Frank Patrick Flew was born on Midsummer's Day, June 20th, 1949, the first child of Frank Thomas and Patricia Jane Flew. Known to his Grandmother as Sonny and often referred to as Frank Junior, to say he was a rambunctious child would be an understatement.  As a young boy he loved sports and played the positions of short stop and pitcher for the Elks Club in Little League Baseball. He even made the All-Star team in his final year.

Frank attended Jackson High School. Upon graduation, he served a short stint in the U. S. Army and was honorably discharged. In 1966, while at the Bemis Skating Rink, he met Delores Glenda Evans, with whom he immediately knew he wanted to spend the remainder of his life. They were wed in a small ceremony on July 5th, 1969, in Florence, Alabama. On a Christmas Day, Glenda Denise Flew was born to them, the joy of his life.

Frank got his start in the optical industry with Milam Optical in Nashville. He later returned to Jackson and worked briefly with Muller Optical. In January of 1977 he, along with Ricky Barnett and Billy Landers, founded Future Optics, Inc. They began operations on N. Highland Ave in what was then known as Hicksville, until 1978 when they constructed a new building at their present location. Frank served as President from their opening until his retirement in 2000.

Frank was an avid golfer and loved to travel. He was able to combine both throughout his career. In addition, he cruised the Caribbean twice and travelled from Mexico to Washington, D. C. to California.

It was shortly after returning from a trip to central California in 1992 that he was diagnosed with kidney failure. While many would be devastated at this news, he faced it as he had life – with courage and determination. By fate and the Grace of God, it was determined that his baby sister, Cissy, had compatible blood and tissue types and she gladly donated a working kidney to him. This not only created a very special bond between the two of them, but a number of family jokes that cannot be repeated.

With a renewed vigor, Frank met life head on. While he could no longer pursue his passion of golf, he remained an important participant of Future Optics and continued to travel as the business required.

When his health caused him to retire in December of 2000, he had spent twenty-three years making friends and relationships that have continued throughout the remainder of his life. After his marriage to Delores and the birth of Glenda, he always felt that this was the most important achievement of this life.

Over the next ten years, his failing health would require more frequent and sometimes extensive stays in the hospital. However, his recovery often astounded all of us though, witnessing the vigor with which he continued to live life, perhaps they were not so much miraculous as they were of his own making.

In 2009, he and Delores began building their dream home and, in 2010, they moved from their home of over 40 years to their new home in North Jackson. In July of 2010, Frank and Delores celebrated 41 years of marriage.

On May 3 of 2009, in the last milestone of a full life, Frank, with the support of Delores and Brother Jerry Smith, accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and was baptized at Maple Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church where he is a member of the congregation. With this act, he was prepared to meet the future and the inevitable.

On January 25th, in the Year of our Lord 2011, Frank peacefully passed from this life, surrounded by those that loved him dearly.

I was born on August 6, 1950, the second child of Frank Thomas and Patricia Jane Flew. Thus began a journey with my brother, Frank, at my side that would last for sixty and a half years, though at that time I was unaware of it. Frank, who was 14 months old, would later say, “That’s my little brother”. Being new to the speaking thing, brother did not quite come out just right and thus I was given the nickname “Bubba”. A couple of years later, May Elizabeth arrived and she was most appropriately dubbed by Frank as “Cissy”.

As has been noted elsewhere, Frank was a rambunctious child and our early relationship was more of younger brother and tormentor. With Cissy’s help, we endured those years as best we could.

When John was born in 1960, our family was complete. And Cissy and I finally got some relief. Frank would sometimes call John over to receive his “whoopin’”. He would have John place his head between his knees and whack him on the rear. The last straw came when, instead of whoopin’ him, he jumped up and down giving John what he called a cauliflower ear.

Looking back on our childhoods, I would say we grew up, if not exactly poor, certainly solid members of the lower middle class. When we became old enough to handle our own money, we were given an allowance. In those days, you could do a lot with a quarter a week. Mainly, we would go to the Malco or Paramount Theater, pay fourteen cents to get in (in those days there was a penny tax starting at fifteen cents, so this was a shrewd marketing move) and blow the remaining dime on popcorn and a coke, which cost a nickel each.

As the years passed, we were taught that if we wanted our own money, we would earn it. During the summer, we could make money pushing our lawn mower around the neighborhood and mowing yards at a buck a piece. Frank got a job delivering papers in the afternoon for the Memphis Press Scimitar. I don’t remember exactly how long he kept his job, but one afternoon he decided he just didn’t want to do this anymore so he dumped his papers into the ditch and went his merry way. Well, Dad found the papers, found Frank and made sure that they were delivered. The next day Frank was out of a job.

Once, I used my money to buy a black and red jacket with a white fuzzy lining. It was in the Eisenhower style. I dearly loved that coat. So did Frank. He would wear it every chance he got, not having a good appreciation of ownership. Those were our teen years and he smoked (against Mom’s and Dad’s good wishes, of course.) There was no mistaking when he had “borrowed” my jacket.

When I got to college and started co-oping, I earned enough money to buy a ’66 convertible mustang. I dearly love that car. So did Frank. Fortunately, because it had keys, he couldn’t just take it as he pleased. But from time to time he would talk me into letting him borrow it. Bad idea. In later years he told me how he would vent his passion for fast sports cars in MY mustang.

It was also in these teen years that Frank met his best friend, Mike Green. Now, Mike went by a nickname that I won't repeat here. Frank and Mike, along with Richard Perry, would do lots of fun things together. Things like skip school, make their own home-made beer and, on Saturday nights, do things that sometimes resulted in a late night phone call from the constabulary. I thought Mike was a bad influence on Frank. Looking back, I’m not so sure it wasn’t the other way around. However, Mike was later responsible for Frank’s first real job with Milam Optical in Nashville. This ultimately started him on the road to good sense and responsibility. So, thanks, Mike.

While in high school, Frank would frequent the Bemis Skating Rink. I remember Momma telling someone that Frank had met this girl there and he told Momma “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.” That girl was Delores Evans. I figured that Momma was exaggerating as she sometimes did. But as everyone here knows, in July of 1969, it came to pass.

Let me take a moment to mention something. Frank had always had what we referred to as a “nervous stomach”. Under certain circumstances, he would become extremely nauseous. This problem would plague him all his life.

Being in college at the time, I was not present, but I understand that, on the day he was married, it was all they could do to get him down the aisle.

On Christmas Day in 1969, Frank and Delores received the gift of a baby girl, Glenda Denise. She became Frank’s second great love, of whom he spoke with great pride throughout his life. She also became his personal TV remote long before such things were invented.

At one point, he and Richard Perry enlisted in the Army under the “buddy plan”. Being the late 60’s, they were destined to serve in Viet Nam. Nineteen days into their basic training, Frank’s stomach became such a problem that he was given an honorable discharge and sent home. Richard went on to Nam and thankfully returned home.

In 1977, Frank, Ricky Barnett and Billy Landers collaborated to form Future Optics, Inc. Somewhere along the way, Frank had shucked his errant ways, at least for the most part, and taken his place as a productive member of society. With Future Optics, he found his true self and calling and began a career that would span the next 23 years of his life and beyond. I once asked Frank what caused him to change the direction of his life. He said that when I went to work as a co-op student at JUD making twice as much as him, though he had worked for several years by then, he realized that he could do better.

I never thought that Frank would put as much effort into work as he did with Future. His desire to do good work and provide a better life for Delores and Glenda drove him to be a better man and father. In latter years he often said to me that, after Delores and Glenda, there was nothing he was more proud of than his work at Future and the friends he made there.

Oh yeah, did I mention he played golf. Next to playing it, he loved to recount his game. Every stroke on every hole. And he could remember them to his last day. And would gladly tell you each and every one.

In Frank’s later years, as his health began to fail, the one thing that remained fully functional was his mind. My brother, though he never got a lot of book learning, was one of the smartest people I’ve known. About the only thing he couldn’t do was cook. Couldn’t boil water. But I enjoyed cooking for him and did so often.

Throughout Frank’s life, he had not been a particularly religious person though he had a spiritual side that not many saw. In 2009, I was proud to see him accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and be baptized by Brother Jerry at Maple Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He was quite proud of this achievement and spoke of it to anyone that would listen.

While our early years were, at best, rocky, Frank came to be more than my brother, he came to be my best friend. On that August day that this journey began sixty and an half years ago, I was not aware that close by was the only person with whom I would share every day of the journey. On January 25th, Frank took the short cut Home and left me, Delores, Glenda, Cissy and John and many other loving family and friends to complete our journeys without him. However, I take comfort in his memory and knowing that I, too, will some day take that same short cut and we can continue our journey together.