Graceland at last

A migraine induced by overall dampness in the hotel and little airflow in the bedroom did not curb my enthusiasm at the prospect of a tour of Memphis and a visit to Graceland. I popped a pill and soldiered on. For once I got dressed up, make up, the lot. Wanted to look my best to visit the King.

The first fascination was Willy our driver; he repeated everything, not boring but in a sing song way, a cross between a preacher and an auctioneer. For the first but certainly not the last time we learned that ‘the Mississippi river, yes the Mississippi river, was the third longest in the world, that’s the third longest, second only to the Amazon and the Nile, the Amazon and the Nile.’ Get my drift, do you get my drift? 

Like Nashville, health is big business here, and one of our stops was at St Jude hospital of which Danny Thomas the famous entertainer, was a generous benefactor. I say 'was' because he died this year but his daughter Marlo carries on the fund raising etc.

We passed the block of flats where Elvis and his mum and dad lived when they first moved from Tupelo where he was born, Definitely cheap housing in those days. Not so now apparently.

Willy pointed out the spot from where James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King. We stood with our own quiet thoughts in the sunshine outside the Lorraine Motel looking at the be-wreathed balcony where Martin Luther King was standing when he was killed. It is now a museum. Our visit was brief, unlike the woman's who has been picketing the site for 22+ years day in and day out. 

 According to Wikipedia:
The last resident of the motel, Jacqueline Smith, had resided there since 1973 as part of her work for the motel as a housekeeper. When faced with eviction for the museum project, Smith barricaded herself in her room and had to be forcibly evicted.
The neighborhood surrounding the Lorraine Motel was a lower-income, predominantly black area. At the time, the area had run-down homes that rented for $175 a month. The homes were demolished and later replaced with more expensive apartments and condominiums, as part of the rejuvenation of the downtown area.^[2][3][4]
Smith stated that the Lorraine "should be put to better uses, such as housing, job training, free college, clinic, or other services for the poor...the area surrounding the Lorraine should be rejuvenated and made decent and kept affordable, not gentrified with expensive condominiums that price the people out of their community." She has also stated that Dr. King would not have wanted $9 million spent on a building for him, and would not have wanted Lorraine Motel residents to be evicted.^[3][5]

Food for thought.

And then onto food for lunch at the Rum Boogie Cafe on Beale Street. I ate fresh tasty catfish, with potato salad and green beans (at last some veggies!) The place is festooned with guitars signed by famous people (including Elvis) who played them. 

 I couldn't wait to wander up and down the street I'd been reading about in 'Last Train to Memphis' to look in the windows of the tailor where Elvis bought his clothes in the early years. He went for pink and black in a big way, occasionally wearing other colours that marked him out as 'different' if not down right suspicious among his peers. Even as a young man he had a sense of destiny, and was not afraid to follow his unique style. B. B. King’s club and a lone blues singer in a courtyard lent the right atmosphere to a place already vivid in my imagination.

Then onto the bus for Graceland at last, the main reason for this trip. Willy told us that Elvis bought the property from a doctor on condition that he would not change the name (named after said doctor’s beloved aunt Grace). Do a Google search and you will find many different explanations, none of which mention a doctor or an aunt. Who knows? Who cares? I’d always thought it was named after Elvis’s mother but since she was called Gladys that doesn’t wash!

After enduring a bag search, the obligatory photo outside the gates of Graceland (painted on a wall) and being fitted with headphones we boarded the bus that takes you to Graceland. One is not allowed to walk up or down the driveway, even though it’s close on the street and the gates are open. We were also not allowed to go upstairs in the house. Given that Elvis died up there one can understand; it would be somewhat ghoulish to stand at the bathroom door staring in to where he was found, allegedly sitting on the toilet. How ignominious for such a great star.

As it is he is buried in the meditation garden with his mom and dad, and grandma. In addition Elvis’s stillborn twin brother is commemorated with a small plaque. He’d been buried in a pauper’s grave, and when they went looking for his remains they couldn’t find them.

Luckily once we were in Graceland we could wander at will in the designated areas taking as much time as we liked, with the head phones as guide, except... mine quit half way round. It didn’t matter that much. I wasn’t so much interested in the interior, but it  struck me how homey it was, garish in places, over the top kitsch, but comfortable, not at all grand. The grounds were beautiful.

After the house tour we waited in the hot sun to be returned to the tourist complex, went inside the Lisa Marie plane with its gold plated this and that, had another ice cream and dashed into the automobile museum; Elvis sure liked his cars. 





With barely 5 minutes to spare before catching the bus to our hotel, we walked across the road to take our own photo of us outside the real gates of Graceland. It felt almost naughty, dashing out from under the restraints of the tour companies to do our own thing. 

Apparently a new tourist complex is going to replace the existing one; fitting I suppose for the ‘second most visited, I said second most visited House in America.’