The idea came about to do a series of the stories on the parks because there are a great number of lovely ones around and I figured it a good thing to go exploring and learning a bit so as to help other people want to find some balance or joy in the splendors of our most beautiful land in the world.
Lacking any sense of direction but forward I get turned around every which route along the way. To keep things on a topic, I would learn some history, go for walk and pick up trash for an hour or so, take pictures about it, and, because I am extra, something extra.
Away we go.
Memphis Parks has a handsome new site that makes it easier to find which parks with which amenities and services are nearest you. There is an About page with general information of the start in 1901 and formative design.
In 1901, landscape architect George Kessler created plans for a parkway system like those in Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Overton and Riverside Parks were connected by long, leafy avenues in a formal pattern that preserved green spaces and provided a dominant grid pattern, giving shape to the City’s eastward expansion. The parkway system is now listed on the National Historic Register giving shape to the City’s eastward expansion.
As Memphis grew, so did the city-owned parkland and facilities. Robert Church, the City’s first African-American millionaire, established a park that still bears his name.
About – Memphis Parks
Robert Church became the first black millionaire around here. Some years later, his grandson Bob upset boss Crump so much that Crump had the fire department burn the Church house to the ground, tore down the adjoining black, middle-class neighborhood and replaced it with Foote Homes, a textbook ghetto. Preston Lauderbach did a fine piece on it for Places Journal.
The City of Memphis Parks Master Plan 2020 has a nice explanation of the scope of the parks.
“The Division of Parks and Neighborhoods contributes to the city’s overall rich cultural history by supporting active civic culture reflective of diverse community voices. The Division provides an array of services for people of all ages, supporting their engagement in health and wellness, lifelong learning, and leisure and recreational activities. This is facilitated through a vast system of parks, public spaces, community and recreation centers, museums, and sports facilities. In all, the system is comprised of over 5,600 park acres across 192 locations and 30 indoor recreation facilities.”
I am a writer long aspiring for a gig. Prior to most all other things, I taught math so numbers register quickly. If the wind of grace has shifted my way, I would have work for some while. For various reasons, I chose to start with Oakhaven Park out of the 192 strong (and growing) possible places. According to the census, it is an unremarkable park but that does not make it incapable of being unforgettable and with a story all the more telling.
Concerning the individual parks, the Memphis Parks about section explains, “each Memphis park has a unique story- and you can learn all about Memphis park history and more via the Memphis Public Library’s Memphis Room.”
An internet search brings up the location. There is a two line summary, “Welcome to Oakhaven Park in Memphis, Tennessee. Due to it’s location next to the airport, this neighborhood playground is a great place for watching planes. The soccer field is informal so please bring your own goals.” Scrolling further yields some miscellaneous stories (one homicide in which the killer, killed, and the police are to blame) and little else.
All days ending in y are good for going to the library.
This would be first time in the Memphis Room since it moved from the old main library on Peabody. I had not lived a life fortunate enough to have reason but hard work reaps rewards through diligence.
I went to the young adult area to find a book for my son. They did not have the original choice and so I went with one that had a great cover and then proceeded up the stairs to the top floor of the Benjamin Hooks Library and Resource Center.
It was a Sunday so I wasn’t sure if the Reading Room would be open but the gentleman at the desk assured me that I was at the right place for finding information on the parks but the fellow who would know how to find it would be right back.
A curteous and efficently helpful man with a name plate that read Robert showed shortly and guided me into the room. The space is primely situated and sorted to be for reading and pondering. The back wall is all windows and looks west from a high enough point that the tree tops obscure much of the city beneath.
I looked around some more and got sidetracked by a Libertyland map.
And then Robert returned with files.
He handed me a handful of articles, “These are what we had on Oakhaven,” and two stuffed folders, “There are the ones we have for the parks, let me know when you finish, those are 2 of 8.”
Doing some studying and research at the library is an experience rewarding in itself. It helps to have something in mind but it is not necessary so long as you have an open one.
The first two parks folders are mostly information regarding official parks plans, the one from the 1800s to 1950s and the second up through the 70s. A priority has been made from early on to make parks accessible for all and to preserve natural space for Memphians and their guests to commune and recreate in and with peace. There has been an almost equal lack of priority on maintenance of all things excepting the Memphis Zoo. This origin story is a little too ripe with metaphor to not be the work of a chaotic-evil god.
“The zoo began, without being planned in 1905. A.B. Carruthers accepted a black bear from Natchez in payment for a wholesale order of shoes. Mrs. Carruthers found that her nice yard at Galloway and Evergreen was being torn up by the bear tied to a tree. So “Natch” became the mascot to the Memphis baseball team. But he broke his chain at the ballpark one day and scuffled with a ball player. “Natch” was then moved to the park and tied to a tree with a stouter chain. Other animals were donated, the Memphis Zoo Association was organized with Mrs. Carruthers as first president, and the zoo was under way.” This telling came from City of Parks, by Paul R. Coppack, a pamphlet released by Commerce Title Guaranty Co pt2.
For those who question why I seem to come back to the racist ass history of this town…I started out just trying to go for a walk in the park; it is unavoidable.
I found nothing regarding Oakhaven Park but a few lines in a May 18th, 1967 article about $3000 slated for playgrounds at McFarland Park and Oakhaven Park.
The stack of clippings was about Oakhaven, the community. It began in the early 50s as a beyond-the-city-limits community for white people but they planned on neither the airports’ growth nor the ineptitude of racially defined policy through the years. The airport began telling the tiny town it would be expanding in the late 60s. Oakhaven residents made some noise to defend their area from encroachment. The airport was threatening to the west and a new development, Operation Breakthrough was being discussed in an area to the south, (which would have been a federally funded middle class housing that was testing technology as means to reduce housing costs). They brought in the paper to tell their story in a appeal to preserve what they so cherished. William Green wrote…
“Several old-timers and teenagers shoot pool and gab at the Oakhaven Recreation Center. Women wearing slacks shop at various food stores.
It is peaceful and quiet in Oakhaven — and it is the peace and quiet, the easy “back home” atmosphere that its residents want to keep.”
“It’s peaceful,” said a young businessman who moved to Oakhaven from the city several months ago. “There aren’t a whole lot of robberies. It’s just a nice place to live.
People get along. We have a good school. One thing about it, it’s all white.”
The article went on, Green closed with his question to Rev. Mr. Morrison who responded,
“The future of Oakhaven? I believe it will –His words were lost in the whistling, thunderous takeoff of a jet airliner, climbing north into the gray, evening sky.”
Memphis -Shelby County Airport Authority chairman E.W. Cook explained in 1971 , “‘We’re here and ready to move on purchasing your homes’, Cook told some 200 residents.
He then told them what procedures to follow for selling, and added, “You will get a fair and equitable price.”’ The article also pointed out that, “Cook said the property would not be needed before 1985.” (Press-Scimitar 1971)
While the airport, itself, expanded into the western section of the community, airport and distribution related development grew along the northern through eastern boundaries. One need only look at it on the map and see how such a thing would come about. Residents are still trying to keep from warehouses from further encroaching.
There was a Commercial Appeal article in 1995 by Ron Maxey for the Commercial Appeal, “Oakhaven adjusting to many changes.” discusses both the dynamics of the airport and population migration.
“The first significant changes in the community, as in many others, occurred along racial lines. The Oakhaven area’s racial composition began changing after busing brought more blacks into the community in the 1970s to attend Oakhaven elementary and high shools.
Getwell Gardens, a predominatly black public housing development operated by the Memphis Housing Authority, was built on Winchester, just east of Old Getwell in 1971, further diversifying the area’s racial makeup.”
The real shift in this process was not in “bringing in more blacks” but in economics. Putting a bunch of poor people in a neighborhood does little to enable the impoverished but it does add much vigor to the economic engines of poverty.
The article added little else unique but this detail, “Bob Mackey, pastor of Oakhaven Baptist Church and resident of the community, pointed to planned improvements at Oakhaven Park as an example of efforts to improve the neighborhood. The park, on Bishops Bridge south of Christine, is scheduled to get an open-air pavilion, trails, and other improvements as part of a city parks improvement program.”
To keep from staying focused, I look at my phone all of the time. The book had a post from Eli.
“Bump Session. Oakhaven at 3.”
tbh, this would be my second time going to the park. This fact only helped me getting in the vicinity, I still managed to get lost along the way (The Google lady doesn’t know how to get there, either.) After driving around the school a couple of times, I stopped and asked a couple of boys riding bikes the way. One, a heavy-set, caramel skinned young man with an undershirt and durag on pointed.
“Yes sir, you go back that way and make a right and then up a little and take another right.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Unlike some folks directions, his was right as rain and so I pulled into the lot on the eastern side of the park. A group of people were sitting around the picnic tables under the shaded area next to the playground talking and enjoying the pleasant afternoon. Past that is a large field that includes a backstop and fencing for a baseball field (Is the “Bring you’re own goal.” soccer field?). A paved walking trail goes around the park and crosses through in the middle, to the west of the baseball field, next to the open-air pavilion mentioned.
I made my way toward the pavillion, the sun was soon to be setting, a few cars were parked around. From a little ways, the smell of blunt smoke drifted in. Bass thumped and 808s kicked from within. A row of people had their backs lined up to me, watching something I could not see.
If you are unfamiliar with Memphis jookin, the first thing you will notice is the footwork and the way the dancers glide across the floor. This is mixed with the graceful spins and toe stalls of ballet and presented through the street life storytellings of the regional rappers to be an experience for all involved. There are iterations through the past, gangsta walking is the generally pointed to start in the early to mid 90s. It grew from the streets in parks, mecca was Crystal Palace through the years. The dance and profound culture around it grew in form and impact through both its natural vibrancy and a dedication to education at the start.
Memphis jookin is a formally recognized dance with elements that allow it be as refined as ballet and as expressive as only limited by human creativity.
Dance is the what god gave deepest empaths and natural troublemakers to deal with the feelings and stay out the way. Statistics is good for quanta and false advertising but poor at expressing human condition. Even when the numbers substantiate the truth, they don’t say much more than what is clear to those who are aware. People in all corners speak and share their realities. It is not that the telling humanity is so bad at. On the contrary, we are phenomenal at that. Listening is where we fail in all the wrong ways. One has to hear without judgement and see where they don’t look and the picture will come through as clear as told.
The intensity of energy when someone is really getting buck grows throughout the crowd in “Huah’s” and shared joy is so profound that the image comes in at gigawatts
This day’s session is an informal one that Eli brings together. A message or two to the community groups and jookers from around show up. They stand around while someone goes through songs until someone feels its bounce bounce and then jookin happens. It is a time to do what one loves and to bond with others around it. They spend an hour or so dancing, teaching, learning, battling, cracking jokes, and living one the most fulfilling parts of their lives. It’s physically exhausting, all those who take part are drenched in sweat.
Eli and I talk for a few minutes as he loads his speaker and gets ready to go. He got into jookin “because of Michael Jackson. I wanted to do the moonwalk and I practiced in socks on carpet and then moved into the kitchen.”
He shifts it to “when are you gonna start coming out, you know, I do some lessons.”
“I can’t keep a beat. Got rythem but bad timing or something.”
“The first thing you gotta do is find your bounce.”
We messed around and tried to find it.
“You’ll get it.”
I have to since I am obligated to get out on the floor. That is his one rule.
“I tell eveyone, it’s like a blunt, everyone’s gotta hit it.”
We talk for a few more minutes and then he gets in his car to head his way and I make mine to mine.
Put yo trash in the trash, mane.
While I had succeeded at learning some history and seeing some dope dance, I had not walked around the park and picked up trash so I went back a day or two later to do so. Out of regular trash bags, I grabbed a mess of grocery store ones that will one day suffocate the world, lost and refound my keys 8 times, and set off. It was a pleasant morning for a stroll, no way around that.
The 2020 Parks Master Plan places this point near the top.: “With such a vast recreation system, there is a challenge with deferred maintenance (i.e., postponed maintenance activities and repairs) and aging infrastructure.”
Oakhaven Park is unremarkably in need of being tended to.
The most telling sign is the crumbling concrete baseball benches.
The walking trail dips along, in, and out the stands of trees about park and was exactly what I needed to ease the weight of the world I put on my shoulders.
Little could be more natural than finding calm beneath the sweetgum boughs.
One may never know when their attention to detail and craft can have an impact but what makes this steel and concrete assemblage in the middle of a 20 acre park in the shade of the airport special is that someone took the time to pour and finish the concrete to a polish.
The most impressive poison ivy vine I have done seen.
New worlds to be found beneath the pine trees.
Looking from the very northwest corner.
A mess.
Three minutes and one normal plastic bag later.
to be continued…