THE MEMPHIS EXPEDITION
WHEREIN TWO OLD FARTS HEAD FOR THE DELTA AND FIND A DEAD COW

To begin this story at the beginning, I'll tell you that the whole idea of a trip to the Delta regions occurred during a typical Thursday night jam and a few Crown Royales and beers.

"Let's drive up to Memphis,"sez I, during a break and after two or three Crowns.

"Takes too long, let's fly up there instead." sez Hysong.

And so, as fate would have it, we did just that and scheduled, via his most excellent secretary/bookkeeper Kelly, a Delta Airlines (of course, what else...?) early morning takeoff for Memphis Tennessee. Now Mz.Kelly does her job almost too well as our plane was to leave Palm Beach International at 5:00 A.M. so that meant we had to get there about 3:30 A.M., but we made it and Hysong got his son to get outta the bed and drive us there in good time and we was soon in the air, racin' the sunrise west. I believe if you timed it right and had enough jet fuel, you good stay in a state of perpetual sunrise, as that sun seemed to hang on the horizon and shone in the little plastic window an inordinately long time.

(the arrival, the rental car, the hotel and Ann Rabson)

Memphis Airport has a sort of smaller passenger terminal than West Palm Beach, but seems to run more flights out due to the huge FedEx system based there. We went by acres of FedEx jets parked on the tarmac on the way to the Avis store to pick up the official BluesMobile for the Memphis Expedition. Actually they gave us a red Pontiac Grand Prix and claimed it was a full size car, but I think they've lowered the bar on what's designated "fullsize" these days. It had a cd player and that was a good thing. We'd inquired about the availability of a 1967 Delta '88 but they were out of that model sadly enough. That would've been the perfect vehicle for the job at hand and if I ever go back out there I'll be sure to call ahead and reserve one...or mebbe have the Bobert ship one out, as there must be a load of them in West Virginia somewheres.

Found the hotel located right there in the heart of everything, right on Peabody Place, which is the next street over from Beale. The lobby at the Hampton Inn was full of slightly hung over Bluesy type folks who were busy drinking coffee and scarfing down the complementary breakfast. I heard a gray haired woman talking about getting musicians together and she turned out to be Mz. Ann Rabson herself. I'm working on a new method of journalism in which I try to remain as non-invasive as possible and leave the famous folks alone, so there was no on the spot interview conducted. I'll just say she seemed real nice and pleasant and looked pretty darn fresh for having been at the Handy's the night before. Mz. Rabson is only one of several known people that we almost got to talk to but never did. More on these later...

Being that it was only 9:00 A.M. we couldn't check in but they gave us a passcard to park the Pontiac in the garage, which we did and headed down to the famous Beale Street to see what it looked like in the daylight.

(On meeting the first Mempheans, Bobby and the porno guy)

Beale Street in the morning is a little disturbin' to see. You get the feeling that something has happened there the night before but there's little sign of what it was other than the few bleary eyed regulars shambling around. Blues music blares from speakers set up outside of several establishments and you know that you're there but It looks a bit like the grounds of a carnival on Sunday morning but with more history behind it. We saw the PeeWee Saloon building (now the Hard Rock Cafe) where W.C. Handy hung out and played regular. I was trying to identify the pawn shops that are pictured in the Library of Congress' collection of Black and White photos. These are all mostly bars and eateries now, but most seem to still have the same facades intact. The street is brick and slopes downhill somewhat from the east to the west. This feature allows for drainage of spilled beers and whatever else might get dumped or spewed on the street. More on this later.

The first authentic Memphean made contact with us as we turned the corner at Beale and Third, lookin' a lot like los touristas I reckon, because right then Bobby the Afro-Dude came marchin' directly across the street to give us directions.

"Yo, dudes, my name Bobby you all live here? What you want today?"
"We want somewhere to eat, where's a good place for breakfast?"
"Looky here Man, there a Denny's 2 blocks that way. Or mebbe you want some home cookin' an' they's a Hillbilly cafe down over that way that has down home stuff to eat."
I musta raised an eyebrow at the word hillbilly, and Bobby bein' the street smart cat that he was didn't want to offend me with a racial slur so he hastily added "I know the name a little funky soundin' but they got good eats there."
"Okay man, we'll go down there and check that out." and turned to go thinkin' he ain't got time to hit us up but I was wrong.
"Looky here," sez he, "I belongs to the Beale Street Neighborhood Coalition and we helps to support the homeless, would you all want to make a contribution."
"Why sure we would Man, where's your headquarters at, we'll go there and check that out too."
"Shit Man, my headquarters is everwheres. Just look around, this is it."
"Okay, here's a buck. Thanks for the directions."
"Okay, thanks man, you all be careful."

And off he went. We felt pretty good that we'd made a contact there in that strange ass city already and him bein' an official representative of the BSNC...B.S. for short. Ended up going back to the hotel for free coffee and biscuits and gravy even though we weren't official guests yet, then back in the car to find a Walgreens and supplies. Downtown Memphis doesn't have many chain stores so we headed out Union Street in search of national retail chains and found the familiar drug mart about a half mile or so down the road. Got cameras, toothbrushes etc. and a pack of cigs and I went outside to smoke my first one since boarding the plane at five A.M. while Mark hunted an ice pack for his spazzed out back, and there I met my second Memphean, a tall Afro-dude with a baseball hat on.
"Yo Man, how you doin?...you got a extra smoke?"
"Yeah, here...Nice town this Memphis is."
"Yeah, it's alright...Looky here, mebbe you be interested in this ." and he walked over to his concrete support pillar and a white trash bag laying on the ground. He pulled out some inspirational prints encased in clear hard plastic covers and then got to the bottom of the bag and a bunch of video tapes. Now these tapes was all turned over so's you couldn't read the titles but my inner alarm went off right then and I figgered this guy was pushing porno right there in on the front steps of a new Walgreens. I told him I ain't interested in none of that sorta thing and didn't even have a VCR if I was. He said he could fix me up with one of them cheap if I wanted but I sez thanks anyhow and went back over to my pillar. Right then it occurred to me that the street people of Memphis are way more enterprising than the ones in Palm Beach County, who only stand in the way of traffic with a sign. At least in Memphis they'll give you directions or sell you objets d'art and that's better than nothin' at all.

Mark came outta the store and sez, "He get you for a buck?"
"Nope, sez I, just a cigarette. No ice paks in there?"
"Nope, but they got freezer bags, let's go get some ice before this fucker seizes up on me." and we drove over to the neighborhood BP while the Walgreen Porno King stood at his pillar and searched the parking lot for new customers.


(Sun Studios, Check in time)


"What time is it? I mean what time is it here in Memphis?"
"It's only twelve o'clock, whaddya want to do, we can't get checked in 'til 1:30."
"Well, the map sez that Sun Studios is just on Union Street here so mebbe we can go see what that looks like."

We found the revered and austere Sun Studios easily enough. It's right where it used to be and still looks a lot like the old pictures that we've all seen except it's in color in the real world, of course. There's a soda fountain and a juke box in one room and the old studio office and Sam Phillips' old studio itself in next room(s). The soda fountain room has an enormous collection of memorabilia for sale. Tee shirts and baseball caps, shot glasses, coffee mugs, 45 rpm records all with the SUN RECORDS logo emblazoned on them. Reprinted posters of Howlin' Wolf, BB King, Carl Perkins, the Prisonaires, the Killer, Johnny Cash, and of course Elvis plaster the walls.
In the back room you can by re-issues of 45's by the King and the rockabilly crowd and they look just like the real thing. (I'm guessing that they do anyhow as I've never been fortunate enough to actually have an original Sun record but these are fairly close copies other than they don't have any scratches on them just yet) We signed up for the next tour of the studio and had a coke at the fountain, feeling like the time warped sleep deprived tourists that we were.

The tours start on the half hour and so at 12:30 sharp our guide, a young guy with muttonchop sideboards and an early seventies type comb over led our group of fifteen or twenty up the creaky stairs to the museum of the Sun. There he gave a good account of the various recording machines and record lathes displayed in the glassed in cases that went from floor to ceiling of three walls. I was impressed on the amount of time given to the early days of Sun when Mr. Phillips was recording the Wolf, BB, and the Prisonaires as it was somewhat more in depth than the time given over to Elvis. He had a cd player set up and a remote control to illustrate the recordings that Sam was doing in those days and it worked out well and probably gave some of the Elvis people a better insight as to what led up to his "biggest" discovery. Back downstairs in the actual studio and offices of Sun records was a bit eerie feeling as you find yourself walking on the same tile floor and being illuminated by the same light fixtures as all them guys were while they were being discovered. It's a small area, much smaller than you're led to believe from the photos and it's old and musty but very beat. Our guide explained to us how the recording was done back then and that the studio is still for hire at night for anyone who's got the bucks to record there. I'd guess it would cost somewhat more these days than the four dollars Elvis paid to make his first record. It was a good touristy thing to do and I'd have paid to just go in and sit quietly for a half hour without the tour guide's speech, but that's just me.
If you ever get down to Memphis I'd recommend this one as a must see, just to say you was there if for no other reason.

"Hey Man, it's check in time..."
"Yes, we're old and need sleep."
"Yes, that's right!"

We head back to the Hampton, which is a fairly new hotel down there in the heart of the city and get checked into the room. There's a pretty good view of the street corner down below and we can see right into Isaac Hayes second floor restaurant in the Peabody Mall right across the street. The scene down below is a mix of tourists and locals motorvating at various degrees of speed. I notice that tourists can be identified by their swiftness of foot and by the way they tend to look up at the buildings around them and make a mental note to walk slow and not gawk too much so as to keep the Beale Street Neighborhood Coalition at bay and save some time and money that way. Having been up almost twelve hours already and being a half century old, I close my eyes and shut out the world for a four hour "nap". We are old dudes and sleep til six o'clock when we wake up to bass guitar blues riffs permeating the walls of the Hampton Downtown.
"Hey man, you hear that? That's blues...it's starting to happen!"
"Gahhhh...What time is it?"
"Blues time on Beale Street, Time to go."

(Beale Street, Friday night)

Beale Street has come to life. It's a swarming mass of everybody, everycolor, everybackground, hairdo, mental state...it's all there on a three or four block-long stretch of bricks and old buildings. The vacant avenue we saw at 9:00 A.M. had transformed into a collection of sights and sounds and smells and peoples. College girls sipping drinks from stretched glass containers a foot and a half long. Black deacons and matrons in their Sunday best doing the circuit from one end to the other just as they have for the last sixty or seventy years. Cops everywhere, on foot and horseback, the street being closed off for to traffic and the people are everywhere doing the parade from east to west.

At the high end is BB King's niteclub at the other end is the new Daisy Theater. In between are the bars that have come to life thanks to the wonder of neon lighting and sound systems. Blues is everywhere, the air is drenched in the sound and the beat as we insert ourselves into the mass and do the walk. Handy Park has a stage set up and there's a band of old black guys playing and they got a white dude on lead guitar that sounds too Steviesh but it's blues and they're drawing a crowd of passerby. People go in there, lean on a tree for a bit and then move on to be replaced by others making the "rounds".

Everybar has music pouring out the open doors. It's loud and some of it's good, some of it ain't but it's happening. It's the party that goes on every weekend, maybe every night, I don't know for sure. Drink carts abound and I get a 7 and water down by the new Daisy for five bucks and check out the street musicians set up on the sidewalk. These guys are mostly old black dudes playing the real thing, It's rough and crude, the P.A. sounds like a mic run through a Silvertone head but it's real stuff and I'm digging it. Some older folks are dancing and I think this dance step must be the "Snake Back Dance" I've read about before. They stand in one spot and do a sort of shuffle. Other older black folks cheer 'em on from the crowd that's assembling. I think this is a good thing and mebbe this sort of dance won't be forgotten, as it's easy on the spine and good for old people. I don't dance much but if I did this would be my dance.

A white kid is playing with the old guys now and at first I figger him to be another Stevie Ray clone but I'm wrong. This kid's from North Carolina he says and has blue boots on his feet. He's got a black stetson with a curled brim on his head and he's playing slide like Muddy. I think they called him the Reverend Slick (Daniel Ballinger...found out later.)and he can play good. He's got that Muddy slide down and gets carried away by his own music, stompin and jumping up every now and then. He's got it all over the cat doin' Stevie Ray down at Handy park I think. Rough as a cob but real sounding. He does an "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnuuhhhhhhh......." vocal sound and holds it for about fortyfive seconds and makes the crowd go nuts. Good stuff! Hope somebody finds him and gives him a chance at something.

In a place called "Pig's" we find a band of white guys doing rockabilly songs. The guitar player's got a black suit on and plays like he's on fire or something. No pick at all, just his fingers pulling out riff after coolass riff. The lead singer is a huge guy that reminds us of our buddy Terry. Sings and plays harp and gets some of the crowd away from their barbecued ribs and on the dance floor. His harmonica playing is truly vicious and works. Dammit there's a lot goin' on here and we ain't seen it all yet. Three beers at Pig's and they take a break so we head out the door. The crowd is even bigger now if seen from the rooftops I figger it must resemble a swirling oval shaped water drain except there's no outlet. Just swirling...

We figger we better eat something or puke soon so we head into a restaurant that's got an old man out front blowing trumpet and singing into a microphone. He's damn good and has done this gig for a long time as there is no lack of confidence in his manner at all. There's no cover here for some reason or other. Inside we get seated down next to the low stage and order their world famous Gumbo I look at the performer coming up with the red Telecaster and it's Louisiana Red. He plays for a good hour and finishes up about the time I've sopped up the last of the rioux from my plate with good bread. Red does the whole show solo, just him and his Telecaster and it doesn't seem to be an hour but it must be as we drank two beers and ordered food and ate it all while he did his show. Memphis is a time warp, you never are sure how long anything takes. He's fine and sings some of his "Topical" blues from the early sixties where he had a dream about the United Nations. The Blues Wizard (a white guy with a black cap full of music pins, a street regular) stands right in front of Red and applauds with high respect and sincerity.

Back on the Avenue, and we find out that BB King's playing at his nightclub that very night. In fact in about fifteen minutes. The place is sold out. Table tickets are a $100 each. Standing tickets are only $40. There's a big plate glass window that reveals the whole stage so we figure to watch and listen outside but when BB gets up there, they shut the dang doors and you can't hear much at all so we move on down the street to the other end. I spy a guy with a beard and wild lookin' hair and shades carrying three guitar cases towards the Orpheum (or New Daisy...I don't know what they call it)...
"Hey, Bob Margolin, how you doin?"
"Hey!"

Down at the Orpheum/Daisy I spy Mr. Bill from the Bamboo Room talking to an old guy in a grey stetson.(you may have read about Bill's prowess on the washboard in other chronicles here.)
"Mr. Bill, how you doin?"
"Hey, what're you guys doin here?"
"Blah, blahblahhh..!!"
"Who was that guy you were just talkin' too?"
"That was Henry Grey. I've got to meet a load of people here. You guys get here in time for the awards last night?"

No but if we did it seems we coulda got in that theater and rubbed shoulders with all them peoples. Now if any of you out there decide to go to Memphis, at least buy a ticket for the Awards, even if you get there the day after and don't use it, cause I believe a Handy ticket will get you in the Daisy/Orpheum for the post Handy jam if you're into that sort of thing, rubbin' shoulders with giants and so forth. But if you ain't you'll have a hellacious good time just walking around Beale taking in the crowd with an occasional glimpse of some legendary figures. Heck we even saw Charlie Musselwhite and his wife standing outside there later that night. Of course we forgot to bring one of the throwaway cameras so we didn't piss any of these people off with photo ops.

The street band has a lady with a walking cast on her foot singing the blues. She's got a wheelchair but stands up to belt out her songs and everybody's digging it. She's really hot and ain't no new comer to this genre. I'm thinking how much I wish I could get up there and play guitar in the background for somebody like that. She cooks! At the end of her set she exhorts the audience to throw money in the five gallon bucket that's setting up on the monitor speaker.
"DON'T FORGET THE BUCKET."
"DON'T FORGET THE BUCKET, BUCKET, BUCKET!" and she's shaking that thing and gets us all howling. I'm thinking that the people in the theater across from her should come out here and see what's happening. This is the best show on Beale as far as I can tell.

The Gumbo has a rejuvenating quality about it and sobered us up somewhat but about 2:00 A.M. we figgered to give it up for the night and get some more sleep so we could make it down to Clarksdale the next day. The party was still in full swing with no signs of letting up when we got off the path and headed back to the friendly Hampton. My eyes swung shut as soon as my head hit the pillow and stayed that way for the next six or seven hours.

(Off to Clarksdale, the Blues Museum, Barbeque sammitches)

Next morning the sun crept between a small aperture in the light proof curtains and we woke up amazed to discover that there was no hangover at all. In fact I felt like I hadn't been sleep deprived at all and that's good news to an ancient old bastard like myself. Gumbo is good anti-hangover medicine it seems... Downstairs for the free breakfast but today there were no famous people so mebbe they partied too hard at the Orpheum/Daisy. Anyhow that was good as there was more biscuits and gravy for us. This was a funny kind of breakfast layout in that they had cold ready- made omelets that you had to microwave and also a plate of dog biscuit shaped material that nobody was touching. Mebbe it was hashbrowns but that plate stayed full while we were there.

In the Pontiac again and on the 61 Highway which intersects Beale St. and is called Third Ave. I believe. Anyhow down the road we went and left Memphis behind for the real Delta region we'd heard about but never seen. Now the Delta is often described as having rich black dirt but it's really about the same color as the river during high water time. A medium brown at best and not at all like the black muck in Belle Glade and Clewiston Florida. That stuff out there looks to be on the verge of turning into coal any day, it is so black.

Clarksdale is about seventy miles south of Memphis on the 61 Highway and is not a long drive at all. Muddy Waters' cd was blaring out of the Pontiac and we was rolling. Thanks to MaddMike's photos he sent in about two years ago I remembered that the Delta Blues Museum was located next to a railroad track and a bigass grain elevator which was hard to miss and being a small town with only one set of RR tracks we soon found ourselves at the front steps of this hallowed institution.
Inside there is a gift shop which any respectable museum will have to help finance their operation and this one is a dandy. Take money when you go as they have the best lookin' tee shirts and hats that you'll find anywhere. Also a goodly selection of blues books, some that I've not seen before in Borders or any of the others down here. I bought a book written by William Ferris called "Blues from the Delta" and have just about finished it already. William Ferris was/is the Director of The Center for the Study of Southern Folklore and writes much better than I am able to.

In the museum itself there are plywood "walls" set up to hold the excellent collection of Delta photography that is displayed there. You move from exhibit to exhibit inside of the old train station with the ceiling far above you. Dogs figure heavily in one photographer's works and they are pictured on stumps, logs, and porches.

Muddy's reconstructed cabin is the centerpiece of the whole affair and his lifesize wax figure sits inside holding a gold Les Paul with soap bar pickups and lyrics to his songs line the walls along with his history. The cabin is very small and it's hard to imagine raising a load of kids in such small confines. My wife and I have raised two in our three bedroom/one bath home and thought it was too dang small. The timbers are about three inches thick and twelve wide with about three inches between them. I'm not sure what they used to close the gap and keep the wind out. Mebbe mud and straw but they don't tell you exactly what. Probably not many drive clear to Clarksdale to wonder about turn of the century construction materials.

Outside there is a barbecue going on somewhere close and we are drooling for food. Turns out to be the Blues Cafe/Millenium across the street and there are three homemade barbecues smokin' away.
"Time to eat."
"Yassuh!...wait there's a music store across the street..."
"First things first.."
"Absolutely."

Bluestown Music at 317 Delta Avenue in Clarksdale is family run and has some good vintage equipment available. A damn nice looking Les Paul junior was displayed in a case but wasn't for sale. Also a silver Gretch was there that felt real good to play. Good thing I don't use credit cards anymore. The people there are very friendly and share the building with the Studio 61 Recording Co. There's a studio right inside. Should've asked who they'd recorded but the owner of that end of the business was busy with a customer. I could see him through the control room windowI ain't a very good journalist I reckon, but hate to bother folks with dumbass questions that they've been asked a hundred times already....

We leave the music store and head over to the cafe.
"You all got barbecue today?"
"That's right, what'll you boys have?"
"Jumbo pork and a Bud please."

I guess that I've never eaten any good barbecue prior to this trip. The stuff them guys were cooking on the pits made outta bisected air compressor tanks beat anything I've ever had. In the deep south, at least in Coahoma County, the custom is to spread the cole slaw on the bottom bun and then a goodly layer of fine pork (or beef) barbecue on top of that. This will give you the best of two worlds right there in a single sammitch. Before this I'd always been given a side order of slaw and never instructed in the proper use of it, but down in Clarksdale they do it for you and man is it tasty. Next time you go out try it. You won't go back to eating your cole slaw from a paper cup ever again.

(Hopson's Planting Company and the Shack'em Up Inn)

Mz.Drew at the music store had suggested we head out to the Hopson Plantation and check out the commisary there with it's collection of implements and the blues shacks.
We got some simple directions from her and that was good since we are not smart men and headed out on Highway 49 and the Hopson place, a collection of seed buildings, shotgun shacks converted to cottages and the enormous Commissary/JukeJoint. Something happened here the night before and we soon learn from James, the owner, that Marcia Ball was out there the night before. She'd done her gig up in Memphis and then drove down to Hopson's to do another performance at his place. The inside of the building is decorated with every sort of Delta and rural memorabilia you could imagine. Flags, posters, old record albums, guitars in various states of preservation, and even an old post office with the letter boxes that he'd moved from another town when they tore the building down. I wondered what it was like at night with live blues blasting from the stage and wished we'd been there last night. We had a beer and sat around for a while. James sez he's working on a government grant for a project he's involved in called P.O.R.C.H. (the Preservation of Rural Cultural Heritage) and I hope he gets it as he's got a good start on his collection of artifacts already. We got up to go and he told us to check out the shacks if we liked and we did that.

Now anybody who goes down to Hopson to stay in the Shack'em Up Inn had better not think these cabins are anywhere close to stayin' at the local Peabody or Hampton. I'm sure there's been comments made from the purists who declare them to be a sellout due to the fact that they've got air conditioning, electricity, and indoor plumbing but I say to them peoples, "If you want to rough it, go and throw off the main breaker and take yer morning dump out in the field if you have to have authenticity." I'll bet not many would do it though as we're all fairly spoiled these days, compared to what living was like in these little homes before they became tourist cabins.



They're fixed nice inside and blues paraphernalia hangs from the walls. I believe I could be real comfortable there, especially after one of the shows at the commissary on a Friday night. You could crawl across the main yard and you're at your shack. No driving involved at all and that'd suit me just fine;~)

(Rosedale and the dead cow)


Me and Mark had been thinking strong about going clear down to Rolling Fork but I'd mistook Rosedale for Rolling Fork (left reading glasses at home)on the map and lays about another hundred some miles south of Clarksdale. Rosedale was only about thirty five miles from us so we opted to go see what that town, which was immortalized in Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" looked like these days and we took 322 east out of the city and then turned down State Road 1 and followed the levee down to Rosedale. It's a two lane asphalt road and is in good shape as there is scarcely any traffic running on there at all. I'd suspect that during cotton harvest it gets busier, but I bet we didn't see ten or twelve vehicles the whole way. There are several wide spots on the road with falling down buildings and a few residences, but on the whole there's very few people still living where you could see them. The economy seems to have taken a detour around the entire area and is a bit spooky. Cicadas were buzzing in every clump of woods that we passed and drowned out Muddy on the stereo. If you were walking that road at night, you might start imagining all sorts of things and would account for voodoo and supernatural events bein' mentioned in the deep blues of that area. I don't think I'd want to be out there alone for long after the sun went down. Them cicadas make a weird damn sound.

We enter the town of Rosedale and you know right away where the rich folks live and where the poor ones live. On the levee side as you come in from the north are manicured lawns and good looking residences set back off the road. Further in you'll see where the majority of folks are living. There's not a great deal of commerce down there but somehow the people are sustained but are living with less than most of the rest of us in these United States. There's plenty of empty houses with the windows out and a few that ain't empty with the windows out also. There was a sign painted on a building downtown declaring that it was a blues bar, but looked closed so we didn't stop in. People were lookin at this new red Pontiac running around in their town and we kind of figured that it wasn't quite right to be there starin' at what they didn't have so we headed over to the levee park before heading back north. An old Delta 88 would come in handy in these parts and would be good to break the ice. Once over the hill we saw that the whole park was fairly flooded and under water. There were folks who pulled down into what used to be the main parking lot and were fishing off the back of their trucks. I guess there would be catfish in there. As we drove back over the hill I hollered to a boy who was pushing his bike and holding a bag and a pole...

"Hey, you catch anything?"
"I got three!", sez he, with a big ol' grin on his face.
"Good for you, good for you" sez I.

On the other side of the levee Mark sez, "Hey, that's a dead cow over there." and sure enough there was a big old brown and white cow laying at the edge of the woodline. Deader than hell.
"Mebbe we could drag it out and skin it...start our own barbecue stand. We know their secret now...cole slaw on the bun..."
"No. That ain't a good idea,my back feels like shit."
"Mebbe next time then...let's head for Memphis. I'm gettin' hungry."

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