“Because you don’t have to wait for something to be gone to revisit it.”
We admit it. We’re big on nostalgia at NPT. And we think you are, too. Just look at the titles of some of our most popular documentaries: Memories of Nashville. Memories of Downtown Nashville. Memories of Sulphur Dell. Nashville: The 20th Century in Photographs. In many ways, nostalgia and fondly recalling what used to be is good for both of us. But something struck us last month when it appeared that the Elliston Place Soda Shop might close down. There was an outcry of local support. People lined up in droves for a final milkshake or burger. Facebook and Twitter were filled with eulogies. And we wondered if the Soda Shop might be part of a Memories of Elliston Place special twenty years from now. But then Gail Kerr at The Tennessean put us all in our place. She used her column to remind us, and herself, that we were all partly to blame for the Soda Shop closing. While we all lamented its closing, many of us hadn’t been in years. “Locals do not necessarily support local icons,” she wrote. Perhaps we all took it for granted.
It’s easily done, of course. Nashville is a continually growing city, with exciting new restaurants and places to visit popping up almost weekly. And sometimes iconic establishments themselves rest on their laurels and forget to reach out to the community and remind us they’re still there.
It all got us thinking about those iconic Nashville places and things around us that could wind up in a Memories show, but don’t need to yet. They’re still open. Still among us. And perhaps we forget about them.
We have an idea. And we need your help.
Memories of Nashville … Now will be an occasional NPT Media Update Blog series that profiles a Nashville-area establishment that we’d all be sad to see go, but perhaps need a little gentle reminder about. We’ll give you all the details and the location, and a little history, and leave it to you to decide what to do next. But before then, we need your input on what those places are. We could rattle off ten right now, some obvious, some not so much, but want this to be your project as well. So leave us a note in the comments, email us at TV8@wnpt.orgt, post to our Wall on Facebook, or even let us know on Twitter @npt8. And check the blog soon for our first Memories of Nashville … Now post.
And remember, as the tagline to this blog series says, “you don’t have to wait for something to be gone to revisit it.”
1 Comment
Could you please tell me how I can see your clips from “5 O’Clock Hop” that have been shown on Channel 8 in Nashville ??