete into a rainbow of butterflies, puppies, squiggly lines and shapes. It looked as if spring had fallen upon Midtown alone and blossomed in chalk dust.

From there, it’s only a hop and a skip to the Memphis Zoo. A short trip unless it’s 70, sunny and spring break. The line of cars waiting to get in snaked through the park and down Poplar. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to see the snakes. Or, more accurately, they wanted to touch a stingray. We never did make it into that exhibit; the lines there were too overwhelming for impatient children (and adults). We’ll make a special trip for the rays.

The highlight of the week for me was a visit to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. The museum is a treasure trove of soul, blues, styles and grooves. My kids laughed at Isaac Hayes’ hats and boots; they dug his car with its fuzzy floor and gold detail. They swayed and strutted on the dancefloor in front of a floor-to-ceiling episode of “Soul Train,” and they marveled at the display of black Frisbees. “Those are records,” I explained.

My favorite part is the short film shown at the beginning of every visit. I’ve seen it before, and it never fails to bring a lump to the throat. Stax, in its heyday, rode a wave of hits, fame, funk and, most inspirational, family. Steve Cropper, legendary guitarist for Booker T. & the MG’s, says in the film that when you walked into Stax, you were family. Color did not matter. Until it did. When things turned after that tragic April 4 in 1968, a day we’ll commemorate next week, neither Stax nor the city of Memphis would ever be the same.

In the 10 years since the museum opened, though, that tide has turned again. I saw it two weeks ago in a museum where black and white, young and old, all studied the rise and fall of a great American sound. We laughed at the size of the collars, wiped a tear at the story of a plane crash and danced to the same beat. In a park across town on another day, my kids sidled up to others from throughout the city to revel in color. At our world-class zoo, where there was once a day of the week set aside for black-only visitors, multitudes of all ethnicities wandered.

Last week saw the official first day of spring, though the predicted snow the following day said otherwise. Either way, the long winter hibernation is over. It’s time to get out and visit your city, wherever you live; learn what it holds, its history good and bad, and enjoy time with family that you know, and that you have yet to meet.

© 2013 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Because I Said So: Good deeds can help get us through tragic times

I wrote yesterday's Because I Said So column one week ago today. I had in my head a silly idea where I would come to the defense of Christmas carols, those ditties that become stuck in our heads from Halloween until sometime in early March. I love them, but I know there are others who avoid them at all costs. It's a shame, many of them are good, simple songs with a common denominator and nostalgic flavor we can all take comfort in. My hope was to make you laugh, a little Christmas gift from me to you. When the news started rolling in about the violence in Newton, CT, though, I lost my taste for funny. As the numbers climbed, I lost my voice for singing. I walked up the street that day to meet my kids after school and seeing them walk towards me was like hearing those first few bars of Nat Cole singing "The Christmas Song." It lifted me up, but only for a time, there were too many parents - both in Newton and around the country - grieving. So I sat down and wrote this version in about five minutes, it just poured out of me like a song.

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth.

Helping out can allow us to reclaim holiday spirit

This being the last column before Christmas, I had this funny little bit planned, in the defense of Christmas carols, that much maligned music genre that pops up earlier and earlier each year.

I walk my kids to school in the mornings, and during this, the most wonderful time of the year, we sing on the way there. My youngest daughter has been leading the caroling lately with favorites "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" or "O Hanukkah" from her school's holiday program.

The column was going to be funny and light and possibly a little off key.

And then last Friday, after walking and singing them to school, I went on the Internet to learn that two Memphis police officers had been shot and that one, Martoiya Lang, a mother of four, had died. About the same time, news started coming in about a school shooting in Connecticut that would eventually leave 26 dead, including 20 children.

All of the funny went out of me. All of the music left my voice. What was left was a void and the indescribable urge to see my children, so that I practically ran up to the school at the end of the day.

The acts, of course, are senseless. The fact that they were perpetrated on a mother of four, on the children of so many, is unforgivable. It throws a pall on the most wonderful time of the year, doesn't it?

That day, though, my kids hadn't heard the news. We walked home, and while one daughter prattled on about her class' Christmas party, I heard my 6-year-old, bringing up the rear, singing "Silent Night."

Silent night, holy night.

Mister Rogers, everyone's neighbor, once said that when the news was scary, his mother told him to "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping," and urged us to tell our children the same. And we have, my generation, through Columbine and 9/11 and Virginia Tech and every other unthinkable tragedy that comes to us within seconds through today's technology.

As adults now, and parents, we shouldn't just look for helpers, but we must also be the helpers. There are people in our community who need help, whether from a sudden, inconceivable act of violence, or through a long season of neglect. This is the time to begin helping, during this most wonderful time of the year.

All is calm, all is bright.

If your child is safe at home today as mine are, sitting on the floor beside the tree in anticipation of next Tuesday, watching SpongeBob, eating a Pop-Tart, making a mess, all of the things I make light of here in this space, be thankful and be gracious. Hold them tightly, and do your best to put that music back into their lives.

As I write this, news is still pouring in fast and furious, and things could change, though not necessarily for the better. More bad could happen between now and the day this runs.

But also a lot of good could happen. That's up to you, and it's up to me.

Sleep in heavenly peace, and Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

© 2012 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Because I Said So: Thankful for times past, memories of family

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours.

Thankful for times past, memories of family

It's the most nostalgic time of the year. There are memories everywhere today, in each shaker of spice, in the clatter of silverware and carried in on the aromas from the oven. Who doesn't equate the myriad scents and sounds of Thanksgiving with childhood and the kitchen of a grandparent or great-grandparent?

Today is one of remembrance, a main course of sentimentality simmered over years past when, as children, we looked on from the kids' table to where the adults ate, wondering if the food there just out of reach wasn't sweeter and more plentiful, the talk more substantial and promising.

Time's crawl seemed interminable then, as though it would never get us to the grown-up table. And then one year it did; chairs were shuffled, and a place was made beside a favorite aunt or uncle. We began to look back almost immediately, spending this time each year remembering what it was like to be so carefree and, hopefully, thankful for that time past.

It's been a tough year for our family. My father died in the spring, and just last month we lost my grandfather. Such happenings make the gatherings we're having today, surrounded by family but with an obvious empty chair, a bit more melancholy.

We give thanks for those in our lives today as well as those no longer with us for whatever reason, for those we knew and who enriched our lives for having known them. Look to the kids' table, to that island of innocence, a refuge with its spilled milk, half-eaten turkey leg and discarded cranberry sauce where nothing unforeseen could touch you, where no concerns from the adult world, never more than a few feet away, would ever be seated.

Give thanks for your children who still believe that nothing will ever change, that sickness and sadness are ghouls to be stopped at the doorstep of the family home.

As my grandfather's illness progressed, it was his seven children who came together to look after him, and my grandmother to care for him and wrap him up in their memories.

My aunts and uncles, my mother, have had to act the adult more than ever in the past year. Yet they've also, I believe, spent some time at the kids' table, whole meals of nostalgia eaten with their mother at one end of the table, and their father at the other.

I gave the eulogy at the funeral and, in it, talked of how my grandfather could fill up a room with his very presence. In the absence of his physical presence this Thanksgiving, he is still here with us, the dining room filled with his family and his memory.

Richard J. Alley is the father of two boys and two girls. Read more from him at uurrff.blogspot.com. Become a fan of "Because I Said So" on Facebook: facebook.com/alleygreenberg.

© 2012 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Because I Said So: Vacation agenda sure beats duties back home

The first morning of vacation M, S and I took a walk along the surf's edge and into Grayton Beach. Not knowing exactly where we were going, we ended up at Grayt Coffee House where we sat on the porch, ate cinnamon rolls, drank coffee and chocolate milk, and one of us wrote a column.

It's such a peaceful way to spend an hour, watching the people who pass by as the sun rises higher and the shadows move among the Adirondack chairs, sculptures, scrub plants and flowers of the front yard of this house. I felt I could've spent the entire week sitting right there in complete serenity.

There were things to do, though. There was the beach and frolicking in the waves and sandcastles to build and books to read, so I've done those as well. But I've also made it back to that porch and that porch is what today's Because I Said So column is all about.

Vacation agenda sure beats duties back home

I'll tell you how much longer we have. We have about 500 more words to go.

That's right, it's time for our annual family beach trip. It's the one-year anniversary of finding out how well this family fits into a minivan loaded with beach toys, snacks, DVDs, CDs and a few clothes. Our destination this year is Grayton Beach with its eclectic shops, laid-back environment, funky cafes and, of course, the white sands of the Florida Panhandle.

I sit and write this now on the front porch of Grayt Coffee House with my daughter, Somerset, and her friend, Meredith. It's morning of the first day, and the sun is filtered through the leaves of gnarled water oaks, a musician from Atlanta and his family just introduced themselves and their dog, Annabelle, and joggers pass by at a leisurely vacation pace.

And I think I may never leave.

Instead of packing up in a week to find out how much sand we can squeeze into the van with all of our other belongings, would it be unreasonable for me to just stay on this porch and wave at the people passing by as though I were the business' mascot, or a sunburned and sand-flecked cigar store Indian?

Do my kids expect more of me?

They expect me to make enough money during the year for this trip, though they have no concept of what a vacation like this costs. They expect me to drive them 980 miles round-trip, though they have no idea what it costs me mentally to have them whining and pleading for stops behind me, and asking me that same question again and again (only 220 more words to go now). It's a week in which they expect me to build a sandcastle, throw them in the surf, slather them in sunscreen and grill supper.

Nobody expects me to stay on this porch for the rest of the week. Or the rest of the summer. Or, if it's not a problem, the rest of 2012.

Do they really expect any more from me?

My concern is that they may all want to join me on this porch where I sit beneath a handmade metal wind chime with the word "serenity" stamped into it. They and their snacks and their toys and their DVDS and sandy beach towels.

As we get older and have more and more kids, the agenda for vacations is filled less with what we want to do and more of what we have to do. But we also find that what we have to do while away is more fun and, in some ways, more meaningful than what fills the responsible days at home.

Planning and building that castle, jumping in the waves with my youngest on my back, pointing out constellations in the pitch black night and spending a morning lounging on the front porch of a sleepy little coffee shop with a few kids is what they expect and, it turns out, just what I expect as well.

This porch is the perfect place to start a vacation. We're here, kids.

Read more from Richard Alley at uurrff.blogspot.com. 

© 2012 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Because I Said So: Freedom best part of summer parenting

Is there anything more anticipated in our relentless, 365-day marathon than the end of the school year? Christmas, maybe. Birthdays, perhaps. But even as adults, we can sense an excitement in the air as the seasons change and the days on the calendar tick down to summer vacation. In all the years as children, with each lesson and rule being hammered into us until we don't have to think before we multiply or label a part of speech, this time of year has become second nature as well.

I felt it last week on the last day of school when I picked up the kids and we stepped off the curb of school property for the last time. I was giddy - giddy! - with the knowledge that we could sleep in the next day and lounge around, and not have to think about homework and lunches and school uniforms. Sure, I have to keep working as I always do, but it's a far less stressful day knowing my kids are playing and relaxing nearby.

I also looked back at the school year as I stepped off that curb, and I think I did a pretty good job. The kids made it to school every day (not perfect attendance, but really, really good attendance), they had something to eat, their uniforms were clean, they had two, matching shoes on their feet. All in all, not too bad.

In this week's Because I Said So column, I actually grade myself. I do this before my kids can do it for me, and I declare myself: average.

Enjoy!

Freedom best part of summer parenting

The school year is over, and it was a good year with advances made, focus maintained and lessons learned. The grades are just beginning to roll in, and I could not be more proud. I've given myself a solid B-minus in School Year Parenting for 2011-12.

It wasn't perfect (it never is), and I'm no show-off, but I did manage to prepare just north of 750 sandwiches since last August. I found socks, washed uniforms, located shoes and walked the kids to school. I napped. I read to my daughter's kindergarten class once. OK, sure, it was only once, but one is more than none, and that's good math. I also helped my kids with some math homework.

My weakest subject was probably handwriting. Specifically, in putting my handwriting on the many forms that Memphis City Schools requires for our kids to take part in any activities. There was a mountain of paperwork in my inbox, and no way to get to all of it, not with all of those sandwiches to be made. So some papers were late, and some never made it to school. Or they made it there, but were tardy.

There were forms for field trips, for projects due and projects done, graded homework, quizzes to be signed and notices of fundraisers. I put these things off, set them aside and forgot all about them.

The first rule is to always show your work. Well, here it is, beneath this pile on my desk, still.

There were tests, too. Spontaneous questionnaires by people I'd run into at Lowe's or Kroger -- "Papa quizzes," if you will -- and I was expected to know the answers. "Sixth-grade ... baritone saxophone, Japanese and Spanish, soccer ... 14 years old ... TCAP ... peanut butter."

School-year parenting is different than summertime parenting, isn't it? During school, there are rules and regulations to adhere to, time schedules, adults standing at the front of the room telling you what is and is not acceptable. But in the summer, I can do what I want, when I want. Mostly. As long as the adult at the front of the room says it's OK.

During these 10 weeks of summer, we will sleep late and eat at all hours of the day. We'll go outside when the sunshine calls and come in for television and naps when the shade begins to vanish. I will still make sandwiches, and I will still walk with my kids, but I won't have to sign the forms to say they can go to the zoo, I won't have to wake them before sunrise, and they can spend whole days with no shoes for all I care.

Summertime Dad will get an A-plus. I can feel it. I've been studying for this since late last year, somewhere around sandwich No. 220. I've memorized the formula, I've solved for X and found that X marks the spot. And that spot is poolside, where I'll be with a cool drink in my hand and working on a passing grade at passing the time. 

Richard J. Alley is the father of two boys and two girls. Read more from him at uurrff.blogspot.com. Become a fan of "Because I Said So" on Facebook: facebook.com/alleygreenberg. 

© 2012 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Because I Said So: Our time machine is wrapped up in a new year

TARDIS (it's a science fiction thing)

A new column for a new year. This is my latest column in The Commercial Appeal.

My great-grandmother, Catherine Zanone, always preached that if you work on the first day of a new year, then you'll work for the entire year. Sage words of superstition from someone who lived and worked through the Great Depression.

I've always heard, as well, that whatever you do on the first day of a new year, you'll do the entire year. It's where resolutions come from, I suppose; the get up and go to actually get up and go, whether to the gym or a walk around the block.

I don't cotton to resolutions myself. Yet, on the first day of 2012, among other things, I sat and watched the first episode of the new season of a wildly popular British television show called "Doctor Who." It's a show I've never watched, which makes me the minority in my own home. This past summer, my wife and kids spent mornings at the pool and then long afternoons watching past episodes and whole seasons of "Doctor Who" together. It seemed an entertaining bonding experience for all of them.

I thought I would make an effort this day, this first of the new year, to take an interest in their interests. I have to say, I still don't get it. Just like resolutions, neither do I cotton to the show's genre of science fiction. But my kids get it. They gasped and commented on subtleties gleaned from past shows; they laughed and cheered at this Time Lord (the Doctor is a Time Lord, for those fellow uninitiated).

Near the end of the episode we watched, the Doctor says that with the aid of his TARDIS (his a time machine, I learned) he has access "to everything that has ever been or ever will be."

I've written here plenty about time travel -- I don't know why that is, whether there is a reluctance in me to see my kids grow up, or the desire to speed that process along. I believe time travel is possible, not in the science fiction concepts of "Doctor Who," Audrey Niffenegger's novel "The Time Traveler's Wife" or Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim, but in flashbacks triggered by trips through family photo albums and stories from our childhood, from our parents' childhood, and all the way back with tales of the Great Depression from generations past.

The new year, and a new beginning, is its own time machine. That auspicious stroke of midnight is a time to reflect on the past year while looking ahead to the future, both immediate and beyond. It's a moment between calendars, just between taking the old down and hanging a new, that is filled with nostalgia, reflection and possibilities.

And, sure, it's a time for resolutions. The time to promise to be a better person or to make a difference; to change who we are and become who we want to be, whether a better parent, better storyteller or time traveling Time Lord. It's a time to vow to do something as simple as recalling the good from the past year or promising to sit and watch a favorite show with your child.

It's all up to you -- everything that has ever happened or ever will happen to you is in the palm of your hand.

Richard J. Alley is the father of two boys and two girls. Read more from him at uurrff.blogspot.com. Become a fan of "Because I Said So" on Facebook: facebook.com/alleygreenberg. 

© 2012 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Because I Said So: Christmas spirit should be more than seasonal

Coming up with column ideas is not an easy task. I don't know how others do it several times a week, it's difficult enough for me to do every two weeks.

At this time of year it seems there is even more pressure. It's Christmas, and with that there needs to be a big splash, right? This is the column meant to be a present under the tree, with a big, red bow, for my readers.

This is the fourth Christmas I've written a "Because I Said So" column. Some are funny, some are touching; all, I think, are hit and miss. Hopefully, though, I've hit more than I've missed.

Please enjoy this year's offering, and please have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, from my family to yours.

Charles Dickens and Ebenezer Scrooge remind us to seize the moment and to treat every day as though it were Christmas.

George Bailey and Clarence the angel remind us that no man is a failure who has friends.

Buddy the Elf reminds us that the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

And Clark Griswold and Cousin Eddie remind us that it's illegal to empty a chemical toilet into the storm sewer.

My 5-year-old daughter reminded me the other day that there are still no presents wrapped beneath our tree. There are presents, to be sure, just not wrapped as yet. But we're busy, aren't we? We parents with our jobs and bills and responsibilities. It's easy to let the time of year slip away from us, or for its meaning to get lost in a knotted string of numbers and details.

It was quite a number of years ago that a man came in to shop at a little retail store I had Downtown and we chatted at the register. I'm sure at some point I talked about my four kids because, as he was leaving, he stopped, turned around and came back in to thrust something in my hand. "That's for your kids," he said before leaving again. I looked down at a hundred-dollar bill. I was speechless. Times were tough, and the money would come in handy; it was all so unexpected.

I told my kids about the stranger. He was rail thin and had a long white beard and white hair. Months later, during December, my daughter mentioned the man out of nowhere and said he must have been Santa Claus.
I had never even considered that.

Stories abound lately to remind us what the season is about and that it shouldn't be merely a seasonal feeling. They remind me of the good Samaritan who wandered into my shop that day. Across the country, anonymous donors are paying off layaway balances at Kmart stores, ensuring a Christmas morning for kids who might not have otherwise had much of one.

And, in probably the greatest gift of the holiday season, troops from all over the country are returning home from Iraq. Men and women who have been away from loved ones for months and years will be able to see their families and hold them in the light of a Christmas tree at last.

Bing Crosby, among others, sang that he'd be home for Christmas. Make a home in your hearts for the less fortunate during Christmas this year, and in every season of the next year. It's what Scrooge would have wanted, it's the spirit that George Bailey was searching for and it's something even Clark Griswold found.

The spirit of the season is all some people want to see wrapped up beneath the tree this year. My daughter will be taking inventory.

Richard J. Alley is the father of two boys and two girls. Read more from him at uurrff.blogspot.com. Become a fan of "Because I Said So" on Facebook: facebook.com/alleygreenberg.

 
© 2011 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

"Not Just An Anonymous Number"

I'm not going to get too much into the whole online shopping vs. local shopping debate this holiday season. I've done plenty of both; the UPS man is making just as many trips up our driveway as we are out of it. For 10 years, though, I owned a small, specialty retail store in Downtown Memphis, so I have a soft spot for the entrepreneurs out there who have so much riding on every holiday season. My solidarity with them is also why this op-ed piece by the great Richard Russo for The New York Times (Amazon's Jungle Logic) struck home with me. Likewise, it's why I find this rebuttal by Farhood Manjoo for Slate (Don't Support Your Local Bookseller) absurd and argumentative merely for the sake of contradicting.

The argument and editorials have made their way around the internet quicker than a picture of a kitten in a Christmas stocking, so instead of opining either way I'll leave it with the great Paul Auster, not weighing in on the subject at all, but simply being interviewed recently for BAMcinématek (the Brooklyn Academy of Music). In speaking of the owner of a tobacco shop he frequents in his neighborhood to buy his Schimmelpenninck cigars (the place is the basis for Auster's short story "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story," which was the basis for the film "Smoke"), he hits the nail on the head regarding the importance of supporting local shops and shopkeepers. In my opinion anyway.

I started  thinking about him and how in neighborhoods in New York, in big cities, you have these relationships with people. They're not friendships, certainly not friendships, but they're warm acquaintance-ships that enhance daily life, make it better, make you feel that you're not just an anonymous number living in an anonymous Metropole; we had some very nice conversations.

Memphians

Earlier this year I had the privilege of being asked to contribute to a new book about some of the well-known, and lesser-known, personalities in our city. The book is called Memphians (Nautilus Publishing) and it is being launched this Thursday at Burke's Book Store.

It's a big, beautiful book at almost 250-pages with large photos and bios written on folks such as Shelby Foote, Isaac Hayes, Charlie Vergos, Clarence Saunders, Charles McVean, Jim Dickinson, Justin Timberlake, Furry Lewis and many, many more. There are those you'd expect to be in here, and some you might not have.

It was a lot of fun researching and writing these pieces, and fun working with the other writers and editors - Dan Conaway, David Tankersley, Dennis Phillippi, Richard Murff and Neil White. I hope you'll come out and join us all this Thursday at Burke's. We'll be there, as will a whole lot of other Memphians.

Thursday, November 10

5:30 p.m.

Burke's Book Store

936 South Cooper St. 

(in the heart of Cooper-Young)

Happy Old Year, Happy New Year

Two-thousand and ten. Fin. 

This is the time of year when, popularly, we look back at the year past and say, "good riddance." Not me. Not this year. I like 2010. There have been years recently when I've been glad to see them go. Hell, I've opened the door for them and shown them the way with a hand to the collar. This year, though, was good to me.

I turned 40 this year and it feels right. I think maybe I've been 40 for quite a while and am finally able to live in its skin. I feel like Benjamin Buttons as his body ages backwards, yet his years advance chronologically. At a certain point he was the same age as his body and that was the time he felt he got to be himself at last. It's the same situation in the novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer, because it's almost the exact same story.


It was a good year professionally as well. Things clicked and my pencil did right by me. I wrote a cover story for Memphis Magazine, a cover story for The Memphis News, I was admitted to the Moss Fiction Workshop with the great Richard Bausch, I finished the first draft of a novel and am halfway through the first draft of a second, I wrote a few short stories and one of them, "Sea Change," won the grand prize for fiction in Memphis Magazine. I am currently working on a cover story for The Memphis Flyer which should appear in February. 


That's not a bad year.


I don't make resolutions for the new year, but I do look forward. I hope, in 2011, to complete the first draft of the second novel and then buckle down and get to some deep revising of both books. I hope to place some more short stories in literary magazines. I hope to keep the writing moving forward ... always forward.

At the end of 2010, life is good. My family is happy and healthy in a house that is raucous and fun - three adults and six kids, how could it be anything but? There is food in the cupboard, a stable of close friends, music on the hi-fi and the ideas come fast and furious. 

The new year has a lot to live up to, but I'm starting it with the advantage. Now here's wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year. 


Here's a view of my desk at the end of 2010:

Because I Said So: No debate here: Make it a real tree every year

In the previous post, I lamented the process of writing a column. Or, rather, coming up with an idea for a column. As I'll do in such situations, when inspiration is slow (as slow as Christmas sometimes) in striking, I walked around our doughnut-shaped house with pad and pencil in hand and stared at the kids, stared out the windows, peeked into the refrigerator and lay down on the couch in my office.

Later that afternoon, we put up the family Christmas tree in our living room. Kristy went to get one and, while she was gone, I climbed into the attic to pull down the boxes of decorations, dug up the tree stand and cleaned it and told the kids, again and again, to stay away from those decorations until the tree arrived.

And when the tree arrived, while I had my face stuck in it removing it from the van, forcing it into the stand and attempting to right it, the one thing that struck me was the smell. The aroma of this particular tree, for some reason, seemed more pungent than in past years and it flooded me with memories and with the season. And since then, I've heard more people comment on the smells of Christmas as they decorate - their own trees, candles and baking.

So here is this week's column as seen in The Commercial Appeal. Smell it and enjoy.

When I was a kid, the Christmas tree lights we had were the large, outdoor-style lights. They were painted bulbs of red, blue, orange and yellow, and the paint invariably chipped, allowing the pure white light to peek through. I don't know where those lights came from; they predated me, but that strand was something we always had balled up in the collapsing cardboard box of decorations hauled from the attic each year.

For our first Christmas together after my mother remarried, my stepdad, Steve, came home with a 14-foot tree that just barely brushed the peak of the cathedral ceiling in our house in southeast Shelby County. In the place of a metal stand was a crude X of 2-by-4s hammered to the trunk just like in the movies. We raised it and used twine to tie it off to various places in the living room to hold it upright in a scene that would have made Clark Griswold proud. I'm not even sure how, or if, we decorated it to the top.

I've had a Christmas tree in every place I've lived as an adult, and all have had one thing in common -- from my childhood tree weighted down with 50 pounds of lights to the towering spruce of adolescence and the very tree in our living room as I write this -- they've all been real.

I refuse to take part in the real vs. artificial debate. I don't want to hear about your aluminum, your multicolored, your fiber optic. There has never been any choice for me; give me the sap, the imperfections, the needles swept up well into springtime and the smell. That smell is the very scent -- along with baking cookies, cinnamon candles and anticipation -- of the holiday season, the aroma of memories.

The tradition in our house has become one where my wife, Kristy, goes to a lot to find the tree. I have no more business choosing a tree than I have in choosing an assortment of doughnuts for this family; something is always a little off -- too short, half of it is missing or dead, there aren't any chocolate sprinkles on any of these. I buy, I don't shop, and I've been known to walk onto a lot and point at the first tree I see. "Tie that to my car."

So she goes, and she has fun with it, and she always finds a good deal and a pretty tree. My job is to cut it from the car, haul it inside and make it stand upright. My job is to keep from saying things in front of the kids that will keep me on the naughty list. But we manage to stand it up, and have it stay there, every year, and once it's decorated and the kids are standing around watching, despite the imperfections, it's perfect.

Not only does it look perfect, but it smells perfect. It smells just like Christmas.

Richard J. Alley is the father of two boys and two girls. Read more about him and his family at uurrff.blogspot.com. Alley and Stacey Greenberg, the mother of two boys, take turns on Thursdays telling stories of family life in Memphis. Read more from her at fertilegroundzine.com and diningwithmonkeys.com. Become a fan of "Because I Said So" on Facebook: facebook.com/alleygreenberg.

Some Un-Assembly Required

Mr. and Mrs. Claus went to bed late last night trying to wait out C and S falling asleep. It took another half hour - or two glasses of wine - after the traditional Christmas Eve viewing of It's a Wonderful Life for the low, rhythmic snoring to begin in earnest.

What was nice this year, though, is that there was really no assembly required. We've had assembly for many years and it's not so easy when you're very tired from the wine.

Assembly, however, has been replaced by un-assembly on Christmas morning. It takes me forever to de-wire all of their toys from the packaging with scissors, pocket knives and expletives flying. And I've had very little wine by 8 a.m.

I usually end up frustrated and just yank the thing out, pulling with it scraps of cardboard and plastic attached. And then I thrust it at the kid, "Here! Here's your damn toy!"

It's like something from Currier & Ives & DHS.

Yes, Virginia ...

I believe in Santa Claus. Of course I do. But I don't believe that Santa coordinates all those elves and toy making and delivering. No, that would be Mrs. Claus.

Luckily, I have a Mrs. Claus here at the house. She does the planning and the buying and the baking and makes the gift decisions. I ... carry the tree into the house. It's a lot of responsibility, really.

Oh, and then, after Christmas, I carry it back out and dump it on the street.

But Christmas around here happens because Kristy makes it happen, and without her, well, all we'd be celebrating is the winter solstice. Maybe we'd make some popcorn, or watch a little TV. Perhaps a trip to Walgreens so the kids could pick out their favorite size of battery. It certainly wouldn't be the time of year filled with wrapped gifts and cookies and a decorated tree.

So, thank you, Kristy. And Merry Christmas to all the Mrs. Clauses out there who, I know, are the busiest and jolliest of the elves.