WRIGHT ON
Thank you for the extremely well-written story about the beautiful Victorian Village and our favorite preservationist, Eldridge Wright [June 2008].
We hope more Memphians will visit our favorite part of town and invest in its future as a result of your story.
See you soon at Woodruff-Fontaine house!
~Jeanne Crawford
Memphis
Forty years ago, I had a work assignment in Memphis for a brief eight months, August 1967 to April 1968. During that time, Stax Music was in full bloom with an enormous array of music makers. Among them were Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. Musically, these were exciting times to have been in the Bluff City. So I enjoyed (though sadly) the article, "The Day the Music Died" [December 2007].
Prior to coming to Memphis, I was assigned to Milwaukee, and while there I had visited with friends in Madison, Wisconsin. Having spent parts of 1967 in Madison and Memphis, the Alpha and Omega for these young talented musicians, I found the article very thought provoking.
Thank you, Preston Lauterbach, for this memorable narrative of Stax from that glorious era, and the tragic outcome on a cold and foggy Wisconsin day in December 1967.
~Thornal Goodloe Oliver
Kansas City, Missouri
GOOSE BUMPS, PART I
Your editor's letter of April 2008 was so pro-found, in my humble opinion, that I stood and applauded for a lengthy amount of time in my kitchen. So eloquent, so sensitive, so "right on"!
I am the senior waiter at the Hunt/Phelan house. I consider myself a devout Memphian and I was involved with the civil rights movement of 1968. I was 16 years old. I was in attendance when Dr. King gave his "promised land" speech. I still remember the goose bumps that danced up and down whenever I hear that speech. Your letter gave me those same goose bumps.
~Raymond Neal
Memphis
GOOSE BUMPS, PART II
Your most recent editor's letter gave me goose bumps. It's amazing how so few typed words can be so very descriptive and, quite frankly, chilling.
I'm glad that your father is doing well and has recovered. I, too, once encountered something similar, so I can definitely sympathize with the anguish, fear, and potential regret that you felt that New Year's Day.
I just had to take the time to share my thoughts with you. Thank you for doing such a great job with our magazine.
~ Thomas Harrison
Memphis
WHAT A PILL!
I read with great appreciation Preston Lauterbach's piece "America the Pharmaceutical." I have long railed against the medical/pharmaceutical complex which overmedicates patients after they have creatively diagnosed "illnesses." As Phil Gramm recently said, we have become a nation of whiners. We are looking for the instant fix for all our problems. We don't want to work for or wait for anything these days. And, while marketers have helped to create this whiney state of affairs, they are also smart enough to capitalize on it with further promises to fix all our problems. Thank you for exposing just one small item on this growing list of typically American phenomena. This topic will provide you an endless source for future articles.
~ Judy VanSteenberg
Memphis
CORRECTION In "The Wright Idea" (June issue) a building on page 52 was identified as the Wright mansion at 688 Jefferson. That photo actually shows a pair of nineteenth-century houses on Adams. The Wright building is shown (above), just before it was demolished in the 1960s.
Also, the photographs of Sam Sciara and Sam's Italian Villa in the July edition of "Ask Vance" were provided courtesy of the University of Memphis Special Collections Department.
We regret the error and the omission.
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