From Steel to Beale

Greetings and salutations everyone. I would like to get started by introducing myself, my name is Aaron Estelle, and I am a Yankee. I can only be considered a damn-Yankee if I stay and I haven’t planted my feet too deeply in the cottonseed soil of Memphis just yet.

I am originally from Beaver Pennsylvania which is located in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area. I love the Steelers (NFL team) and the Penguins (NHL team,) but I despised living in Western PA. I was exasperated by the weather, traffic, and the people’s dispositions. I wanted to get out of Pennsylvania in the worst way, and as soon as I graduated from my electrical apprenticeship I made plans to move to Florida, which did not work out as I intended them to. After eight months of making less than satisfactory money for the work that I did, I ended up in the Pittsburgh Tri-State area again for about a year. I was in some ways a vagabond, moving to whatever town had the most work until I met my wife, Sarah. We met in Virginia, where she was working on her doctorate in economics at the University of Virginia. To make a long story short, she ended up taking a job as an associate professor in the economics department at Rhodes College. That was almost four years ago and we will be married three years in July.

My first encounter with Memphis was during Sarah’s interview at Rhodes. I was excited about visiting a city that I had never been to. Honestly, the first time I saw Memphis I thought it was small and my perspective has not changed. But what has changed is what I now know about Memphis. When I first stepped off the airplane at Memphis International in 2007, all I knew was Elvis once lived here. I am a different person now; I am open to learn new things, I have visited many historic places and learned a lot about Memphis as a city and as a people. I know I don’t know everything about Memphis, but I do know that a little under four years ago I knew nothing about it. I also know that with this class, I will learn much more than I would have on my own.

My life’s path has brought me to Memphis and I am not certain that it ends here. I may end up in many more places before I stop, places full of history and character. I may like them, or dislike them, for one reason or another. Whatever direction my life does take me, Memphis will always be a part of me. It has built my character and molded my soul. Like I said before, I am a different person now, and Memphis is the reason why.