Dan Conaway
The barbecue primer. Again.
As you wander the world and see a sign somewhere that says barbecue – by any spelling anywhere else – it’s best to just run. Barbecue in Memphis is quite simply the highest a pig can go.
Dan Conaway
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 321 articles by Dan Conaway :
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July 2020
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Dan ConawayTennessee travelers and the Effingham effect
I was actually looking forward to holding gas pump handles with antiseptic wipes, considering hazmat suits in bathrooms, counting masks in Cracker Barrel, and Atkins breakfast bars in lieu of La Quinta’s breakfast bars.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: In the coronavirus era, viva l’Italia
Italians didn’t deny COVID-19 and science itself. They didn’t lie about the number of cases. They didn’t point fingers at each other, or promote false cures, or stigmatize and demonize care and caution.
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June 2020
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Dan ConawayConaway: Katz and rats, dads and doughnuts
A funky triangle bounded by Park, Lamar and Airways would be the first shopping center where things would start to change, where black and white Memphis would mix and mingle, where Memphis would start to look like Memphis.
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Dan ConawayYou know what kind of world we’re leaving our children. You made it.
But don't worry. Our grandchildren could not possibly do anything but improve on that.
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Dan ConawayConaway: A pass from the cops that I didn’t earn
I ran from the cops, people. I was driving drunk. The driveway I was parked in belonged to a prominent Memphian, then and now. Then and now, there’s every reason to believe if I’d been black in that driveway, I might never have left that driveway.
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Dan ConawayA good attitude comes back online
Stranded by COVID-19 and the loss of a wireless connection while watching weather stall the SpaceX rocket launch, it's hard to find order in this first-world life.
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May 2020
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Dan ConawayA disease also canceled the 1967 White Station prom
I would like to dedicate the prom White Station didn’t have in 1967 to our classmates — the students of T.W. Patterson High — and to their quiet courage and inner strength.
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OpinionLiving through this, killing time
Much as I miss you, Memphis, I don’t want to see you up close for a while yet. And I’m going to keep finding ways to spend time without most of you so that I can see a lot more of you later.
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Dan ConawayTennessee’s education voucher mess is slimier than a salamander
Gov. Bill Lee called the day the House passed the school voucher law last year an “historic day.” If so, the bar for historic days is lower than a salamander’s belly.
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Dan ConawayWe live in Tennarkippi
The artist Dolph Smith named his Ripley home Tennarkippi, but it's also a place where the borders of three states merge to create a particular state of mind.
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Dan ConawayConaway: Our parents deserve better from us
We can’t even stand up and come together as one to fight something that’s killing us for two or three months without falling apart. After all, we need our nails done and a haircut.
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April 2020
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Dan ConawayMight as well smile, it’s ‘The Monkey Time’
The dogs are loving COVID-19. We’re here all the time. Here for every squirrel alert. Here to charge the door for every delivery. Here for walks, lap time, ball chasing, floor wrestling, dropping food on the floor. And dancing to “The Monkey Time.”
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Dan Conaway Conaway: We remember the food, and what it meant to us
Even though it’s in my state, Knoxville doesn’t know any more about barbecue than a pig knows about Sunday. However, there were a couple of places that provided affordable consolation in greasy bags.
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Dan ConawayAt Elmwood Cemetery you’ll find 70,000 stories, 6 feet apart
The oldest active cemetery and most storied ground in Shelby County provides perspective, now and always.
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Dan Conaway Conaway: Thanks, 524 times and counting
You keep me going. Even the reader who called a recent column “a load of horsehockey,” and all those who’ve been more direct.
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March 2020
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Dan ConawayConaway: Home sweet office
When you’re on camera, your background and work area are visible. Don’t make them the star of the show. For instance, a home bar in the background or a TV screen on a freeze frame of "Game Of Thrones" reruns.
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Dan Conaway Conaway: The reality of old white men
A collection of old white men may sound like a Cabinet meeting in Washington or a Senate vote, but it was just another Tuesday and the regular meeting of my “and I’ll tell you another damn thing” lunch group.
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Dan Conaway Conaway: In the governor’s office and beyond, common sense is far from common
Tennesseans don’t trust Tennessee to take care of them any more than they trust Washington to take care of them. The same people are in charge in both places.
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Dan Conaway Conaway: A new knee and old comfort from Calvary’s Waffle Shop
We have sure and certain knowledge of homemade mayonnaise. Yea and verily, shrimp mousse and tomato aspic jiggle. Behold the turnip greens and be glad in them. Take the fish pudding by faith.
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February 2020
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Dan Conaway Conaway: Forget the texts and tweets; look for elves
Dan Swanson made a table from two Minnesota oak trees. Posey Hedges makes new wood look a century old. Gaines Conaway is reshaping a farmhouse that partly dates to 1872. In a time of fleeting texts and ceaseless emoji, look for things crafted over time, relationships built from deeper places.
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Dan ConawayConaway: Wolfschmidt and a lifetime
My second date with Nora Ballenger was a college rush party in 1967 at the top of the King Cotton Hotel, where the Raymond James/TBD building stands today. Accompanying us was a bottle of Wolfschmidt Vodka. Nora drank Tab. I drank the Wolfschmidt. All of it.
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Dan Conaway Conaway: Two cities, one beat
“Memphis has always been racially-fractured, and I don’t know where we’d be without the greatest duct tape and Gorilla Glue in the world ... music.”
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Dan Conaway Conaway: The mean in Tennessee is mean
It’s just flat mean of the Tennessee Legislature to continue to deny even basic health insurance to some 300,000 working Tennesseans just to make a political point.
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Spirit of Memphis Conaway: An architect gives Memphis shape, from AutoZone Park to FedExForum
You may not think you know Rob Norcross, but you do. He was the architect for the most acclaimed minor league ballpark in the country, and for the home of grit and grind.
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