StoryBoard 30

“We’ve never seen anything like this in our lifetime. It’s traumatizing. And some people have better coping skills than others and have a support system. If you don’t have a well-developed support system and then you’re isolated . . . some of the things that are happening with mental health and substance abuse . . . it’s really tragic. We’ve seen people that have been sober for a decade that relapsed and went back to using because they just didn’t know any other way to deal with the stress...

“I became very verklempt. It was such a wonder to play it and hear it again. It’s hard to describe. When I was down here and the organ was being demonstrated, he (Tony Thomas) was playing ‘There Will Never Be Another You.’ And I had a flashback. All those hundreds of people who courted in this theatre, during the war . . . they were all around me. Funny how that happens. It’s amazing, really, when you think through all of this, all the things that have happened in this room . . ...

“I think I’ve asked every person that I’ve met here. Where do you find your truth? What do you read? What do you watch? Most people look at me blankly and can’t really answer me because, well, does it exist? I end up having to look for raw data because that can’t lie. So I guess you try and make your arguments out of the raw data, whether it’s FBI statistics or economic statistics, because everything is skewed...

“The Central Gardens Home & Garden Tour is an anticipated event every fall, we’ve been doing it annually for (40+) years, and it’s something that people in Memphis and the greater Mid-South really look forward to. We were on target to have an amazing tour, and then (after the pandemic shutdown in March) the committee got together and said Hey guys, we’re going to have to make a decision...

“History’s not stuffy. And it’s not as far away as you think it is. And either looking at the images and wondering ‘where is this?’ and ‘why is it different?’ and ‘what does that mean?’ . . . makes you feel more connected to the city and with the past. You realize that ‘Oh, these are people like me, and they have the same concerns and the same fears and same challenges.’ I find it inspiring to see how people overcame these challenges in the past and how it informs the future...

“Private wealth and public poverty . . . the notion is that while in America we’ve accumulated vast wealth in the private and corporate sector, that when we look at the public sector, in terms of public facilities it’s a status of real impoverishment. And that certainly would be the case with the loss of a facility like this . . . The church was everything. Like so many of us growing up in the South, the church is your second home. I lived on Summer Avenue growing up, and that was home...

“Somehow my performing created this safe place where they could talk and share their stories. . . and the conversations that came from that. . . it was really something. People were moved, not just by what I shared, but they were moved deeply by what each other shared, Black and White, about what it was like to grow up in Memphis, Black and White, and to know about racism and deal with that...

“Livability has never been more important . . . at the very moment when city revenues are in decline and city leaders are challenged by managing through a pandemic and big shifts in the economy, I think you’re still going to have to look ahead and be bold and not be afraid of asserting changes amidst this chaos. There’s the tendency when you’re fearful, you hunker down, you cover up, you go to your comfort food . . ...

“Today we are going to be talking about housing, and what is really a set of crises as a result of the pandemic and economic shutdowns. As many of us in Memphis and around the country are in isolation, workers are working from home, parents are teaching from home...

“The first obvious one that will be affected for quite some time is office space. Employers and employees are realizing a lot of work can be done from home – that was a bit of an eye-opener for me. When I realized how easy it was to work from home it was a bit scary – I think it’ll interesting to see how many businesses come back. I don’t think they’ll come back at a 100% working from the office.”

That’s architect Chooch Pickard of ArchInc...