Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

Comment
on this story

A Walk in the Park

In March 2001, Mayor Victor Ashe took the podium at Danny Mayfield's funeral and made the announcement that there would be a park in Mechanicsville named for the charismatic young City Councilman, dead of bone cancer. There was much applause, and the announcement was a comfort to Mayfield's widow, Melissa, who knew better than anyone the battles her husband had waged with his colleagues on the Ashe-dominated City Council. Missy Mayfield would go on to wage one last battle when she campaigned, unsuccessfully, to be appointed to serve out the rest of her husband's unexpired term. Only two of her husband's colleagues, Carlene Malone and Nick Pavlis supported her, opening a painful rift that erupted in a recall campaign that was waged for most of the summer. The Recallistas failed, but residual bitterness remains.

Since then, the city has thrown money at Victor Ashe Park and Gary Underwood Park and Lakeshore Park, but Danny Mayfield Park languishes as a barren patch of weeds inside the Hope Six project, across the street from Maynard Elementary School.

Melissa Mayfield Hornsby (she has remarried and is living in New Jersey) has gotten tired of waiting. "I've made numerous calls, and all I get is the run-around," she says. "The only answer I get is they've run out of money. But I'm not giving up."

Contacted about the situation, the mayor said, "I will get with Sam Anderson on the Danny Mayfield park. I agree it should be built and grass kept neatly."

Talk About Service

Joyce Cawood always has her hair done at the same time, and in the same place. There are other customers there with identical steady habits, so when Helen Whittemann didn't show up at her usual time, Cawood and salon owner Lou Dailey got worried. They knew it would take something serious to make Whittemann break her standing appointment. The worry grew when they called Whittemann's home and received no answer. At that point, Cawood urged Dailey to call her son, County Commissioner Mark Cawood, who got in touch with the sheriff's department and made arrangements to meet a deputy at Whittemann's apartment. When Cawood and the deputy knocked on her door, they heard an alarming thumping noise coming from inside. More officers were dispatched to the scene. "We didn't know if it was a hostage situation, or what," says Mark Cawood. "The doors were locked, so an officer broke out a window, and here's this lady lying in floor, crumpled up." They called for Rural Metro, and Whittemann was whisked to the hospital. She had fallen about 6 that morning and had several broken ribs.

Drink Up and Be Somebody

Kingston Pike's not exactly a lost highway, but a lost weekend might be in the offing when some seldom-heard local players call down the ghosts of Hank and Merle and put on a honky-tonk weekend. The Lonesome Coyotes, featuring Steve Horton, Stan Turner, Doug Klein, Jay Barron, and friends will appear this Friday at 10 p.m. at the ThInQ Tank in the Old City, and at Toddy's Backdoor Tavern Saturday at 9 p.m. The legendary Maggie Longmire will be there, as will Hector Qirko and Danny Gammon. The Rev. Esco Compton will make a rare appearance, topping off a star-studded evening. The Coyotes, not being pups anymore, are pacing themselves, so this will be your last opportunity to hear them until Jan. 9, when they are booked for a Live After Five gig at the Knoxville Museum of Art.

Driving Dry

Mayor candidates Bill Haslam and Madeline Rogero took turns hosting the morning drive WNOX radio talk show this week while regular host Hallerin Hill vacationed. On Tuesday, Haslam got a call from a determined guy named Jim who asked him if he would support a push to ban the sale of cold beer in city grocery and convenience stores. Haslam, who is on leave as president of the family business, Pilot Oil, didn't give Jim an answer, but said Pilot works hard not to sell beer to minors. Some might have thought the call was a set-up.

On Wednesday, Jim was on the horn to Rogero with the same question. It caught her off-guard, but she said she'd like to explore the idea further. The call wasn't an ambush. "Jim" is Victim's Rights activist Jim Garland, who lost a daughter to a drunken driver and belongs to several groups that are pushing for a ban on the sale cold beer, particularly where gas is sold, because they believe it is nothing but an encouragement to drinking and driving.