Memphis

I haven’t lived in Memphis for over 30 years. For many of those years, I flew in and out of Memphis on a fairly semi-regular basis. Holidays and birthday always brought me back. In those days Memphis was a hub and there was a direct flight on Northwest from the cold, gray skies of New Jersey back to the clear, blue skies of Memphis.

I always looked forward to coming home, but home really wasn’t Memphis. Memphis was the gateway to home. Though I once lived in Memphis, I grew up across the river in Arkansas. When I was a child, the towering buildings of downtown Memphis that peeped over the distant horizon as we approached the Memphis/Arkansas Bridge reminded me of magical City of Oz. It was an amazing place where Happy Hal had his toy store. It was home to the finest store in the delta, Goldsmith’s. For those who don’t know, the Mississippi Delta begins at the fountain in the lobby of the Peabody. Memphis had Maywood. There was no better place to swim on earth than Maywood. Best of all, Memphis was home to Leonard’s. Leonard’s Barbecue was so good that it is the only place Elvis would get his barbecue from. When my brother was just a toddler, he got Tabasco sauce in his eye at dinner there one night. No one at Leonard’s that night will ever forget that.

Once or twice, my parents brought my sister Sweet Pea, my brother The Goob, and me to Memphis for a weekend. We stayed at the Howard Johnson’s on what is now Elvis Presley Blvd. Howard Johnson’s was just south of Brooks Road. I loved that place. It had a great swimming pool and you could get ice cream for breakfast if you wanted it. You could see Howard Johnson’s as you drove south on Interstate 55. Right next door to Howard Johnson’s there was a Volkswagen dealership with a lot filled with VW Bugs. I must confess that whenever we saw the VW place, I savagely pounded my poor brother’s shoulder mercilessly all the while screaming “Peewee No Punch Back! Peewee No Punch Back!”. My brother may have PTSD.

As I grew up, my perspective on Memphis changed. In Junior High, I heard rumors from friends about a place called Voodoo Village. That place scared us. We all heard about Overton Square, and the ‘Square’ called to us. It had a restaurant called TGI Fridays. TGI Friday’s had great burgers and they served their french fries with salt and pepper on them. There was a place in Overton Square called Lafayette’s Music Hall. Word was that you might see anyone from Mick Jagger to Lou Reed to Alice Cooper in there, but never Elvis. Elvis didn’t do ‘the Square’.

The “Square” was a busy place. Hot Air Balloon had the coolest sign. There was Solomon Alfred’s and the Bombay Bicycle Club offering music and drinks. Later, the Public Eye would appear where the Spaghetti Warehouse originally sat. Just up the Cooper a bit sat Linda’s Lovelace. Who could walk past their display window without looking? I walked smack dab into a pole.

In high school, everyone I knew worked and saved their money for concerts at the Mid-South Colosseum. Some folks like the North Hall better, but I don’t know. I never went to the North Hall. The concerts I went to were all at the Colosseum. No trip to Memphis for a concert was complete without first stopping at Shakey’s for pizza and beer. In those days, it was legal to buy beer if you were 18. On concert nights, if you looked like you were any where near 18 you could usually buy beer. Trips to Memphis were frequently double dates. We would split a large pizza and a couple of pitchers of beer. After the concert, everyone always made a dash to the ‘Square’ for a few post concert drinks at Silky Sullivan’s.

The drive home in those days was about 60 miles, 30 of which were on a two lane highway featuring no shoulder and bordered by huge trees lining a deep, muddy ditch filled with abandoned cars, old washing machines and water moccasins. Late night fog always made driving home especially challenging for a 17 year old kid with three drinks under his belt. It is a miracle that any of us survived.

College again changed my perspective. Memphis became the place where great football games were played. Whether Ole Miss was playing Memphis State, or playing in the Liberty Bowl, Memphis was a town to party in. Ole Miss always had a pep rally at the Peabody. In those days, the sound of Dixie rang out loud and clear in the lobby bar filled with Ole Miss fans attired in starched, button down shirts and khaki’s. Game day required suits and ties. Confederate flags flew only for the Ole Miss Rebel football team as the entire room enjoyed libations and shouted ‘Hotty Toddy!” No visit to Memphis was complete without a visit to the Rendezvous. It has been often said and is clearly true that though Ole Miss may not win every football game, we have never lost a party.

After college, having married, I finally lived in Memphis. This was right smack dab in the middle of Memphis’s Jerry Lawler Era. Mid South Wrestling was taking over the world. At the Mid-South Colosseum, Jerry Lawler was making Memphis the capital of it all. The Colosseum was sold out every time Jerry walked in the place and he was front and center every Saturday on TV. Though Jerry was making out like a bandit, as a struggling computer consultant I wasn’t. Though Graceland Enterprises was one of the clients I took care of, I barely made a living for my wife and two daughters. Elvis was long gone, but the folks at Graceland Enterprises kept the King of Rock and Roll alive and kicking.

By pure happenstance one day, I found a cool little book store that sold second hand books. Usually I didn’t even have the money to buy a second hand book. But I stopped in and browsed some. I had found a jewel. From then on when I was disheartened or down about something, I would go there just to browse the stacks and read a little. If I really liked a book, I would make a mental note to come back and buy it when I had some spare money. In the back of my mind I knew that even when I had a spare dollar or two, I probably wouldn’t make it back to buy the book because there were always, other things, more important things that we needed to spend it on.

I loved the smell of that book store. It smelled like old books. Somehow, being among the old books made me happy. I imagined it was like being a kid in “Happy Hal’s Toy Store”. Usually, I knew I couldn’t buy anything, but I could hold the books and read a few pages. On the few occasions I could afford a book, I chose my book as carefully as if I were picking a new puppy. I would hold two or three books for a few minutes, weighing the merits of each. Finally, after agonizing over the decision for what seemed and eternity, I bought a book and retreated home to read it in it’s entirety. It was like Christmas.

To me, of all the things that make Memphis so very special, I think Burke’s Books may be my favorite.

Today, I write novels, about the Mid-South. You can’t write about 1970s and 80s Memphis and the Mid-South without Elvis and Jerry, The Rendezvous, and Overton Square. Take a few minutes, go to a used book store and get a book. Maybe you’ll find one of mine. You’ll rediscover a time when life was an adventure and each tomorrow was a whole new world.