MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
LITTLE ROCK — An emotional Bill Clinton bid childhood friend and deputy counsel Vince Foster farewell Friday in an hour-long ecumenical service for the lawyer whose apparent suicide has stunned and confounded the President and the White House staff. Clinton went directly to St. Andrew’s Cathedral after arriving in Air Force One with other administration officials and Arkansas’s two senators — David Pryor and Dale Bumpers. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno also attended. The President, who met first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, their 13-year-old daughter, Chelsea, and his mother Virginia Kelley, at the church, spoke briefly during the service, which was described as solemn, but at times upbeat.
50 years ago — 1968
Members of Colonial Country Club last night voted 254-13 to swap its 96-acre tract at Perkins and Southern for new facilities and more land at the intersection of Interstate 40 and Germantown Road — a move that may insure continuance of the Memphis Open Golf Tournament.
75 years ago — 1943
Memphis has taken an option on 28 paintings in the Warner S. McCall art collection in St. Louis, John B. Vesey, chairman of the Memphis Park Commission, revealed yesterday. The collection of masterpieces will sell for $38,000.
100 years ago — 1918
Within sight and sound of Main Street, 30 bottles of bootleg whiskey were confiscated yesterday by sheriff’s deputies. The stuff was found by the sharp-eyed lawmen under some loose planks on the back porch at 154 Monroe.
125 years ago — 1893
Every now and then, the air resounds with jungle noises as some inconsiderate jokester attempts to stir up the inhabitants of Court Square. Quite a racket can be made, too, when the monkeys, peacocks, pigeons and squirrels all chime in. Some say the square would be better off without the monkeys and peacocks, but Most Memphians cannot imagine Main Street without them.