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1997: Let It Die
The price for bucking the year’s conventional wisdom can be high.
by Jim Hanas
 hen Beverly Pressgrove, a nurse at Methodist Hospital, was dismissed
in August for attempting to revive an infant chimpanzee, there
was a public outcry questioning the hospital’s decision. “What
was she supposed to do?” warm-hearted citizens demanded to know.
“Was she just supposed to stand by and do nothing? Should she
have just let the poor thing die?”
Judging by the events of the last year, the answer to that last
question can only be a cold-hearted “yes.”
It is State Senator Tom Leatherwood who deserves credit for compressing
the cruel spirit of 1997 into a pithy but nonetheless bitter pill.
“Let them die,” he said of the cities endangered by the so-called
“toy-town law.” Speaking at a symposium on the now-moot annexation/incorporation
brouhaha, Leatherwood couldn’t have known that he would inadvertently
pen the perfect bumper-sticker for a passing year tricked up with
antagonism and fueled by overheated rhetoric.
Of course, it’s no accident that the year’s slogan was cooked
up in the crucible of Chapter 98. In its wake, all sides tossed
the metaphorical death threat around, steeped generously in the
imagery and battle cries of bloody conflicts gone by. The suburbs
instantly became heirs to the noble cause of the Revolutionary
War as the city fought, equally nobly by its own lights, to preserve
the union. Still, between Leatherwood’s epithet and Mayor
| PHOTO BY GLEN ALEXANDER |
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State Senator Tom Leatherwood deserves credit for compressing
the cruel spirit of 1997 into a pithy but nonetheless bitter pill.
“Let them die,” he said of the cities endangered by the so-called
“toy-town law.” |
Herenton’s threat to leave rebellious new towns sewerless, the
message was the same all around:
“Let them die.”
But Leatherwood’s accidental motto rippled through many of the
year’s events, often retroactively, well beyond the short-lived
secession movement or even the sensational case of the “monkey
nurse.”
Hurt by earlier snubs from the NFL, Memphians reacted coolly to
the arrival of the Tennessee Oilers, delivering pitiful attendance,
perhaps in the secret hope that without support the journeyman
franchise could simply be left for dead. Not only that, but the
bad press heaped on Memphis by the national media provoked local
PR pooh-bahs to worry that the city’s ongoing campaign to become
a “major-league” city had been mortally wounded. “This is putting
a cloud over Memphis in the sports world. We may never recover
from this,” Kevin Kane said, assessing the damage. “Geoff Calkins
can trash me all he wants, but if he does not see that, he is
brain-dead.” In other words, the Commercial Appeal sportswriter
was blamed for going along with the year’s inevitable flow. According
to Kane, he had let his brain die.
The CVB head’s barb was indicative of the deathly black cloud
that hung over the media in particular this year, worldwide as
well as locally. The untimely death of Princess Diana not only
left area talking heads scrambling for a local hook, but initiated
a vigilante chorus directed at the paparazzi in letters to the
editor everywhere. Closer to home, when a Flyer investigation
into the propriety of Dr. Robert L. Green’s consulting contracts
with the city threatened to unearth a quid pro quo arrangement,
Mayor Herenton was inspired to coin a popular corollary to the
slogan of the year. “Go to hell!” he said – which, of course,
requires dying first.
Wherever you looked, it seemed, the grave conventional wisdom
was there.
Nineteen ninety-seven was the 20th anniversary of Elvis’ death
and the year that thousands went to see an exhibit of artifacts
culled from the wreckage of the fatal voyage of the Titanic. It
was the year Governor Don Sundquist’s budget-cutting threatened
to let mental-heath institutions and higher education die, while
the latest Grisham novel-turned-film featured a hapless pair of
lawyers seeking justice against an insurance company that had
coldly let a young boy perish before his time. It was the year
the Larry Finch era was put to an end and bad-boy politico John
Ford angrily brandished a deadly weapon at MLGW workers. It was
the year the Confederate flag refused to die down in Oxford, despite
every attempt by Ole Miss officials to put it to rest once and
for all. Even in music, the rap group Three 6 Mafia grabbed the
attention of major labels with an independent release titled,
appropriately, The End, while one guesses that something like
Leather-wood’s aphorism remains on the mind of Mid-South Concert’s
Bob Kelley, directed at a Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival
that recently showed him the door.
Unfortunately, mortality is not always a harmless piece of political
propaganda. The year saw the very real passing of children’s show
host Harold “Happy Hal” Miller, silver-throated soul singer Ollie
Nightingale, and Elvis impresario Colonel Tom Parker. Sportscaster
Paul Hartlage, local judge Jim White, and journalist-cum-spokesperson
Kay Pittman Black also left us this year, while adopted Memphian
Jeff Buckley met a tragic and untimely end in the currents of
the Mississippi River. All will be missed.
But we shouldn’t miss 1997, no matter how much the successes of
the year try to convince us otherwise – and there were some, sprinkled
here and there among all the death-wishing rhetoric. The Finch
era is over, but the new era of Tic Price is showing promise.
David Hersh and his Chicks took baseball out of Memphis, but Dean
Jernigan and his Redbirds brought it back, tossing a downtown
stadium into the deal. Suburbanites jumped at the chance to become
ex-Memphians, but the city-center they cursed became more vibrant
than ever. Even the Oilers’ attendance started taking steps toward
respectability, while W.W. Herenton became just plain “Willie,”
and now he’s the Flyer’s “Memphian of the Year.” Who’d have thought
it?
Finally, Chapter 98 – the thing that started it all – was quietly
put to rest before Leatherwood’s wish could come true.
But we should be careful not to be taken in by the fuzzy warmth
and sentimental cuteness of the year’s upward swings. Remember
what happened to Beverly Pressgrove when she tried to buck the
unforgiving logic of 1997. A few talk shows, her picture in People
magazine, and then nothing. Not even a job at Primate Canyon.
And the adorable baby chimp died anyway.
Years are like that, too. So when it comes to 1997 … well … you
know what to do. n
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