THE MEMPHIS PARK COMMISSIOn

The Memphis Park Commission was one of the best I had ever seen. Each community had its own park and they were landscaped and built with baseball fields and pavilions with bathrooms.  I have lived in a few cities but none of them seem to have the recreational facilities and parks that Memphis had when I was growing up. We seem to have taken that for granted when we were kids.  Memphis, Tennessee was designed for families and communities.  Even in those days that took quite a bit of doing by our city fathers because some of these lands could have been used for commercial projects, apartment buildings are other moneymaking ventures that the city could have undertaken. I’m sure there were businessmen that had begged and pleaded at times to get these properties but in our day the city held fast and they became parks, nature trails and recreation facilities for our youth and the use of the city elders.  Again, I wish to take my hat off to those early developers of Memphis, thank you for giving us the sense of community that these Parks and recreation facilities gave us thank you.  We even had softball tournaments and various other things that the park commission set up for us in the summertime at these Parks.  I’m sure this took its toll on the city budget but as long as I’ve frequented those parks, they always had park commissioners in the summer and organized activities for the kids.  They even opened up the gymnasium at Airways Junior High School to act as a community center for us in the summertime.

I remember that very well because my parents ran a concession stand out the back of Airways Junior High School. They opened up a small room that opened to the outside, and put tables to block off the entrance to that room from the outside and sold cokes, potato chips, popcorn, candy bars and many other items for at least three or four summers that I can remember for the Airways Athletic Boosters Club.  Now I don’t want you to think that it was only my parents or that I think that it was only my parents because it wasn’t, the organization of the Airways Junior High School Boosters Athletic Association was run by almost every parent that was a member of the PTA as well and it did more for the school than just the athletic teams and the band. It gave the school money that it badly needed to give us the education that we got there.  I think we all took for granted everything that we had at Airways, but you know there were a lot of hardworking people and most of those were our parents that made our community as strong as it was.  They looked after us, they worked hard to see that we had the things that we needed to make our communities a home. They did things that parents don’t do today for all of us.  The selflessness of the parents that were in the PTA at Charjean, Bethel Grove and Cherokee Elementary Schools gave us things that no other schools in Memphis had and it was all because of their love for us and our community that made it so strong. When Airways opened and we all got together as one community that love and hard work that our parents put in for those elementary schools continued with this junior high school and our community.  The strongest leaders of the PTAS from those three communities and schools now banded together to make one of the most wonderful and outstanding experiences of my life and I’m sure years too.  This 7th, 8th and 9th grade school that we had was something that the kids do not experience today because of this new development of something called a middle school. 

Personally, I think it was to get rid of all of the extra costs of having sports and athletics and music and bands and these type things.  Our parents would not have stood for this in our day they would have fought tooth and nail for us to have the things that we had in our junior high school.  My father not only worked extremely hard for the Airways Junior High Boosters Club, but he also worked extremely hard with the coaches’ and the Fairview Junior High School Boosters Club when they parked cars every year for the Midsouth Fair and any other thing that needed a helping hand at Fairview.  Fairview made so much money that the Board of Education tried to take the money away from Fairview and give it to other schools as well. My father and other parents that worked to help park these cars for Fairview Junior High School were extremely angry and went to the Board of Education and fought extremely hard to keep this from happening, however they did not win the fight but did come up with a compromise that allowed the Board of Education to share some of the money with the rest of the Memphis City schools but because of the work of my father and other parents, the largest portion stayed at Fairview Junior High School.  My parents continued to work in both of these junior high schools even after both my brother and I had gone on to high school. They took their personal time to help the children of parents that they did not even know.  I don’t think that many of you know that the people that ran the concession stands and parked the cars and worked so that we could have so many things, were my parents.

  There were others that did this too. There were the Bouchers, the Millers and so many others that it’s hard for me to remember them all, so if your parents were not mentioned, please, by all means, mention them. I do not mean to slight them in any way. I just have no recollections of their names as I’m sure you would not remember my parents, but I am sure that you remember the men and women that ran the concession stands during the ball games and the special events that we had at Airways.  Again, thank you for allowing me to come into your life with the memories of my very little life. Your friend always, Keith House