Maybe it WAS Memphis

The blues.......
remind me of Memphis and make me homesick for the river and all the other things I so enjoyed at a really happy time of my life. I was so poor then, just out of college, with the whole world waiting for me. (Now I know what the world was waiting to do, but then I thought it was gonna be great!)
Well, anyway, I remember Sunday mornings. There was a little shop at Overton Square that had fresh baked croissants. I would get a couple of those in the days before that kind of food could be eaten without such guilt. I would take my subscription-delivered Commercial Appeal, the one thing that really made me feel like a grown up, and my fattening goodies and some coffee, no fancy stuff like nowadays, and head to the river. I loved to sit at Tom Lee Park and read the paper and watch the barges. People thought I was looking to become a crime statistic, but I believed that I was safe, or wanted to believe it. Hey, I made it!!
That was before the downtown was revitalized. Few things were open downtown... the peanut place, Kress, King Furs. There was that big fountain then too, the one in front of a government building that had been covered in marble and one summer the marble fell off.
When Mud Island opened, I bought a season pass. I could sit on the bank there and hear the concerts I was too poor to pay for. I remember taking chicken or a fish box or barbecue and fighting with mosquitoes, but I loved every note of the music. I heard Air Supply, Kenny Loggins and Al Hirt and others, all free on my pass. The one concert I did pay for was the Chicago Tour in around 1983.
I loved Chicago, and I was so excited to see the lights of this city I loved behind the amphitheater. I knew every word to every song and sang along too, much to the chagrin of the other concert-goers. My best girlfriend from college was with me. That night was so wonderful, as I type this, my eyes become moist just remembering the sheer joy of singing along with Janet that steamy Memphis night.
I ate at the Kinckerbocker on Poplar before it was torn down and at Gridley's on Summer before it was closed. Is that bakery, Le baguette, still open at Chickasaw Oaks? I had just moved there when the Peabody reopened, and the elegance of sitting in that lobby and drinking a daiquiri... I've been from Miami, to Denver, to New Orleans to Chicago to Detroit to Baltimore to Washington to Pittsburgh and many places in between, but nothing compares with the first sip of a cool drink at the Peabody. I sat there soaking it up, all the southern-ness and history, and every time I go, I can feel it again.
Beale Street was closed when I moved to Memphis except for A. Schwab. After Beale opened and before all the bars, there were just a few places to go. Late on summer weekend afternoons the musicians would be jammin' by that big clock. I always noticed that was one of the few places that black and white faces could be seen together looking happy. One night as part of the MusicFest, I heard Percy Sledge and Sam and Dave in the Old Daisy Theater. It was steamy hot and jam packed, but everyone was having a wonderful time with none of the usual racial tension.
I spent an inspiring evening at Blues Alley listening to the old singers and musicians before the place closed. I saw Hamlet at Theater Memphis and The Lion in Winter at Playhouse on the Square At the Brooks and the Dixon I have feasted on exhibits by Chagal, the Impressionists and many others I loved. I spent happy hours with friends and alone in the Gardens at Dixon or at Overton Park. At the Cook Convention Center, I saw the Harlem Ballet and opera star Leontyne Price. I did the Wonder Series exhibits from Egypt, China, Russia, France. There's a little place to look at the river in seclusion behind what was the Holiday Inn Rivermont. I was always scared to do it, but I loved to ride past the corner of Third and Vance and see the pimps and their fancy cars and the prostitutes. Remember how the bubble gum factory smelled when you passed by on the street?
I loved Adams Street at Christmas when the Victorian mansions were decorated.
I bet on dogs at the Grayhound track. I lost. When people would come to visit, I'd drive across the old b
ridge to West Memphis just so I could blow them away by bringing them back across the MLK bridge and letting them feast on the skyline, my skyline.
by Claudia Johnson, with the first photo I ever took of the Mississippi, Dec. 1976

I know I may have a romanticized view. I was young and I had not encountered so much. I remember the crime and racial tension and traffic on the expressway that could have turned me into a murderer trying to get to work each morning. But I did love it so.
Any remedy for missing Memphis? Or am I just missing a state of mind? I've got the blues bad and hearing some would soothe my soul, I think.