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Archive for the ‘events’ Category

• Dec. 11, 1947, newspaper coverage

On December 11, 1947, a U.S. Army C-47 cargo plane crashed while approaching the Memphis Municipal Airport. Everyone aboard was killed. Quite frankly, I never knew much about this accident, which took place south of the airport, near the Mississippi state line, and have never seen any photos of it. But I recently managed to turn up a newspaper article from the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal-Gazette that tells about the event. (You’ll that the newspaper reported two different fatal airplane crashes that day. Not a good week for flying.)

Here’s the story:

20 Die in Crackup of Big Army C-47 Near Memphis
MEMPHIS, Tenn. Dec. 11 (UP) — A C-47 transport plane carrying 20 Army officers and men dived to earth as it came in for a landing at the Memphis airport tonight and exploded with a flash that turned night into day. All aboard were killed instantly.

Captain Charles Carmichael, public relations officer for the 468th Air Base unit here, announced that all 20 bodies had been accounted for. The plane was en route here from Biggs Field, El Paso, Tex., on a training flight. Its home base was Aberdeen, Md.

The bodies and fragments of bodies were taken to the veterans hospital here. Several of the victims were decapitated and arms and legs were found amid the ribboned wreckage.

On Training Test
The two-engined transport, the Army’s version of the DC-3 commercial air liner, crashed without premonition of trouble. It was learned, however, that the flight was an instrument training test and the pilot may have been coming in blind although visibility was good for 500 feet.

The plane crashed, exploded, and burned in a fiery shower of sparks in an open field three miles short of the airport at a spot near the Mississippi state line. Tilgham Taylor, a county penal camp guard, had just come home from work around 6 p.m. when he saw the blinding flash. He ran a mile through the woods and tried to put out the fire enveloping the broken bodies.

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Everyone reading this blog surely knows that last year I compiled 100 of the best images that have appeared here and in my “Ask Vance” column in Memphis magazine and produced a very handsome wall calendar. (If you don’t know that, then there is nothing I, or any doctor, can do for you.)

Well, I’ve done it again. Remember Hart’s Bakery, Anderton’s, Shifty Logan, the Bitter Lemon, the original Skateland, the notorious Whirlaway Club and their sexy dancers, and other people and places from the past? They’re all featured in the 2010 Ask Vance Calendar, along with dozens and dozens of other rare images of our city. Just look at the cover! Fancy, huh?

Now I know you’d like to hang on to that old calendar forever. But it really won’t do you much good after the end of the year, so it’s time to buy a new one — AND GET A 12-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION TO MEMPHIS MAGAZINE AT THE SAME TIME. A tremendous bargain, if I do say so, for just $12. Heck, that’s only half what we used to charge for tours of the Lauderdale Mansion, and all you saw was the basement, crawlspace, and cesspool (where I spent so many happy, happy hours).

You can also order a gift subscription for your friends, while you’re at it. Remember, if you like reading “Ask Vance” and also enjoy the weird posts I put on this blog, you’d better keep those subscriptions coming in, or Vance Lauderdale hits the streets, looking for another job. One with dignity, I mean.

And just think of the poor children! No — not MY children. Just bratty children in general.

So call 901-575-9470 or go HERE to order a calendar and keep me employed. It’s a win-win situation for all of us.

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In the November issue of Memphis magazine, we tell the dramatic story of the strange events that took place at the Memphis Academy of Arts from 1969 to 1971, when certain people here objected rather strongly to the school’s use of nudes, and an exhibition of nude photography. The result was death threats, car bombs, even a kidnapping. It’s on newsstands now. Buy a copy. I mean it.

But the art academy (now known as Memphis College of Art) wasn’t the only victim of this outrageous behavior. You know the graceful statue of the three female swimmers that stands as the centerpiece of the garden by the west entrance to Memphis Brooks Museum of Art? (The actual location is called the North Holly Court.) Lovely, isn’t it?

Well, sometime during the evening of August 9, 1976, somebody must have thought otherwise, because they hacked the thing to pieces.

Here’s the photo of the ruined sculpture that ran in the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Quite a mess. The newspaper reported, “The statue has a history of controversy. When it was first put in place, critics objected so strongly to the nude figures that the sculptor, Frances Mallory Morgan, was required to put a suggestion of bathing suits on the figures.”

Apparently that was not enough. Luckily, the artist was able to repair the damage, and it’s hard to tell the piece ever looked like this.

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I go to estate sales from time to time because I like to root though the old books and clothes and papers and photographs. And also because I like to roam through the homes of other people, peeking in their closets and attics and basements. Legally, I mean.

But sometimes you just come across things that are a bit unnerving. Like THIS display in the living room of a sale last weekend. Man, that gave me the shivers. I snapped the picture and scampered out of the room in a hurry, because if that unusually lifelike doll — if it WAS a doll — moved even a fraction of inch, I knew my heart would stop, and that would be the end of “Ask Vance.”

In fact, as I turned to leave, I’d swear the little creature whispered, “Mister, can you please find my Mama”? but I don’t want to think about it anymore.

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