Goodbye to the Head Bruin

What people don't realize about Brentwood High School is that but for the tireless work in the early 1980's of community members (like my mom) and backroom deal making by school board members and county commissioners, like the late Tom Neill, there would be no Brentwood High School.  The fate of Brentwood High School was up in the air until the very last minute as various political factions in Williamson County conspired to prevent the high school from opening in the summer of 1982.  That's another story entirely, however, and not what I want to write about today.

James C. Parker, the first principal at Brentwood High School, died on July 9, 2025.  He was there at the beginning, as they say, and so was I.  Because of that, I can say with complete confidence that Brentwood High School would not have opened, on time, in August 1982 if not for the Herculean efforts of Mr. Parker.  All summer long, he met with parents and students.  He was at the school, literally, from sun up until long after dark every single day of the week.  There was so much to be done to get the high school ready to open an Mr. Parker was intimately involved in all of it.  No detail escaped Mr. Parker's watchful eye.

Mr. Parker organized and inspired the parent-volunteers, who helped lay sod in the football stadium and painted the stadium seats weeks before the opening football game.  My mom and her group of friends road in the back of a pick up truck, tailgate down, and drank frozen pina colodas and banana daffodils while they used a stencil to paint Bruin paw prints on Murray Lane.  I've recounted that story for years in part because it's a great story and because it actually happened.  More importantly, though, it captures the pride so many of our parents had in Brentwood High School.

The summer after my freshman year of college, 1985, Bart Pemberton and I worked for a trucking company off Elm Hill Pike, unloading and loading trucks.  I also worked part-time at Brentwood High School doing landscaping and maintenance work.  If I was there, working, Mr. Parker was, too, all of the time.  No job was too big or small, too dirty or too menial for him.  His work ethic was unparalleled.  

That summer, I saw Mr. Parker in a different light, for sure.  Not as an administrator, wearing a tie to work every day, in charge of things.  I saw him as a man and, I have to admit, a bit of a role model.  Someone who did whatever it took to get anything done that needed to get done.  He treated me differently, too.  Not as a peer but not as a student, either.  When I look back, now, I think he was one of the first people to treat me like an adult.  A young man (with the emphasis on man).  

Mr. Parker also treated me with kindness that summer, too.  Having lost my father when I was five years old, I wasn't the most handy person when it came to repairing or operating equipment and machinery.  He was patient with me, as I learned to use the industrial sized lawn tractor to cut the grass on the school grounds or struggled to repair the weed eater so it would operate effectively.  He taught me how to do those things.  Mr. Parker was a teacher at heart, from beginning to end.

More than thirty years later, I ran into Mr. Parker at a Brentwood High Basketball game.  I was wearing a suit and tie, because I had come from work.  I also was sporting a crazy, long goatee that I had grown out so my mother, fighting a losing battle with Alzheimer's disease, could differentiate me from my long dead father.  When he saw me, Mr. Parker smiled and gave me a hug, eyes twinkling with friendliness as we talked.  He asked about my mother, of course, and listened sympathetically as I described her struggles.  I asked someone to take a photo of us together and I shared it with my high school friends later that night.  He looked the same.  I did not.  

Perhaps Mr. Parker's greatest quality was his loyalty and dedication to people, and things, that he loved.  He attended 502 consecutive Brentwood High School football games, a record that I cannot imagine anyone will ever surpass.  The football stadium, James C. Parker Stadium, is named after him.  A well deserved honor of their ever was one.  

The story of Brentwood High School cannot be told without James Parker as the central figure.  He touched so many lives as a career educator.  Rarely has one man meant so much to so many.  What a career.  What a life well led. 

"Well done, good and faithful servant."  Matthew 25:23.  That bible verse say it all.   

 

59

Last night, all four of us were watching "All the Way Home," the latest season of the motorcycle travelogue with Ewan McGregror and Charley Boorman, when Joe asked me what time I was leaving for work this morning.  

"I'm not sure.  Why?" I asked.

"Because I want to make sure I tell you happy birthday," he replied.

Encapsulated in that one exchange with my sweet, kindhearted 13 year old son, is everything I love about begin a father.  Everything.

After a relatively stressful, futile mediation that lasted all day with a client of whom I'm very fond, I had completely forgotten it was my birthday.  I have so much on my mind right now, professionally and personally, that it totally slipped my mind.  It was important to Joe, though, so it's important to me.  

And so here I am, at Dose, having a coffee before an 8:45 a.m. call with a client.  59.  One year away from 60.  Busier than ever as life flies by at the speed of light.  

So many people depend on me.  My family.  My extended family.  People that work for or with me.  My clients.  Sometimes it's a lot.  But it's never too much and I wouldn't have it any other way.  If I can have one or two interactions a day in which I make someone smile, assure someone, or otherwise add a little bit of positive energy into the world, it's a good day for me.  

At 59, I don't need a lot to be happy.  My family.  A good cup of coffee.  An occasional bourbon.  A good book.  Three or four neighborhood or treadmill runs a week.  A good night's sleep.  Friendships.  Satisfying and challenging work.  Church on Sunday.  Music.  

And all of those things, at age 59, I have.  So, as I finish my coffee on a busy Tuesday morning at Dose, happy birthday to me. 

For now, to quote the poet from the Motor City, Bob Seger, I'll strap up and keep running against the wind.   

Well those drifter's days are past me now

I've got so much more to think about

Deadlines and commitments

What to leave in, what to leave out.

Against the wind

I'm still runnin' against the wind.

I'm older now but still runnin' against the wind.

Younger

It's been a long time since I've posted twice in one day.  Maybe I'm inspired by the fact that I'm having a beer - well, a second beer - for the first time in, oh, six months.  I'm certainly not a teetotaler, not by a long shot.  It's just that my drink of choice is a good bourbon or a heavy cabernet.  Not beer, which is a whole different story.  

This morning, as I drove home from coffee at Sump, catching up with my baseball friend, Gavin O'Heir, I saw JP running down West End Avenue.  Shirt off.  Ripped, not an ounce of fat on his body, six pack abs, the whole deal.  I guess that's what eight days running at altitude will in Boulder, CO, will do for you.  My son, my guy, putting the work in on a summer morning in early July, when the temperature was already on the wrong side of 90 degrees.  

JP looked amazing.  Youth.  Peak form.  Just getting it done.  I honked at him and he waved at me, nonchalantly, seemingly locked into the zone you get in sometimes, as a runner, when it all feels right and life makes perfect sense.  Running.

I drove around the neighborhood as I finished by call with Gavin.  It was nice to get caught up.  I miss sitting with him at baseball games at baseball fields all over middle Tennessee, watching our sons play baseball.  His son, Gavin, is playing for Harris Baseball Club again.  JP is not playing baseball this summer, instead focusing on running and getting ready for a run at the state title in cross country this fall.  

As I sat in my truck in front of our house, I saw JP go flying by me, finishing his workout with a series of sprints on Linden Avenue.  I got out of my truck and just watched him, as he ran three of four more sprints.  He looked invincible.  It was inspiring.  Sweat glistening off his torso as he ran by me, his face a mask of intense concentration.  Straining with effort but not too much, because he's in such good shape.  

It was beautiful moment and one I want to always remember.

Older

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it means to grow older.  I try not to think about it but with my 59th birthday coming next week and so many of my friends close to turning 60, it's hard not to.  The problem, of course, is that thoughts about my age always end up in places I don't really want to go.  So, l tend not to dwell on my age.  That's always been my approach.  I suppose it's also the reason I've never been big on celebrating my birthday.

One of the reasons I run is to try to stay in relatively good shape.  Running somehow makes me feel younger, even if I'm not as fast or running as long as I used to.  This year, I set a goal of running three miles 156 times and I'm almost halfway there.  Generally, I run three miles - comfortably - at a pace of 8:15 - 8:25 per mile, which is not nothing.  If I pushed myself, I could run three miles at a pace under 8:00 per mile, but why would I do that?  This year, I want to stay healthy and get to 156.  It's a different kind of goal for me, which is what makes it interesting.  Next year, maybe I'll set a new goal that will encourage me to run longer at least once a week.  

At 58 +++, my body is different, for sure.  My low back aches every morning when I get up.  The partial thickness tear in my right rotator cuff feels like it's finally going to need a doctor's attention in the near future.  It hurts to sleep on my right side at night and, in the mornings, my right upper arm and shoulder are very sore.  

It's moderately painful to life my right arm above my head, although I can do it.  I'm not sure if it's related to right rotator cuff injury or not, but I can't throw at all like I used to.  Sadly, it's probably best that my baseball coaching career is over because throwing batting practice would be very difficult for me right now.  Long tossing with the boys is virtually impossible, which makes me sad, too.

It's harder to sleep through the night without waking up once to go to the bathroom.  I pee more frequently than I used to which, as I understand it, is what happens as you grow older.  That's been a new thing the last year or two and causes me to fondly remember the nights, in college, when I could sit on the jukebox at the Tap Room for two or three hours, drinking beer, and never lose my seat because I had to take a leak.  I was like a camel, only in reverse.  Not any more.  

For sure, I forget things in a way that I never did when I was younger, or at least it sure seems that way.  For now, anyway, it's small, insignificant things.  The other day, for example, I could not remember the name of one of my favorite novels of the last 20 years, maybe ever.  I knew it was about a a boy that played baseball - college baseball at a small liberal arts college in the midwest - and that his name was Henry Skrimshander.  I new he was a shortstop and remembered the entire plot of the novel.  But the title escaped me.  

When that happens, I like to puzzle over it in my mind.  I don't look it up on my cell phone because I feel like it's good for me to let my mind work through it and try to remember whatever piece of trivia or arcane fact it is that I've forgotten.  I'll think about something else, then come back to it, several times if I have to.  Suddenly, it hit me!  The Art of Fielding (Chad Harbach), the rare novel that I've read twice.  It's due to join Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry) as a novel I've read three times, actually.  Maybe thus summer.

As the child of a parent who died after suffering the ravages of Alzheimer's disease, I get scared every time I forget something.  Curiously, I lost my train of thought in a potential client meeting yesterday - one I which I was really engaged and enjoying the interaction with a young lady and her mother.  Possibly, though, I was on autopilot because I've given roughly the same talk to what seems like 10,000 + potential divorce client over the years.  

For sure, my hearing is getting worse, although that may be due to years and years of listening to podcasts on various kinds of headphone, ear buds, and AirPods when I run.  I find myself having a harder time hearing the television at normal volume.  For me, too, if I'm in a room with a lot of people talking, loudly, it seems like the ambient noice makes it harder for me to hear the person with whom I'm talking.  That's a bit concerning for a lawyer.

I've stuck with 1.0 readers for all of these years for up close reading when I am wearing my contacts.  I've never needed the readers to read at night, after I take my contacts out.  That may be I changing, though, because it's beginning to be harder to read close up at night while I'm laying in bed.  Also, I may need to up the prescription on my readers to 1.25 or 1.50, something I'm fighting against because I don't want to become too dependent on them.  

For no reason that I can think of, a couple of years ago I started doing pushups at night.  Why?  I don't know.  I guess because there have only been a few times in my life when I lifted weights constantly and, at  the time, I couldn't do many pushups.  Over time, my form improved and I've gotten stronger and stronger and, as a result, I easily bang out several sets of 10 to 15 pushups many nights, all with good form.  If I were smart, I'd get int he gym and start lifting weights, I guess, but at least pushups are something.  

I'm eating clean, so to speak, or clean for me.  It's something I started, again a couple of months ago.  I wasn't eating badly.  I just decided to make a real effort, again, to stay away from chips, crackers, French fries, potatoes, bread, and all sweets.  I also stopped eating processed foods, like energy bars.  I'm trying to eat more fruit, too.  Also, I'm back to eating ham and cheese rollups, often, for lunch, although I'm not sure eating that much processed meat is good for me either.  I am eating a lot - I mean, a lot - of salads, which I know is good for me.

I need to get a physical exam, particularly since it's been four years, at least, since I've had one.  I may set a goal of doing that next week.  I'm past due a second colonoscopy, too.  I have an irrational fear of doctors, though, which I know is ridiculous.  

I guess that's that.  It's Friday, July 4th.  I'm going to go home, do some work, read the Warren Beatty biography that I can't get enough of, and enjoy my family.  JP and Jude got home with Joe, yesterday, fresh off three weeks at Woodberry Forest Sports Camp.  Today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow.  

  

Last Day at Woodberry Forest Sports Camp

This morning, I talked with Jude and JP as they drove from Charlottesville, VA, to Woodberry Forest to pick up Joe after three weeks of Sports Camp.  I would have gone to get him but work commitments made it impossible for me be out of the office this week.  

When I talked with Jude and JP, they told me that Joe's team lost a heartbreaker, yesterday, in the flag football finals, 12 - 7.  They squeaked out a win, though, in the futsol championship game, 2 - 1.  They were so close to winning three championships, given that they lost in the soccer finals by 2 - 1.  Still, a title is a title, and I am glad they grabbed one in futsol.

Yesterday, on the second to last day of camp, Joe received the Honor Camper Award for his team (Alabama), given by his counselor and assistants to the team member who contributed the most in the areas of athletics, leadership, sportsmanship, and citizenship.  It's an important award and, of course, I am very, very proud of Joe.  

What a three weeks he has had Sports Camp at Woodberry Forest.  I think - and I hope - that it was a transformation time for him in the all of the best ways.  I hope he learned independence, and self-confidence, self-assuredness.  I hope he developed a better sense of himself and who he is, away from his brother, and Jude and me.  I hope he developed a stronger belief in himself, his abilities, and who he is as a person, friend, and leader.  

Joe is a winner.  Always has been.  In sports and in life.  He is so much fun to be around.  So funny.  Great attitude.  So smart.  Kindhearted and caring.  Fun loving.  Curious.  Happy.  Just a great hang, every single time.  

I can't wait to see Joe tomorrow night and hear all about his three weeks away at Sports Camp.  I've missed him.