OUR FORGOTTEN TENNESSEE. Ray Skinner called me the other day and told me a story. He has a bunch of them.

Keel Hunt is a Nashville guy, which is why his fascinating new book about Tennessee politics, "Crossing the Aisle: How Bipartisanship Brought Tennessee to the 21st Century and Could Save America," is a lot more Nashville than Memphis.

So much for civility, consensus and racial harmony.

I am willing to give the nearly 500,000 Mississippi voters the benefit of the doubt.

I recently heard a retired judge tell a gathering that he started his legal career as a prosecutor.

LET’S SEE IF WE’VE GOT GRAVY. I’ve been part of the breakfast cooking team at my church for decades, and for the first 20 years or so I stood next to Dr. Fred Sage. Fred did sausage gravy. I did eggs, 72 at a time.

The tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump’s administration are prompting supply-chain disruptions from coast to coast. 

I’m 69, so maybe the P.C. crowd will give me a pass when I ask: What’s with all the geezers dominating the world of politics and government?

At 6:30 p.m. Saturday of the Thanksgiving holiday, I was standing in my kitchen and heard four pops from a gun near McLean and North Parkway. News coverage the next morning indicated shots were fired in traffic congestion as people were taking their children to see the annual display of holiday lights at the Memphis Zoo.

LOOK FOR THE WONDER. REPEAT. Every year, no matter what. And it’s happened again. Despite it all.

With a new master plan for Overton Park in the works – the first in 30 years – what better time than now for Brooks Lamb’s new University of Tennessee Press book “Overton Park: A People’s History” to appear in Memphis bookstores?

Downtown development is booming, with new announcements occurring, it seems, almost daily.  

Soon after I arrived in Knoxville to lead the Institute of Agriculture in 2006, I fell in love with the University of Tennessee. It is a special place because of the people and their commitment to the students and citizens all across the state of Tennessee. There is something about the spirit found within this university. It is real. It is sincere. It is palpable. It is authentic.

This past weekend, the Hallmark Channel premiered “Christmas at Graceland,” a made-for-television feature film where country star Kellie Pickler offers key support to the film’s real star: Graceland.

The Downtown Memphis from 2014 when I moved back home from Austin, compared to the Downtown I experience and represent today, is almost night and day.

I’m feeling better, thanks.

Should Congressman Steve Cohen, re-elected Nov. 6 with an even higher than usual 80 percent of the vote, be worried about holding on to office into the 2020s (and his own 70s)? 

“Everything is not about race,” Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant boldly proclaimed this week while struggling to defend an indefensible comment from the person he handpicked to be an interim U.S. senator.

The first executive order issued by President Trump in February 2017 was to reduce crime and restore public safety to communities across the nation.

My first reaction when I saw Elvis Presley was getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom was puzzlement: This hasn’t already happened? And, why now?

There are about 64,000 veterans in Shelby County. This Veterans Day, instead of saying “Thank you for your service,” why not ask a veteran to tell about their service.

Phil Bredesen spent his last four minutes and 12 seconds in the spotlight Tuesday night coming to grips with the sobering reality that his time in politics is over.

“Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Shelby County v. Holder, a landmark decision that overturned a key provision of the 1965 Civil Rights Act and ended the enforcement of federal oversight of voting practices in states that have historically disenfranchised minority voters.

I’m taking a breath. The election is over, and however you may feel about the outcome, the sun has managed to come up the last three days regardless. My back hurt before, during, and after the voting, and nobody running helped me get my socks on in the morning. The person who does that got my vote a long time ago, although she may be looking for another candidate.

Two quotes in the closing days of this year’s midterm election, both on the subject of the “migrant caravan” as a political motivator: