This is my third — and, hopefully, final — week in a hospital or rehab facility. For those who are interested, I have shared some of the details of this unsought confinement on my Facebook page. I’ll spare readers of this column and focus here and henceforth on things of the world — the political world, in particular.
Which is what I’ve endeavored to do in this space for the last 35 years. I’m as keen as anyone to see what comes of the National Guard occupation, which is set to begin more or less in sync with my re-entering the world.
The weather has changed for the better, I know, and from my niche in a dialysis treatment room on Union Avenue last Friday, I caught a nice glimpse out the window of a lush-looking fall world — green trees, blue sky, white clouds — that made me think Edgar Degas was out there painting things up. I didn’t even know that corner of busy Union Avenue was out there.
The Germantown Democrats had their annual picnic over the weekend, and I hated not being there with them. For the record, I’ve enjoyed the social affairs of both parties over the years. A fringe benefit as well as a reminder that people are pretty much identical under the skin. Beyond MAGA and beyond Woke.
• Meanwhile, it was sad to learn that Memphis has lost another vintage public figure of note — Myron Lowery, whose death was announced over the weekend.
In a way, Lowery’s vision lives on — in the person of his son Mickell Lowery, a former county commission chairman and a leading candidate for the office of county mayor in 2026.
In the first interview I ever had with Myron Lowery — when he was a delegate at the 1988 Democratic Convention in Atlanta — the main thing the doting father wanted to talk about was the future prospects of his son, Mickell, then just a tyke. This was years before Myron’s own political career; he wouldn’t become a public official until four years later, when he won a seat on the city council.
From that point on, he was a fixture, a solid rock of competence, sometimes a scold (especially to those colleagues who didn’t bother to inform themselves on the details of a council agenda) but always an authority, serving multiple terms as council chair.
In 2009, after Mayor W.W. Herenton resigned the mayoralty, Lowery ascended from the chairmanship to became the city’s interim mayor. He instituted several measures to further transparency and accountability in city government, but lost a special election for mayor to AC Wharton, who had resigned as Shelby County mayor to seek the city position.
During his services as mayor, it befell Lowery’s duty to play host for a visit to the city by the Dalai Lama. He made national news when he greeted the Buddhist eminence with a fist bump and the salutation “Hello Dalai.” Though Lowery would endure a certain amount of local criticism, his gesture, which had been worked out in advance with representatives of the Dalai Lama, was wholly consistent with a playful tradition at the heart of Buddhism
Though his public service, which included a post-mayoral term as City Court clerk, eclipsed his earliest career somewhat, it, too, had been highly consequential. Before entering politics, Myron worked several years as a weekend anchor for WMC-TV — this at a time when African-American reporters were not as numerous nor as influential as they are in today’s Mid-South market. Myron Lowery served as a pathfinder.