It’s half past ten on my Monday morning, I’m twisting and twirling my pencil around my fingers trying to figure out what my third grade teacher, Mrs. Palfrey is talking about and why she keeps pointing at me. Mrs. Palfrey is the scariest teacher I’ve had so far at Southside Elementary School and she’s definitely the oldest,  she’s at least thirty. My compadre Cheryl is two seats over to my left and I know she’ll tell me later what Mrs. Palfrey is talking about; Cheryl is my best and smartest friend; her Mom’s a teacher, so I know she knows
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When I was in high school, Science Hill High, in Johnson City, TN was like most other middle class small town high schools in Tennessee. The focus of most folk’s attention was sports, beauty and money; not necessarily in that order of importance. For some, academics, arts and community brought up the rear of my high school experience. Unfortunately or fortunately (it depends on what day you ask) for me the first on the list was my main focus in high school. Although, every time I attended a “band thing” or a “Bolding or Ann Hodge thing” (these were the
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It’s my Summer of 2011 and I’m sitting on the beach staring down at my iphone wishing I had some free time from the St. Louis  bureaucracy I’m waiting to hear back from, curious if they’ll ever call me back about my financial bond the City of St. Louis is requiring me to obtain in order to do business in their city. Although my project is less than $25,000 and contracted with a private citizen, the city official explained to me, this so-called financial bond is to ensure I don’t take the citizens of St. Louis for a ride. Your
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I made my first million by the time I was twenty-eight. Unfortunately, I spent $1,200,000 getting to millionaire status. When I started my elevator business in 1994 everyone in my life thought I had either lost my marbles or just plain had no clue what running a business would entail. I had only been in the elevator business for two months, working for a man who would sell his left fourth toe to the devil for a quarter, when I decided this was my opportunity to stand up, get off the bench and enter the court of business. In the
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“Guilt and shame is debilitating”, Oprah says back to the lovely brunette lady with the large brown eyes, as my brother from a different mother roommate, Bob,  hands me another cigarette and proclaims,   “Damn straight Buddy, now that is the Truth!” Oprah, now there’s a person with soul. Annoying at times, yes; self-riotous a lot, for sure; but no one can ever accuse Oprah of not having soul. They say in New Orleans “a person with soul, is a person who has the ability to make someone feel better about themselves, regardless of their condition”. My best friend Bob
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Ya know, telling stories has always been my thing. Ever since I was a kid I can remember loving the expression on people’s faces when I’d come up with a tale (sometimes true/sometimes embellished as my Mommy Gah likes to say) that even surprised my two favorite people in the whole world, my Ma-Maw and my Nonnie. Both of my grandmothers loved to tell me stories and although you could not have found two more different people, both always found a way to bring their stories back to kindness, loyalty, tolerance, forgiveness and  love. On the other hand, writing stories
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“Sweetie, do you want another coca-cola?” my Ma-maw asks me, “It sure is a hot day for April so I guess I better have a glass of ice water because I have to rustle up some elevator sales this afternoon and Coke tends to make me a little high strung-fidgety, and I can’t sell anything to anyone if I don’t seem calm, you know how folks can be Ma-Maw, they’ll think I’m trying to rip them off, or up to no good, or giving them the shifty eye, or something”, I tell my Ma-Maw as I grab a bottle of
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One Wednesday afternoon in early March of 2013, Randy, my head carpenter and I are having a conversation about business and “practical” business practices. Randy and I have been working together on and off for over five years; I’ve designed, he’s built. I suspect many business marriages are born out of the basic knowledge we need one-another in a sort of “necessary evil” kind of way. The only difference from my personal world and my business world is most of my “business partners” are men and most of my close family and friends are made up of women, gay men
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“Buddy?” one of my team buddy members curiously says to me two Sundays ago, “Yes buddy”, I say back, with my usual morning voice, as my two buddies hop in my pick-up truck and we start to head up to my properties on Lookout Mountain to do some yard work. I own several properties in and around Chattanooga TN, so my fellas (my young black guys who work with me almost every day and who help me take care of my real estate empire) and I came up with the name “Team Buddy” about three months ago, in early Spring
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“Hello”, says the voice at the other end of extension two hundred and three “Hey there, to whom am I speaking with please”, I say back in the most polite charm voice I can muster at 7:45am on this hot, Wednesday, ninth day of August, two thousand and eleven morning. “Uuum, you called me”, the soft-spoken, yet altruistic voice on the other end says back to me, as though his first cup of coffee is still marinating his morning vocal cord, “ha! I’m sorry, this is Michele Peterson, from Chattanooga, TN and I’m looking for someone up there at Devon
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