The Memphis Trip In Review

Rudy, observing in stealth

Day 1

Cats observed supervising the packing process.

From an undisclosed location in southern Minnesota, the trip commenced on a Thursday evening, stopping once at Don's Supper Club and once for petro before ending travel in Hannibal, Missouri, for the night.

Note to Don's Supper Club franchises in my home state: having sampled your cuisine in several southern locations, please stop salting the shit out of my burgers!

In Hannibal, we stayed at a hotel run by a terrorist front group.  OK, probably not, but it was weird when a pleasant conversation with the proprietor turned rigid once my friend asked where he was from.  Not Arizona, before that.  Oh, India?

Day 2

Hit the road, Jack, on the way to Memphis, passing through Arkansas and recalling the classic SNL bit featuring Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton, boasting during the presidential debate with Bush and Perot how Arkansas had improved to 47th in the nation in the prevention of rickets.

Arriving in Memphis, we visited the National Civil Rights Museum, adjunct to the Lorraine Hotel, site of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination.  The wreath of course marks the location of MLK when he was shot.

Informative, yet super creepy, was the view from James Earl Ray's vantage point.  The room he shot from is now encased behind plastic and sealed forever in infamy.

The National Civil Rights Museum is an amazing, highly informative visit.  It also produced several cringe-worthy moments, where you realize just how shabby an entire race was treated.

We also passed by the Memphis church where Martin gave his "mountaintop" speech.  Tattered, dilapidated and evolving into ruins, the church now cries out for the restoration it strangely hasn't received.

Sociological note: having lived in the "north" all my life, I was taken aback by the race relations in Memphis.  Southern Blacks seemed to lack all the anger that I have experienced with northern ones.  I felt comfortable in Memphis and very welcomed in areas that were predominantly Black.  I'm still processing what that means.

Meanwhile, back home...

Coming soon: day 2, part 2!