Loosen your belt

Eat right through the menu, just loosen your belt two inches and then you,

work up a new appetite

Eat right through the menu

I woke the following morning in time to see David before he went to work. He asked me about my plans for the day. I told him that my tour guide, Alex, would be picking me up later in the morning and what we had planned for the day. David said that he would be home in time for the big meal that was planned for me in the evening. Another dinner out where I would finish up feeling very "comforted" again no doubt. An invite had been sent out for dinner, a dinner in my honour, as though I was visiting royalty (no queen jokes please). When the initial invite went out it was sent to around 70 gay Memphibians. By the time other people had sent it on there were over 100 people invited. I was nervous that I needed to start preparing a speech or presentation to address the crowds. Chris assured me that there would only be 20 or so people attending.

The ducks in the fountain

Alex sent me a message that he was on his way so I headed downstairs to meet him. He was parked up waiting for me when I got outside. We introduced ourselves and set off for a day of exploring Memphis. As we headed downtown Alex asked me what I wanted to do. I pulled up the itinerary suggested by Chris, minus the trip to Graceland, and started to read through it. I asked Alex whether he thought we could and should do everything, I didn’t want him to get bored. He said that he hadn’t done any of the things on the list so wouldn’t be bored doing them.

We found a spot to park and then headed to the Peabody Hotel. The hotel had a roof terrace which gave some great views over the city. While we were up there I got a photo of Dean with the huge hotel sign in the background. I explained to Alex who Dean was. After checking out the views from the roof we headed back down to the foyer to see the fountain and its resident ducks. The ducks lived on the roof and every morning they would be walked down to the fountain to spend the day swimming in it before being walked back to their house on the roof.

After saying goodbye to the ducks we headed to Main Street just in time to catch the old tram, which was just pulling up. We made our way through downtown Memphis on the Riverfront Loop, hitting the river and making our way alongside it until we reached theNational Civil Rights Museum.  The museum was housed in the former Lorraine Motel, the place Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The museum charted the whole history of the civil rights movement from the earliest days of the United States before slavery was abolished. I recognised some of the people and stories I read about. I had heard about Rosa Parks and her refusing to give up her seat on the bus. I had heard about the school in Little Rock. I had heard about police dogs being used in Birmingham. Ok, the last one I only knew from the opening lines of Dirty Dancing when Lisa says she says she should have brought the coral shoes and her dad says that it is not a tragedy – “three men trapped in a mine or police dogs used in Birmingham” being his examples of tragedies.

  

The museum was really well laid out and we spent a good couple of hours walking through. It finished up with you looking in to the actual room King had stayed in the night before he was assassinated. The room had been made to look how it would have been on the morning he left it. The museum continued over the road in the place from where the fatal shots had been fired. This part of the museum focused on the assassination, the subsequent investigation and other civil rights activists who had been assassinated.

Just loosen your belt two inches and then you 

After the museum we walked back downtown and stopped for a burger at Huey’s. The burger was huge (but I managed to finish it). There was a tradition at the restaurant to take the cocktail stick out of your burger once it arrive and use your drinking straw to fire it into the ceiling. I passed on the tradition but it was clear to see that several thousand others had kept the tradition going.

Million Dollar Quartet

After lunch we headed over to the Sun Studios, the place that Elvis had recorded his first few hit singles. The tour guide, Eldorado, was a character. He got very enthusiastic about the tour he was giving, despite the fact there were only six of us on the tour. It was probably a good thing that there were so few of us as the place was tiny. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting but the place had one recording studio, a small office at the front and a sound desk at the back. We stood listening to some old recordings, Elvis fluffing the lyrics and chatting. Eldorado explained how the famous“Million Dollar Quartet” photo came about. I touched the microphone Elvis had used.

The afternoon was getting on so we headed over to Graceland, just to see it from the outside. On the way over Alex explained that he had once taken some friends to Graceland when they had visited Memphis and after looking round the house they had asked where the rides were, thinking that there was also some sort of amusement park there as well. We rounded off the afternoon with a beer before Alex dropped me back off at David’s so that I could shower and change ready for drinks & dinner with the Memphis gays.

Work up a new appetite 

David and I got ourselves ready and headed over to Tim’s. He was very kindly hosting pre-dinner cocktails at his place overlooking the river. There was a note on the door saying “Y’all come on in” and a small group of guys already upstairs in the kitchen drinking. I was introduced to everyone and without having to ask soon had a gin and tonic in my hand. I was really being shown the best southern hospitality. I caught up with Chris, he asked how my day had been. I filled him in on everything we had done, where we had been and thanked him for organising the tour guide as well as giving Alex a gift card to pay for the entry tickets to the museums.

From Tim’s we formed a small convoy and made our way downtown to Main Street to go to Local, a gastropub. There were more people waiting for us there and in total there must have been about two dozen of us for dinner. We were seated downstairs and pretty much had the room to ourselves. I was placed in a seat in the centre of the table. From then until the end of the meal the people either side of me would swap round so that everyone got a chance to chat to me. I figured this is what it must be like to go speed-dating. I told the same story and answered the same questions a number of times that evening. I think I managed to talk to everyone during the course of dinner. The food was great (they even deep fry avocado in the south) and the waitress did an amazing job of getting everyone’s orders delivered to the right person. At the end of dinner she brought out separate checks for everyone. I was the only person not to get one. I queried it and she said that it had been sorted. I looked across at Chris and said thank you once again. He wouldn’t let me give him any money.

One of the guys, Chooch, took me out for a drink after dinner to a lounge called Mollie Fontaine’s. It was an old Victorian house that had been converted into a lounge bar. It had a great atmosphere and a friend of Chooch’s was playing the piano and singing that evening. She was great. A nightcap was had and then I was given a lift back to David’s. I packed my case once again and headed to bed ready for an early start and my train to New Orleans.

Sunrise over Memphis

I woke a couple of minutes before 5am. I decided to snooze until my alarm at 5:15am. Having laid there for what seemed longer than 15 minutes I looked at the time again. It was nearly 5:30am. I wondered why my alarm hadn’t gone off & checked it. I had set it for 5:15pm. Whoops. I jumped in the shower & got ready, relieved that I had packed everything the previous evening. David was up early so I got to say goodbye to him and thank him for the amazing flight and hospitality. Chris was downstairs waiting for me just before 6am. He had said that he could give me a lift to the train station early as he was going to be up as he happened to be driving to New Orleans. Chris dropped me off at the station. I said another goodbye and thank you and headed for my train, getting to see the sun rise over Memphis as I boarded.

“Eat right through the menu, just loosen your belt two inches and then you,work up a new appetite” 

Lyrics from Food, Glorious Food from the musical Oliver!