I just received my copy [of Memphis ] and read "Sorry Excuses" (Last Stand, October). Keep up the good work. Your voice needs to be heard in this community and beyond.
~ James T. Share
I've been meaning to write and tell you how much I've been enjoying Memphis magazine in recent months, but somehow I never got around to it. Your October issue finally spurred me to action.
It was great from front to back, as usual, but Marilyn Sadler's saga about the Emily Fisher murder ("A Murder in Central Gardens") was simply extraordinary. She dug deep beneath the horrific surface of this tragedy and found the sad and unexplored truth. It read like a novel in some sections and like a true-crime story in other parts.
I'm looking forward to reading part two in November. Keep up the great work, and kudos all around.
~ Gail Martin
Thank you for your editor's letter about Rebecca [Fisher]. I too enjoyed her contagious laugh in the halls of Hutchison, though I was a year older than she. What a clever, strong girl she has always been. And you're right – she was always good for a chuckle.
I had just gotten married and moved from my parents' home in East Memphis to Midtown when the tragic murder took place. After it came out that the murder was an inside job, I relaxed and began to enjoy our new (to us) home and neighborhood. We are still in the Midtown area.
I have the rest of the magazine ready for reading, but I just wanted to jot a quick note of thanks. You are doing a great job at Memphis . It is a beautiful, informative magazine, and one I anticipate receiving each month.
~ Ragan Crawford Magness
I remember vividly the Japanese Garden in Overton Park connected with Robert Galloway's home at Overton Park and McLean (Ask Vance, October 2007).
I lived on North Parkway and attended Snowden School when the war broke out in 1941. I remember sitting on the front porch of my home and listening to the lions being fed two blocks away as they roared when the food arrived. I could walk down to the park in about five minutes and enter the zoo near the corner of Parkway and McLean.
When the Japanese Garden fish pond was closed as you described, they took all the Koi goldfish from the pond and put them into Rainbow Lake close to the Doughboy Statue across the street from the large pavilion.
My cousin and I with a lunchbox in hand would walk over to Rainbow Lake and fish (it was allowed in those days) for the afternoon. Since the goldfish had been placed in the lake, we would catch very large Koi goldfish, put them on our stringer, and return home with catch in hand hoping my mother would cook them for dinner (she never did, of course).
I think of this now and regret the action of the goldfish placement in the lake and the senseless destruction of a thing of beauty represented by the Japanese Garden.
~ John F. Gratz Jr., M.D.
St. Helena, California
