The homesickness never ends.
I left Memphis ten years ago and moved to a small town in Arkansas. So I’m pretty much a war refugee. I miss my hometown. I miss my daughter. I miss my boyfriend. I miss a lot of things in Memphis that don’t exist anymore.
I’m obviously confused.
Yes, it’s safe here. I don’t have to worry about getting out at night. I don’t have to sorry about my car disappearing. I don’t have to worry about my house being broken into. I don’t have to worry about much in the victimization realm.
I just need to get my shit together.
Many years ago, my family walked or rode the bus wherever we went because we couldn’t afford a car. We lived on Barksdale across the street from the Boys’ Club. And we walked midtown. For real.
We walked to PicPac at Union and Cooper to grocery shop. We walked to church at Peabody Baptist at Peabody and LeMaster. We walked to Zayre, which was behind Fred Montesi at Madison Ave and North Avalon – many times just for an outing. We ate at Stoney’s at the Center City Shopping Center.
Midtown was my life. My first job was at McDonald’s on Union Ave at Florence. It had been a vacant lot for many years. There were converted big old houses across Union Ave, one of which was a portrait photography studio. It had large framed portraits in the windows.
When we didn’t go to PicPac, we walked to Seessel’s. It was more expensive than PicPac, but it was much closer and at Seessel’s they let you take the shopping cart home (sign a spiral notebook up front as you left), then they would come by with a van and pick up the shopping cart from the front yard the next day.
Along Union Avenue from Rembert west to Barksdale was (1) The Lamplighter – they had a glass box on the sidewalk with a real lamp burning in it. It was really cool. (2) China Imports – in a big old house set way back off Union Ave. (3) Other old houses that fronted on Union Avenue with businesses in them – one of them a well known Interior Decorating Company (Denaux?).
These houses backed up to the playground at Idlewild Elementary. They had long garages that we could climb the fence on the northeast side of the playground and look into. There were no cars parked in there. Just old worn out wood garages.
I remember when the north-central side of the playground backed up to a forest. There was a space where we put the newspapers when we had a paper drive. I remember when they came in and cut all the trees down to asphalt the entire lot. It devastated me as a child to see all the trees fall. This was the site of the new John T Fisher Motor Company.
Our house backed up to this gargantuan motor company, also. Jesus, it was HUGE. Just tons and tons of asphalt where there had been grass and trees. When we first moved to Barksdale, there was a two-story apartment house next door to the south. Then the Bowen house was next. Apparently, the motor company bought the apartment house, tore it down and asphalted even more property, creating an exit driveway onto Barksdale and a car lot right next door to our house.
So on the walk to Seessel’s were clothing shops, all of which dressed their windows beautifully. To me as a child, it was nothing short of magical. There was The Snooty Fox right on the southwest corner of Union and Idlewild. Another business west of that then The Trousseau. The check out lines in Seessel’s were oriented parallel to Union Ave, as God intended. It was a very busy place. And very nice with the bakery just inside the front door.
Honestly, I’m stuck in the past, I know. There is so little of it left. I just walk along it in my head and enjoy the various sites on the internet that discuss it. But physically, spiritually, culturally, the place I love and crave doesn’t exist anymore. I’m constantly warned by family not to move back to midtown. In my head, I realize that, by and large, it is not where I need to be. But my heart won’t shut up about it. So I guess I’ll walk the streets in Google Maps. And wait for whatever future is ahead.
Tears and Catharsis 