Going to Memphis, I had four days. I bought the tickets Friday night, and flew the next Wednesday. This was during the Christmas season, so subtracting holiday prep, I had maybe twenty minutes. All I knew about Memphis when I touched down was that it was on the Mississippi, and that maybe I should eat a rib or two.
This wouldn't be my first time in Tennessee, though. I was in Nashville a year and a half ago to cover a meeting. In my spare time then, I drove up to Kentucky to visit Mammoth Cave. It was kinda frustrating, because it was the one state out of the twenty-seven that border Tennessee I had been to before.
I was hoping to visit a cave, but Memphis turns out to be nowhere near any major cave. Big booming passages were five hours away to the west, five hours away to the east, and five hours away to the north. Nothing closer, though.
There were other things to do than visiting new caves: visiting new states. I was literally walking distance (a couple hours of walking, but still viable) from both Arkansas and Mississippi. With a little driving (a couple hours of driving, but still viable), I could get to Alabama and Missouri. And a wee bit further were Georgia and Louisiana. I was loaded with new states to visit.
I want my visits to have some meaning, though. I don't want to stick a toe over the border and be done with it, I want an experience that matches the state.
The one new state I did get to was Arkansas, just on the western side of the Mississippi. I was trying to get to the National Civil Rights Museum. Memphis has lots of small signs up pointing out where to turn to get to local attractions. Follow the signs and you'll get there. Miss a sign, however, and you'll start finding signs for the National Metal Museum. I'm sure it's a fine, interesting, worthwhile place, but I don't want to see filmstrips on tungsten.
On one of these wrong turns, I was driving west on a highway, and passed an exit for the National Metal Museum. I skipped it, not knowing that was the last exit in Tennessee. Normally the signs warn you that there's a toll bridge ahead, but since it wasn't a toll bridge, the signs just assumed you were a local. Next thing I knew I was driving over the Mississippi River into Bill Clinton's state.
It'd be all of five minutes to turn around and head back to Memphis, but I wanted to stretch out my Arkansas time. I pulled into the only restaurant I could find, a buffet by a gas station.
Inside I was shocked. I had been to a good deal of roadside restaurants. I had seen hundreds of people in Memphis over the past few days. But in neither instance had I seen rednecks. And here they were. Plaid vests, mullets, big guts stretching shirts with bald eagles on them. They were loud, they were friendly, they took full advantage of the unlimited buffet.
This might seem frightening at first glance. But everyone in Memphis is ridiculously friendly and polite (that extended to West Memphis, AR). Strangers say good morning to you when you're walking down hotel hallways. Waitresses ask you if you want refills on your sweet tea - five times. Everyone calls you sir. When a clerk says "Y'all come back and see us again," you start seriously contemplating rearranging your day so you will. Southern hospitality is infectious. This wasn't a biker bar so much as a flannel cotillion.
Truckers and tourists, old and young, black and white, everyone was a big happy redneck. Gleaming smiles from NASCAR drivers shone down from the gift area. Waitresses joked with customers as they removed plate after plate of chicken bones. I can't get this atmosphere at home. The only thing missing was a pet pig.
Speaking of pig, Memphis is one of the great barbecue cities of the world, enough so even I knew that. I was hoping to scare up some ribs for a late dinner as soon as I got off the plane Wednesday, but my plane got delayed two hours. My glorious initial rib feast turned into a turkey sandwich at the Newark airport. By the time I got into Memphis, rented my car and checked into a crummy La Quinta, it was 11:00 P.M. (midnight according to my body clock). A little too late for dinner.
Thursday I found a unimpressive barbecue joint off a road crisscrossing the airport region. I figured that the best barbecue around would be found in some place that wasn't a big chain. The best pizza in New Jersey is always, always, always found at the rattiest pizza parlors you've ever seen. The worst stuff comes from gourmet restaurants that leave half the pie cheeseless, and then charge $18 bucks a pie.
My logic's flawed here. Sure, the best barbecue would be in a rundown place, but that rundown place would be off in the boonies, where some 85-year-old's been grilling ribs since the Great Depression. It wouldn't be in a strip mall next to a dry cleaner.
This place I found might have had the greatest ribs in the universe, but they were out of ribs. I had to make do with a pulled pork sandwich. (A barbecue joint being out of ribs is like Old Navy being out of fleece.) It was OK, but it felt like wanting to rent Godfather and ending up with Godfather III.
I ended up going to a chain restaurant Saturday, but one that was recommended for Memphis BBQ: Corky's. The ribs were pretty good. I ordered them wet, not knowing that in Memphis the true way to eat them was dry. No complaints about them wet, although honestly, I've had better ribs at a seafood place in Connecticut.
Just before leaving, I squeezed in a trip to the classic Memphis tourist attraction, Graceland. Graceland was decked out for the Christmas season, naturally, and if you want a low-key, tasteful celebration of the season you can visit the Amish.
A fifty-foot spire had dozens of strings of blue lights angled out to make a Christmas 'tree' that looked like a UFO tractor beam. At least a hundred light figures of deer and snowmen were below this, like townspeople about to be abducted. A nativity scene was on the front lawn that was bigger than my apartment. Inside was a white tree with purple trim: the colors of a jelly doughnut.
Graceland has a lot in common with The National Civil Rights Museum. They're both built around prominent, influential Southerners who died young, and around the building where they died. Both places were converted into museums from their original mansion/motel. Graceland does cost a few dollars more to enter, though, perhaps as security for the rooms full of gold records on display. No offence to Martin Luther King, but he didn't sell nearly as many records.
This was right before Christmas, so I was hoping to find an Elvis-Santa hybrid somewhere in the Graceland premises. Rhinestone shades, white sideburns, red jumpsuit with a big eagle on the cape, and a sack full of fried peanut butter and nanner sandwiches.
That didn't happen. Memphis doesn't need any sort of Elvis impersonator: it's got the real thing. Las Vegas is your town for imitation everything. Vegas has fake Elvis, a fake Eiffel Tower and a fake pyramid. The real Elvis was right here in Memphis, the real Eiffel Tower's in Paris, and the real pyramid is ... right here in Memphis.
I had no idea there was an enormous black pyramid on the banks of the Mississippi. I nearly drove off the road when I saw it. I don't know what goes on in the pyramid. I'd say maybe there's a dead king in there, but the dead king's in Graceland.
Maybe those Stargate aliens are just plotting multiple parking spots for their spaceships. If so, I hope their tractor beams are blue, so Memphis residents see something familiar.