Whoever is firing the boiler for the Tennessee Cotton Oil Co. must be using old rubber boots.

For the curious: No, that isn't Union Station in the background -- one vulgar name is enough ... suh!! -- but rather Poplar Avenue station.

Like many of us, it lost a little off the top, and more generally its good looks, as it slid into decrepitude.

Doesn't look like much of a view from those park benches but then again, they are upstream of the smoke.

On this Veterans Day today, I appreciate this 1910 Confederate Park had a United States flag flying overhead.

In February 2013 the Memphis city council hurriedly renamed three Confederate-themed parks, including this one and one named after the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, to head off an effort by some state legislators to block such name changes. In 2017 a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which I don't see in the 1910 photograph, unless they meant that bust), along with the war cannons, were removed.

Here is Memphis Park today. Front Street is the street on the right. The concrete walks are laid out in the same pattern. The air looks much fresher.

"Dressed Beef" had me seeing sartorially significant bovine units à la Amelia Bedelia, the housekeeper of literature who took her instructions literally.

Of course, those dates mark not the birth and death of the President of the Confederacy, but the arrival and removal of his statue in Confederate Park. Ironically, the statue had a much shorter life than the man himself.

By the way, Confederate Park is now called Memphis Park.

By my count there’s at least 70 people in that picture. I probably missed some too. Amazing!