It's been a long day of sightseeing today. First, we met Tupelo Jim at the Farmer's Market. Jim was very knowledgeable and took us on a wide ranging tour of the town. Tupelo's population stands at around 36,000. It has very little historic housing stock due to an F-5 tornado that raged through the town in 1936, flattening darn near every structure in the place. Thankfully, Elvis, a baby of just over a year old at the time, was spared.
Tupelo has a problem with railroad tracks. At least one train an hour cuts through the town from one end to the other including the busiest hubs, stopping traffic and causing all manner of inconveniences and delays. The people of Tupelo are clearly sick of the sight and sound of trains, but I think they're kind of cool. Here's the one that passed by the market while we were there.
Of course, no tour of the town would be complete without a stop at the birthplace of The King. The house in which Elvis met the world is unimaginably small, smaller I'd say than a regular sized trailer. It is a two-room shotgun structure which Elvis's father, Vernon Presley, constructed himself from a kit at a cost of $150 back in the late 1930's.
Elvis lived in Tupelo from birth to the age of thirteen when the family loaded up and moved to Memphis, which of course would become his permanent home. This statute, depicting a young Elvis at the time of his departure from Tupelo, stands surrounded by crepe myrtle in a little reflecting garden not from the historic shotgun where he was born. In the interest of research, I sidled up to the statue close enough to be hip-to-hip to the great one and, as it turns out, Elvis was exactly my height. At thirteen.
Next, we were off to Oxford, Mississippi, a distance of about 50 miles from Tupelo. The S-Man is a HUGE Faulkner fan and I, too, was interested in seeing the city that spawned so many stories. With substantially more southern town charm than Tupelo (partially due, I'm sure, to the fact that the tornado passed it by), Oxford seems a little more gracious and civilized. Situated around a traditional and charming court square, the downtown is small but full of thriving bookstores, high-end women's clothing boutiques and cafes. Here, the s-man swaps (well constructed and beautifully worded) tales with Faulkner's likeness on the square.
I found this resident kitty at The Square bookstore. Right after I took this photo, the cat gave me a distinctly "Do you mind?" look and disdainfully moved on to a comfy couch on the other side of the store. It's not easy being a celebrity cat in a bookstore smack dab in the middle of the town that produced the man that is, arguably, the greatest American writer in history.
We also toured the Ole Miss campus which was beautiful, but I was droopy by that time and didn't get any photos. In fact, I have no more time to write as we have dinner plans soon. More later.
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