The Great Elvis Expedition:

Day 6, Wednesday, August 14th, 2002 

Day 6 dawned bright and clear, at least as far as we could tell inside the atrium with waterfalls and gazebos aplenty and sumptuous splendor of the Opryland Hotel. The staff, which seemed confused at our arrival, was equally confused at our departure.

We departed promptly at 8:30 (meaning as always that we were supposed to depart at 8:00) Before we left Nashville, Wiley wanted us to stop and see the Parthenon, which evidently is a full scale replica of the real thing, so much so that building it allowed Nashville to call itself “The Athens of the South”. He was outvoted by everyone, including Rusty, who is usually up for anything that has a tree. Wiley vowed that we would spend the rest of our days regretting having bypassed this Wonder of the World.

We then headed South along the Natchez Trace Parkway en route to Tupelo. The Natchez Trace, for those of our readers who, like me, were unfamiliar with this important part of Southern history, was a road from Natchez on the Mississippi north to Nashville. In olden times, merchants would ship their goods and produce (cotton, tobacco, mint juleps) from Nashville via the Cumberland River, which flows into the Tennessee River, when then flows into the Ohio, which then flows down the Mississippi River to Natchez. From there they would send the goods to New Orleans (pronounced Nawluns). This was all very fine, travelling downstream as they were. However, they could not ship goods back to Nashville (clothes, spices, and mint juleps) because of the strong currents of the Tennessee and the Cumberland on the way back, so they hewed out of the wilderness the Natchez Trace, which was a direct land route of 500 miles between Natchez back to Nashville. It was called a Trace because horses struggled in their traces to pull the wagons of goods along the trail.

All manner of humanity used the trace, not only merchants but Indians, brigands, robbers, outlaws, as well as such luminaries as Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Colonel Travis who would all go on to glory in the Alamo, starring Fess Parker. One thing that this disparate flow of humanity had in common was that along the route, they would all stop at a Jewish delicatessen outside of Tupelo owned by one of Rick’s hitherto unknown relatives, Jebediah Lieb. They would leave their guns and knives and bows and arrows at the door, and then mix in congenial harmony inside the deli over plates of Nova Lox and cream cheese.

Business was always brisk at Lieb’s deli, what with all the ebb and flow of commerce, but the all time best day in terms of sales was three days before the battle of Shiloh in 1862. Knowing that his 60,000 troops were getting a little sick of hardtack and biscuits, and wanting his men to be well fed before the coming battle, General Johnston stopped at Lieb’s deli and ordered 30,000 pastramis on rye, 30,000 corn beef specials, 10,000 lbs of lox, 20 tubs of cream cheese, and 60,000 bagels. Many historians credit that meal with the near victory that Johnston’s troops had on the first day of the battle of Shiloh. Today, you can only see the remains of the deli, for, shortly after the battle of Shiloh, Jebediah Lieb pulled up stakes and headed north and faded into history.

Today, the Natchez Trace Parkway is a beautiful and serene road that winds its way south along the old road. In a four hour drive, we encountered perhaps 15 other vehicles; most times we had the road to ourselves, and it seemed as if we were being gently pulled through the countryside by some unknown force. The trip was so calm, with only small hills and gentle turns along the tree lined road, that we all became as mellow as Rusty, which is mighty mellow indeed.

We arrived in Tupelo at 2:00 P.M., and, thanks to a tip that Wiley got from a Park Ranger and the Natchez Trace Visitor Center, we stopped for lunch at the Rib Cage restaurant, where we had our first real barbecue of the trip. We ordered five rounds of everything, which included ribs, barbecued pork, barbecued chicken, potato salad, brown beans, and cole slaw. Rick, reverting to his old form, inhaled a rack of ribs by himself, pronouncing them the best he had ever eaten. We all concurred, via occasional grunts while consuming this vast quantity of wonderful food. While we ate, our lovely waitress Brandy, with no prompting, told us her life’s story involving fathers, stepfathers, half sisters, all strewn from here to Texas.

At 3:00 P.M. we finished this light repast and headed toward Elvis’s birthplace. As we got near, I for one, had goosebumps and could feel the hair on the back of my neck start to rise. Ron was also overcome with emotion, and wiped a tear from his eye. We arrived at the Elvis memorial, bought our tickets for the museum and the house, and commenced to walk on the ground where He walked. Our first visit was to the Shotgun House where the King was born, so called because you could shoot a shotgun from the front door clear through to the back door without any of the pellets hitting anything. It is a two room house. As you walk in, there is the Bed where Elvis and his stillborn twin brother were born. Here evidently, Elvis’s mother and father and Elvis evidently slept together in the single bed. The second room of the house was the kitchen, and dining room and washing room (in the winter.) When the King lived here, there was no running water, no electricity, and an outhouse. In each room an elderly and kindly lady would go through their reverential spiel. It was not a time to crack Elvis jokes.

Following the visit to the House, we then visited the Museum, which is actually a well done collection of Elvis memorabilia that is supposedly better than Graceland. One particular item, a folded white towel, caught my eye. In 1956, two young ladies paid a security guard $40 to be able to get into Elvis’s motel room just after He left. One of them was able to retrieve a towel which He had just used to take a shower. She took the towel home, and while it was still wet, put it in her freezer so as to preserve His bodily secretions. It stayed in her freezer for 17 years, at which point she donated the towel to the Elvis museum in Tupelo. They just don’t make fans like this anymore.

In the museum, we all bought Elvis in Tupelo tee shirts, Elvis salt and pepper shakers, and Elvis CDs. Rick didn’t feel that any of the tee shirts reached the level of bad taste that he was looking for, and he will hold out until Memphis.

Our final visit was to the Elvis chapel (which was free to all worshippers) where soft Elvis tunes are piped in as sunlight streams through the stained glass windows. Tom had a religious experience while standing at the podium, and reading the words to “ There Will Be Peace in the Valley.” Upon exiting the chapel, we found a plaque honoring all of Elvis’s fans around the world that was dedicated on April 9th, 2002, the very day we left on our trip! Clearly we had a rendezvous wit destiny.

At 5:00 P.M. we reluctantly left The Birthplace, and drove to Corinth, Mississippi, which is where the Battle of Shiloh begins. We are staying at a very nice Bed and Breakfast called the General Quarters. Rick went to work out at the Corinth gym and clothes emporium, while Wiley, Ron, and Tom walked three blocks to a wonderful, and quite possibly the only, restaurant in Corinth. It is a pretty, old ante-bellum town which at 9:00 P.M. had no cars on the streets or people walking anywhere. It was as if we were walking through a post nuclear world where neutron bombs had left all of the buildings but no people. Anyway, it appeared that all 25 of the town’s remaining residents were eating at the same restaurant, where we had a sumptuous repast of fried catfish fingers, fried pickles, and great entrees. My entrée consisted of fried chicken strips covered with fried grits, real bacon bits, and mushrooms. Estimated intake of 4000 calories. Ron had coconut custard pie for dessert, which he pronounced among the best he had ever eaten, and Wiley, who makes his own pecan pies and is a stern critic, had a slice which he pronounced to be excellent. We then walked back to our Inn, walking down the middle of the deserted streets of Corinth.

So ends Day 6. There is now a sense of nervous excitement among the entire group, except for Rusty, who only gets excited about pork rinds. The various major themes of our trip: the South, the Civil War, and most of all the Death of The King, are now converging and each of us are wondering how we will play our parts and how everything will come together in a crescendo of harmonic convergence. Tom is spending a lot of time fondling a carefully folded piece of Roman parchment; Ron is feverishly working on his project in the bedroom of the coach. Wiley is spending a lot of time communicating with not only the Wellstone for Senate campaign but virtually the entire leadership of the Democratic Party. And Rick has been reading the journal, and has been on the phone with Alan Greenspan, and the Secretary of the Treasury. Somehow, all of this will come together tonight at the Elvis gravesite during our tour of Graceland on Friday. Who can foresee the outcome? Certainly not this writer.