I get down to Beale Street and its a no driving zone where people are free to promenade, drinks in hand. A very cool thing about Memphis is the number of young African Americans riding motorcycles.  I don’t know whether that was a weekly gathering Sunday nights but there were literally hundreds of bikers on Beale that night and I was the only white one. “So cool to be part of the brotherhood” I think to myself.  But the thought didn’t last too long. With all the bikes on Beale that night it was very difficult to find on street parking.  When I finally found a parking spot on the street and in light of my parking difficulties earlier that day at the Stax Museum, I decided to ask a couple of brothers if it was okay to park here.   “Sure” they told me with  quizzical looks on their faces.  Thankfully I was not towed because when I got back to my “confirmed” parking spot, I noticed I was parked in a bus stop.

After my illegal parking job, I walk the three or four blocks of Beale Street trying to get the low down on where all the action seems to be happening. I check out who's playing at the Rum Boogie, where Jimmy Thackery often plays and then try to enter the Black Diamond, former home of Keith Sykes singer-songwriter series. Despite the local gossip, it was good to see the Black Diamond was still in business, under its owner, Bob.   Unfortunately it was closed to the public for a private event this night.

Having built up a powerful hunger, I head over to the Blues City Cafe and upon Edward's recommendation, I try to order spaghetti and ribs. The waiter looked at me like I was crazy, (he was right of course, but that's besides the point, shut-up, you said it). Instead, upon the waiter’s recommendation I ordered a 1/2 rack, dry, spice rubbed rib dinner and it was excellent. The meat fell off the bone, the sauce on the side was just right and the toast was to die for.

I had the nicest conversation about the history of Beale Street with my waiter.  He had been there 17 years, I just wished I would have gotten his name. He caught me up to date on all the local music gossip. I was heartbroken to hear of the Parkinson-like illness of Andrew Love, the saxophone playing half of the Memphis Horns.  Along with his partner, trumpeter Wayne Jackson, they had  played on over 300 #1 records but most notably they babysat my young children backstage at a gig they shared with Roomful of Blues before a Gopher/Memphis State football game outside the Metrodome. Then Gopher Athletic Director, Pat Forcia will always have a warm place in my heart for booking that gig.

I said my goodbyes to the staff at the Blues City Cafe and then it was back to the motel to get some rest for tomorrow was going to be a busy day. 

Looking back, I still cannot get over how things could have turned out differently and I mean different in a bad way.  After all, I had missed the last tour of the day at Stax and the museum was closing in a matter of minutes.  I was leaving town the next day and my tight schedule as well as the museum’s hours of operation left no chance I could reschedule.  To make matters worse, I had the audacity, or so it must have seemed to the police officer, to illegally park my bike right in front of the  building , in a tour bus landing no less.  I had blatantly disregarded pedestrian and safety laws for what we would now call a selfie and when I was confronted by a police officer who was witness to it all, I made no attempt to  exculpate myself, rather I blurted out incriminating statements and invited the officer to document my behavior with my own camera.  

The acts of kindness extended to me that day by the wonderful Stax staff, including the Memphis police officer working security as well as my motel clerk Edward, the cool waiter at the Blues City Café, have made an indelible favorable impression of Memphis with me which I will always cherish.   Not only did their seemingly modest acts of kindness make for an enjoyable experience, it also taught me an important lesson.  It taught me that kindness is contagious, even in small doses and can have ripple effects that reverberate far beyond the contemporaneous act and sometimes have a lasting effect. 

Hopefully this will all make a little more sense as this story progresses.    But for now I simply want to thank those individuals.  One thing that the COVID19 virus has driven home these past weeks is how easy it was in our formerly busy lives to forget about the power and importance of simple things like kindness.  Those are the things that really matter now.