As one of the lucky people in this world, I got to spend time with dear friends Bob, Lena and Anton at their place in Tennessee. Bob’s job takes them all over the world. We met in Australia several years ago, visited Greece and Crete together five years ago and who knows where we’ll meet next time, I just know there will be a next time. This time it’s Moscow, a hamlet on the road east out of Memphis.
Collierville was on the way from the airport and is full of historic buildings and Gus’s fried chicken with mac and cheese. The walls are covered in articles with their profile and plaques and appreciation awards from the community. The chicken and hush puppies with hot sauce were fab.
A day trip into the city saw us visit the Peabody Hotel’s immensely opulent lobby to see the ducks swimming in the fountain. They stopped swimming in circles when their lunch turned up on a gold platter with cloche carried by the red jacketed butler.
Continuing down the freezing windswept Union Avenue we turned a corner and came to Beale Street. It could be the weather and low tourist season but it was still strange that the streets seemed empty. For the downtown area of a major city, everybody must have already gotten to where they needed to be and then stayed off the streets. People are moving out of the city due to safety risks. For example the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale Street has had so many shootings there’s a trumour they want to turn it into a church to see if that stops the violence and saves the building being demolished. It was shut but still blaring music into the deserted street. We took photos and moved on. Somehow it still seemed sinister and eerie even in daylight.
Beale Street where the action happens is only about two blocks full of theme bars, neon lights, historic markers, A. Schwab’s dry goods store established in 1876 and barbeque joints. Lena and I went into the Rum Boogie Cafe for lunch. The walls are covered in memorabilia, concert posters, photos and signed guitars abound. Jon Bon Jovi’s guitar is in a box frame…as is the respect due to a rock god 😉 I had to try the fried green tomatoes and a cup of the house specialty rice and beans before a tender and tasty pulled pork burger with special barbeque sauce. A few schooners of the local brew, Ghost River, helped it all go down. Trade was slow so we had a lengthy conversation with the waitress about the different ages of consent, for drinking, voting, enlisting, getting married etc. She lives just across the border in Mississippi and told us about her 19 year old pregnant daughter who needs her mum’s consent to get married after the baby is born. “I mean, isn’t it ridiculous that people can fight in the army at 18 yet need consent to get married?”
Yep.