Back in Memphis and the town is gearing up for another night of debauchery. From the window on the world at the Hampton the tourists and locals have been magnetized and make their ways towards the Avenue of the Blues. We get cleaned up somewhat and head out the door, feeling the magnetic draw of the place ourselves. The same guy is over in Handy park with the same small band playing again. He seems to play non stop except for a short period during daylight hours. He's sho got dem blues bad but has a great gig there in Handy Park. Beale Street is hopping already and it's still daylight out with a little rain coming down here and there. The swirl is just getting started and the folks are still pretty sober but this starts changing about 8:30 or 9:00 and the laughing and carrying on gets more pronounced. The walk of individuals infected with the Beale St. virus changes dramatically as well and walking soon becomes a sort of a strut which in turn becomes a strutting/stagger.
Blues is everywhere again and the street is again illuminated by neon electric signs. If a person could do custom neon he'd have it made on Beale Street.

We wait for a street side table and sit there drinking beers and eating food while the parade of people swirls along. We are not smart men but have learned a thing or two since the previous night, namely, get a table and sit on your ass as long as they'll let you.
Across the way in front of Silky O'Sullivans a black guy is puking rice or pasta into the gutter. A drunken white guy comes over and pats him on the back in consolation while college girls start gagging. One of 'em is wearing a white veil and a tee shirt that proclaims, I SUCK FOR A BUCK! We figure this gal must've lost a bet or something as you just won't find a deal like that anywhere.

In the street in front of us is a older white woman with a huge butt and she's pretty drunk. She stops whole groups of young black women and from what we can gather is trying to get them to teach her to move her butt like they do. She's about sixty five or so and after she talks to them a bit she bends forward and gyrates that big butt of hers and the black gals all shriek with laughter. This goes on for a long while until that same drunken consoling white guy comes over and puts his arm around her, leading her off the street. Maybe he's with the B.S. Neighborhood Coalition or something, but he seems to do some good and works cheap.

Saturday night is much the same as Friday except we got good seats and saved shoe leather. The crowd seems bigger and more elderly black folks are doing the stroll this evening and they're all dressed up and looking great. I bet they've seen some things in their day. Maybe they ain't that old at all as Beale Street would age a person pretty quick if you had a steady diet of it.

BB King is playing at his club again tonight and we manage to get up in front of the window and can see and hear him talking to his audience. There's a ton of people gathered around, none of us having enough $100 dollar bills to be able to enjoy him inside, but the aging yuppie crowd has made it inside and have put everything on plastic. Somehow it doesn't seem so expensive that way to their way of thinking I guess. I ain't got that much and am digging just watching the great Man through the window from the street. I hold the cheapo cam above my head and aim in his general direction and click a pic through the plate glass thinking maybe it'll come out. (It didn't come out real good but that's him with the mic.)He's as gracious as ever and I think probably the most beloved of all blues singers as everyone around me is smiling that love smile while they look and listen to him. I notice that I am smiling too. He's the greatest of them all and there are some great ones still rolling.

The crowd on the street parts down the middle (another shitty pic...grrr..)as a young Black dude runs the gauntlet with a yellow bucket. This is the Tumbling Man. He was there the night before and he's back again. We get down on the street above where he's setting up. The Brothers try to psych him out and make him fuck up but he's determined. This guy takes off and flips all the way down the length of the block nearly without touching the ground with his hands. These ain't just straight flips, these are rolling and spinning in mid-air flips. The crowd goes nuts and he runs around before they wander off and gets his yellow bucket filled with dollar bills. He does this thing three or four times a night and we figure he must collect three hundred bucks or more. He's good and it's worth a buck to watch , that's for sure.

Somehow it's 2:00 A.M. again and we call it quits and head around the corner to the Hampton. The crowd on the Avenue shows only signs of getting bigger. It's unreal...I wake up the next morning in the clothes I wore the night before and still no hangover. I must've got the deluxe Gumbo Friday night the restorative properties appear to be good for two days of loud music and somewhat more than moderate drinking.

Sunday we head over to Mud Island to finally see the Mississippi River. We saw bits of it where it was out of the banks and touching the levee down in Rosedale, but hadn't actually seen the River itself. Mud Island is a reclaimed strip of land reached by a walking bridge or monorail. The monorail was outta order so we headed off on the walking bridge. There's a museum over there that tells the history of the prehistoric people who lived in the Memphis area and then takes you up to the present day. There's Spanish armour, muskets, old tools, cannons, a replica of a steamship's pilot house and bow section. Good stuff for someone like me who likes to learn and see how they did things a long time ago. The place is pretty huge inside with many exhibits. There's even three or four rooms set aside for the music of Memphis, from the field hollers and spirituals clear up to, you guessed it, Elvis.

Outside the museum and running the whole length of the island is a scale model of the Mississippi River done all in rock and concrete made to resemble rock. Every channel and bayou is painstakingly reproduced here and is a marvel. Water runs the length and dumps into a pool sized Gulf of Mexico. I'm wishing the family was here, as my daughter would get a kick outta this. Kids are jumping over the river and I expect that in their minds they are now giants. Actually I wish I was a kid so I could do the same thing. Very cool stuff in Memphis. If you go, be a tourist and do some tourist stuff as it's perfectly okay, and a good place to take the family, and many people were doing just that. These are completely different from the folks we'd been exposed to in Memphis as they were all sparkling clean and neat and not doing the strut/stagger at all. Just plain people who probably stay clear of Beale Street and never seen a guy flip out for a whole block. They could go there, it wouldn't hurt 'em a bit.

I look south to the old iron bridge that the Boberdzrz told me to go across and decide the river's too high to go there and see what lay under the Arkansas side. (NOTE:That's not an iron bridge there, it's a really long collection of barges bein' pushed against the current by three tugs.) We're getting close to time to fly home and head to the GRACELAND Souvenir Shop to buy souvenirs (peace offerings) for the womenfolks back home. I get my wife a nightshirt with a Blue Hawaii Elvis on the front and a Blue Hawaii salt and pepper shaker set. We have completely different tastes in music and everything else too, (gifts also as it turned out...I can't win.)but have made it twenty-three years together so maybe that's the way to go.

The flight home was uneventful except for the suspicious lookin' swarthy fellow that sat across the aisle from me. He came in late carrying a load of books and some sort of electronic device that only had one headphone. He got pretty animated while listening to whatever it was and I thought he was gonna spaz out on us or try something funny but he didn't {..and a lucky thing for him as my twisted mind had figured out how the airline's complimentary headphone's cable could be used as a garrot if the fiend had decided to leave his seat...just kiddin' folks, sort of...} Anyhow, we made it home in one piece and that's all there is to tell. It was a damn good time.

If you've ever wondered what the Delta is like then start throwing those nickels and quarters in the jar and before long you'll have enough to go and see it. Best three days I've spent in a long time. The people are friendly, barbecue's great and the Blues is everywhere you look. Just go and do it, you'll be glad you did.

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