Dan Conaway
Opinion: After an Arctic blast, scratch and look for green
People say wait, give things a chance. Take a limb and scratch it. Look for green. If there’s even a trace of green, there’s hope for recovery.
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 335 articles by Dan Conaway :
-
April 2021
-
Premium
Dan Conaway -
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: Close Riverside Drive to cars; open it to those who really count
What have we learned from the hard lesson of Overton Park’s greensward? What has the COVID experiment taught us?
-
-
March 2021
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: If you’re copying, it’s not yours
Dan Conaway: While we ignore Mud island, we’re giving Tom Lee Park more plastic surgery than the attendees at the Academy Awards, and if we’re going to make the Fairgrounds ours, the Coliseum has to be part of it and original thinking is required.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: There are embarrassing people in our House. And Senate.
Maybe the state’s largest population areas will get out the vote and get Tennessee into the 21st century. Georgia called. They want us to know that it’s possible.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: Fill a prescription. Or buy a house.
The shot I’m getting is hard to get, and costs more than our first house. The stuff in this syringe must come from cells scraped from the belly of the dragon Smaug by Hobbits.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: Fire and ice. And friendship.
You may have seen the photo with the story about the brutal weather — firefighters pushing to free an ambulance stuck in the snow and ice. Michael Rowland was in that ambulance. Nothing brings the value of friendship into focus like a threat to a friend.
-
-
February 2021
-
Dan Conaway Opinion: We all need the bridge to Binghampton
Binghampton is at the very center of our city but far from the center of our attention. We drive through it en masse every day on Walnut Grove and Sam Cooper, largely ignoring the decline to our left and right.
-
Dan Conaway Opinion: Still crazy. Still right.
The fight continues to easily access our history, to stand on our oldest ground above our best view of the Mississippi, to make traffic Downtown make sense.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: Driving us crazy
It’s one of the more interesting things about daily life in Memphis, and one that just might kill you. We can’t drive. Worse. We’re proud of it.
-
Dan Conaway Opinion: Our kids are under house arrest
Dan Conaway: “Our kids, Memphis kids, our tomorrow, have to get back in classrooms. Today. Period. Every day they don’t is another day falling further behind.”
-
-
January 2021
-
Spirit of Memphis In memoriam: Ode to the olive boat captain
On John Simmons’ last visit, Carnival Memphis presented him their highest honor. That’s particularly interesting since John was instrumental in founding Curbi, the Carnival society named for those who stood on the curb and watched the Carnival parades go by.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: A century of campfires, warming a century of leadership
As a scout, it’s up to you. If the food you make is inedible, you and your fellow scouts don’t eat. If you pitch your tent in the wrong place, you and your tentmate are going to get wet. If you don’t reach down to help, no one else climbs up.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: This time, Georgia moved the chains
A UT devotee remembers a heart-stopping 1968 game, but says, “This time around, I’m a Georgia fan.”
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: To those who ‘circle the drain,’ thanks
Citizens all over greater Memphis – all over the country – watch over things every day, caring enough about all of us to make sure the greater good is served by the maintenance of the things we care about.
-
CONAWAY
Dan ConawayOpinion: A single rose from 2020
What is the single rose we can take from that pile of a year? As hopeful as it may be, it’s not the vaccine.
-
Dan Conaway Opinion: When horseback rides and weddings meet, it’s happy trails
What makes weddings cool has nothing to do with hundreds of people in church or a few in a cabin. It has to do with two people agreeing to share the trail, with all its ups and downs, and to get wherever they’re going together.
-
-
December 2020
-
Dan Conaway Conaway: ‘This is my Christmas story’
It was the last Christmas all three sons would share with our parents, although none of us knew that at the time, and the last Christmas I would be single, and I guarantee neither Nora nor I knew that at the time.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: To those who don’t believe in COVID: don’t break any mirrors
Despite all the cases reported – including people we know, people all of us know, say, the president – many of us still believe that COVID-19 is a hoax.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: Under Terri Freeman, the National Civil Rights Museum became a catalyst for change
Freeman asked us to take what we felt inside the museum outside and apply it.
-
Dan Conaway Opinion: The Overton Park golf course is about a lot more than golf
For 114 years, longer than any other municipal golf course here, one golf course has introduced this city to the game, more than any other. Short and certainly sweet, first pars are found on this course, first birdies sing, and first eagles soar. And they come back for a lifetime.
-
-
November 2020
-
Dan Conaway Opinion: Imagine, and be thankful
People are called visionary after whatever seemingly crazy idea they’ve envisioned becomes reality against all odds. Otherwise, they’re just called crazy. And it’s just crazy how many visionaries this city has been blessed with.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: ‘Everybody look what’s going down’
Preachers must often wonder if what they’re saying gets through — after that sip of water mid-sermon, looking across the congregation. This Sunday, I got it.
-
Dan Conaway Opinion: Thank you, ma’am
In the last few national elections, about 4% more women than men voted overall. In the Black community, it’s running about 10% more women than men. Among Hispanics, it’s about 5% more. They are Democrats and Republicans, but they are not in lockstep along party lines.
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: Hmmm, we got issues
The fact that we aren’t in shape anymore to shape the world has made us mad, and Donald Trump played to that anger to get elected president in 2016 and every day since.
-
-
October 2020
-
Premium
Dan ConawayOpinion: Not the apple of the Big Apple’s eye
What New York City had to endure this year at the hands of the coronavirus is both a lesson and a warning of what’s at risk. They’ve been trying to tell us. One of their very own is president of the United States, and they tried to tell us about him, too.
-