Any sign they want

Your Feb. 26 story about the size of the Bass Pro signs “Size does matter” deserves comment. Asking Chooch Pickard for advice on invigorating the riverfront strikes me as being akin to asking Barney Fife to design an effective S.W.A.T team.

He and his kooky liberal friends, the ones who make up Friends for Our River Front and Memphis Heritage, haven’t exactly been supporters of Bass Pro. As this project nears opening, they are hoping for one last shot at this project.

Pickard says the size of the signs is not in line with the standard for the riverfront. What standard? Where is this standard written? Was the eyesore of the cement plant congruous with Pickard’s standard?

The problem Downtown socialites have with Bass Pro is that for all their supposed cries for diversity, they loathe anything that does not look like, think like and act like them. It was the same loathing of black youth by these socialites that quietly forced Peabody Place into becoming a tomb. One only has to examine the archives of this newspaper and its message board to read all the negative comments liberals cast toward Bass Pro customers.

Bass Pro deserves to place signs as large as it chooses to pay for and hang. Soon the retailer will be functional. It will revitalize much of Downtown and flood the area with different voices and new money. Bass Pro isn’t going to squash Memphis’ past. Instead, it will bring even more people here to experience it.