M2M2M Trip (18)

EIGHTEEN

MEM-FAST?:

Germantown, Midtown, Downtown: areas of Memphis. New South suburb of Memphis first, and this feels familiar because this could be Atlanta. Starbuck’s and KFC and Region’s Bank. SUVs and Corvettes and Mercedes. Nice Southern homes mixed with traditionally crappy expensive new suburban homes. Traffic. Box stores. “This looks like Sandy Springs,” I say.

We stop for health food. We see some half-way cool grown people - the wish they were healthy types that frequent health food stores. I have a salad and a juice and a candy bar. I would rather be eating BBQ. Dad spends about 30 minutes wandering around the rig before he makes it inside. Dale walks with a cane and generally moves faster than him. He is constantly distracted. His life is one distraction after the other, and a task is just another distraction distracting him from his other distractions. I am mostly finished eating and have read two articles by the time he gets a plate of food and joins us. I am studying people while my folks eat.

We joke and poke around, and I go grab a second alternative culture Memphis rag. I wonder if I could live here happily. The features are on Memphis bands that played at South by SouthWest, in Austin, Texas. Creative Loafing back home had been all about Atlanta bands playing SxSW, and I’m sure Flagpole in Athens was all about Athens bands playing SxSW. Austin is the Live Music Capital of the World, and SxSW is the most prominent music festival in America. I have rockstar looks and attitude for days when I feel like playing it that way, and I used to think it was too bad I can’t sing because I would have been a frontman with mad style. I am so much of a “frontman” that once I realized I could not sing, I did not bother to learn an instrument. I am a feature performer, after all. I guess it may have gotten in the way of my destiny to be a writer. Dad can sing and play guitar. My sons are musical. I was around the music scene in Athens…it just wasn’t for me. As we are leaving a pair of bumper stickers on a truck catches my eye: “MIDTOWN IS MIDTOWN” and “MEMPHIS IS MEMPHIS.” Reminds me of me, hating on my culturally-retarded, suburb-raised friends who will be in Atlanta, in Buckhead or Midtown and say into their phones, “I’m downtown.” It makes my blood curl.

Midtown here has big, pretty, Southern (distinctly Southern) homes. Very nice area. Green space even. Overton Park. The Memphis Zoo. “I could live here,” I say to Dale. I see some relatively hip people - hip for Tennessee. People are out and about, living. This area has that thriving, hiving feel of a truly great section of a good city. It is not all show.  I can just feel that the people live with substance as I tap into them; they are mostly good people with good lives. I feel the struggle, too. The American dichotomy. The famous Memphis struggle that I know about from now Atlanta black folks who spoke of Memphis as home. That is not very far from this oasis. And the good doctor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered here, probably by our government.

Memphis basketball stuff is everywhere, and we talk about the tourney a little, about my DAWGS getting beat after running out of gas. Texas and Memphis may play, and I hope these good people end up real disappointed. Most of them are really Tennessee Volunteers’ fans anyway. So I like it when they get disappointed. Dad is worried that we are heading in the wrong direction for the bridge across The Mississippi. He wants me to look at the map, but I refuse. I have never seen Memphis, and I travel to see.

Downtown is a mix of old and new architecture with buildings of varied height and style. Nothing too distinct until we get near the water. Zoo signs. Elvis signs. Elvis made a name for himself. Graceland is that way, and I need some Elvis shirts for my sons. We are planning to come back on the back end of this trip for an overnighter, but I know how my dad is about plans. Ramps to bridges. The Pyramid. We take a ramp and there she is: The Mighty Mississippi. I am in awe of her majesty. This once was and therefore, in a way, is the heart of America. God Bless America.