Introduction to Jim Parker's Corner

My father, Jim Parker, or JC Parker, or James Parker, or James Connie Parker, or James Conway Parker, loved words. When he wasn't talking (which was often), he was writing. He had an opinion on just about any issue and if he didn't have an opinion, it was only because he hadn't heard of the subject yet. Jim's newspaper column, Parker's Corner, was written from his home computer in Waverly Tennessee and published in the local paper. Some other guy named Chris Parker has already taken the blogspot name, Parker's Corner (and if he's going to take the name I wish to goodness he'd actually start blogging instead of posting two piddly tests). I've modified this blog name slightly to feature my father's work.

More than a decade ago, before the days of blogging, I jokingly told my dad that he'd better get a move on compiling his writings because if he waited, I would publish the collection posthumously and make a fortune. He laughed and said, "Go ahead!" He couldn't be bothered with editing, that was kind of like looking backwards, something he was disinclined to do. He preferred spending his time trolling the internet for articles of interest on controversial subjects, the more contentious and in the murkey middle, the better.

I am now going through my parent's house, sifting through two lifetimes of belongings and memories. In the bottom of a seemingly boring box of Reader's Digest books that traveled from their home of 30 years in Dearborn Michigan to their retirement home in Waverly, I found tanned sheets of notebook paper with writings by both my parents. Some are scribbles of songs my dad made up and sang around the house, others are poems he wrote and never shared with anyone, except (perhaps) my mother. I decided it was time to save Jim's work before it got lost in the move to new home. As for Norma's work, some of that is pretty interesting too (and a lot of her pages are copies of recipes from magazines - surprise!), but that's a subject for another blog.

My father left behind a congregation of people who still comment on his articles and poems. Like all columnists, some people were in agreement with him, others were exasperated with him, but I have yet to meet anyone he knew who didn't have a good word to say about him as a person. He was charming and funny, smart and... opinionated. But here's the key difference between my father and many of the talking heads who ruminate frothingly in the media today, he liked to hear another person's opinion, especially if it differed from his. He wanted to know why people who disagreed with him believed and felt as they did. Unlike so many of today's politicians and pundits, his opinion of a person was not dependent on whether their beliefs mirrored his. Would that others in the media held this opinion.