Walking in Memphis...

So, here I am on yet another airplane on my way home from yet another meeting. This time I was in Memphis, TN for a 19 hour stint. Unfortunately, I had to stay at the airport and had no rental car so I didn’t venture into town. Instead, I had one more wonderful experience in a Holiday Inn...one that should have been clear-cut to the foundation years ago. Aside from the filth accumulated in every available crack and crevice, it was semi-acceptable. No, no it really wasn’t. It was gross. The hallway carpets had that dark tint to the center where grime had been perpetually ground into the fibers. The “hotel bar” – which was a makeshift little thing in the lobby – had all sorts of dusty crap crammed into its shelves like old calculators, bottle spouts and out-of-date table tents. I think one of them advertised for the 1984 Superbowl party. The ‘bellman’ was a 450 pound African-American gentleman named Daunte whose claim to fame had to be winning the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating contest three years in a row until that Kobiashi guy came along. He had to stop pushing some lady’s baggage cart about every 20 feet to take a breather and a bite of Twinkie.

Speaking of food…the food. Ugh. It is unfair to every comestible on the globe to call it ‘food’. I ate late because my meetings kind of ran over so I ordered something simple. Nacho chips to snack on and a steak salad. The nachos were the round kind that comes in the 24 pound bag from Sam’s Club accompanied by Ortega’s best canned salsa. Yummy! The steak on my salad was MICROWAVED into a slab of grey leather. It might have been the vilest protein ever placed on a soggy, wilted bed of greens saturated with no-name Caesar dressing. Et tu Brute? I awoke this morning with significant stomach distress – and just nodded to myself in the bathroom mirror. I deserved this fate…

At any rate, here is my ‘room with a view’. Not much to see here. If you look really closely you can see the ladies of the night hovering around the motorcourt next door. The chlorofluorocarbon haze over the airport is particularly poignant in the evening gloaming. As I gazed into the parking lot and deeply inhaled the fetid air in my weary hotel room I realized that it still beats the hell out of digging ditches under the August sun. Yet I had to admit that there had been better digs before and likely would be again – if every hotel room were like this one we would all bring sleeping bags and crash in the park when we travel. Likely my favorite aspect of the room was when I went to climb into the shower this morning and noted the various long red hairs stuck to the curtain…which wasn’t as bad as the curly-whirlies gathered around the drain. Let’s just say I showered in my socks…

A smile was inspired as I boarded the little Continental Regional Jet this morning behind Lorenzen Wright, 6’11” center for the Seattle/Kansas City Supersonics or whatever the hell they are going to be called. He had to nearly touch his toes to get on the plane. Nice kid – covered in about 50k worth of bling. His watch alone had about 5 pounds of diamonds on it. It’s nice to know that a 2.5 points and 4 rebounds per game average over an NBA career can outfit a person so nicely. He very fortunately for their athletic trainers scored an exit row seat.

I get home today about 11 and will finish the day on the phone and doing some computer work. There’s some cleaning left to do before the fam comes in this weekend. We are really excited to have everyone coming in and just wish Father Wally could also be here. We’ll miss you, Papa! I promise to take lots of pictures of the grandkids playing together. We are watching the weather to see if the Indians’ game on Friday night will still happen – it’s looking a little blustery on the radar but it is Northeast Ohio. As they say, if you don’t like the weather wait 5 minutes and it will change.

See you laters, taters…