My First Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee is a little different from Memphis, Egypt, but in many places the American Memphis does its best to pay homage to its namesake.

No, none of those places are in Graceland. It's awesome enough on its own.

Now behold: the Memphis Zoo, home to this large, Egyptian-esque entryway, several African penguins, lions, tigers and panda bears.

My mother and I came to Memphis for four days of music history, kitsch and, as it turned out, scalding heat. We managed to come away from it nearly souvenir free, more than a bit exhausted, and without having eaten one ounce of barbecue! In the BBQ/Rock 'n Roll/Blues/Soul capital of the known world, this was quite an accomplishment. I am here to testify: They have falafel in Memphis.

And they also have a pyramid!

Memphis' pyramid was created to house an unknown sports team. They were hoping that, if they built it, a team would come. No team came for over a decade and, as a result, the structure stands empty. According to the ramblings of the captain/host on our river boat cruise, the elevators have never even been put together.

Now Memphis is home to the NBA's Grizzlies, best known for. . .

Who am I kidding, I'd never heard of them. But their stadium is quite large (the one they actually use), as is the stadium for the Memphis Red Birds, a Cardinals affiliated minor league team who boasts the "best stadium under the major leagues." It does look like a nice stadium, though not nearly so nice as. . .

The river! The Mississippi was what made Memphis great, when it was great, and the Mud River Museum that attests to that fact is quite entertaining. You can, for instance, enter a full-size reproduction of an old-timey river boat. Then, outside, you can walk a scale model of the entire length of the Mississippi (if you're not too tired and hot, that is), taking in such important cities as Cairo, Illinois, which for some reason is pronounced "kay-roh." Silly Americans.

Speaking of names, mine was well represented. Check out this boat sign (sadly, the boat on which we cruised had the much less interesting moniker "The River Queen").










Then there was this exciting menu offering. I'm not sure what a spicy chicken pie is, but it sounds like an accurate description of Ruth.

Here is a view of the river, bridges going to Arkansas and, in the distance, the pyramid, all shiny and useless.

That's a Tennessee flag, or maybe a Memphis flag, not a Confederate one.

But you never can tell with the south, as it turns out, even the "mid-south." At the Burkle Slave Haven museum (once a stop on the underground railroad - trap doors lead to a crawlspace which, in turn, lead to the basement hiding area) we learned that a Confederate general and founder of the KKK is still celebrated in Memphis by a statue and an annual festival, and a high school still bears the name of a man who boasted the largest slave trading establishment in America.

That's a strange juxtaposition with the city's Civil Rights Museum (in the Lorraine Hotel where MLK Jr. was assassinated) and the basic tenor of the various music museums (Sun Studios, Stax Museum, The Museum of Rock and Soul) which celebrate the cross-racial contributions to music, the black singers who grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry, the country's first black radio station, and on and on.

And Solomon Burke. He's not from Memphis or anything, but he was in the Stax Museum intro video and featured in several photos inside and he is the best singer ever in the history of the world.

Sorry Otis Redding.