Well Hi Once Again 10/4-18/2010

We left the Memphis area on Tuesday the 5th and headed for Crossville, TN for a 3 day stay. While we were in Crossville we did a few caches and had a great BBQ dinner at one of the local restaurants. We left Crossville and headed for Morristown, TN where Kim and Sean live and we stayed at Panther Creek State Park while we were there. We had a great visit with Kim and Sean as we stayed a week. We had a nice stay while we were there and we didn't do very much. We went out to dinner with Sean to a wing place and went to lunch with Kim and Sean at a Thai restaurant. It was the first time I had Thai food and I enjoyed it very much. We did take a ride to the Bush's Baked Bean factory about a 45 minute ride from Sean's. We didn't get to go through the factory but we walked around the gift store and got a few things. We left Sean's on Friday morning as they were leaving for their trip to South Africa and a safari and a swim with the sharks. We headed for Asheville as we are on the last leg of our trip back to MB. We stayed in Asheville for 4 days and did some caching on Monday. Other than that we haven't been doing an awful lot as I watched football on Saturdays and Sundays and Mom goes shopping whenever she has a chance. Well that's about it for now so until next blog everybody take care and we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick

On the Road Again 10/1-3/2010

Friday we just stayed around the campgrounds and watched TV, read and had the transmission fluid in the coach changed which took about 2 hours longer than they figured as they had a problem finding a filter. Saturday we were up early and on the road by 8:00. We had almost 300 miles into Southaven, MS which is about 12 miles south of Memphis, TN. It was a long tough drive as the truck traffic was unbelievable for a Saturday. There was just truck after truck after truck passing us all along the whole trip. We got to the campgrounds, E Z Daze RV park about 3:00, got set up and hung around the rest of the day.

Sunday we took a ride into Memphis to do a few caches and take a walk down Beale Street. Beale Street was built on memories – good and bad. It first rang out over the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. It migrated to the streets and clubs of Memphis. It went on to influence the sound of music all over the world. Memphis is the Home of the Blues and the Birthplace of Rock ‘n Roll. And it all starts here on Beale Street.
Beale Street’s heyday was in the roaring 20’s, when it took on a carnival atmosphere. The booming nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, stores, pawnshops and hot music thrived alongside gambling, drinking, prostitution, murder and voodoo.
In the early evenings, boxback suits and Stetson hats mingled with overalls.
Young ladies sashayed down Beale Street and inside the bars, gamblers waited for an easy mark to stroll in. If the mark escaped from the dice or the cards, maybe he would fall victim to Little Ora – always ready to prove her reputation as the best pickpocket between New Orleans and St. Louis. Maybe he’d just stop over at PeeWee’s and visit with the musicians, play a little pool, or secure the voodoo protection of Mary the Wonder.
By mid-evening, the street would be packed. A one block walk could mean a detour around the medicine show set up in a little hole in the wall, as much as stopping and listening to the wandering bluesmen playing for pennies and nickels.
One club, The Monarch, was known as The Castle of Missing Men due to the fact that gunshot victims and dead gamblers could be easily disposed of at the undertaker sharing their back alley.
Machine Gun Kelly peddled bottled whiskey from a clothes basket back before moving into the ranks of big-time crime. Numerous gamblers set a box next to the card table and slid a share of the take into it for the church down the street.
There were big vaudeville shows at the Palace and the Daisy, hot snoot sandwiches at the corner café, Memphis jug bands playing down at the park, and one block over on Gayoso, the red-light district rivaled New Orleans’ Storyville.

Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately 1.8 miles. It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of the blues. Today, the blues clubs and restaurants that line Beale Street are major tourist attractions in Memphis. Festivals and outdoor concerts periodically bring large crowds to the street and its surrounding areas. Though given an exemption by the state of Tennessee to keep clubs open until 5 a.m., there is now an effort to reduce the hours to a 3 am closing time.
Beale Street was created in 1841 by entrepreneur and developer Robertson Topp (1807–1876), who named it for a forgotten military hero. The original name was Beale Avenue. Its western end primarily housed shops of trade merchants, who traded goods with ships along the Mississippi River, while the eastern part developed as an affluent suburb. In the 1860s, many black traveling musicians began performing on Beale. The first of these to call Beale Street home were the Young Men's Brass Band, who were formed by Sam Thomas in 1867.
In the 1870s, the population of Memphis was rocked by a series of yellow fever epidemics, leading the city to forfeit its charter in 1879. During this time Robert Church purchased land around Beale Street that would eventually lead to his becoming the first black millionaire from the south. In 1890, Beale Street underwent renovation with the addition of the Grand Opera House, later known as the Orpheum. In 1899, Robert Church paid the city to create Church Park at the corner of 4th and Beale. It became a recreational and cultural center, where blues musicians could gather. A major attraction of the park was an auditorium that could seat 2,000 people. Some of the famous speakers in the Church Park Auditorium were Woodrow Wilson, Booker T. Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the early 1900s, Beale Street was filled with clubs, restaurants and shops, many of them owned by African-Americans. In 1889, NAACP co-founder Ida B. Wells was a co-owner and editor of an anti-segregationist paper called Free Speech based on Beale. Beale Street Baptist Church, Tennessee's oldest surviving African American Church edifice built in 1864, was also important in the early civil rights movement in Memphis.
In 1905, Mayor Thornton was looking for a music teacher for his Knights of Pythias Band and called Tuskegee Institute to talk to his friend, Booker T. Washington, who recommended a trumpet player in Clarksdale, Mississippi, named W. C. Handy. Mayor Thornton contacted Mr. Handy, and Memphis became the home of the famous musician who created the "Blues on Beale Street". Mayor Thornton and his three sons also played in Handy's band.

In 1909, W. C. Handy wrote "Mr. Crump" as a campaign song for political machine leader E. H. Crump. The song was later renamed "The Memphis Blues". Handy also wrote a song called "Beale Street Blues" in 1916 which influenced the change of the street's name from Beale Avenue to Beale Street. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Albert King, Memphis Minnie, B. B. King, Rufus Thomas, Rosco Gordon and other blues and jazz legends played on Beale Street and helped develop the style known as Memphis Blues. As a young man, B.B. King was billed as "the Beale Street Blues Boy".
In 1938, Lewis O. Swingler, editor of the Memphis World Newspaper, a Negro newspaper, in an effort to increase circulation, conceived the idea of a "Mayor of Beale St.", having readers vote for the person of their choice. Matthew Thornton, Sr., a well-known community leader, active in political, civic and social affairs and one of the charter members of the Memphis Branch of the NAACP, won the contest against nine opponents and received 12,000 of the 33,000 votes cast. Mr. Thornton was the original "Mayor of Beale St." an honorary position that he retained until he died in 1963 at the age of 90. In the 1960s, Beale became run down and many stores closed, although on May 23, 1966, the section of the street from Main to 4th was declared a National Historic Landmark. On December 15, 1977, Beale Street was officially declared the Home of the Blues by an act of Congress. Despite this national recognition of its historic significance, Beale was a virtual ghost town after a disastrous urban renewal program with every building except Schwabs boarded up. It was not until the 1980s that Beale Street was redeveloped by Elkington & Keltner (now Performa Entertainment Real Estate) which led to an economic revitalization with new clubs and attractions opening.
During the first weekend of May (sometimes including late April), the Beale Street Music Festival brings major music acts from a variety of musical genres to Tom Lee Park at the end of Beale Street on the Mississippi River. The festival is the kickoff event of a month of festivities citywide known as Memphis in May.
We walked up one side and down the other and saw so so many quaint little jazz and blues clubs in addition to many many restaurants all serving one thing in common.....RIBS. We saw B. B. King's Blues Club, Miss Polly's Soul City Cafe, POrk With An Attitude, Silky O'Sullivan's and Tater Red's.

Our first cache was behind Sun Studio a Memphis Landmark. Sun Studio was opened by rock pioneer Sam Phillips at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 3, 1950. It was originally called Memphis Recording Service, sharing the same building with the Sun Records label business. Reputedly the first rock-and-roll single, Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats' "Rocket 88" was recorded there in 1951 with song composer Ike Turner on keyboards, leading the studio to claim status as the birthplace of rock & roll. Blues and R&B artists like Howlin' Wolf, Junior Parker, Little Milton, B.B. King, James Cotton, Rufus Thomas, and Rosco Gordon recorded there in the early 1950s.
Rock-and-roll, country music, and rockabilly artists, including unknowns recording demos and others like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Feathers, Ray Harris, Warren Smith, Charlie Rich, and Jerry Lee Lewis, signed to the Sun Records label recorded there throughout the latter 1950s until the studio outgrew its Union Avenue location. Sam Phillips opened the larger Sam C. Phillips Recording Studio, better known as Phillips Recording, in 1959 to take the place of the older facility. Since Sam had invested in the Holiday Inn Hotel chain earlier, he also recorded artist starting in 1963 on the label Holiday Inn Records for Kemmons Wilson.
In 1969, Sam Phillips sold the label to Shelby Singleton, and there was no recording-related or label-related activity again in the building until the September 1985 Class of '55 recording sessions with Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, produced by Chips Moman.
In 1957, Bill Justis recorded his Grammy Hall of Fame song "Raunchy" for Sam Phillips and worked as a musical director at Sun Records.
In 1987, the original building housing the Sun Records label and Memphis Recording Service was reopened by Gary Hardy as "Sun Studio," a recording label and tourist attraction that has attracted many notable artists, such as U2, Def Leppard, Bonnie Raitt, and Ringo Starr.
In May 2009, Canadian blues artist JW-Jones recorded with blues legend Hubert Sumlin, Larry Taylor and Richard Innes for his 2010 release at the studio. In July 2009, John Mellencamp recorded nine songs for his album No Better than This at the studio. Wes Paul and his group The Wes Paul Band are recording their album at Sun this forthcoming May.
We went but didn't take the tour of the studio but did get some coffee and a danish and bought a couple of souvenirs.


Next cache was at the Magevney House. The Magevney House is a historic residence on 198 Adams Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. It is located in the Victorian Village of Memphis. It is one of the oldest residences remaining in Memphis.
n the 1830s, the Magevney House was built by Eugene Magevney as a clapboard cottage. Eugene Magevney was born in Ireland in 1798, immigrated to the United States in 1828 and settled in Memphis in 1833. He was a pioneer teacher and civic leader and died in 1875.
During the late 1830s and early 1840s, three important events in Memphis religious history took place in the cottage. In 1839, the first Catholic mass in Memphis was celebrated in the house. In 1840, the first Catholic marriage in Memphis was officiated at the residence. And in 1841, the first Catholic baptism was performed in Memphis at the Magevney homestead.
In 1941, the family of Eugene Magevney gave the property to the City of Memphis.
In 1973, the Magevney House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Since 2005, the house and museum are closed to the public. A sign installed at the museum informs visitors that the property is closed to the public temporarily, due to the budget situation of the City of Memphis and that the house will re-open upon the availability of funding. The Magevney House is part of the Pink Palace Family of Museums.

Our last cache was at the former site of Fort Harris. The founders of Memphis set aside a number of public areas. This is Market Square. Funny thing about the names that were given them, they didn't match their use. Market Square was the site of the first courthouse, a log cabin. It was later used to house the first newspaper. The other public spaces were Court Square,(which never had a courthouse upon it) Auction Square, and the Promenade. The Promenade was basically Front Street above the docking areas downtown.
The court opened in 1820, and would be the place where the accused would make their defense. Fast forward 41 years and another kind of defense was taking place, this time on the river. The year is 1861 and Tennessee has voted to secceed from the Union. In an earlier vote it had voted to remain in the Union, but Lincoln informed the states they would be required to provide their militias to fight their southern neighbors. This was the tipping point, although not all were pleased to be interjected into the turmoil. Memphis was built on trade and was a major link between the river and the railroads. There was a strong Unionist contingent and many who felt it was just bad for business. There was also a very strong Pro-Confederate part of the population and many enlisted to fight the North.
Governor Harris ordered fortifications to be made to protect Memphis and the river. A fort bearing his name was built just north of the city on Mill's Plantation. Civil engineers WD Pickett and Montgomery Lynch were enlisted to build the fort. The soldiers and their artillery were ordered north to Forts Randolph, Pillow and Donelson.
In early 1862 Fort Donelson was the first to come under fire and fell into the Union's control. Fort Pillow held the Union ships at bay for a while, but the fort was abandoned and the Confederates fled south. They abandoned Fort Randolph without a fight as well and made their way to Memphis.
Fort Harris and Fort Rector(on the Arkansas side opposite Ft Harris) had been abandoned much earlier and played no part in the defense of the city. On June 5th,1862 the Union ships were tied up just south of the fort within sight of downtown Memphis. The Confederate's River Defense Fleet was all that stood in the way of the Union Army. All other troops had been evacuated by train. The RDF lacked the coal needed to make more than 2 hours steam and could not make it to safety. Early on the 6th the Union ships made their way down the river and the Battle of Memphis ensued. It was the only pure naval battle of the war and 90 minutes later the Confederate fleet had been destroyed and the Union sent an emisary ashore to demand the surrender of the city. Lacking any choice the mayor capitulated. Since it had been purely a naval battle the city was spared ruination and became a vital link for the Union as well as a major medical center, with over a dozen hospitals. Soon after the battle the city's docks were soon flowing with merchandise and commodities.

We also saw the Hunt-Phelan Home a lovely inn and restaurant. Located on Beale Street, this 1828-32 restored Federal style house represents the lifestyle of a wealthy Southern family. In addition to hosting dignitaries such as Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and President Andrew Jackson, the house also served as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's headquarters following the battle for Memphis in 1862. In addition the house was used as a Civil War hospital and as the site of one of the first Freedman's Bureau schools, established to educate newly liberated slaves.

After we finished our caches and driving around we headed back to the coach and Mom went grocery shopping and I engaged in Sunday football. Well that's about all from here so until next time we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick