I packed up quickly, with the memory of the night before dissolved away, as it should be. When I was all set to head downtown, I noticed that the holes I'd seen in the trees in this area were made by burrowing beetle larvae. In these elm trees it was the appropriately-named, Elm Borer. The tree exudes a waxy sap, which I believe seals the hole behind the little guy to protect during the winter. When I'd first arrived, I thought the holes were made from old signs that had been screwed into the trees and fallen off...
I headed back downtown for the last full day in Memphis...
Sheryl would get a kick out of this.
All a matter of orientation and perspective.
They keep spelling the name wrong. Ha!
I caught bus 39 (the 3rd Street route), and bought a day pass ($3.50)--a great deal. I rode it to Poplar, then walked down further from where I had waited the night before and was never picked up. I reached a good solid stop where I'd seen the bus pick people up from my walking vantage point some blocks away, and then waited, and waited. It was right in front of the Memphis Union Mission...
The bus came about twenty minutes later and took me on a long and slow ride up Poplar to the library. As I sat watching streets and businesses go by, I was happy that I'd made the decision to ride and not walk. I wasn't even completely sure where or how far I'd have to ride to reach it. But, when I saw the area approaching, I remembered the Google Street view and knew I was there. Tugging the cord, the bus pulled over and three passengers got off, including me.
It didn't open until 10:00 am, and I was a half hour early, so I walked around taking pictures. Every library in every city has very unique artwork and architecture. This one was no different in that respect. In fact, the front patio was quite interesting; a mixture of the words of human literature and human knowledge--both fictional and non...
Broken cylinder rolls served as a motif, with their messages symbolically rolled out across rough marble...
My favorite of the words I saw.
The words of Stephen Hawking.
An Aztec warrior, with battle axe.
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." [Bhagavad Gita]
Spoken by J. Robert Oppenheimer, after witnessing the awesome power
of the bomb he created, using Uranium at its heart.
From one of the best children's stories of all time: Charlotte's Web.
Picasso.
The risen Christ next to the formula for capacitance: Capacitance (C) = eA/d.
Interesting...
Upside down.
Mayan glyphs.
Pythagorean Theorem, expressed as a the 3-4-5 right triangle.
(Also check out the Artsy.net page featuring Kent.)
I looked for the stent...
Graphic representation of the Fibonacci number.
Pendulum equation.
A concept I have contemplated many times.
The energy to mass equivalency, made famous by Einstein.
Layout of the Parthenon.
This one was the most moving of all the things I saw in front of the library.
It is reserved for the future. What will we see carved there someday?
When I'd taken that last shot, a man who had gotten off the bus with me, walked by and asked me if I was a traveler. I told him I was, and mentioned my project. He said, "You aren't from around here are you?" I told him I was from Maine. He came closer and tipped his Boston hat toward me. "I'm from Lowell, Mass."
Finally, I'd met another New Englander! His name was Joe. We hit it off immediately. He was funny and we agreed on so many things about different parts of the country. He gave me some advice about different states and cities. And, I told him about how impressed I was with the West. He'd been there, but not for awhile. I really liked him. I could have hung out and exchanged stories with him all day. Truly a good man.
When the library opened I returned to my first goal for the day, and printed my ticket with some help from the kind folks at the information desk. Then, I sat and worked online for a few hours. During that time, I received a picture of my grandfather whose health was declining rapidly, and lay in a hospital about to pass into the Light. Even as I write these words, he is slipping away. He was so frail looking.
I cried.
When I'd pulled myself together, I left the library, folding the copies of my ticket, stuffing one in the leg pocket and the other in the backpack, to keep them separated. I headed to the bus stop and waited an numbing hour for the number 50 bus (Poplar route) to arrive.
It was SO packed with people when I got on, that all the seats were filled and the entire aisle as well. We stopped and squeezed in four more (somehow!), and then the driver, put up the "Out of Service" sign on the outside, only letting people off. Folks waiting at the stops along the way downtown were NOT pleased about this (since, they had been there even longer than I had waited), and some of them pounded on the windows as we passed them by.
The night was falling when I got off the bus, and stepped back onto BBKing, walking south to Beale. There, I bought a beer and watched a great band play original jazz-blues fusion...
Interested to see the Toa symbol (that of Duality) in the framework of an Episcopalian church.
Violet colored plants.
When the church clock struck 7:00 pm, I left and looked for bus stops where I might catch the 39 down to Brooks and then walk to my first sleep spot near Greyhound. I found a stop in front of the Post Office.
I waited there for an hour and forty five minutes (!). While pacing and checking my watch, a guy showed up and we gradually got to talking. He was black, sixty four, missing his four front teeth, wearing blue jean overalls, but was funny as hell and made the wait bearable. His name was Mike.
Other guys from the neighborhood stopped by and hung out with us. I got to know a couple of them. I'd seen them around, but had never said more than "Hi", until now.
When the 39 finally came, we boarded, and that was the last time I would see Mike. I wished him well. He lives down and beyond the intersection of BBKing and Brook, on Mitchell Street. He had told me about how his woman bought him a phone, but insisted that he only answer her calls. "An' she cawd evra oww!!", he laughed. "So, I gay da pho back, and den I leff da ho! Now I gotta go ba..." I thought about his accent as I pulled the cord and was dropped off near McDonald's.
I went in and bought a McDouble. The woman behind the counter was very nice but she couldn't pronounce "Mick", and called it a "LickDubba". I had to restrain myself from cracking up every time she said it.
I grabbed my LickDubba, ate it as I walked the four kilometers to the old sleep spot, set up the tent, and set my watch alarm, reviewing all I'd done in Memphis as I lay in the cooling darkness. I regretted not visiting Simon. And, this nagging regret kept me up for a while, before eventually falling asleep.
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