The worn Big Bird and Cookie Monster, the Scotties and Flamingos, the typewriter and macramé angel, the stuff kids made, weren’t for the marketing target audience, they were for us.

“JB Smiley Jr., or any local elected official, has no business in the board rooms of the University of Memphis. If the city council ran the university, chaos would be the only curriculum, and a BS degree would not stand for Bachelor of Science.”

“If something is injuring and assaulting us, if something has become the common denominator in virtually all manner of violent crime, if something aids criminals ... if something is killing us, the city council’s job is to do something about it now.”

AI already knows too much, and the controlled application of that knowledge is everything.

A chance encounter reminds that this is a time for the arrival of hope — at breakfast counters and in hearts.

“No state, not one, has ever rejected this federal education funding. No state. Not one.”

“I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.”

Cas Walker wasn’t in denial about his outrageous business practices and politics, he knew they were outrageous, and he was proud of every one of them.

We’ll do it again. And we’ll be loud. And we’ll enjoy it. I may even try one of those three-egg omelet things, but they can keep the raspberry mocha.

“What weakens our heart and denies our soul destroys us all. What actions taken by the state that threaten the well-being of the least of us, ultimately threaten all of us.”

A sense of, “I can make it,” “I can change it,” “I can create it,” because the most ordinary of origins have sent such extra extraordinary gifts to the world from here.

“Liberty? This city was in rebellion against the United States and taken by force by the United States armed forces. Liberty? We were officially a slave city in a slave state.”

“You have pneumonia,” he said, “double viral pneumonia.”

Amazingly, my physician not only doesn’t condemn the list or even remain neutral. We actually fondly discuss several things on the list in the examining room — the place where the net result of the list is most evident.

Fair or not, the next few weeks are critical to Mayor Jim Strickland’s legacy and will leave an ugly mark or deliver a bright promise.

We were very proud of the baby that came out of that room, out of a whole lot of rooms and minds and hearts, a whole city’s baby.

When 12% of the voters can put a candidate in the top four or five, the votes in your Friday night poker game could put somebody over the top.

There is no better time to tell our own state, and the rest of the country, that we are a city that cannot be bought by the people who make the bullets and the guns that are killing us.

“We met a month before at the spring-fed pool at Allison’s Wells, a fading Southern Belle of a place — sort of resort, part art colony, part retreat from change deep in the Mississippi woods outside of Canton.”

Next week, the 70 best players in the world will be here — right here — to play the game like no one else in the world can.

“While I understand, and share, Virginia McLean’s passion to realize the vision, I submit that her passion has prohibited her from seeing the obvious.”

Johnson & Johnson called. They wanted to make sure I was still at it before they made their quarterly projection for shareholders.

“Sure, you can consider if the candidate would vote your way, or if your interests are going to be protected or pursued. You can consider whether or not you both share a love of fried green tomatoes, but without that checklist as your basic guide, all bets are off.”

I had earned a stomachache that I thought would prove fatal so, when my mother opened the back door and asked why I was doubled over on the steps, I threw up and confessed.

“There’s a quote that comes to mind. Max von Sydow said, ‘If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.’”