Stories

Researched narratives from Knoxville’s past
One Man’s Opinion About What Market Square Really Needs
March 18, 2015
I’m just getting back out, a little, after almost half a year in a hole. I know 20 or 30 restaurant and bar owners, and want to be sure they know it hasn’t been anything...
How a Knoxvillian Brought New Year’s Eve to Times Square
March 12, 2015
Every year, millions will crowd around televisions to watch the most famous New Year’s Eve celebration in the world.  The ball drop at Times Square in New York has become...
The Knoxville History Project Launches a New Look at Local History—and Jump-Starts Local Journalism
March 11, 2015
A key part of the Mercury launch is the formation of a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit, an educational organization known as the Knoxville History Project. It’s surprising, when...
A Night In Happy Holler
February 20, 2015
Last week I was at Time Warp Tea Room for a full house, a satisfying and inexpensive meal on a cold February night. Proprietor Dan Moriarty presides over the Time Warp like...
Robby Griffith, and the people you almost know
February 4, 2015
I can’t claim to have known Robby Griffith. In my many encounters with him at Lawson McGhee Library, where he worked for a quarter century, he was always cordial and quietly...
Mad Pilgrimage: the new biography of Tennessee Williams, and the unfinished project of Lyle Leverich
January 19, 2015
John Lahr’s new biography is called “Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh.” It’s a pity Lahr chose that particular subtitle. Now, when I write my autobiography,...
Obama’s Knoxville Visit
January 8, 2015
Here’s a coincidence. When I was naïve enough to think there might be a Metro Pulse still in publication in January, 2015, I made a note in my calendar to look into a column...
The First Municipal Christmas Tree: A Knoxville Christmas, 1914
December 19, 2014
Weathermen had predicted a white Christmas. It was almost cold enough. For days, the temperature never climbed out of the 30s, and then it got colder. But in Knoxville, all it did was rain,...
Gideon Fryer, 1921-2014
December 16, 2014
This column has taken me a good deal longer to write than I expected. I told Gideon Fryer about a year ago that I could write a profile of him every year without repeating...


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