Davis-Kidd more than just a store to our family

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

April 28, 2011

Last weekend, I took the kids to the new Woodland Discovery Playground at Shelby Farms and to the Memphis Farmers Market Downtown. Over those two days we came in contact with hundreds of fellow Memphians and families.

These places and events have become more than a place to swing and slide and buy collard greens or strawberries. They are the places we go to visit and catch up with old friends or meet new ones. The common interest is there, whether it’s having children or having an appetite.

We are all birds of a feather.

For a city that’s been known far and wide and unflatteringly for its divisiveness along racial, economic and educational lines, it is wonderful to finally see citizens clamoring to be together. It’s good to be able to share this coming-together with my own and so many other children as well.

As Memphis gears up this week to welcome the world to our largest backyard party, the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival, it’s comforting to think of the smaller, year-round gatherings for us to enjoy. And the past few years have seen more and more of these opportunities, from the free concerts at the Levitt Shell to smaller neighborhood festivals to the plaza of the FedEx Forum before a Grizzlies playoff game … (read more)