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This photo was taken last August at a relative’s wedding. On March 14, my husband and I will celebrate our fortieth anniversary, and I’m remembering some things about that.

Our wedding was simple, much simpler than the weddings of today. It was overshadowed by the fact my husband’s grandfather was in a hospital with terminal cancer. We suggested changing the date when we learned about his illness, but he didn’t want us to do that. He died two days after the wedding, almost as though he was holding on until we were married. My husband’s poor grandmother, mother, and other family members had to go through what should have been a joyous occasion while their hearts were heavy with the impending loss of Pawpaw. My husband, too, for that matter. Looking back, I wish we had re-scheduled, but who knew?

Our photographer didn’t show up when she was supposed to. I called her, and she said she was having trouble with her equipment. She rushed over from a nearby town, but none of our indoor pictures turned out well, every one of them dark, We ended up with proofs instead of photos, with the exception of two or three pictures. No video to commemorate and relive the event, but back then the video concept was fairly new.

But none of that matters now. The memories of that day have faded with time, but that’s really not important. What’s important is the life we’ve built together.

I have never been the type to be public about the people I love. For whatever reason, it makes me uncomfortable and makes me feel as though I’m sharing something that shouldn’t be shared. But as I contemplate our anniversary and the events of the past several years, I decided it was time to honor, in a public way, my husband. It may embarrass him, but I think he deserves to be recognized. So this blog is my present to him, my way of showing him how much I appreciate his love and support through the good and the bad.

Perhaps the best way to explain what I am talking about is to list some of his qualities that make him my best friend as well as my partner in life.

1. He’s a great communicator. Many men aren’t, but we can always talk things out. We have had very few “fights” over the years.
2. He treats me like a queen. He compliments me even when I don’t deserve to be complimented and praises me for my feeble attempt at writing, art, and other activities. However, a disclaimer: he was very happy when I finally threw away my pink, fuzzy robe. However, he has never (as one of my boyfriends did) tell me I was getting fat!
3. He is considerate of my interests. Another disclaimer: that wasn’t the case early in our marriage on either side, but we have evolved!
4. He has supported me in every career change I’ve made and didn’t consider himself to be “babysitting” when I had to attend night classes while working on my master’s degree.
5. When I was working, he helped around the house. Every Saturday, we double-teamed it. The only thing he didn’t do was cook, but he is now learning to do that. Once again, he’s evolving. So am I.
6. He has had to deal with high-maintenance in-laws. Health issues and other things. I won’t elaborate, but let’s just say that we’ve had some challenging times in that arena, but we continue to work through them.
7. He is super-empathetic to my handicap. He knows me and how it grieves me to be unable to do so many things. He understands how it breaks my heart to lose my independence. He lets me cry it out and talk it out whenever I want. I’m getting better, but it was tough during the initial adjustment period.

There are other reasons, but these are the ones that stand out to me the most. He is not a perfect person, just as I am not a perfect person, but we accept each other’s imperfections and continue to support and care for each other. I am not trying to paint a rosy picture that looks like a Hallmark movie. What I am trying to show is how we have grown in the forty years we’ve been married and how much I appreciate him for the man that he is.

Not everyone is as fortunate as I am, but maybe I should point out that it has not always been smooth sailing. The early years were bumpy at times, but as the years have marched on, we have created our own dynamic, our own rhythm of life. And it works for us.

For those of you who are blessed with a spouse who “completes you,” congratulations. For those of you who have known the heartbreak of divorce or loss of a loving spouse due to death, please know I am not trying to make you feel bad.

I am simply wanting to give my husband a gift for our anniversary. A gift of public acknowledgement and praise for the husband and father he is and the grandfather he is about to be.

I just hope this doesn’t embarrass him…oh, well, this blog will end this summer anyway!

I haven’t blogged in a while, and I am blogging now to let you know I’m going to stop. As a matter of fact, I’ve already notified WordPress not to renew my subscription when it comes due this summer. That means, if I have interviewed you and you want to keep a copy, you may want to print it before the subscription expires as I’m sure it will say at that point that the site is no longer available.

Why am I no longer going to blog? There are several reasons, but the primary reason is my vision. As it continues to deteriorate (will it ever stop?) and seeing becomes more and more difficult, I’ve decided not to do things if they bring me little or no joy. Don’t get me wrong. I will always do the right thing and do things for others (that brings me joy) and do what I have to do, but if doing something as simple as a blog leaves me exhausted and frustrated, why do it, right?

I’m not a quitter. It’s just that I have to find other avenues to express myself and help others.

I am toying with the idea of a YouTube Channel with a focus for the legally blind, as that is what I am. There are about one million blind/legally blind people in the United States. That umber will continue to grow as people age and develop conditions like macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and others. In my quest for knowledge and emotional support, I have discovered a channel called The Blind Life, which has helpful tips, technology information, and insights.

Part of the frustration with this my condition is the lack of information you receive from your doctor. “How bad will it get?” I asked him when the atrophy first started in 2018 (I’d already been getting regular eye injections in my better eye for eight years and had been legally blind in the other eye for 29 years). His response? “No one knows. Everyone is different.”

But I researched. And I found out that people with my condition are typically legally blind within ten years of onset. Why didn’t he tell me that? I wouldn’t have put off those trips I wanted to go on in retirement. New York City. The Rockies. A Western driving adventure through the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana. Another cruise, this time to the Virgin Islands. I wouldn’t have spent time editing other people’s books. I would have written my own instead (but I thought I’d have my own publishing company after teacher retirement.) I would have done more of the arts and crafts I loved because I can’t do them anymore.

I had to find for myself and with the help of my husband things like measuring cups and spoons for the visually impaired, a magnifying device that exceeds the abilities of the Walmart variety, and IrisVision, the headset/phone system that looks like a virtual reality headset to help me read (although I can’t actually read, just a few words) and watch television from a normal distance. I had to figure o9ut for myself to buy an adaptor for my laptop that could be connected to an HDMI cord of a not-in-use 47 inch television so I can use the computer (and sometimes have to wear IrisVision with that.)

Why did the clinic not give me that information? I don’t know.

But that’s what my channel will be about. I will share what I’ve learned and what I continue to learn. I will allow people to share their feelings in the comment section because even legally blind people can use speech to text and have web pages read to them by their computer (something else I had to learn about from a friend who is battling macular degeneration bu not yet legally blind in both eyes). I want the channel to be encouraging but also empathetic.

I hope to get the channel up and running in the next month or so, and I will blog about it at that time. I may blog about supporting caregivers of those who are handicapped as the caregivers are often overlooked. They have emotional burdens, and people forget about them. I may blog about a book or two coming out soon (because I can only stand to work on the computer for about an hour at a time, writing is a very slow process).

One of my sons cautioned me about letting my disability define me. I guess he’s right, but at the same time, I’m not giving in to it. I’m just trying to figure out what I can do to help myself, help others, and keep my life moving in a good direction.

I think the YouTube channel will help me accomplish those goals. The audience will be those who are in the same boat I am or caregivers for them. It will be focused, not random.

Many thanks to those of you who have followed my blog or read it when I’ve shared it on social media. I appreciate those of you who have allowed me to interview you, those of you who have commented on what I had to say, and those of you who shared my posts with others.

Now I’d better get busy figuring out how to do this YouTube Channel thing. At my age nothing with technology is easy!

If you’ve ever moved from one town to another, it is likely you feel nostalgic at times about the place you left behind. Of course, if you disliked that place, you block it out of your mind or think of it more as “thank goodness I do’t live there!” We moved to Arizona when I was three and moved to Middle Tennessee at the end of my sixth grade year. I missed Arizona and my friends a great deal, but I adjusted and built a good life in my new town. My parents moved away from there after I graduated from college, and with the town being 230 miles away, I haven’t gone back very often because there was no reason to do so.

However, (and this is where those of you who have moved around a bit might relate) I had the urge to go back and travel the roads I used to travel, see my old schools (well, school, because two are gone now), see the two houses we lived in, and so forth. My thoughtful husband knew I was having those thoughts and suggested we go visit. Not go visit someone. Just go visit the place.

So off we went on a beautiful fall day. Two hundred thirty miles later (interrupted only by the obligatory stop at Cracker Barrel), we arrived at our destination. First stop was the newspaper where my father was production manager for ten years. The good folks there allowed us to come in and look around. Wow, what a difference 41 years make! The newspaper industry has changed completely. The large back room that once housed a darkroom, layout tables, machines, and a huge printing press is now full of huge rolls of paper and the printing press. My dad’s office space was still there, and it looks as though maybe the same furniture sits in it, but I was a little misty-eyed remembering him in that spot. He passed away in 2012, but his presence in the place he loved to work was still strong. He worked with the architect who designed the building, so the place was his pride and joy.

We spent about two hours or so driving around and walking the once-familiar streets, and when we left, I was appreciative of the opportunity to go there and sad at the same time.

So much had changed. The old stores were gone, replaced by stores selling cheap items or even left empty. The nice neighborhoods of the 19i60s and 1970s are now older, and while still nice, they look…older. My former church has an addition to it as well as an extra building at the back. My high school, now a middle school, boasted a chain link fence to keep out unwelcome visitors. Signs of the times.

In a nutshell, my former home didn’t feel like home anymore. It wasn’t just because of the changes I saw. It’s because the people, or majority of them, that make my memories so special, are no longer there. Most of my close friends from high school have moved elsewhere, and my friends who do remain in the town have moved on with their lives, just as I have done.

I will confess I used to think I’d like to go back there in retirement. Nothing against my current town, but for personal reasons, I have never been as contented as I would have liked to have been living here. The town is wonderful, full of wonderful people, but for personal reasons I would never make public, it is not the town I wanted to live the rest of my life in. You may feel the same about where you live, and what gets you through the present time is the dream of where you can live when you retire.

After our trip, I realized going back to Middle Tennessee is not a good idea. Too much has changed. Plus, it’s too far from my children. Not extremely far, but it’s too far for easy weekend visits like we have now. There is no reason to relocate in an attempt to recapture the feelings of my youth. No doubt the reality of those years was not as smooth as my faded memories, and no doubt living there once again would be completely different than it was then.

One of my mother’s favorite sayings is “Time changes everything and everybody.” Very true. But every now and then, it’s fun to step back in time and have your heartstrings tugged by the memories of the people and experiences that once filled your life, the people and experiences that made you who you are today.

Those of you who have always lived in the same town, or even those of you who moved so frequently you didn’t have time to plant roots anywhere, can’t relate to what I’m talking about. But to those of you who understand because you’ve been there, I hope you have the opportunity someday to do as I did, to travel the old paths and reconnect with the person you once were. The experience itself will be bittersweet, but it will be worth it.

Or at least it was for me.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I were sitting on our front porch enjoying the early morning sunshine and cool temperature, and we started talking about the differences in the way we raised our children and the way we were raised. That led us to talking about how each generation has its own way of doing things.

Our parents, for example, were raised in The DePression, so life was all about survival and needs with little to no concern about wants. We were raised by parents who loved us by seldom told us they did. They were primarily concerned about our needs with some interest in our wants. Then our generation had kids, and we were all about our children’s needs AND wants. We told our children (and still do) that we loved them and showed them we loved them, we hoped, by doing things with them and supporting them in their interests, something we didn’t always receive from our own parents. They loved us and cared for us, no doubt, but their priorities were more about caring for our physical needs.

Our conversation got me to thinking about how people show their love for others, and I had heard about Gary Chapman’s book about the five love languages. The purpose of the book is to help people build better relationships by recognizing their own ways of expressing love for others and recognizing how others express their love for them. I’ve only read summaries of the book, so I don’t have an in-depth knowledge of the ideas he conveyed, but I think the five ways of expressing love are easy to understand.

According to Chapman, the love languages are words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. In other words, telling people we care, doing things for them, being gracious when others give us something, spending time with them, and hugging someone can show our care for them.

I think we do all of these things, but maybe we have a tendency to use one love language more than the others. I haven’t taken the online quiz to see which is my preferred love language, but I don’t have to because I already know what it is. And I know the love language that is hardest for me to accept.

The same love language. The love language I primarily use is the very language that is hardest for me to accept.

Acts of service.

I have the most amazing friends and family. Linda, Julia, Cyndy, and Martha Lynn will drive me anywhere, if I ask them, and they even call and ask if I need anything. I appreciate that so much, but I hate to ask them. (If you don’t know me or haven’t been following my blog, I have vision loss and can no longer drive.) I so appreciate what they do while hating the need to have them do it.

But they are appreciated more than they know.

Then there’s Barbara, who flew here at her own expense and gave up her two-week vacation to help my mother take care of my dying father so I could keep working. Dad was in hospice care, and we had no idea how long he’d last, so I couldn’t abandon my job as a middle school principal. As it was, he died five days after she left. Did I mention that Barbara is not even a blood relation but an in-law? Talk about an act of service. Would you give up your annual vacation to do that? I still feel there is no way to repay her.

So, I appreciate and value acts of service. I believe all the love languages are important, but the words of affirmation are hollow if not supported by the other four. People need to be told they are loved, but if we don’t show it by our actions, they are just words.

My parents loved me. My mom, who is still with us at 93, loves me. But we never say “I love you.” Not in words. I’ll write in in a card for her birthday or Mother’s Day. I’ll say it in ways like, “Well, I do these things for you because I love you.” But it never has been our way of communicating. They felt awkward doing it, and I still feel awkward saying it to her, although I have no problem telling my children I love them.

Maybe it’s generational. Maybe it is just our family dynamic. Maybe it’s a personality thing.

Whatever the reason, I still maintain that actions speak louder than words. What about you? Which love language do you prefer?

How many times have you heard that phrase or even said it yourself? I’ve heard it from people I know and even from people on television. I’ve read it on Facebook or at least seen the praying hands emoji or icon or whatever you want to call it.

This morning the weather was beautiful and a perfect time to have my morning coffee on the front porch. With very little traffic, perfect temps, sunshine, and only the sounds of nature surrounding me, it was an ideal time for prayer and reflection. So I prayed. Then I went inside for a coffee refill and realized my prayer had been the typical one and fairly short. I realized I had a long list of people to pray for, so when I went back outside, I prayed once more, this time praying for people by name instead of a general “be with the sick” or “comfort those who are grieving.”

When I finished and resumed sipping on my morning brew (flavored with Almond Silk Vanilla creamer, just a side note here), I thought about the phrase and how often it is said. A friend of mine once posted the question on FB if we actually prayed for people who asked for prayers on FB. I was guilty of commenting “prayers for you” or something along those lines but later on forgetting who it was I said I’d pray for. My friend’s question prompted me to start praying for those people the minute I read the post, before I even commented. That way, I couldn’t forget.

My thoughts were further deepened by the message from one of our ministers this morning. His lesson was about perspective, but his Biblical example was Jonah and how different his prayers were In Jonah 2 and Jonah 4. How ironic that my morning thoughts were reinforced by a sermon.

That irony or coincidence prompted this blog post. All too often, we give lip service to praying for others yet don’t do it. We say all the right things but don’t always do them. Prayers don’t have to be a long, flowery speech or even some sort of pattern we must follow each time we pray. A prayer can be as simple as “Lord, strengthen (name) as she battles cancer” or “Lord, give strength to (name) as he grieves over the loss of his wife.”

Is prayer enough, though? True, believers contend that God can do anything, but maybe we need to consider that we are God’s servants and by serving Him, we serve others. We put action behind our words. It is fine to pray for someone, but maybe that person needs to know you’re thinking of him and praying for him. Yes, you can comment on Facebook. You can send a text message. You can make a phone call. You can send a card. You can do something that lets that person know you truly are keeping him in your thoughts and prayers.

When my father was dying, a process that took a couple of months, I appreciated people telling me they were praying for him and for us. When my friend and her husband showed up one night with homemade soup and stayed for a short visit, the distraction of good conversation and the knowledge I had such a wonderful friend warmed my heart more than the soup warmed my body.

That’s just one example. I could go on and on about other personal experiences, but I’ll save those for other blogs. The idea I’m trying to express here is simply to avoid using hollow expressions like the title of this blog and make them real. If we say someone is in our prayers, then we should pray for them. We should show them in some way that we are doing just that.

As always, my blogs are simply my opinions, and you may disagree with me. But when I post this blog on my FB page today, I am going to tag my FB friends for whom I pray regularly. I’m going to take my FB friends for whom I’ve prayed recently because of illness or loss or difficult circumstances in their lives. And I’m going to try to do a better job of letting them know that I care.

What??? How could retirement not be the dream come true for everybody?

I can think of several reasons, which is why I’m sharing them with you now. Before I do, however, please understand that most retirees I know are very happy in retirement. A relative in Arizona, who retired in 2013, told me she thanks God every day that she is retired. Her life is full in retirement, although COVD has slowed it down somewhat, and she is happy with that slowdown.

I, on the other hand, am not a slow-down kind of gal. I like being busy. And I understand that my disability has slowed my life down in ways I never could have imagined. Being unable to drive is…well, horrible. I have close friends and family who drive me places, but the loss of independence is…well, horrible. No other way to describe it, and I’d be lying if I tried to make it sound all right. For an independent, formerly very busy person like me, it’s…well, you get the idea.

But that’s not the issue for you. You are fairly healthy, able to drive wherever you’d like, and looking forward to retirement. Here are my suggestions for what you might want to consider before doing so (other than the obvious, like making sure you can live comfortably on your income).

1. Your friends still work. When I first retired and was still able to drive (just here in town), most of my friends were still working. This meant I had all the time in the world to do things but no one to do them with.
2. Your spouse is still working. Have the two of you talked for years about the cruises, the trips to the mountains, the long-term stays on the beach? Kind of hard to do if your spouse is still working. Maybe you want to go alone, but most people prefer companionship. After all, it’s been a joint dream.
3. You don’t enjoy watching television or reading that much. I am not a daytime television watcher. I can’t sit for hours and watch programs, whether talk shows or Netflix or YouTube or whatever. Daytime means I need to be doing something, not sitting. And with only two in the house, there is only so much housecleaning that needs to be done I do listen to audio books (and would read actual books if I could), but even that can get old if you do it too much.
4. Retirement can be fattening. I gained five pounds the first year after retirement, and it’s taken me a year to lose them. As a teacher, I was on my feet all day and logged 6,000 steps most days before getting off. It’s kind of hard to move around that much every day without a purpose for doing so, and being home makes it a lot easier to snack when you shouldn’t.
5. Every day is Saturday (except for Sunday), and therefore, there’s nothing to look forward to anymore. How I looked forward to Friday nights, the best night of the week! Friday nights were super special because I knew an alarm clock would not be waking me the next morning, and it was so special to sit around on Saturday mornings before doing whatever I needed to do for the day. You don’t realize how great it is to have something to look forward to until you don’t have it to look forward to anymore.

I know my opinion is somewhat skewed because my retirement is marred by my disability. Maybe it wouldn’t be boring for me if I could do all the things I dreamed of doing. I do love not having to get up at 5:30 every morning. I sleep in until 6:00 or 6:30, ha ha! I love sitting in my pj’s and robe while I drink coffee and take my time getting dressed. I don’t miss teaching, although I miss the students and my co-workers. But I do miss having a goal to work toward and a reason to do something.

However, this brings me to another point. What if you are like I once was, a person with multiple ideas and goals for your retirement years? I was going to do volunteer work, countless arts and crafts projects (one thing I kept putting off was building a dollhouse and decorating it, one of those kits at Hobby Lobby), drive to different places to see friends and family, write those best-selling books (LOL), and more? What if you would be perfectly happy golfing several times a week or other hobbies?

In that case, be careful about putting off retirement too long. I believe in being financially responsible and wise, but consider your health and the fact you are aging. If you keep putting off retirement, even though your retirement fund is ample, you may not be able to enjoy those retirement years. Your health may rob you of the ability to do the things you enjoy, and you will wonder why you waited so long.

As I said, most would likely disagree with me. Most people are not hyper like I am, and as I said, my opinion is somewhat skewed. I just thought I’d share a different view of retirement as food for thought. After all, we’re all unique, and what makes one person happy makes another person miserable.

You just have to figure out what kind of person you are.

Back in the Dark Ages (or when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, as I used to tell my students), when I was in college, my service sorority (Gamma Sigma Sigma) helped raise money each year for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. We worked with a service fraternity that did what was called The Push for St. Jude. The guys literally pushed a wheelbarrow (I think–memory is a little fuzzy) the 125 miles from our campus to the hospital in Memphis, a long walk made even longer by collecting money for donors along the way. I participated in a walk through Jackson, Tennessee, on a very cold January day, and the memory still lingers.

That was the beginning of my devotion to this charity. Living in the same town in which I went to college, I know and have known people who have benefited personally from the hospital. Math-a-Thons in the schools, donations from organizations, fund-raising events sponsored by parents of surviving children or even children who succumbed to childhood cancer, and other activities keep the research hospital ever present in our lives.

How fitting, then, that one of my sons married an occupational therapist with St. Jude. How ironic that he should meet this incredible young woman with a heart for children and the emotional fortitude to be strong and encouraging to them while they go through treatment. Through her, I’ve learned even more about the hospital and what it does, and it simply is incredible how far-reaching the impact of St. Jude is. They do so much more than treat their own patients. Their reach is world-wide, and their mission is clear. Let’s save as many children as we can.

But let me go back a bit. Over the years, I had heard about the marathons held in various cities across the country to raise money for St. Jude, and I really wanted to be a part of it. I was a runner in college but switched to fitness walking, an activity I have never stopped doing and an activity I credit for me being my age and being so healthy I take no meds at all except for the eye vitamins for my macular degeneration.

Oops, off track there. Back to the marathon. I wanted to do it, but a marathon is too long. I learned there was a 5K, a 10K, a half-marathon, and a full marathon. Our  niece does the full marathons each year (she’s in her mid-forties and still running them), and she was a good source of information about the event in Memphis and what it involved. I was thrilled to learn I didn’t have to run it, that there are actually lots of people who walk it or do a combination of walking and jogging. I couldn’t envision what it was like, and I had the crazy notion that I’d be so slow, I’d be at the end of the line and last one to finish and all that. I didn’t want to be stranded in Memphis, lost and wondering where to go, and I couldn’t find anyone willing to walk it with me.

So I procrastinated. I used my long work hours as an excuse. “I don’t have time to train,” I said. Or “I don’t want to do it alone.” Or even “The race is the first Saturday in December. I don’t like cold weather.” I made excuses but still dreamed of doing it.

With retirement in May, 2018, I realized I couldn’t make excuses anymore. I had all the time in the world to train. I would do it alone because I’d been reassured I would never be alone wandering the streets of downtown Memphis. And the weather? I’d just have to be a big girl and suffer through it.

I shouldn’t have worried, and I shouldn’t have waited so many years to do it. It was 70 degrees that day, the race being delayed an hour due to storms that had to get out of the way. Twenty-six thousand people were lined up in front of the FedEx Forum, and my husband and daughter-in-law helped me find my corral. When you sign up for the event, you give them a time limit you think you need to finish the race, then you are assigned a corral based upon your projected time.

I signed up that I would finish the 13.1 miles in four hours. I finished in three hours and seventeen minutes. Yes, I did jog some, but I couldn’t help it with all the excitement and the adrenaline pumping. At about mile marker 7, I began to wonder if I could finish it, but I found my second wind. At every mile marker, someone was handing us water or Gatorade. There were outdoor toilets if you needed them along the way. Part of the route took us by the Mississippi River. Part of it took us across the St. Jude campus, where employees, parents, and some patients were lined up to cheer us on and give us high five’s with those foam hands. Residents cheered us on from condo balconies. “You can do it, Pam!” they’d shout. My name was on the label (can’t think of another word for it right now) attached to the front of my shirt. Also attached to that label/sign was a tracking device so my husband and children could follow my progress on their phones. That same device recorded my time.

I know this is sideways, but I couldn’t figure out how to flip it, so…be creative in viewing!

Can you tell how important this event was to me? It was the highlight of 2018, more than my retirement, more than anything that year.

This year, however, the race can’t take place in Memphis. Instead, they have planned a virtual event in which participants do the races in their own towns and turn in their times. It won’t be as much fun. I’ll miss the energy from the other participants and the spectators. I’ll miss the camaraderie of fellow-racers who greet each other and cheer each other along. I’ll miss running across the St. Jude campus (I had to run that part, no way could I take the easy way and walk while seeing those kids and their families and knowing what their struggles might be), and I’ll miss the feeling of being a part of something bigger than myself.

In a way, though, I guess I will be. I may be walking a route in my town alone, but I’ll know that the money I have raised for the event is definitely going to something greater than myself.

You, too, can be a part of something bigger than yourself. Go online and donate. You don’t have to be a regular donor. You can just give one time. You can donate to my fundraising page if you’d like. Here’s the link:

https://fundraising.stjude.org/site/TR/Heroes/Heroes?px=5077785&pg=personal&fr_id=121077&fbclid=IwAR1Mafhu2o6nHJtxLBMIPe89Vz-xpM8HmeXOqyoC8XeTtpkaIAF5MUMLztE

Thanks for any help you can give to the patients of St. Jude!

This week, my blog has focused on Elvis because of Elvis Week, a celebration of his life that occurs each year in the week preceding the anniversary of his death. Today I’m excited to welcome radio and current EPE/YouTube personality, Tom Brown, to my blog.

Tom, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I know you are very busy with Elvis Week activities and other responsibilities, so my appreciation for your time is doubled. Before we start talking about Elvis, I’d like to talk about you. I read a very interesting bio of yours online, so I’d like for my readers to find out about your fascinating life and career.

Please share what your current job responsibilities are.My real gig is I’m the morning show host on Sunny 93.3 in Tupelo from 6:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. Monday through Friday. And I’ve been hosting events for Elvis Presley Enterprises since 2001.

 Born in Roswell, New Mexico, and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, you’ve lived and worked in cities like Los Angeles and St. Louis. Tell us how you got started in a radio/television career.We moved to Tupelo when I was three. My dad was in the Air Force and was the recruiter here. I went to Ole Miss and majored in theater and minored in journalism. In high school, my part-time job was working in the movie theater here as house manager and projectionist and did that through the first two years of college. I always knew somehow I was going to be involved in theater. Right out of Ole Miss, I got a job here at the local TV station. I did whatever just to get into television. From here, I went to Shreveport, then St. Louis, then Los Angeles with TNT, and during those years, I was an entertainment reporter doing celebrity interviews. Then I moved to Atlanta in 1998 as vice-president of production for Turner Classic Movies.

 (At this point, Tom and I discussed his weekend schedule. What follows is a summary of what he told me.)When he lived in St. Louis and worked with the ABC affiliate there, Tom’s weekend schedule was a hectic one. Each Friday, he flew to either Los Angeles or New York, each flight just two and a half hours from St. Louis, and upon arrival prepared for the celebrity interviews he would be doing that weekend. That preparation included watching two or three movies. The next day, he went to the location for the film junket. If you’ve ever seen the movie, Notting Hill, you have seen how a film junket works. Reporters are given access to the stars of the film being promoted and go from actor to actor. According to Tom, many actors were often bored by answering the same questions over and over, and they didn’t understand why those questions had to be asked. He strove to ask unusual questions along with the usual in an attempt to give his interviews a fresh twist.

Of the multitude of celebrities he has interviewed over the years, his three favorites were Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, and Burt Reynolds. “Any time you would sit down to talk to them, they were always there to listen to you,” he said. “They made you feel like you were the only one doing an interview that day. They made you look good. This was in the days before the Internet, so I would always do the research and find some hot button topic to talk about.” Tom went on to say that Burt Reynolds was a favorite actor. “When I worked as a projectionist, I probably saw Smoky and the Bandit two hundred times. So, it was special to sit down and talk to Burt Reynolds.”

 You told me you were active in plays in high school and college, but you also told me Johnny Carson of The Tonight Show was your career idol. Why was that?I knew I wanted to be on television or on stage or something, and in high school and college, I really didn’t like learning lines and scripts and doing the same things the same way every time. When I watched Johnny, I watched him make everybody else look good, and by him making everybody else look good, it made him look great. The training in theater helped me to have confidence on stage and be prepared and all the tricks you learn to be in front of people. What you get from theater is how to meet people, how to interview, how to fake it until you figure it out.

As much as I love hearing about other celebrities, it’s time to talk Elvis. I first saw you in a “Gates of Graceland” episode on the Graceland website, and I loved getting the behind-the-scenes information and seeing items stored in the archives. Most people don’t know that Elvis Presley Enterprises is the company that handles all things Elvis. You said you’ve worked for them since 2001. What have your responsibilities entailed?I started hosting events for them in 2001, and we started “Gates of Graceland” five years ago. It’s a good way to show people the things they can’t see on the tour. For example, on the tour you go around the outside of Vernon’s office, but on “Gates,” we went into it and opened the drawers.

Are there any interviews for the series that stand out to you?My favorite one might be going into Vernon’s office to see his organizational files and the checks they cut. It showed the business side of Elvis Presley. One of the other ones I really love is unusual and fun.  Angie’s staff cleans the mansion and then put everything back where it was. (Note: Angie Marchese is in charge of the archives at Graceland and is featured in numerous “Gates of Graceland” episodes.) One time while they were cleaning, they found a Samurai sword in a drawer and didn’t know why it was there. They did what they were supposed to do and put it back. We featured this in one of the episodes. The head of Elvis’s security, Dick Grob, saw the episode and called me and said he knew why it was in the drawer because he was the one who put it in there. A few months later, he came to Memphis for an Elvis event and we took Dick to where it was found, and he told us the story. You can watch the episode to find out why it was there. Angie and I were both hearing it for the first time when he told us on camera.

I think radio and television personalities like you, and writers/bloggers like me, have a curiosity about the world and the people in it. That curiosity is often manifested in the things we write about or the people we interview. Do you come up with the ideas for the “Gates of Graceland” series, or are they assigned to you?Alicia Dean, who works for Elvis Presley Enterprises, is the producer, and she and Angie get together and talk about things to do. I never really know what we’re going to shoot.  I do better if I don’t know. When you see me on camera looking at an artifact, I’m seeing it for the first time.

You have interviewed numerous people associated with Elvis. Have you ever talked with Priscilla or Lisa?I’ve interviewed Priscilla, Lisa, extended family members, co-stars, band members, and his closest friends. The only person in the Elvis circle I never interviewed was Elvis.

Too bad you never got to interview him. Did you ever get to meet him or see him perform? I never met him, but I did get within four feet of him. In 1974, I had tickets to an evening concert at Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. My mom dropped me off at Graceland earlier that day, and there were other people hanging around. Elvis’s uncle, Vester, was in the guardhouse by the gate, and he told me if I hung around a while, Elvis would be coming down soon to go to the Coliseum for the matinee performance.  When the car came down, I remember seeing dark hair, sideburns, sunglasses, and a white coat, and a hand with rings on each finger when he waved as they went by.

 Let’s talk about Elvis Week. Fans already know this, but some of my readers may Not. Elvis Week is held each August and is normally full of activities like ETA performances, competitions, a 5K (well, there used to be one), interviews with people who knew and/or worked with Elvis, musical events, and special activities like a bus trip to Tupelo to see his birthplace. Because of the COVID pandemic, this year is a virtual Elvis Week. What about the candlelight vigil that is always held the night of August 15, when thousands of people, carrying candles, walk by the graves next to the mansion? How is it being handled?They ran many scenarios of how candlelight could proceed, and they came up with an abbreviated version. People were encouraged to go online and sign up for a time, and they will go through during that block of time. There’s a limit every hour to the number of people that will go through. I’m in the 10:45 to 11:00 p.m. window. My wife and I are going as fans because my work is over by then. I didn’t want to miss it.

Mrs. Marian Cocke, the nurse who took care of Elvis the last few years of his life, is a friend of mine. She said when she first met Elvis, she admitted to him she didn’t care much for his music. However, when she got to know him and came to love him, she became a huge fan of all things Elvis. What about you? Have you always been an Elvis fan, or was it something that came about as you worked on Elvis-related projects?When we moved here when I was three, we lived three streets from his birthplace. In kindergarten, we drove by his birthplace every day going to school, the same school Elvis attended growing up. With his music and movies and the history of his life in Tupelo, I was surrounded by reminders of Elvis, so I came to know a lot about him. I just felt like Elvis was a family member I didn’t know very well. Learning about Elvis was encouraging to me growing up because my dad said, “If this kid could do this, you can do anything.” I don’t remember a time of not being an Elvis fan. I’ve always been the Elvis guy. It’s been the arc of a rocket with my work in radio and television colliding with Elvis. I couldn’t do this for someone like Bruce Springsteen because I could never learn enough about them. With Elvis, it is a lifetime of learning. It’s a cumulative knowledge.

Is there anything you’d like to add?One thing I always love to include is a quote from Jerry Schilling, a friend of mine and a friend of Elvis. We have to pass Elvis down to younger generations. To someone of any age, if you introduce Elvis music and Elvis movies, Elvis will take care of the rest. There’s something about that guy. It was true in 1954, and it’s true today.

Thanks again, Tom, for taking the time to talk with me. I enjoyed our chat and am looking forward to more episodes of “Gates of Graceland.” I appreciate how you TCB! (Elvis fans know what this means!)