Green and Gold Again

Over the last quarter of a century, I have tried to explain what JCM was like to people I know who are from Jackson or grew up out of town. I find that when I tell them about state championship athletic teams or Ivy League graduates I hear my own words not making sense to me. When I tell them about a racially diverse school of over 2,000 students that offered AP classes and rigorous honors classes, I regret that I didn’t appreciate what my high school was when I attended. When I choose stories to read with my middle school English class that I once read as a student at JCM, it is the best way I know how to honor the truly outstanding English department that shaped my love for reading in high school.

Golden Child: Devante' Chaney

A cage is not a place of comfort. It is a place that confines and holds and traps living things. Its steel is unforgiving; the metal shaped to imprison. In professional and amateur fighting such as mixed martial arts or kickboxing, cages are used symbolically. Two men enter as equals, but one leaves a winner and one leaves defeated. Though cages made for fighting do not hold anyone against their will, they can be just as uncomfortable and unforgiving to the people fighting inside.

JKSN: A PURPOSE & A PLACE

JKSN. If you know, you know.

You also probably know if you live in West Tennessee because those four letters have been seen often on t-shirts over the past year. JKSN is Jackson minus the vowels and a silent “c.” There’s no room for passivity or wasted space with this brand. There’s no need for vowels, either. Vowels are melodious and can stretch words without necessity. Consonants are sharp and strong like the letters on the shirt and the city they represent. JKSN. Jackson. If you know, you know.

Summer Oasis

There’s a piece of land on the north side of Jackson that looks pretty much any other open lot. It sits at the edge of town just beyond an abandoned golf course and right behind VFW Post 1848. You could walk on that open lot and never have any idea that underneath your feet lay broken pool tiles, aqua blue concrete steps, maybe a piece of an old diving board—remnants of bright summer days, now covered in dirt and twelve feet below the surface.

#OurJacksonVote: The Runoff

Two or three times a week, I put my body through the ringer. For thirty minutes, I do exercises that a man approaching forty probably shouldn’t attempt. I throw my body to the ground and spring up as quickly as I can. I push a weighted plate across the floor. I crawl like a bear up and down mats made of rubber. After all that is finished, I put on boxing gloves and hit a heavy bag that sometimes feels as if it’s made of concrete. When I kick it, my foot and shin turn red and bruise. My shoulders and arms feel as if they’re weighted by stones.