He walked through the grounds of Elmwood Cemetery, alone.

He did this often, visiting friends and family, but mostly his wife. Outliving them all had never been his intent. Yet, as his wife had often said, he never did know when to quit.

In his hand he carried a brown bag, his lunch. When it was nice out like this, he liked to eat with her. Like the picnics they used to take.

After sweeping the leaves off her grave, he sat down on the concrete bench nearby and started into his lunch.

“Love, for all Eternity” read the inscription on their shared head stone, and he still meant as much as ever.

He ate his lunch and talked with her, after which he felt himself getting so very tired.

Maybe he just rested his eyes for a moment he’d feel better.

When he opened his eyes, his wife was there, holding out her hand. She looked just as beautiful as the day they were married.

He took her hand and stood up, all the weight of age leaving his body.

“I’d hoped when I went it would be like this.”

“Like what?” She said with a sweet smile.

“Perfect.”

Memphis Note
Elmwood Cemetery is the city’s oldest functioning cemetery, as well as the most historic. It has a mass grave of yellow fever victims, former mayors, even outlaws and madames. But, it is also one of the most beautiful places in the city, with monuments dating back almost two centuries.

I checked that my car doors were locked before I walked up the steps to my father’s porch. Couldn’t be too careful in this neighborhood anymore.

“Hey, Dad.” I said upon reaching the top. He looked away with a frown.

“Given any thought about what I said about getting out of Orange Mound?”

“I like it here.” Was his terse answer.

“Dad, I know you’ve got pride in your neighborhood, but it’s time for a change. Time to see something new.”

“Feh.” He spat a wad of tobacco into the yard. “I was in the Army. Saw Europe, Japan, Korea. Reckon I seen more of the world than you. And even with all that, I’d rather be right here than any place I know.”

I shook my head and laughed.

“What’s so funny” He asked sharply.

“W.C. Handy said the same thing about Beale Street almost a hundred years ago.”

My father regarded me sternly for a moment.

“So, what you’re sayin’ is if hang onto this house long enough, people are gonna be bang on my door to turn this place into one of them fancy neon light bars?”

That was the first time we laughed together in years.

Memphis Note
Orange Mound was formed when a real estate developer bought an old plantation and began to sell the land to African American families in the late 1800s. The area grew into one of the most vibrant predominantly black communities in America. Sadly, the positive act of desegregation was a double-edged sword for Orange Mound. Young people with new mobility chose to move out of the neighborhood, property values dropped and crime moved in. In recent years, Orange Mound has been the target of large revitalization programs that are breathing new life into the historic community.

He was very tired these days. Even more so than normal, which was something considering he slept nearly fourteen hours a day when he was a spry, young thing.

When he came here no one cared that he’d been in the movies or that he’d come from across the ocean or that Volney wasn’t even his real name. His new neighbors just looked him over, turned their noses up, and went about their business.

Ingrates, he’d thought at first. They should appreciate being in the presence of a star like him. But, when the meals brought to him were the same as everyone else’s and he was given exercise hours just like everyone else, he realized that he was the same as the rest of them.

And for a while, that Volney made very sad. Not a deep sadness, but an accepting kind of sadness. The sort you get when things have changed forever and won’t go back.

He still had his roar, though. The resonant, primal, echoing shout that had made him famous.

As he headr the gate clank open for their morning feeding, Volney decided that he should remind everyone why lions are the king of all beasts.

Memphis Note
The lion you see at the beginning of classic MGM movies is the Volney of this story. He was born in the Dublin Zoo and originally named Slats. He was brought to MGM by his trainer Volney Phifer, his future namesake. After retiring from the movie business, Volney was sold to the Memphis Zoo, where he spent the rest of the day in the zoo’s cat house, his roar echoing through the building and cinematic history.

Lizzie Bolden was beyond old. She was older than the nursing home she lived in, older than the trees in the front yard, older than the street it was built on. She was older than any other living human being on the planet.

And Lizzie could absolutely not figure out where all the time went.

It felt like just the other day she was helping her momma and poppa, both freed slaves, with the field work. Then it was just this morning that she and her Lewis were getting married, and her first son, Ezell, following minutes after. At lunch, she blinked, and the world was at war, blinked again and everyone was poor, another blink and an even bigger war was raging. By the time the sun was starting to set, Lizzie had more grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren than she could count.

She’d told a reporter this once, after she’d been declared the world’s oldest person, and he had called it life’s Doppler Effect. Said that it was on account of her moving toward tomorrow, pressing up against the future.

But Lizzie knew the truth.

There was just too many amazing things to remember them all.

Memphis Note
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Bolden was born in 1890 in Somerville, TN. She passed on in 2005 at the ripe old age of 116 here in Memphis. When she died, she was the oldest person in the world. Lizzie’d spent the past century in and around Memphis, watching the world change from the South of the Reconstruction era to the modern one we live in now. The list of things Lizzie Bolden lived through are far too numerous for me to mention.

Over in the corner, a very excited, rail-thin Englishman fiddled with glowing knobs and buttons on a equipment rack that towered over him.

I watched him absentmindedly, chewing on a toothpick. After a bit, he seemed to forget I was even there, so I cleared my throat. He turned ‘round, and gave me an overly-wide smile that only the most rarified of the white-boy-glam-rocker-coke-fiends are capable of.

“Right, yeah, man.” He brushed a greasy strand of hair back from his face and sat down on the stool beside me. “Can I just say how much of an honor this is? My old man, he was, like, your biggest fan. This project, it’s like a dream come true for me. Bridging the old and the new, you know?”

From somewhere he produced a wrinkled and worn manuscript book. “Right, so I’ve got some words for songs here. Did you want to -”

I stopped him right there. “Son, you don’t write down the blues. You live it. You let it talk through you.”

He blinked at me.

“Right, man, yeah. Just like Jay-Z.”

I blinked back at him.

“What the hell’s a Jay-Z?”

Memphis Note
Brit-rockers U2 came to town in the late 1980s and cut a few tracks with the legendary BB King at the equally legendary Sun Studios as part of their Rattle and Hum recording/documentary project. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if one of today’s talentless pop artists tried to capture lightning twice. I don’t foresee it ending well.