DATELINE: Memphis, Tennessee (644 miles from home)
Welcome to Memphis, TN Ms. Rorie’s Class and Jake!
Flat Stanley came to visit me in Memphis, where I am going to college to be a teacher. We went to a bunch of places here in Memphis and I really enjoyed showing Stanley around my new town. I just moved to here from NC in August. Stanley and I went downtown and saw the Memphis Bridge that goes over the Mississippi River between Tennessee and Arkansas.
Memphis is the birthplace of Rock N Roll music and the home of the Blues music. Elvis Presley was born here and he started his music career here. I took Stanley to Sun Studios where Elvis and several other musicians got started with their careers. Jake’s great great uncle Mac (Malcolm Yelvington an early rockabilly singer) recorded at Sun Studios, Stanley really enjoyed getting to see a relative in a museum. I also showed Stanley Beale Street which is famous for blues music. Here is a photo of Stanley with Uncle Mac.
Stanley was excited to see the guitars & place where so many songs were recorded up close. I bet some of you have heard some music recorded here at Sun Studios like: Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis, I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash, & That’s Alright Momma by Elvis Presley. We got to spend some time listening to music & talking to the people that work in the studio.
After all the music Stanley and I went to see the Peabody ducks. These ducks are quite famous, because they live in a hotel. These ducks spend their days in the fountain in the hotel lobby and have a room of their own at the hotel to sleep in. The march of the ducks is fun to watch, but unfortunately Stanley and I had other plans and couldn’t wait until they marched. We did get to see them in their fountain. They have a big march out to the fountain where the ducks ride the elevator down in the morning and back up in the evening.
We went to the Pink Palace next which is famous. It was built as a house for the man who started Piggly Wiggly grocery stores. It is a huge house and is a light pink stone. It is hard to see how pink the house is because it was really cloudy. It is now a museum and has an IMAX theater.
Flat Stanley visited me while I went to work at the University of Memphis, but we weren’t able to get a picture. We were able to get a picture where our basketball team, the Memphis Tigers, play. We didn’t have a ticket for a game, but we were able to get a picture with a sign for the game.
I’m so glad that Jake sent Flat Stanley to visit me in Memphis. I had a lot of fun showing him around.
Love, Aunt Alicia
(For more info on Memphis, check the ILoveMemphis blog.)
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This is fun reading. Many many years ago our local school had teddy bears that they sent around the globe with travelers to learn about geography. It was great fun as I took one bear on a flight to Texas.
That does sound fun! I had a lot of fun explaining Flat Stanley to people… almost everyone was thrilled to help with an education project. Makes me think we aren’t tapping into the right folks sometimes.