Memphis, TN
After this trip, I think the best advise I will be able to give to fellow travelors, even more important than where to score free ice (Pilot and Flying J stations), the best roadside attractions (quite possibly Marfa, TX), or even how to get along with your copilot (reguar meals, easy forgiveness and sometimes just ignoring them), will be a reminder that flexibility is key. I'm so glad that we didn't make any reservations before we left home, because our various stops have taken longer or shorter than planned. We ended up leaving Texas with a couple of extra days built up. Both of us really liked the parks in Texas and have since said that we would like to return, but we didn't use our extra days there because the season is too hot. Summer is actually the slow season in these parks.
So we headed into Arkansas and Tennessee, where I have a lot of family history. My grandparents and great grandparents lived in Mississippi and Arkansas and then moved into the Humbolt area of Tennessee. My aunts and uncle were born while my grandparents were still living in the south and then they moved north to Indiana, where my mom was born. She likes to see she's a northern-born hillbill as she retains many southern ways since her family were essentially transplants. I just wish she'd made grits more when I was growing up.
So, it was really fun going into Hot Springs and Memphis with the knowledge that this is the region my family hailed from. We got into Memphis at night and I had routed us close to Graceland, so we were able to get up and arrive to Graceland by the time they were open for business. Good thing, too, as things got very busy even on the weekday morning we visited. I have to admit I didn't know much from Elvis before I went to Graceland, despite a close family friend being a gifted Elvis impersonator during my childhood. Visiting Graceland was certainly an education. It's neither as big nor as ostentatious as I expected. There are mirrors everywhere, but they somehow fit the decor - it just looks like the style. I think the Graceland tour is very well done - there is an audio commentary running as you move through the home with clips of Elvis himself, bits of his music, interviews with Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley and a well composed narrative. By the time you make it through the impresive house and grounds, you fall half in love with Elvis and then you enter the meditation garden which is the resting place for Elvis and his parents with a small memorial stone for his twin brother that passed at birth. Like so many talented people, he succumbed too young and is obviously missed. I think the tour guide had it right when she said, "There are two kinds of people: people who love Elvis and people who haven't listened to enough Elvis."
A remembers visiting Graceland when he was a small child, but didn't recall the many additional exhibits across the street from Graceland. They are pretty short, but well done and worth the time. After visiting all the exhibits, we were ready to move onto something lighter, so it was off to Sun Studios, the birthplace of Rock-N-Roll.
Sun Studios is a tiny building and at the time of Elvis, was just a tiny room, begun by Sam Phillips who purchased recording equipment and sought out delta blues musicians to record. At that time, black musicians weren't really being recorded as much, so he had a corner on the market and got to record and start out many great musicians. The tour at Sun Studio is only 2 rooms, but is full of history and a lot of fun as they play clips of the various artists, including "Bear Cat" an answer to "Hound Dog" which was originally written and performed by a woman speaking about her male partner; Rocket 88, identified as the very first rock and roll song. The band that recorded Rocket 88 had an accident on the way to Sun Studio and their amp fell out of the truck. In an attempt to fix it, they filled the amp with wadded up paper and when recorded, it resulted in interesting sound distorition. You also get to hear Elvis's original recording, an early recording of him with the musicians he would go on to play with and the so-called Million Dollar Quartet recording of him jamming with Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. This was a fun way to end our tour of Elvis, but as our friend Cindy pointed out, now we see Elvis everywhere, so it's never really over.
After this, it was a return to something more serious again. We drove over to the site of the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed while visiting Memphis in solidarity with striking sanitation workers. The National Civil Rights Museum has been erected at this location. They have left the balcony intact and periodically a recorded voice reminds people to have a respectful quiet. It's incredibly moving and very upsetting to see the site. If you hadn't already seen pictures of the moments immediately following MLKs shooting, you can't help but see them here and then look up and see the balcony itself. Except for family business and cultural differences, I'm rarely aware of being in an interracial replationship. I don't really notice or think about A and I looking different, but as we held hands and shed some tears together here, I was very aware of the difference in our skin and that without MLK and other civil rights advocates, we likely wouldn't be welcome to be together. [This awareness will continue as we travel through the southern states, for both A and I, as we have each noticed people noticing us, be it from race, accent, attire or hygenic reasons.]
Interestingly, across the street from the motel exhibit, there is a woman protesting. Her sign says that she's been protesting for more than 20 years. The crux of her protest is that the government has spent millions of dollars creating a memorial to the site of MLKs death while people continue to live in poverty and need. She maintains that building the museum at this site is more of a memorial to the shooter than to MLK. She has a point, but I also think there is an incredible emotional impact in visiiting the site of his violent death. That energy lingers there and has a powerful and potentially motivating force.
Again, time for something lighter, so we headed to Beale street for drinks, fried green tomatoes and music. We sat at BB Kings Restaurant and listened to the Stax Music Academy Alumni band and rested our hearts and legs awhile.
And they say no visit to Memphis is complete without the march of ducks - specifically the Peabody Ducks at the Peabody Hotel. The resident ducks march from the elevator to their fountain in the lobby and back every day. I felt a little silly queueing up to see a few mallards walk on a red carpet, but it was delightful and such a nice silly balm for the heart.
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