What's your favorite city? Why should I travel there?

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What are the good restaurants and the must-see attractions? Is there anything special I should know while planning my trip (best time of year to go, that sort of thing)?

-- ann monroe (monroe@chorus.net), March 24, 2000

Answers

Well, hey. I just got back yesterday from Memphis, TN. My brother got married at Graceland. There are many things to do there, I was pleasantly surprised to find out.

Of course, there is Graceland. Everybody should go there at least once in their life, if just to remind oneself that the public at large is a seething mass of pink hair and stale menthol cigarettes. It was a blast, but make no mistake, Graceland has very little to do with music.

For music, one must go to Sun Studios - the place where Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Howlin' Wolf, and Johnny Cash all cut their first records. The monthol cigarettes were replaced with cloves; the beer bellies and pink hair became blond dread locks and pierced nipples. A different age group than Graceland, basically the same type of person.

Beale Street was great, but I was there on St. Patrick's day, and can't remember very much other than having a choice between green beer and Long Island Ice Teas...and I don't drink green beer. 'Nuff said.

The Piece de Resistance, as my French ancestors would say, would be the entry in the back of the tour book, in fine print. "Lewis Ranch Tours: See Jerry Lee's car collection! His Gold Records! His Piano shaped swimming pool!" Unlike Graceland, tours are by appointment only. You must call ahead. We came to find out that you have to call so Jerry Lee will leave and not have to deal with tourists as they tramp through his house.

His father-in-law conducts the tour, which is basically walking through the house while he says, "This here's the living room. That over there's the piano. If you'll step this way, you'll see the kitchen. On the wall, you'll notice Jerry's eighteen gold records." It was truly the most phenominal celebrity experience of my life. As we stepped onto the back patio (overlooking the man-made lake) we could see Jerry Lee himself fishing with his five year old son. There were 15 or so adult dogs running around, two of whom had recently littered, so there were about 20 puppies, as well. My kids didn't care whose house we were at, they just wanted to play. Which led Jerry Lee's father-in-law to say, "We got too many damn dogs. Do me a favor and take one of these 'uns home, OK?"

So now if you ever come to our house you can meet Lewis, our new puppy that we got from Jerry Lee Lewis. Woo-Hoo! Memphis kicked ass. Oh, yeah, Bruce Springsteen stayed at our hotel, but that's another story.

-- Ed (Edward_Charbonnier@sunlife.com), March 24, 2000.


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