Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Memories are Made of Grits?

There's something a little ironic about the name of the new breakfast/lunch spot at the corner of Summit Hill Drive and Central Avenue. The new Memories Diner has adopted the same name and retro-chic soda fountain theme as the location's previous occupant, which closed after an unsuccessful run last year. You don't need a long memory at all to recall at least three incarnations of the establishment. But co-owners Becky Jones and Patrice Miley insist that their new diner won't fade away. "We're here every day running the store," Jones says. "That should increase the service and food quality. Business has been pretty good. It's busy, and getting busier."

A Kiss and Make Audit Story

After weeks of fussing, it was backslaps and smiles all around as County Commission voted to go along with the school board's offer to split the cost of a school system audit and hire the firm of McConnell, Jones, Lanier and Murphy. Even though school folk had complained bitterly about the selection, preferring an outfit called MGT, it was Kumbayah time at the commission meeting Monday when project manager Sharon Murphy showed up to answer questions. Among the first to schmooze her were her new best friends, schools supe Charles Q. Lindsey and his mouthpiece Mike Cohen. From the looks of things, Murphy, who was asking county finance director Kathy Hamilton for documents before the end of the meeting, has hit the ground running.

It's Been, Like, Cats & Dogs

The Knoxville animal shelter controversy will be featured in an upcoming issue of a publication called Action Line, published by the national organization, Friends of Animals. The story, which will also deal with national trends in sheltering, will contain several quotes from the much-maligned executive director of the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley, Vicky Crosetti. The local humane society's efforts to get out of the business of running the shelter for local government are not unique to Knoxville, and were also the subject of a national Humane Society magazine article in August. City and county governments are in the process of creating a quasi-governmental board modeled after the defunct Knoxville-Knox County Solid Waste Authority, which was created in the late '80s to build a mass burn incinerator. The chief virtue of the solid waste authority, which went away after Mayor Victor Ashe pulled the plug on the big burner, was that it lasted long enough to shield local government from liability in a lawsuit filed by the engineering firm contracted to build the facility.

Will They End Up in Domestic Court?

Frank Leuthold wishes that Citizens for Home Rule would shut up and take care of business. Well, he put it more tactfully than that ("I am certainly hopeful that they will work these problems out"), but he is not alone in worrying about the venerable anti-annexation group, which has splintered into warring factions, each trying to do the other in. CHR attorney David Buuck, who is now CHR's former attorney as a result of the schism, is one of the state's leading annexation fighters, and has filed scores of suits in behalf of CHR members who don't want to be taken into the city against their will. President John Emison may or may not actually be the ex-president, having been voted out recently by rival board members led by his major opponent Patra Rule. Emison says his ouster is void because the meeting was held without notice. The in-fighting couldn't come at a worse time, in the view of Leuthold and others, since the city's recent spate of annexations has occasioned numerous new applications for membership.

Cleaning Up for the Dirty Whites and Them

Everybody knows County Commissioner Mary Lou Horner's liable to turn up anywhere, but it was still a bit of a shock to flip on Channel 12 and see her talking smack with Terry "Who's Your Daddy?" Landell.

"I'm better looking than you are, and people want to hear what I have to say," she was telling the mouthy wrestling promoter while doing a guest appearance to help promote a match that was to be held in the parking lot of the Halls Wal-Mart. Horner shared the bill with Tim "White Lightnin'" Horner (no known relation), the Dirty White Boy (managed by the Dirty White Girl), "Wildman" Jeff Anderson and David Anderson. The match was to help Brett Young, a 6-year-old who needs treatment for severe combined immune deficiency.

On the night of the actual fight, Horner had to stop off at the Knoxville Academy of Medicine, where she attended a black tie affair honoring Phillip Fulmer. She got out to the Wal-Mart and climbed through the ropes into the squared circle in her evening gown and tossed T-shirts out to the crowd. Afterward, she rode around Halls in a stretch limo with the Dirty White Boy and them.

We Play a Little Football, Too

The Harper's Index published in Harper's Magazine is always good for some startling and amusing statistics. This month's index hit home. After the line, "Average number of people living per square mile in the Gaza Strip, New Jersey, Japan, respectively: 8,000, 1,100, 828," was this bit of Knoxville information: "Average number of corpses per acre at the University of Tennessee's 'body farm,' for the study of decomposition: 10."