Dan Conaway
Conaway: Bundle up and head down to the river
From the Big River Crossing one can stand above the middle of the churn of this nation’s main artery like nowhere else, for a view of the city like none other.
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 :
From the Big River Crossing one can stand above the middle of the churn of this nation’s main artery like nowhere else, for a view of the city like none other.
“There is a vaccine for COVID. There is none for what’s wrong with us.”
The boys from rural Tennessee are doing what naughty boys in rural communities have always done. They’re metaphorically climbing up to the top of the Memphis Regional Megasite water tower to paint out what they don’t like.
Gathered again for Thanksgiving, this time with four generations, I’m again reminded of, well, of everything. Most of all, I’m reminded of loss and of renewal, and I’m still surprised at the wonder of it.
‘People in river towns understand better than most that nothing good happens when the flow stops, worse still, if it flows backwards.’
‘What they’re proposing and passing this time will kill people. Now and in the future. Men, women, and children will needlessly die at the hands of the super majority of the Tennessee General Assembly.’
Nora and I started walking together when our youngest child, our son Gaines, started driving himself to school. That was 24 years ago.
The hint of political pressure and/or lack of political will hangs over North Parkway at McLean like the smell of elephant and donkey dung on a hot summer day.
Every year, Americans are swallowing about 45 gallons of water per capita from either plastic or glass bottles. That means folks around here, people literally sitting on top of famed Memphis water, are getting soaked.
The new manufacturing site is named Blue Oval City after the iconic Ford logo and it will be three times larger than their current flagship Ford Rouge Factory in Dearborn, Michigan.
When the truth is being denied, when we are increasingly threatened by that denial, we as a society, we as responsible human beings, must stand for truth against any who knowingly trade falsehood for power.
Nora and I are no longer capable of the chase. And the chase is constant enough that the father no longer coaches the older kids but has returned to the sidelines to help the mother wrangle the 2-year-old.
Memphis is blessed by its food, the abundance of creativity, diversity and tradition mixed in the same bowls, seasoned with love, soul, and imagination – and still made and served by amazing people with a smile in these, their most trying of times.
What are the odds that many birds could hit my car all at once while I was going down Walnut Grove? Precision daylight bombing.
If you have friends like that, you’re fortunate. If you have friends like that, especially in the time we’ve lived through and the people we’ve lost, let them know what they mean to you.
A lot of us forget that memory is selective and if we actually could go back to times we fondly remember, we would probably run from the reality we find.
In fact, Governor Lee’s stupidity could quite literally take your breath away and the breath of those you love.
Spouses and children and grandchildren and family histories — and genes — join us at table in spirit and stories and challenges. Just some guys ... talking about nothing and everything.
Only 24% of Americans identify as Republican... Only 30% identify as Democrat... Yet we allow ourselves to let those two parties label all of us as if we were one or the other.
‘You guys not only care about what I have to say, some of you have colorful suggestions about how I might spend my time and places I might go to spend it.’
Just when we’re coming up for air from the plague, the plague that is our Tennessee Legislature and governor have proved – again – that they’re still smothering in stupidity.
It seems past president Trump has some tax problems. I can relate.
‘Outside is as hot as the seventh circle of hell because it’s Memphis in summer. And yet, I stay. I’m home. My memories are in the grid and grit of this place, on this river, in these people, those here and those deep in my bones.’
Dan Conaway: ‘This is not about guilt. This is about awareness. If you were born white, you did absolutely nothing to deserve the privileges you’ve enjoyed because of it.’