Rose Lewis
Memphis, TN
1989
Just about everyone in Memphis knew my family.
If they didn't, they at least knew of us.
My grandfather, Dan Lewis, was the pastor of one of the largest churches in the city, and my father, Jacob, had followed in his footsteps, taking over the congregation when Pa retired.
Those who didn't know of my family through the church knew of us through my uncle's business. Over twenty-five years ago, my uncle by marriage, Michael Bishop, started Bishop Motorcycle Company, which was now a household name in the south (and quickly becoming one in the rest of the country).
Bishop Motorcycles had experienced staggering growth, but my Uncle Michael and Aunt Ivy were still very much a part of the day-to-day operation. As the business expanded, they bought the land around the original shop, and now there was a new garage and showroom with an attached office wing and parts-plant. Bishop Motorcycles now had over a hundred employees.
Seeing as how my dad, Jacob, was Ivy's little brother, he had been working and hanging out at the motorcycle shop since its humble beginnings at Mr. Morrow's body shop. My dad loved being there, and he especially loved helping out in the garage and getting his hands dirty after a week of pastoral duties. My mom was one of Aunt Ivy's best friends, and I was close in age to my twin cousins, so our families spent a lot of time together when I was a young.
During my early childhood, Aunt Ivy had a successful music career as a blues and soul singer. I can remember her going on tour every summer. Uncle Michael would stay home to run the business, and Aunt Ivy would schedule all of her concerts during the summer so she could take my cousins with her after they finished school. I hated this part of the year because I loved my cousins and hated to see them go.
Jesse and Jane were both talented musically, so it was a natural progression that they began to go on stage with their mom. What's cuter than a twin, brother-sister act with kids who were actually talented, after all? Eventually, Jesse and Jane became the opening act for Ivy and played a few of songs with her during her set.
This summer tour tradition went on until Ivy decided to stay home to help Michael with the business full-time. Both Jesse and Jane were talented and could have pursued careers in music, but they were becoming teenagers by the time Ivy quit touring, and they had other interests that ultimately conflicted with doing music.
So there was my family in a nutshell—pastors, musicians, and motorcycles. Sure, it might be a little unorthodox for a pastor to spend his spare time in a motorcycle shop, but nothing had ever really been ordinary in my father's life.
The Lewis family had adopted my father when he appeared on their doorstep, swaddled and lying in a basket like Moses. When my parents and grandparents tell the story, they say that the Lewis's probably would have named him Moses if there hadn't been a note in the basket requesting that they call him Jacob.
That story always made people picture my dad being found on a doorstep in a nice, bassinette-type basket that was very stable with plenty of room, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Dad's basket was a small, worn out, cheaply made Easter basket.
My grandma had told me that version one day when I was complaining about my dad. She said it was a wonder the basket held together. It was a real miracle he had made it safely into her arms instead of rolling down the steps. That wasn't where my dad's miracle stopped, either. Vicki and Dan Lewis (in spite of being very white by race and living in a time of more heated race relations) adopted my dad who was quite a bit darker than them. No one knew my dad's real heritage. He was light-skinned for a black man but too dark to be white or even Spanish.
My mother, Alice Adams, on the other hand, was as white as they come—she came complete with blonde hair and blue eyes, looking like she was straight from the European countryside. My little brothers got my dad's dark hair and eyes, but I ended up with lighter eyes and hair like my mom and a skin tone that fell somewhere between my mom's and dad's.
My mom and Aunt Ivy had been good friends since they were kids. My dad had a crush on my mom his whole life, but he was always too shy to tell her. He finally professed his love right before he left for seminary, and the rest, as they say, is history. In spite of being five years older than him, my mom returned the sentiment, and she and my dad got married before he left for school in Kentucky.
She found out she was pregnant with me soon after they were married, and they spent the next four years being starving students and doing their best to raise me without the help of family nearby. They laugh about how poor they were during those years, but they must have been a pretty good team, because all of my childhood memories are peaceful ones, and the pictures I've seen of my baby days portray my parents being happy and content.
Dad was so young when they had me, that he and my mom waited six years before having another child. I now have two younger brothers who were born back-to-back after Mom and Dad got settled back home in Memphis. My brothers were so much younger than me that, in some ways, I felt as though I was an only child. I spent much of my adolescence tagging along with Dad while Mom was busy at home with the boys.
The boys were teenagers now, and I was currently finishing up my junior year of college.
My parents' house (the church parsonage) wasn't built for a family of five, so I had long-since moved out. I had been living on my own for the last three years despite the fact that I went to college right there in Memphis and could have easily stayed at home. My parents did what they could to support me financially, but both of my brothers were competitive in multiple sports, and they had a lot of expenses with that. They lived a modest lifestyle to try to provide for us kids, so it was pretty early on that I started doing what I could to help out and pay my own way.
I had a small apartment near the university that I shared with my friend, Rebecca.
I worked on campus and went to college full-time, so I rarely strayed too far unless I was going to my parents' house to eat or do laundry.
I was studying mathematics with an emphasis on statistics. I was now and had always been a numbers girl. Numbers made sense to me. I loved mathematics because there were concrete rules with consistent results. I had a special affinity for statistics and could stare at graphs and charts all day without getting bored. I worked at the University Credit Union as a teller while I was studying, but seeing as how my real passion was analyzing statistics, I had recently made it my goal to become self-employed.
It was something I knew I could be good at.
My plan was to study a business mathematically and translate my findings into practical marketing advice. I had done similar projects in school and thought I had a successful business model. I liked math and I liked working with people, so this idea seemed like a perfect fit. I needed experience with a real business, though.
It was for this reason that I was sitting in Uncle Michael's office, staring at him from across his oversized wooden desk. It was the same desk he had in the other location, and I remembered playing underneath it when I was little. He had a recent family picture on it, and I stared at it, thinking that my cousin, Jesse, was perhaps the most incredible male specimen I had ever seen. I had always loved the way Jesse looked, and he had only gotten more and more handsome as we got older.
Uncle Michael shifted the paperwork on his desk, drawing me back from my thoughts. He smiled proudly. "This is really something, Rose," he said, sitting back in his chair with a piece of paper in his hand.
He stared at it again for a few long seconds while my heart pounded. I felt terrified in spite of the fact that I was offering my services for free. I had been anxious that he might still turn me down. I wondered if maybe he would just think it was a bad idea and say 'no thanks'.
Uncle Michael finally looked at me again after he stared at the paper. "This is gonna be a lot of work," he said. "I certainly wouldn’t expect you to do this for free, sweetheart."
I smiled with relief that he wanted me to do it at all. "It would help me," I assured him. "If I do yours for free and it works out, I get to charge the next person. I was talking to my professor about the idea, and he said I'd learn a lot during my first attempt, warning me that I'd need to work out the kinks with my process. You'd be doing me a favor to let me use your company to blaze a trail for myself. I'd really be honored."
He crossed his arms in front of his chest and smiled at me with the type of proud smile that made me feel like he was thinking my parents had done a good job raising me or something else warm and fuzzy like that.
"I'd be honored to be your first client, Rose," he said. "But I have terms."
"Yes sir. What are they?" I asked, sitting up, ready to take notes.
He smiled. "We'll look at the marketing strategies you recommend. If we decide to try them, and our revenues go up, I'll pay you twenty percent of our increase for the first three months."
My heart started racing as I thought of all the possibilities. I really thought I could increase his revenue, and I couldn't help but start doing some of the math in my head.
"Twenty's too much," I said. I shrugged. "I like the idea of getting some small percentage of the increase because that makes it even more of a challenge for me, but twenty's way too much."
Michael smiled and tilted his head at me. "The way I look at it, the increase doesn't exist without you. So, it's more like you're offering me eighty percent rather than me offering you twenty."
He was right and I knew it. It was with a pounding heart and a huge smile that I stuck out my hand to shake his. "Deal," I said. "I'm about to get rich," I added, making him laugh. I stood and started gathering up the paperwork that was on his desk.
"You're a smart girl, Rose," he said sweetly. "I'm proud of you for coming up with all this."
I glanced at him with a smile. "Thank you."
"Thank you," he said. "I'm excited to see what you come up with."
"Me too. It's gonna be fun."
"You can have access to whatever you need," he said.
I nodded. "Thank you. It'll help me to have access to your books from the last few years. I'll talk to the accountant. I'm anticipating that my first attempt at this will take longer than any of the others, but I have no idea what kind of timeframe to give you." I shrugged. "Maybe a month or two. I hope I'm not going to be in anybody's way if I come up here some during that time."
"Are you kidding? We want you around the shop. You've been coming around way too little since you grew up." He smiled at me. "I wish you'd come to work for me in the showroom. That's marketing with no statistical research or effort whatsoever."
I smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment," I said.
"You should," he said. "It was one. You've always been a beautiful young lady, Rose."
He came around the desk to give me a hug, and I smiled at him.
"Thank you," I said.
He patted my shoulder in a gesture that said you're welcome. "Are you still dating the basketball player?" he asked.
I nodded. Everyone knew Barrett as 'the basketball player' because he was 6' 9" and one of the MVP's on the college basketball team. He was a year older than me and was just wrapping up his senior-year basketball season, which had been a huge success.
"Yes sir," I said. "He's got two more games this year, but they're both away. I'm gonna miss going to them once he's all done."
"Last time he was with you at Nana & Pa's, I heard him tell your dad he was going into the NBA."
I smiled and shrugged. "He's hoping to get drafted this summer," I said. "I think he's got a decent chance—that seems to be the word, anyway."
"That's exciting," he said.
I nodded as we headed toward the door. "Yes sir it is." I gestured to my paperwork. "I'm excited about getting with this, too."
"Me too," he said. "Thank you."
"I'll get started next week if that's okay."
"Sounds perfect," he said. He patted my back as we walked across his office and started down the hall. "I'll walk you out."
I had come by after I got off work at the bank, so it was afterhours and the place was really quiet. Uncle Michael must have thought I parked in the back, because he led me towards the garage rather than out the office doors. I didn't mind walking through the shop, so I didn't tell him any different. There were still a few people making noise and closing up, but it was Friday evening, so most everyone had clocked out and gone home for the day.
We were walking down the hall and had almost reached the door to the shop when I heard the sound of a siren. It gave three shrill calls matching the tone of a police siren, and then I heard, "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" in the high-pitched voice of what was obviously a talking bird. There were three more siren calls, and I looked at my uncle and rolled my eyes as we opened the door to the shop.
"Is Elvis your security system?" I asked.
He smiled and shook his head. "Hardly. That's just what he says when he sees Jesse."