Midtown Memphis. Until the day she died, my grandmother called Midtown her home. For 17 years I worked in Midtown. Over the last 10 years, I have taken my boys countless times to the Memphis Zoo in Midtown. Each time, I would make that long drive down Poplar, or sometimes take the interstate to Sam Cooper just to shake it up. Lately though, with my office in East Memphis, I don’t make the trek as often as I once did. But Saturday, it was time for the Cooper Young Festival and time return to Midtown. It is an annual tradition here in Memphis…..plenty of music, food and shopping. I took my youngest son with me. He begrudgingly went as a few years earlier when I took him he was burned by a passerby’s cigarette. No, he doesn’t remember the cool tie dye t-shirt I bought him that year, or the artwork we did….he remembers the guy who accidently burned him. But with the promise of a snow cone when we got there (and pretty much no other choice since my husband and other son were on a hockey trip) we made our way to Cooper Young. It was a gorgeous sunny day. The area was packed. Parking, as usual, was at a premium. The smells of Pronto Pups, crepes and I am pretty sure falafel burgers wafted through the air. Not only food vendors lined the streets, there were stages of music, clothing, jewelry, art and so much more. Our Classic Hits 94.1 KQK booth was set up by the main stage. I introduced the instrumental band Glorie (who were really good!) I met Karen Brown who was set to take the stage after them. I didn’t get to hear her, but with a name like Karen you know she had to be good. :) I also saw lots of friends I had not seen in a while, met many listeners and fb friends. It was a nice day.
As we left the festival, we took a few minutes to drive around the area where I worked all those 17 years, the WMC building. No longer does the big sign on the front of 1960 Union Avenue boast that big steamboat sign as home to both WMC radio and TV. Instead, the sign only reads Action News 5. I did notice on the side of the building was a big banner of my friend/former co-worker Dave Brown and that made me smile. I saw the corner of Union and Cooper that is no longer had a church but a drugstore, the Chick Fil A that (sadly for me) opened after my office moved to East Memphis. I saw the once new houses near the Zoo that now blend into the landscape, all looking majestic, yet disguising their more recent construction. I saw Snowden, the school where my dad and his brother and sister went to school. A school that is still there and, at last check, one that still performs well. My dad lives in Midtown, so we still make the drive on a regular basis. But on this day, we didn’t just hurry up and rush to his house. We took some time to (as Elvis would sing) stop, look and listen……. and remember why the bumper sticker from years ago read “Midtown is Memphis.”
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