Columnist
Dan Conaway is a lifelong Memphian, fascinated and frustrated with his city, but still in love. A columnist since 2010, his distinguished advertising career has branded ribs in the Rendezvous and ducks in The Peabody, pandas in the zoo and Grizzlies in the NBA. Stories in Memphis tend to write themselves. He’s helped a few along. Two book collections of his columns have been published.
There are 332 articles by Dan Conaway :
And the photo fell away, while the magnet crashed to the floor between my feet, depriving the meerkat of its left ear. There’s something to be said for sloppy, arbitrary, impetuous, and rough around the edges. Right in front of you. You know, like life in the moment.
“We have to get our act together. The city and county mayors need to sit down together for a cup of coffee. Strong coffee. A pot of it.”
“For me, Lent is a time for reflection. The journey so far, the journey at present, and the journey to come. That’s what I feel called to do these 40 days.”
“Even though we were in those same places at the same time, we were not the same. My public pool was in the Fairgrounds; Howard’s was in Orange Mound. At Katz, he’d have his water fountain, and I’d have mine.”
No core principles would be abandoned. In fact, those four would become the most important members of Congress, and their tiny caucus the most impactful in the entire body.
“Numbers are cold, numbers don’t bleed. Numbers don’t silently cry in a waiting room or crumble to the floor when the news arrives. Numbers don’t comfort or explain or justify when a child dies.”
Dan Conaway writes, “We’ve been chosen as the test market for a new men’s cologne just in time for Valentine’s Day: Elon Musk.”
“The morning brings a new day, like the one before never happened, but like all the days before, what happened is baked in old slave-made brick, and immigrant-laid stone, and preserved.”
“Every vote for vouchers takes tax money, your money, from already underfunded public schools and gives it to private schools.”
“Brent Taylor would use his elected office — voted on by about 20% of the county — to remove a county official elected by 100% of the county voters.”
“Aside from the obvious point that we could all suggest better than we’re going to get, the larger point is that we’re all going to need each other as things shake out in Washington.”
In his opinion piece, Dan Conaway says that if you vote for Donald Trump, whatever he does will be with your permission.
“If you see me talking to myself, just move along. I’m self-employed; we’re having a staff meeting.”
Tennessee’s Republican leadership maintains that cities and counties can’t have different state laws, but what did they do when it came to new, suburban school districts and school vouchers?
“The truth is that no one is asking the people that have lost everything whether or not they are Republican or Democrat before they help them, no more than those two walkers on the beach asked me.”
Eating out in Memphis is a reward for living here. You deserve it.
“The City of Memphis buying a hotel to protect its interests — our interests — is not a bad idea. But, the city running a hotel is a terrible idea.”
“Can a city stand against laws that disproportionately and negatively affect their entire population, daily threatening their safety, their livelihoods and their very lives?”
“In one of the reddest states in the nation, where Trump will likely win by more votes than Tennessee-based Cracker Barrel has biscuits, Trump couldn’t vote.”
This is about effort against odds, the measure being the effort itself, never accepting that there’s no sense in trying, never giving anything less than your best, knowing the measure of you is you.
After my oldest brother died, my other brother and I began really talking and laughing.
Let’s rename Crump Park, a lovely little spot, Crews Park. Crump already has plenty of things named after him.
Watching them play, even if you’ve never pulled a club back, is watching the beauty of those swings and this sport, of individual achievement.
Memphis and its people are real — as real as the lives they face, as warm as a needed hug and as uniquely colorful as the palette of their own making.
If we’re lucky — very lucky — life will afford us a few very good friends — friends who expect nothing from us but us, friends whose simple presence in a room makes the room better and the day improved.