Walking in Memphis (Really)

(Memphis, TN) May 20, 2006 - I hear Memphis is a great place to visit, particularly in May. The city features a month-long series of events and festivals called, creatively, Memphis in May. It’s May, and I’ve spent two days in Memphis. I should have had a good time.
I visited Beale Street and took a trolley ride around downtown on a Saturday afternoon. My timing was perfect: perfectly wrong. I knew something was amiss when I saw people with hand-scrawled signs all over downtown demanding up to $25.00 to allow people to park their cars. At this moment, I was blissfully unaware of the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest going on along the Mississippi River. I am told that this is, in fact, a world championship event and quite a spectacle. That is, except when I was there. I paid a man twenty bucks so he would allow me to leave my car in the parking lot of a closed bank branch and walked toward the WCBCC. I was greeted by an assault on the senses in the form of man with a megaphone standing in the middle of a city street squawking about how Jesus saves and how some prominent Memphis families are the devil incarnate. Just to his right were several booths offering to sell a ticket to me for seven dollars which would grant access to the Big Barbecue Thing. I paid and I went in.
I had what I thought was a reasonable expectation of
imminent consumption of world-class barbecue. Not so. I walked the length and breadth of the festival site for almost an hour. There were hundreds of groups preparing what might have been some of the best barbecue I’ve ever tasted, except I never tasted any. It turns out I showed up during the judging phase of the festival. The only people who were eating were the certified judges. Meantime, the people staffing the booths were quite serious about this. I made the mistake of stopping to ask a couple of people why I couldn’t buy barbecue at a barbecue festival, and I was told basically to keep moving, that they were making presentations to the judges. Finally, one proud group of locals took pity upon me and offered a light beer before sending me on my way. I took it. By my calculations, that’s a twenty-seven dollar brew.
Others in my traveling party went to the festival at night and said it was a real blast, with live music, plenty to eat & drink and tens of thousands of people. Me? I was already out twenty-seven bucks and half a day of my life, so I moved on.
As for Beale Street: again, I was there during the day. It looked like Bourbon Street to me, only smaller and cleaner. I stopped into BB King’s place hoping to have lunch, but after fifteen minutes I left because no server came to my table. I walked across Beale to the Blues City Café for a half-rack of mediocre ribs and a small portion of top-notch barbecue beans.
The highlight of the trip for me was a sighting of an honest-to-goodness Elvis impersonator. So, I feel like I’ve been to Memphis, at least. I thought briefly about visiting Graceland, going so far as to find the exit for it on Interstate 55. We have an Elvis Presley Avenue at home, so I figured I was covered and let that idea pass.
I attended an Arena Football game. The team I was following lost to the guys from Memphis. A lot of people love this place. It has a lot going on: Blues, basketball, and the Mighty Mississippi among them. I’ve visited this legendary Mid-South city twice now and have left disappointed both times. I’m not sure if my expectations are out of whack or if I’ve just had bad luck. I’ll come back with an open mind. Maybe next time I’ll eat before I come.

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