MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1995
All Douglas Day wanted to do Thursday afternoon was open a savings account and rent a safety deposit box to store a handgun. Instead, he got a half dozen shotguns pointed at him and a cut on his wrist from police handcuffs. The adventure began when Day told an employee at the Union Planters branch bank in Frayser that he had a handgun outside that he wanted to keep at the bank. But the employee thought Day said hand ''grenade.'' A security guard called police at 4:06 p.m., and at least four patrol cars raced to 2188 Frayser within minutes. ''I knew better than to walk into the bank with a gun,'' said Day several hours later. Day, 31, of Memphis, said that after speaking with the employee and asking for a security guard to meet him when he returned, he left the bank to get his unloaded Smith & Wesson Model 10 .38 special. ''I came back (to the bank) waiting for the security guard. No one ever showed up. So I laid it down on his desk. All the bank employees were leaving. After police saw there was no grenade, Day was released. Day, who was shaken up in the mishap, said he told the bank officials, ''I want to close my account right now. I'll find me a new bank.''
50 years ago — 1970
MIAMI – A suit charging that the blackout of the Super Bowl football game to South Florida violates the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the constitutional rights of 2.5 million people was thrown out of Federal Court Monday. In upholding a motion by the National Football League and the City of Miami for dismissal of the case, Judge Ted Cabot said the privilege to watch a live broadcast of a football game did not fall within the area of constitutional rights.
75 years ago — 1945
Services for Lizzie Robinson, 85year-old leader of the women's department of the Church of God in Christ, were held last night in Mason Temple — the edifice she had come from Omaha, Neb., to see dedicated as international headquarters for the denomination. The dedication was a part of the National Convocation now in progress at the Temple, 958 South Fifth. Stricken after witnessing the ceremony, she died Wednesday night in one of the Temple dormitories.
100 years ago — 1920 HAZLEHURST, Miss. – There is a strong sentiment here among farmers and business men in general for the getting of a weather station for Hazlehurst. This is one of the leading trucking sections in the South and millions of dollars in truck crops are marketed every year. Most of the working and planting of these vegetable crops is
gone in the midst of winter weather, when freezing storms and rains are most frequent. Many a farmer has lost his entire crop because he did not have adequate warning of approaching bad wintry weather.