Every year, along about June, we at the Flyer start thinking about our annual “Best of Memphis” issue. Not because we want to, but because we have to. It’s simply too big a project to put off until the last minute. This year, we had a June meeting at which the greatest minds in the building came together to discuss the theme of this year’s issue. We came up with nothing, nada, bupkis.
No big deal, we thought. “Let’s meet again next month,” we said brightly. “Everybody put on your thinking caps.”
But the July meeting didn’t happen. We got busy with other things, including surviving “The Storm.” By August, desperation was setting in. The marketing department wanted a theme; the ad department wanted to know what we were up to. We hadn’t a clue. The editorial staff tossed around numerous ideas, most of them lame. Someone finally said, “Let’s just call it ‘The Best We Could Come Up With.'” Ha, ha. Chuckles all around, then a little silence. Then, a collective “Why not?”
That morphed into something called “Personal Best,” in which the staff wrote whatever they wanted around the “Best” theme. Sort of like those essays about “What I Did Last Summer” that you had to write in high school. Which led to the high school yearbook concept. Which led to “yearbook” pictures of the staff. Which led us to this: probably the best “Best of” issue we’ve ever done.
Of course, that’s just my personal opinion. — Bruce VanWyngarden, editor