Storage Unit Moving Day May 2023

 The final steps of moving Tennessee PTA items from Nashville to Knoxville happened in May. I met Dana Price at Northgate Mall to close down the Post Office box and to collect items for the state office administrator.  On May 6, G and I made a quick trip to Knoxville and back by dropping off more stuff collected from Dana and from my home office. These were things necessary for the office administrator to prepare for the Student Awards Ceremony less than a month away in Brentwood.

I sat in the president's chair but no desk. The former president's desk is now the office administrator desk.

And I sat at the conference table in the new state office. Turned out to be a good picture!

Then what I dubbed as the triangle trip began on May 10th. In the 36 hours period from the afternoon of May 10th to May 11th, I traveled from Chattanooga to Franklin, then to downtown Nashville, and the next morning from Nashville to Knoxville and back to Chattanooga. This also required taking vacation time from work. I have no idea how much vacation time I used over the last 4 years as president-elect and president for Tennessee PTA but it was a lot!

The triangle trip was moving from one storage unit in Nashville, divide the content, and move some stuff into another storage unit in Knoxville and the remaining content into the Knoxville state office. Whew - that was a lot of planning, preparation, and everything working just right.

Once again, Two Men and Truck Company was hired to move stuff. They moved all of the office content from the state office in Nashville to the state office in Knoxville during the month of March. Now we would use them again to move the storage unit stuff out of Nashville.

I left work in Chattanooga at 1 pm Eastern, noon Nashville time and headed to Franklin, TN. Earlier I had contacted the buyer, then the buyer's property manager, and then connected the property manager to past state president Kim Henderson all in order to pick up the lettering that we had on the exterior wall of the Nashville office. My first stop would be at Kim's house to pick up the box of lettering. 

My next stop was downtown in the Gulch part of Nashville to start arranging the storage unit. I planned and sketched out on paper what I wanted and started the process. But I had no food since previous evening and I was starving, so I decided to return early tomorrow morning before the moving truck arrived to finish the rest of the separation: stuff to storage unit and stuff to office.

I stayed at the nearby Hayes Street Hotel. A very different hotel and I am not going to return to it in the future. However the Las Palmas is attached to the hotel building next door and I would highly recommend their food!

The next day I was up and gone early. Luckily the streets connecting the hotel to the storage unit were not busy work commuting streets. I arrived a bit early for the opening of the gate, so I parked in the next door\s business parking lot. That business? The Larry Flynt Hustler Club!  Yep our storage unit was located next to the Hustler club on one side and the Greyhound terminal on the other side.

Once inside the compound -- security code to enter the lot, code to enter the unit--I took the lock off and closed the unit down at the office. I returned to the unit and finished my separation job from the day before. I finished before the moving crew got there -- right on time at 9 am. The separation job I did was so helpful as it speeded the process along -- the office content was loaded first to be unloaded last and the storage unit stuff was loaded last to be unloaded first. I saved Tennessee PTA a bunch of money by cutting down on the loading time.

The storage unit was almost evenly divided so one half went on first, the movers placed separation ropes, and then moved out the other half of the unit.

We both left at the same time but I could drive faster than the truck could so I was a few hours ahead at the Knoxville office waiting on them. When the movers arrived, everything worked out perfectly in no time! First the storage unit in Knoxville then to the state office.  A very successful trip!

And I placed the box of lettering in the president's office for the next president.

April 7 to 9 Trip to Knoxville

We made a weekend trip to Knoxville just a few days before I left for Memphis for the TNLA annual conference. This is a blended blog - I have it categorized as a PTA Trip because that's why we came but we packaged it with personal stuff as well.

We brought the office computer up for our new office administrator. This also meant that I no longer had to use my personal publisher on my work computer to create PTA certificates. Woo! We also brought up more office and PTA stuff that had been housed in my extra bedroom as temporary storage during the sale of the Nashville office building.

I sat in the president's office and in the president's chair, got to see the new arrangement of furniture. It was a good visit to the new Tennessee PTA office in Knoxville. Being a blended trip meant that PTA got this trip for free -- no reimbursements for travel, meals, or lodging! 

So we finished moving the stuff in and got myself acquainted with the office and with the potential storage unit.  That was it for the PTA side of things!

We checked into our hotel - the Crowne Plaza Knoxville Downtown. What a beautiful hotel!  And what did PTA care - they weren't paying for it! We were able to walk across the street and enjoy Market Square. We found some delicious food on the square at Myrtle's Chicken. If you are ever at the Square, check their chicken meals out!

When we got back, I worked on my laptop writing the podium book for two conventions. Can you believe I was state president for both the Tennessee Library Association and for the Tennessee Parent Teacher Association? And yes, both conventions were in April. I was busy preparing. Both nights, Friday and Saturday turned into long hours of preparing documents, speeches, and much more. The TNLA convention started on the next Tuesday.

The next day, Saturday, we stopped by the office again just to get really acquainted and to put my stamp on the office as president. Even though, I really would not use the office as president that much in person.

We left the office and drove around aimlessly. First through Oak Ridge. Then back to Knox County and went east. We eventually ended up at Norris Lake. 

We enjoyed visiting this beautiful TVA lake that was so close to the new Tennessee PTA office! A great visit to Knoxville, to the Tennessee PTA office, and the beauty of east Tennessee.

Building Sold - April 4, 2023

Downtown Nashville and I am trying to find the attorney's office. I made the trip up to Nashville and plan to return back to Chattanooga all in the same day.  I was briefly the only Tennessee PTA president with two offices at the same time -- one starting up in Knoxville and one being sold in Nashville. 

Finding the attorney's office, I parked in the underground garage, riding the elevator up, wrapped inside a beautiful building.

As I wait I reminded myself that I made my last visit to the office at 1905 Acklen Avenue this morning. I picked up the equipment for our closed out Comcast account to be returned. Took a few pictures. Called the utilities to make a transition to a new building owner.

The only thing we had to leave -- the building plaque by the front door.

The building was completely emptied. But there was a full storage unit just a few minutes away that needed the contents moved to Knoxville. That comes in the month of May.

At the attorney's office, I met the realtor and the attorney. We signed a lot of papers! The building is sold! All the hard work  paid off with only one more big thing left to do -- moving from one storage unit in Nashville to another storage unit in Knoxville.

Special edition of our Tennessee PTA newsletter announcing the sale of the building.

But our announcement was preempted by the Nashville media the day before we announced to the membership.

A goodbye video

Thanksgiving 2022: Moving Stuff out of the State Office

We didn't have any plans during Thanksgiving. No one was coming to Chattanooga. Extended family was eating their Thanksgiving meal elsewhere. And I was in the midst of trying to get the state office items flipped to being less items in the office and more in storage or in the shred pile or in the trash. So for Thanksgiving, we spent three days in Nashville/Franklin moving stuff out of the office.

G and I succeeded in that, indeed, a big corner was turned in the file cabinet room and in the office.

The file cabinet room was a mess. Anything and everything not dealt with the previous auctions or donations were put into this room. The five file cabinets in this room were stuffed with historical and memorabilia. The membership file cabinets and miscellaneous file cabinets were still full. 

G and I divided and conquered. G took on the file cabinets in the workroom. I started tackling the file cabinet room. 

For three days we sloughed through this gigantic task and turned a significant corner getting the building ready to be sold.

On Thanksgiving Day, we took time out from the state office building to enjoy a noon time Thanksgiving meal at Cracker Barrel. It was really good!  

When we got back to the hotel later on that day, I took a picture of the number of cars in the parking lot -- it was practically empty!

We discovered a route we liked hauling stuff from the office to the storage unit. The route went by Fort Negley. Fort Negley has a sad history. 

The storage unit got really full as we accomplished cleaning out the file cabinet room and the workroom file cabinets. 

A picture of the empty board room.

My reflection in the hallway mirror.

Update: The state office building was sold on April 4, 2023.

                                                        The flag at Fort Negley. 

Anniversary Small TN Circle Trip

G and I had a weekend anniversary trip that wasn't on our anniversary. Our anniversary fell on a Monday. So, instead of taking time off from work, we planned a small weekend trip. We took a small circle trip around middle Tennessee and combined some Tennessee PTA work too!

We left for Nashville late in the afternoon on Friday, July 29, and in the darkness of night, we dropped off some items for the Statewide Leadership Training team. By taking stuff to the office, we were able to clean out a large amount of space in a bedroom in advance for Pixel's and her owner's arrival later in August. After dropping off the items at the Tennessee PTA office, we checked in to a hotel that was branded as 3-star Hampton Inn but it was anything but that level. Not a good choice at all. Luckily we got the first room on the first floor from the desk.

Across the street was an Amerigo chain Italian restaurant. I was quite surprised how good it was. Even G liked her food enough to eat it.

On Saturday, we gladly checked out early and drove down West End Avenue to Nashville's Centennial Park to visit the Parthenon again. We did not go inside this time. To read about our 2014 visit inside the Parthenon visit the link at https://orangejayhawk.blogspot.com/2014/07/nashville-parthenon-and-homage-to-athena.html If you never visited the Parthenon in Nashville, put it on your bucket list. Even my parents saw this on one of their many trips to the Upper Room that is located across the street.

We walked around the park and visited the large pond that is near the Parthenon.

After going to the McDonalds off of West End Avenue for breakfast (which was good to know because on our future trips to the state office we knew where the closest McDonalds was), we continued on our small circular tour of middle Tennessee. I wanted to take a different route and like G always says, you just tell me where to go. 

And a different route we took! 

We got on the 440 to 40 to 65 and then the Vietnam Veterans Parkway (highway 386). I was thinking that the state really needs to extend VV Parkway west to hook up with I-24. That would be a good transportation move for Davidson County. 

We stayed on 386 through Hendersonville and to Gallatin. At Gallatin we turned north onto 31E until we got to highway 52. Now 52 is an interesting state highway. It keeps angling northeast and there isn't much left of Tennessee before it angles back down to Celina. Beautiful drive but once the highway reached Clay County - whew, narrow, bumpy, curvy, nothing like it was before Clay County. The drive out of Celina on 52 is just stunning. This is the same stretch of 52 we used in May for our trip to Mammoth Cave. 

This time however, we had the time to turn off of 52 and explore another state park: Standing Stone State Park. What a beautiful park!

We left Standing Stone in awe. We were so glad we took the turn off 52 to visit. We got back on 52 and merged with 111 in Livingston and headed south on 111 to Cookeville. When we got to the Cookeville/Algood exit, we got off because this was one of the ways we used to take to visit David when he was in a dormitory at the University. 

And we stopped by the house he shared with 5 other guys the last two years of university.

We got donuts from Ralph's donuts  (the best butter twists) and a shake at Cream City. I love the décor inside Cream City.

After checking into a hotel in Cookeville, we enjoyed a nice dinner. The next day, Sunday, we headed home on the very familiar 111 route from Cookeville to Chattanooga. It is one spectacular drive that every Tennessean should do at least once in their lifetime. We stopped at the overlook outside of Dunlap. 

We finished up the anniversary trip with a dinner at Longhorn's Steakhouse in Chattanooga. What a great weekend trip combining PTA work, a mini-tour of middle Tennessee, and an early anniversary celebration!

July 2022: The Last Full Board Meeting at the State Office

July 2022. The last Tennessee PTA full board of directors weekend at the historic state office. Since 1960, the state office for Tennessee PTA has been on Acklen Avenue. Across Magnolia from Belmont University. One can see Vanderbilt's Children Hospital from the front steps.

There is so much history I could talk about. But I won't. There's too much history to tell.

There were so many trips my wife and I made to the state office to clean out files, pack up boxes, move boxes and stuff to storage. But I won't write about that now but will save for an upcoming blog post.

A house originally set in this location until 1959. A year later with much fanfare the Tennessee PTA state office building was raised up on that spot. In the 1970s, Tennessee PTA sold half of its back parking lot to the Nashville Housing Development which in turn was given to the city to expand the width of Magnolia Avenue. That acreage sold for over $9,000.

But the July 2022 board weekend will be known in Tennessee PTA history as the last full board weekend meeting held in the building. Not the last board meeting - that distinction belongs to the January 2023 board meeting but only three board members showed up in person - the rest were attending virtually.

Update - The building sale was finalized on April 4, 2023.

In the Board Room with the past president pictures on the wall

Having a bit of fun!

A festive board dinner!

Board Meeting in the Board Room

How we saved money over the years - lodging and shower in the basement. 

A plaque celebrating 100 years of PTA

Me presiding as board chairman

National PTA Convention: Part Two: Thursday - Sunday

The convention part of National PTA Convention officially started after Hill Day, on Thursday, June 16. All of the state presidents met together in what is called NCAAC and I continued to meet state presidents I had only previously met virtually.

Then I attended my first of many workshops - Advocacy.

Dinner that night was with the State President's PTA -- yep, all of the state presidents, current and past, have formed their own PTA unit. We meet once a year at convention but we have service projects in different parts of the nation - a very cool unit to join.

After that, I decided to go the 80s themed bar on the 18th floor. I'm glad I did because it turned out to be the only chance I had to attend between private parties/dinner meetings/and not feeling too whippy.

View of the Gaylord Resort Ferris wheel lit up at night from the 18th floor bar.

Speaking of the Gaylord Resort -- it is ultimate extravagance in a convention type setting very near D.C. Flowing water, shops and malls, view of the bay. I was on the 15th floor. First a view of the 15th floor while waiting on the elevator.

Now a view of the resort from the elevator as it descends from the 15th floor.

The convention was a celebration of 125 years of PTA. We had a celebration dinner for the 125th year. Other dinners included the AIM dinner. I had plenty of food access for dinners during convention!

At the start of convention, the Tennessee PTA group took this picture by the flag.

And this one at the 125th dinner.

All of the state presidents were recognized. I had my five seconds of fame as I was announced and walked across the stage -- to many cheers by the way!

On Saturday, I was doused in blue lights which was significant in another way. I didn't feel like attending anything. Unknown to me until Monday, I was coming down with Covid. The Sunday morning session seemed to go on forever -- I was in a big hurry to leave, a huge hurry to leave. I did make it home ok and to the doctor on Monday.
My blue picture. I am so thankful and very glad that this year's convention is an all-virtual event!